Eric's POV
This was my bar. My sanctuary. The one place I came to unwind after days that stretched too long and nights that offered no peace. The Moonlight Lounge existed in a careful equilibrium-wolves and humans sharing space, neither side daring to disrupt the fragile peace I'd brokered.
I never expected to see her here.
Certainly not as a server. And absolutely not in that absurd, provocative catsuit that left almost nothing to the imagination.
Elena Grey.
Every time I encountered that woman, she was in the middle of some fresh disaster.
I'd intended to stay out of it. I could see clearly enough that she despised charity and wore her pride like armor. And there were other considerations-less noble, more complicated.
Mark Dalton might be beneath my respect, but he was Bella's husband now. My brother-in-law in name if nothing else. Entangling myself with his ex-lover was hardly dignified.
Then I saw the rogues surrounding her.
My vision tunneled.
They had her cornered near the service station-four of them, wolves with no pack, no honor, nothing but base appetites. Elena's body was rigid with terror, her eyes darting wildly as their hands crawled over her. One of them pressed a glass to her lips, forcing her to drink. She made a small, broken sound of protest, twisting away-
"Take your hands off her. Now."
The words tore from me before I could leash them. Two strides and I was there, pulling her against me. The rogues stumbled backward, shock flattening their features. The entire room went silent-deathly, absolute silence-as every wolf in the bar felt the weight of my dominance crash down on them.
No one moved.
The rogues crumpled almost in unison, dropping to their knees beneath the force of my power. "Alpha... please!" one of them stammered.
"We didn't know she was yours!" another babbled, his voice cracking with fear.
My jaw locked. Yours. The word should have meant nothing. Instead, it fed something primal in my chest, something that had no interest in dignity or distance or political considerations.
Elena squirmed against me, clutching at my shirt. Her fingers wandered-restless, aimless-trailing across my chest with no awareness of what she was doing. Her eyes were glassy, unfocused. Her breath came in short, uneven gasps.
Something was wrong.
I pulled her closer, inhaling deeply past the alcohol on her skin. There-beneath the whiskey and cheap perfume-a sharp, chemical tang. Different. Wrong.
My arms tightened around her. "You drugged her."
The words dropped like stones into still water.
The rogue who'd held the glass shook his head frantically. "It was just... to loosen her up, Alpha. We meant no harm-"
I didn't let him finish.
A growl rolled from my chest-low, lethal, vibrating with the promise of violence. Every instinct in my body screamed for blood. But Elena was trembling in my arms, her condition worsening by the second. She needed a hospital. Now.
I glanced over my shoulder. "Annon."
My Beta materialized at my side, his expression dark as he took in the scene.
"Handle them." My voice was flat, absolute. "Make sure they never touch another woman again."
A vicious smile curled Annon's lips. "Understood, Alpha."
I didn't stay to watch.
Elena writhed against me, her movements languid and sinuous, her body forgetting every rule of decency she'd ever known. The catsuit clung to her like a second skin, and even through the fabric, I could feel the heat radiating off her-feverish, desperate, wrong.
When I lifted her, carrying her toward my car, her breath caught-a small, broken sound that did something dangerous to my composure.
Hospital. That was the plan. Get her to a hospital, let the doctors do their work, and walk away like none of this had happened.
But the drug was faster than I'd anticipated.
By the time we reached the car, her pupils had blown wide, swallowing the color of her eyes until only a thin ring remained. Her skin burned against mine, and the chemical tang in her scent had intensified, sharp and urgent. She wouldn't make it. Whatever they'd given her was already in her bloodstream, racing through her veins, beyond the reach of ordinary medicine.
What she needed now wasn't a doctor.
It was release.
The decision was reckless. I knew it even as I made it. But I took her to the one place that was both quiet and utterly secure-my penthouse.
No woman had ever crossed this threshold. I'd made certain of that. But desperate times demanded desperate measures. Here, there would be no clinical lights, no prying eyes, no humiliating questions she'd have to answer when the fog cleared. Here, she could simply... be. Without judgment. Without exposure.
The moment I settled her on the sofa, I tried to pull away-to draw a bath, to cool the fever burning through her-but her fingers locked in my shirt.
"Don't." The word was barely a whisper, slurred and desperate. "Please... don't leave."
Her body arched against the cushions, restless and tormented, the flimsy catsuit doing nothing to conceal the curves beneath. I could feel my wolf stirring, responding to her proximity in ways I'd spent decades learning to suppress. My jaw tightened.
"Elena." I kept my voice low, controlled, even as every instinct screamed at me to close the distance she was begging for. "Let go. I need to get you-"
She pulled.
It shouldn't have been possible. She was human, slight, weakened by whatever poison ran through her veins. But she yanked me toward her with a strength born of pure, unfocused need, and the careful inches I'd maintained between us vanished.
She pressed against me, soft and burning, and something inside me shifted.
The cursed rage I'd carried for decades-that constant, low-grade fury that lived beneath my skin, that made every interaction a battle for control-it quieted. The moment she touched me, it simply... softened. Dissolved at the edges like frost meeting flame.
I couldn't explain it. I'd spent my entire adult life avoiding touch, avoiding intimacy, afraid of what my wolf would do if I ever let anyone close enough to matter. But with Elena in my arms, the beast lay still. Content. As if it recognized something in her that I couldn't name.
Her fingers found the buttons of my shirt, clumsy and insistent, tugging with trembling urgency. The world outside ceased to exist. There was only her-her heat, her scent, the small, desperate sounds she made as she fought to get closer.
"Eric..." My name on her lips. A whisper. A prayer.
Something snapped.
Thirty years of iron control. Thirty years of denying every instinct, of holding myself apart from everyone who might have breached my walls. And this one woman-this small, fierce, impossibly human woman-brought it all crashing down with a single word.
"You don't know what you're asking for," I murmured against her ear, my voice rough with the effort of restraint.
She didn't hear me. Didn't care. Her body moved against mine with a wild, drug-fueled urgency, and the gravitational pull of her was more than I could resist.
I kissed her.
Not gently. Not hesitantly. I kissed her like a man dying of thirst who'd finally found water-deep and claiming and absolutely without apology. She gasped against my mouth, her fingers tangling in my hair, pulling me closer, and the sound she made-that small, broken whimper of relief-shattered whatever remained of my control.
"Eric..." She said my name again, and this time it wasn't a question. It was a plea. A demand. An invitation I had no power to refuse.
I held her close, trying to anchor her, to keep her still-but she grabbed my hand and dragged it downward, pressing my palm against the heat between her thighs. I tried to pull back, but the moment my fingers brushed the smooth, bare skin of her sex, something inside me fractured.
Lykos.
My wolf surged beneath my skin, a low, keening whine of pure need rattling in my chest. I let her guide me, pretending I still had a choice, as her other hand shoved her flimsy underwear aside. When my fingers found her-slick, scorching, impossibly tight-Lykos howled. More. Take more.
She shuddered against me, a broken cry escaping her lips, and I drove deeper, claiming territory that felt, inexplicably, like it had always been mine. My cock throbbed against her hip, heavy and desperate, leaking precum in thick, eager pulses.
Her fingers clawed at that ridiculous costume, tearing at fabric, frustration bleeding into every frantic movement. A sob caught in her throat-she wanted it off, wanted it gone, wanted skin against skin with a desperation that matched my own.
"Easy," I murmured against her ear, though my voice was barely human. "I've got you."
"Off-please, off-" Her words dissolved into a gasp as I shifted her on the sofa, repositioning her for better access. The small sounds she made-those helpless, wanton whimpers-filled the penthouse, driving me further from reason. When my fingers found her clit, circling slowly, she bucked against my hand, her body coiling tight as a spring. Her nails dug into my back, searching for purchase, for something to hold onto as the pleasure built.
I worked her gently at first, learning the rhythm that made her gasp, the pressure that made her keen. But gentleness wasn't what she needed. The drug had wound her too tight-she needed the crash, the release, the shattering.
So I gave it to her.
Two fingers plunged inside her while my thumb worked her clit in tight, merciless circles. She screamed-a raw, beautiful sound-and came apart in my arms, her inner muscles clenching around my fingers in waves that seemed to go on forever.
I should have stopped there. Should have let her drift, let the drug burn itself out in that single orgasm. But she was already reaching for me again, her hands fisting in my hair, pulling me down for a kiss that was all tongue and teeth and desperate, consuming hunger.
When she broke away, gasping, her eyes found mine-still glassy, still drugged, but focused now. Intent.
"More," she whispered. "I need... more."
And I was lost.
I rolled us, pressing her into the cushions, my body covering hers like a shield and a claim all at once. Her legs wrapped around my waist instinctively, pulling me into the cradle of her hips, and when the head of my cock nudged against her entrance, we both froze.
She was so tight. Even with my fingers, even with her arousal soaking us both-she was impossibly, devastatingly tight. I pushed, just a fraction, and her breath caught.
"Wait." The word was barely a whisper, but I heard it. Felt it.
I stilled immediately. "Elena?"
Her eyes fluttered open, hazy but present. "I... I've never..."
The world stopped.
