By now, something primal thrashes inside me, a wild, uncontrollable force clawing to be set free.
It feels like I'm a cage barely holding back a feral beast. Every second that passes, the pressure builds_ coiling, burning, thrumming in my blood with the ferocity of a storm.
It's maddening, suffocating, like a scream trapped beneath my skin.
"For the last time, I want to know everything!" I say, my voice shaking from the effort to sound remotely polite when every fiber of my being wants to tear something apart.
"Zane..." the older man begins, but Axel's sharp voice slices through the moment.
"No one's telling you the truth because you can't take it! Not like I really care if the truth kills you or not, but"
The words barely leave his mouth before something inside me snaps.
A guttural snarl rips from my throat as I surge forward, pushing him against the rock of the cave and pinning him with a force I don't even register fully.
The wall trembles under the impact, the air vibrating with raw energy. My eyes burn fiercely, casting a blood-red glow across the stone.
I see it, a reflection on the wall, on my hands.
Claws. Real, deadly claws curve out from my fingers, gleaming wickedly under the dim light.
My breath tears in and out of my lungs as I stumble back, staring at my hands, my eyes wide with a mixture of horror and awe.
My chest heaves, a snarl lodged low in my throat. Panic shoves into me, but it's too late to stop it, it feels like the beast inside has tasted freedom.
The ground rushes up to meet me as dizziness takes hold, dragging me into darkness.
~
I jolt awake with a violent gasp, every nerve ending in my body electrified. Sweat clings to my skin, soaking through the hoodie plastered to my burning frame.
I'm lying on what feels like dried animal skin, the rough texture scraping against my oversensitive back.
Faint, natural light filters through an improvised window above me, casting jagged shadows across the stone walls.
It must be in the morning.
But the light doesn't matter.
The heat inside me is unbearable, an inferno that churns in my veins, igniting a hunger unlike anything I've ever known.
It's not just warmth; it's a desperate, gnawing need, deep, throbbing, unrelenting. A need for something... someone.
I push up to my feet with a groan, but my legs tremble under me, traitorous and unsteady.
It's absurd.
I can feel dangerous strength pumping through my muscles, a vibrating, brutal power that hums with the promise of destruction, yet my body struggles against the fever roaring through it.
Today is my eighteenth birthday. I remind myself with gritted teeth. And I am going to go back to my normal life, pretending none of this madness ever happened.
I try to cling to that thought, try to shove this wild, savage feeling back into the box I built around it.
But the moment I step outside of the cave, that fantasy shatters.
Axel is there. Sitting on a rock like he's trying to chain himself to the earth, his hands digging into his scalp as he stares at the ground with a clenched jaw, his entire body tense.
The moment my eyes land on him, it hits me, the heat inside me flares into an inferno, blazing up my spine and splintering through my limbs.
A violent shudder racks my body. The beast inside howls, not with rage, but with raw, guttural yearning.
A gravitational pull tugs at my core, yanking me toward him. Every instinct, every fiber of my being demands closeness.
It craves his scent, his touch, the brush of his bare skin against mine. My hands twitch at my sides, aching to reach out and feel the solid heat of his body pressed into mine.
Desire, thick and blinding, floods my system. The need to have him wrap his arms around me, to feel his heartbeat against my chest, to meld our bodies together, skin to skin, soul to soul, it's maddening.
Carnal images flash behind my eyelids, so vivid and fierce they steal the air from my lungs.
My mind fills with the imagined feel of his lips crushing against mine, his fingers gripping my hips, dragging me closer, owning me, claiming me.
I stagger forward, powerless against the force driving me. It's not a conscious choice; it's pure instinct, raw and primal.
I remember something faint, distant, a passing comment from Jade who's always reading novels, she mentioned about werewolves and mates, about how the pull is unbearable on the day of their awakening.
I thought it was romanticized fiction, something exaggerated for the sake of drama.
But this? This is no story.
This is real, brutal, savage.
It feels like my bones are splintering apart from the force of my longing. My skin itches, my chest constricts, my whole body hums with frantic, desperate need.
If he doesn't touch me soon, I might actually lose my mind. I might actually rip his clothes off myself.
Axel lifts his head, his gaze colliding with mine.
My heart drum.
His eyes are no longer controlled or detached. They burn with raw, feral hunger, dark, molten lust that promises things too wild to name. I can see it, feel it!
It's a look so intense it roots me to the spot, nocking the breath from my lungs.
He wants me.
The same way I want him.
I can feel it!
Every inch of me vibrates with the knowledge, with the aching desire threading between us like an invisible chain.
I can see it in the way his body tenses, the way his fists clench in the dirt as he fights the same storm that's tearing me apart.
But he sits there, unmoving, unyielding, holding himself back with a restraint I can barely comprehend.
And here I am, a breath away from shattering, from giving in to the inferno roaring through my veins.
The beast inside me growls, furious, desperate, clawing for release.
And deep inside, under the maddening hunger and desperate need, a terrifying, beautiful truth begins to take shape:
He's mine.
And I am his.