Chapter 5 The Deed

POV: Eric

For eleven months I have been fighting her scent of vanilla and rain. For eleven months, every time she crosses the threshold of my office, my wolf stands up with his claws out and howls one word: Mine. She is my mate. A human. A mistake of nature that drives me insane. I do not love her. Love is a disease for the weak, a weakness I refuse to entertain. But I want her, and I want her with a fury that threatens to burn through every ounce of control and every rule I have set for myself since I took this territory. Every night I fight the urge to kick her door in and show her what it means to belong to an Alpha.

Five fucking months ago, I found a solution. I called David. I ordered a full autopsy of her life: debts, bills, secrets, bank statements, her mother’s medical files. I knew she was too proud to give herself and too stubborn to beg, so I patiently wove my web thread by thread, buying up every chain that held her somewhere else. Tonight in that bar, she finally laid her cards down. She screamed her desire for submission in front of my entire pack with her voice shaking but her eyes steady, not even knowing I was there in the dark drinking in her words. She opened the animal’s cage. She did it herself.

She wants the beast, Alpha, my wolf snarls, and his golden eyes burn in my inner dark. She wants to feel our weight, our teeth, our fury. Mark her until she forgets her own name in our sheets. Until she answers to nothing but our voice.

I clutch the red folder against me in the back of the SUV and the leather seat creaks under my fingers as they tighten. This is not an employment contract. It is a deed of transfer. A title of ownership with her name on it. I am not looking for a secretary. I am looking for an outlet, for the only breath capable of silencing the roar that is tearing my ribs apart. I just bought every cent of her miserable existence, every one of her mother’s debts, every student loan that kept her awake. I stripped her of autonomy so she has no way out, no road that does not lead straight to me.

Five months ago.

“David,” I said into the phone, and my voice was ice. “I want that total exclusivity clause. Personal. She does not work for the firm anymore, she works for me. For me alone. She needs to be available for every fantasy, every night I need her to calm the animal. I want the word ‘obedience’ carved into every paragraph. Spelled out.”

“Boss…” David murmured on the other end, and I heard him hesitate. “This is a pure submission contract. It is illegal in the human world. The bar will come down on us if…”

“I do not give a fuck about humans, David. I do not give a fuck about the bar. I am the law on this territory.”

I hung up. I do not have time for his human morals.

My wolf slams against my ribs, overexcited with the scent of prey already in his nostrils as if Catherine were sitting next to me. Finally! We are going to taste her! I want to feel her blood and her pleasure, right here, right now! Why are we still waiting? Why do we not turn around?

Calm down, I answer him while my blood boils and my jaw clenches hard enough to hurt. She is going to sign her chains tomorrow morning, and she is going to love it. The pleasure will be greater when she realizes she belongs to me legally before she belongs to me physically. I want to watch her break under my pen before I break her under my body. I want her to understand she is the one who chose the rope.

It is the only way to protect her from the other predators while keeping her under my hand. The rogues would smell an unmarked human from miles away. The elders would see her as a weakness to put down. By signing that folder she will wear my scent, the scent of my absolute possession. A signature that tells everyone that if they touch her, they are dead. She will think I am a monster abusing his power. She will be right. But she will be safe. She will be alive. And she will be mine.

The SUV stops in front of my penthouse and the city lights sprawl below me, cold and distant. The tinted window throws back my reflection: a predator who has waited too long. The trap is shut. She only just walked into it.

“See you tomorrow, Catherine,” I whisper into the dark.

Ours, my wolf finishes with one last roar of triumph.