I ran until the laughing stopped and the square was out of sight.
My dress was soaked with ink and my wrist still ached where Joss had squeezed it.
Odessa was waiting at the timber gate with Joss and two men from the yard.
Odessa: Look at her. Ink running down her leg like she pissed herself in front of the whole pack.
Her slap turned my head and rang in my ear like a bell.
Odessa: Say one word about what you saw, and I'll have your mother thrown out of the healer's house. No tonic. No blanket. Nothing.
I believed her. Odessa never said anything she didn't mean.
Joss: You're nothing now. A bitch with no mate and a sick mother. Nobody wants that.
He shoved me into the fence post. My lip split on the wood and blood ran warm down my chin.
They left me there with blood on my chin and ink on my hands.
I didn't go home. I went up the ridge, to the old storm tower where nobody looked for anyone.
The stairs were wet and the whole tower smelled of cold stone and old rope.
Halfway up, I smelled blood. Under it was something else, warm and dark, and my skin went hot all over.
A man sat against the wall with his coat open and his hand pressed to his side.
He was big. Even hurt, he filled the whole landing.
The rain light was behind him, so I couldn't see his face right.
Varek: Get out.
Eden: You're bleeding.
Varek: I know. Go.
I knelt anyway. The smell of him hit me low in the belly, and my hands started to shake.
Varek: You're in heat.
Eden: I know.
He went very still, the way a wolf goes still before it moves.
Varek: Then run.
I should have run. Every sane part of me said run.
Instead I put my hand flat on his chest and felt his heart going like a drum.
He got a hand in my hair and pulled my mouth down to his.
He kissed me hard, and I kissed him back. My hands went into his coat and pulled him closer.
His hand went under my dress and up my thigh, and I felt him find how wet I was.
Varek: Fuck. Look at you. Your pussy's soaking my hand.
Two of his fingers pushed into my pussy and his thumb found my clit.
I came on his hand with my mouth open and no sound coming out at all.
He got his cock out and it was thick and wet at the tip.
Varek: Tell me you want it.
Eden: I want it. Fuck, please.
He pushed into me slow, one hand braced on the wall over my head.
My whole body clenched around him and my back scraped on the stone.
Varek: Look at me.
His hips snapped and I felt every inch of him, deep and hard.
I wrapped my legs around his waist and let him fuck me against the wall.
When I came again he put his mouth on my shoulder and bit down.
The pain and the pleasure hit me together and I screamed into his coat.
He came inside me, shaking, with his teeth still in my skin.
Varek: Fuck. Fuck.
Then the heat rolled over me and everything went dark.
I woke on the floor with my cheek on cold stone and my dress down over my knees.
He was gone. There was blood on the stairs and a black wool thread caught on the bell rope.
My shoulder throbbed. I touched it and felt teeth marks, deep and already closing.
A bite given in heat binds two people for life. Everyone knows that.
I pulled my braid over the mark and my collar up to my jaw, and I knew I could never tell a soul.