Stygian's Honor

CHAPTER 18

As sparring sessions went, it was one of the rougher ones.

Stygian knew he would have bruises in places he hadn’t had bruises in years. Coyotes were mean gutter fighters, and that was just a fact of life.

That meant bruises in places a man normally didn’t have to worry about bruises when sparring with them. He seriously couldn’t remember a time when sparring with a Lion or Wolf that he’d ever had his arm dislocated by a kick beneath his arm.

How the hell Dog had managed that one, he wasn’t certain yet. All he knew was the dirty bastard had caught him unaware at the same time Flint had been coming at him with a mean right hook.

Moving quickly to the side to avoid a hard jab at his nose—no one could accuse Flint of playing nice—Stygian came back with a powerful blow to the other Breed’s stomach, quickly followed by a mean left hook that Stygian only barely softened before connecting with Flint’s jaw.

Even pulling the punch, Flint was sent flying back against the padded wall. His dark hair dripping with sweat as he shook his head, Flint came back at him.

Blocking a hard kick aimed for his abdomen, Stygian was in the process of sweeping the other man’s leg out from under him when the scent caught him.

Like a sledgehammer, the scent of feminine lust tore through his senses.

He froze, his head lifting, drawing in the sweetest, most addictive scent he could have imagined.

In the same breath Flint delivered a powerful blow to his midsection with a kick that nearly knocked him from his feet.

A rush of air exhaled from his lungs as Stygian found himself crashing into the padded wall.

Done in by the scent of his mate’s lust.

God help him, he had to get the others out of here. There wasn’t a chance he was going to make it to their suite before he buried his dick inside the lush, honeysuckle sweet depths of her pussy.

Catching Flint coming in for another hard kick, Stygian gripped his ankle, twisted then jumped back as the other Breed did a midair flip that would have ended with his foot in Stygian’s jaw if he’d been a breath faster.

Landing in a crouch, Flint grinned back at him.

“You’re getting old, Stygian,” he claimed. “You damn near knocked me out last week when you countered that same kick. But then”—his brows lifted suggestively—“the scent of your mate’s hunger wasn’t there to tempt you either. Was it?”

“You were faster this time,” Stygian argued as he ignored the comment regarding his distraction.

“And you’re a hell of a lot slower.” Flint laughed as Dog and Mutt both paused in their sparring. “You’re off your game, my friend.”

Hell if that wasn’t the truth, but even Flint was easing back, the unspoken agreement that the sparring session was over, understood by them all.

The scent of a mate’s need sent a message to any other Breed in the area to keep away, to move beyond the scent if possible and at every opportunity to allow the mated couple a chance to be alone.

Inhaling sharply, he caught her scent again.

Arousal and an addition of something more had his gaze narrowing on her.

The arousal was uppermost, a subtle scent because of the distance, but there all the same. But it was also combined with the scent of envy and a natural aggression that had his animal instincts howling and his lips turning up in a grin of relish.

“Time to shower,” Flint announced, though Stygian’s attention never wavered from Liza. “We’ll secure the room on our way out.”

His attention was focused completely on Liza as she rose from the sofa and moved closer to the main mats. He was only distantly aware of the soft pings indicating full security had been activated on the entrance to the gym.

There would be Breed enforcers stationed at the elevator and then farther along the hall as long as he and Liza were in the room.

Stygian anticipated they would be there for a while.

“Spar with me now.” Her demand should have surprised him.

It didn’t.

He already suspected the part she intended to play in the Navajo Breed Underground Network. He should have suspected it long before he had.

She was a mass of contradictions, deceptions and confusion. One could never take anything about her at face value, until he learned the answers to the questions she presented.

Moving once again, Liza toed off the sandals she’d slipped on before leaving the room. Leaving her feet bare, the pretty painted toenails a subtle candy pink, she stepped onto the mat.

Her arousal was no longer mixed with envy. It was now infused with a hint of feminine, sexual aggression and independence.

The intriguing scent had his dick swelling impossibly harder, throbbing with a demand he had no intention of holding back.

A growl sounded in his throat as his lips curled into a slow, dominant snarl.

“A challenge, mate?” he asked as he knelt and removed the baby-soft leather boots worn by enforcers.

Loosening the ties, his gaze holding hers, Stygian removed them without haste, refusing to allow himself to fumble so much as a string while she watched.

Male pride.

He all but grinned at the thought.

Of course, he couldn’t allow himself to appear less than completely dominant and assured in her presence. God forbid this independent, striking young woman should ever have a moment to doubt his ability to love her.

To protect her.

He’d prove to her he was her fitting mate.

Removing his close-fitting black socks, Stygian straightened and stared down at her silently for long moments.

“You’re my mate,” he finally stated, hearing the primal growl that filled his voice. “I am well able to protect not just your safety, Liza, but your secrets. You’ve only to give them to me for safekeeping.”

Reaching back and gathering her hair, she wound the long strands into a loose braid before securing it with the elastic band around her wrist.

“What if I don’t know the secrets I’m keeping?” She surprised him with the answer.

“Then I’d say you’re hiding from them,” he answered, ignoring the flash of disagreement in her gaze, the hint of anger that darkened the soft gray color.

She didn’t argue; instead, she moved.

The small, delicate-looking fist suddenly delivered a blow, not to the muscle-packed abdomen, but instead to the vulnerable area below, between his navel and the band of his jeans, only a breath from the engorged head of his cock.

The blow stole his breath an instant before he moved for her. Swinging away, he nearly had her before she suddenly dropped, rolled and came up behind him.

Before he could assimilate the surprise, her little foot landed in the back of his knee, stealing his balance and nearly taking him to the mat before he caught himself in a crouch.

The crouch and roll she executed before coming up behind him wasn’t a typical response to the threat of being held from behind, even for their female enforcers. For her height and lack of physical strength, it worked perfectly. It also gave her the opening to come at him again before he could respond with a countermove.

Within two breaths, he was placed on the defensive by the very fact that, with nimble grace, she managed to elude his grasp and stay just out of reach.

And he wasn’t playing with her.

Stygian had every intention of getting his hands on her and stripping her, first of that little top she wore. The one that tightened around her breasts and clearly showed the hard, pointed nipples beneath what appeared to be the lace of her bra.

The moves she was using weren’t those she would have been trained for by the Coyote females. They were Breed male moves with the addition of a graceful feminine twist, an unexpected arch, kick or jab. And if she absolutely had to, a low, swift crouch and roll that placed her just out of reach.

He was impressed.

He was even more impressed, not to say highly suspicious of the fact that she used them so well. So well that he was beginning to suspect that it wasn’t Ashley and Emma who had been training her. A male Breed had somehow been training her so secretively that he hadn’t heard about it.

And he wouldn’t have thought that were possible.

Remaining alert, keeping his eyes on her, Stygian arched his brow mockingly as she circled him, looking for an opening to bury that pretty little fist in some vulnerable area, no doubt.

When he saw his opening, he moved.

Ducking nearly to a crouch as she moved for him, Stygian managed to twist and come up behind her, both arms wrapping around her, trapping hers and shackling them to her side.

She didn’t attempt to move her arms. Her first, natural reaction would have been to struggle with her upper body. At least, that was what it should have been.

Instead, in another surprising move, she lifted both legs. The heel of one slammed into his knee, taking him to the mat.

Most men, warriors, soldiers, would have lost their hold. Stygian was really rather proud of the fact that he kept hold of her.

Intense satisfaction then filled him as he managed to wrestle her to the mat beneath him, his body holding hers trapped securely between him and the mat.

“Who’s been training you?” he snarled as he gave her ear an erotic little nip. “Tell me, mate, who have you been playing with?”

Not that it really mattered, Stygian thought as he rolled his hips against the gentle curve of her rear and allowed her to feel the hardened erection beneath his jeans. It didn’t matter, because from now on, she would only be playing with him. He would be her only sparring partner. Only he would be training her to do any damned thing.

Liza could feel her juices spilling from her pussy, dampening the folds beyond as well as her panties as Stygian forced a hard thigh between her legs, forcing them open, then spreading them further to allow his hips to wedge into the cradle he created.

“Answer me, mate,” he rasped as his incisors raked along the nape of her neck. “What Breed male has dared to train you so effectively?”

She forced a laugh past her lips—she had to force it, because all she wanted to do was moan and beg him to fuck her.

“What, us puny little humans aren’t allowed to use any of your Breed moves?” She knew better, but pushing him was the agenda.

Pushing him to lose control.

Pushing him to fuck her.

Pushing him to force her control from her and to allow her just a few moments of peace from the thoughts and fears that kept swirling through her mind.

“No Breed males have trained me for anything.” She kept the mockery thick in her voice.

He could detect a lie in her voice, and she had to be careful here.

No Breed males had been training her; instead, the Coyote females Ashley, Emma and Shiloh, and occasionally the Jaguar Breeds Chimera and Shiloh, and several Wolf Breed females. The other training she had was from the men that were part of the team she’d been assigned to with the underground network.

Did the big tough male Breeds think their smaller counterparts didn’t have the ability to train anyone?

“Who has been training you then?” he growled in amusement as she felt his cock pressing into the vee of her thighs, pushing against the entrance of her sex through their layers of clothes.

She wanted the clothes from between them.

She wanted him.

Wanted him hard and deep and—oh God—taking her with the force and hunger that sent her careening into maddening release.

“Who said anyone was training me?” Closing her eyes, her nails curling into the mat where he held her wrists secure, Liza let the sensations, the excitement and intense sensuality wash over her.

“From now on, you want to learn to fight, you can come to me.” His head lowered, his teeth raking the side of her neck.

“Come to you to learn to fight?” She fought to breathe, to fight back her tears as emotion threatened to flood her senses as well. “Really, Stygian, I’ve seen Breeds with their women. They’re not allowed to fight.” She smiled with a sensual, tempting curve of her lips. “They only get to fuck.”

“Really?” he murmured at her ear, his dick jerking in excitement at the carnality in her voice. “Coyote females fight. Ashley and Emma are two of our best warriors.”

“Breed females,” she argued breathlessly. “Human mates aren’t given the same options.”

“Says who?” His tongue swiped over a particularly nerveridden area where he’d bitten her two nights before.

Pleasure sang through her body with a suddenness that left her gasping and had more of her slickening juices spilling from her pussy.

“Diane Broen and every argument she and Lawe are rumored to have had.” She was barely whispering as one of his hands pushed beneath her camisole.

“But Lion Breeds are assholes,” he growled, his voice thick with sexual hunger.

“What?” Liza could barely make out what he was saying as his fingers released the front catch of her bra and cupped the swollen weight of one breast.

“I said, Lion Breeds are assholes,” he repeated, the dark, lust-sharpened sound of his voice stroking her senses as his thumb stroked over the exquisitely hard peak of her nipple.

“Breeds are assholes.” Her fingers dug into the mat again as his other hand—fingers long and powerful—began pushing beneath the low-riding band of her cotton pants.

It was all she could do to breathe.

Hell, she didn’t give a damn if she was breathing or not, as long as he kept touching her.

His touch was like living lust. Hot and mesmerizing, it stole reason, leaving her helpless beneath him.

The air around them was thick and heavy with erotic heat.

His hard body above her was such a stimulant, so powerful and aroused she felt lost in the sensation of his weight against her.

“Wolf Breeds aren’t assholes, though,” he promised as the tips of his fingers brushed against the curls at the top of her pussy.

Liza felt the involuntary clench of her thighs, her vagina, the lush slide of her juices spilling from her body.

His fingers fluffed the curls that sheltered the top of her mound. Only there had she left that soft covering. Below it, the swollen folds were carefully waxed, overly sensitive, and heated, aching for his touch, for more than the firm pressure of his cock and their clothing between it and her.

His teeth raked against her neck once again, the pleasure singeing through every cell of her body.

The feel of his incisors rasping over her sent a rush of electrified sensation tearing across her nerve endings, heating her, burning through her mind.

A hard shudder of pleasure raced through her as arousal jumped to a hard, lust-driven punch of hunger to her womb.

Liza fought to ride the wave of muscle-shuddering sensual tension suddenly flooding her senses.

To make it last.

To make it crest to the orgasm that seemed so close, yet remained just out of reach.

The eroticism of having him cover her from behind, the heated length of his body holding her to the mat, his hands shackling her wrists, had her arching her rear, pressing the ridge of his cock tighter against her pussy as her thighs spread further.

She swore she was going to come from pure excitement. The extreme dominance and sexual awareness was a flood of knowledge so intense it was almost a physical caress.

Ecstatic pleasure flooded her body.

It tore through her.

It raced across her nerve endings, tightening her clit and her pussy to painful awareness.

She shouldn’t feel like this.

No matter the rumors she’d heard of mating heat. No matter what her own instincts were telling her.

She shouldn’t be feeling this.

This wasn’t just sexual. It wasn’t just pleasure. It wasn’t just a need to be fucked into pure exhaustion, and God knew, that need was uppermost in her mind. It was quickly reaching a critical point and wiping her mind of any other instinct.

It was so much more than an intense need for release.

More than a need to be filled.

It exceeded the need to feel flesh against flesh, his cock buried inside her, or the detonation of an orgasm she knew would leave her flying into pure rapture.

It was more than she had ever imagined she could have because mixed with the extreme sensations and wave upon wave of pleasure was the instinctive knowledge that it was also a need born of emotion.

Burning in the very depths of her soul was the knowledge that the heart she’d managed to keep locked against all pain had been breached.

Stygian had somehow found a way to sneak in and take it over.

He filled it, possessed it. He controlled it effortlessly and she had no idea how he had managed to do it.

Fighting to make sense of it, to pull herself back from the never-ending rush of sensations to repair the breach, she was shocked at the sudden feel and sound of rending cloth.

Her top was torn from her, the light, ultrasoft cotton pulled easily from her body, only to be tossed carelessly aside. The feel of his broad, naked chest and stomach coming over her now bare back dragged a hoarse cry from her throat.

“Please,” she cried out again, shuddering from the sensations spinning out of control inside her.

“Oh, mate, I have every intention of pleasing you,” he rasped, his lips at her ear, caressing the sensitive shell. “Over and over again. Until neither of us can move. Until even the need for air is forgotten.”

The hand wrapped around the curve of her breast slid free. Panting for much-needed air, she was more than aware of him working loose his jeans and pushing at the material as he lifted her just enough to push the denim down his thighs.

It took only seconds—breathless, destructive seconds—to remove the pants he wore.

Still, he didn’t return to her. He didn’t cover her and begin pushing inside her as she needed.

“Why did you do this to me?” She couldn’t hold back the cry any more than she could hold back the rush of emotionally destructive feelings rising inside her.

“What did I do to you, baby?” Naked now, covering her, the engorged crest of his cock barely pressing against the slick folds of her pussy, he whispered the question as his lips stroked over her shoulder.

With his chin, he brushed back her hair as it fell over her shoulder, his lips returning to the overly sensitive flesh as one hand pushed beneath her hips, found the curls at the top of her pussy, then pushed beyond.

Liza jerked, shuddering at the waves of pleasure washing through her as his fingers found the swollen heat of her clit.

“There is nothing I want more than to sink into the snug heat of your pussy,” he groaned as he let his lips find the mark he made at the bend of her shoulder. “To feel that sweet, wet heat snug around my dick. Sucking it with all the pleasure you gave when you took it into your mouth.”

Her hips rolled, grinding against his fingers, fighting to get closer to the broad head of his cock as it tucked against the folds of her cunt.

“When you come, triggering my own release, the feel of your pussy clenching on the mating knot would take me to my knees if I did as I’ve fantasized and fucked you against a wall.”

“Please.” The cry was torn from her.

“Ah God, how I fantasize about you,” he whispered, nipping at her shoulder. “I dream of watching you suck my dick, Liza. Watching as it parts your lips, feeling your hot little mouth working over it.”

A rush of slick, heated warmth flooded her pussy as electric flares of intense sensation whipped across every cell of her body.

“You’re ready to come for me, just at the thought of it,” he growled, his lips moving to the mark at her shoulder again, brushing over it, sending another, sharper burst of wild pleasure tearing through her. “While my teeth were locked at your pretty shoulder and my dick was locked in your tight little pussy, I thought I would die from the pleasure.”

Shudders raced through her body as she turned her head to the side, intent on begging for his kiss, pleading for the taste of it as the overwhelming addiction kicked in with a force that had her whimpering.

She couldn’t bear it. What had been merely a desire for his kiss earlier was suddenly an agonizing, imperative need. A hunger she couldn’t fight and didn’t want to deny herself.

He was waiting for her.

As her head turned, the fingers of his free hand locked in her hair, pulling her head closer as his bent to her, his lips catching hers, his tongue surging between them.

Instantly her lips clamped on it, her tongue pressing against his, stroking, drawing the lush, spicy taste to her mouth as the mating hormone spilled from the tightly swollen glands beneath.

The wild, sensual elixir sank into her system immediately. Suddenly, every touch was more intense, each sensation so vividly erotic that she was nearly driven over the peak of ecstasy with each new touch.

This was rapture.

His lips covering hers, his tongue fucking past them, pumping the heated hormone into her, infusing her with such a powerful, unending hunger that she knew she would never be free of it.

She would never be free of him.

As he kissed her, the light, teasing strokes against her clit were suddenly gone. His hands gripped her hips as he braced his weight on his knees and elbows and drew her rear sharply upward.

He used his knees to press her thighs farther apart, stretching them open then guiding the throbbing head of his cock to the flexing entrance to her pussy.

With each harsh beat of blood through her veins her pussy clenched, spasmed with incredible need.

The first, searing spurt of the pre-seminal fluid inside the desperately sensitive opening tore a cry from her as his lips smothered it.

She was screaming into their kiss as sharp, shocking forks of painful pleasure began attacking her vagina, her clit. It radiated through the intimate flesh and tormented, tortured her with a hunger she lost control of in one heart-stopping second.

Her hips slammed up and back, taking the head of his cock fully in such a sharp, blinding thrust of stretching pleasure that she had to tear her lips from his to release her cry—to breathe.

The intensity of the hunger, the need, the flood of pleasure and rushing demand for more were flying through her like comets spiraling out of control.

Each pulse of the fluid spurting from his cock had her pussy rippling, clenching, desperate for more.

Her fingers desperately gripped the edge of the mat, locking into the heavy material as she held on tight, the rioting ecstasy clashing, raging through her body as he pulled back, then buried the throbbing crest inside her once again.

It pulsed, flooded her pussy with searing heat as the hormone-rich fluid filled her once again.

Nerve endings were suddenly more sensitive, coming alive, pushing closer to the surface of her flesh as though desperate to feel each throb of his cock inside her.

Working his hard width inside her, stretching her, burning her tender flesh with ecstasy, Stygian rocked against her, possessing more and more of her soul even as he possessed each inch of her inner flesh.

The stiff length of his cock parted her entrance, pushed inside, filled her ever more with each thrust, until one hard stroke buried him to the hilt inside her.

A cry tore from her lips, meeting the harsh, primal growl that left his throat as his chest covered her back once again. Holding her hips elevated, his thighs bunching and tightening against hers, he began working the broad length of his cock inside her, thrusting, stroking, pushing in over and over again. Each driving invasion sent her inner muscles spasming around it as nerve endings screamed out at the ecstatic sensations digging into her senses.

Stygian’s fingers tightened at her hips as he held her in place for each impaling of the fierce width of his cock. Working inside the snug heat of her pussy, the broad shaft caressed violently sensitive tissue and pushed her closer, harder, toward the burning center of ecstasy.

“Stygian, please,” she begged, the sensations agonizing, so filled with such sharp, brutal pleasure that she feared she’d lose her mind from his possession. “Oh God, please. Fuck me. Fuck me harder.”

Out of her mind with the sheer erotic rapture, she lost herself to it. Control was gone. It couldn’t exist alongside such exquisite sensations.

The shields protecting her heart and soul evaporated, turned to dust beneath the certainty that this man, this Breed, was the one anchor that would protect her through any storm.

Releasing her hold on those emotions seemed to open her further to the pleasure, allowing it to build with sharper, more heated intensity.

She couldn’t bear it.

She couldn’t live through it.

As her inner flesh sucked at his shuttling erection, she couldn’t help releasing the mat with one hand, her arm curving back to bury her fingers in the long silken strands of his hair as it fell over her shoulder and face.

He licked at the mark on her shoulder.

His incisors raked over the little wound, and she knew—

Liza shuddered at the knowledge.

Her thighs clenched, her pussy gripped his cock tighter, spasmed and with a desperate, agonized cry, she felt herself suddenly hurtling through the blazing, blinding center of pure ecstasy—a rapture that imploded, crashed inside her and began setting off an explosive series of fireworks that radiated through her body.

Behind her, Stygian was still fucking her. The hard, driving strokes powered inside her with a force that triggered one ecstatic explosion after the next.

Throbbing violently, the blood pounding through heavy veins, each impalement was another sharp, brutally explosion burst of release until he buried inside her with one last desperate thrust. A snarl sounded behind her a breath before the sharp incisors sank into the mating mark once more.

She was jerking beneath him.

She was melting around him.

The feel of his release spurting inside her, the mating knot suddenly extending a portion of the already broad length of his cock, locking her in the desperately flexing muscle that milked at it, sent her rushing headlong into an explosion of pure violent ecstasy.

An agony of rapture held her suspended, exploding over and over again inside the quaking depths of her pussy. Spurt after spurt of heated semen gushed inside her, filling the depths of her pussy as tears of agony and ecstasy spilled from her eyes.

It seemed never ending. The waves upon waves of such overwhelmingly intense sensation tore reality from her mind and kept her hips jerking against his, her body shuddering until she feared there was no way to survive it.

But as each pulse of ecstasy became shorter, less dramatic, until finally, with one last wave of electrified sensation, Liza found herself collapsed against the mat, soaked with perspiration and weak with exhaustion.

Behind her, his cock still locked in the heavy muscles of her pussy, his tongue lapping at the mating mark, easing the bite, Stygian’s breathing was harsh, growls emanating from his throat at irregular intervals.

As the pleasure eased and a shadow of reality returned, she could feel the change within herself. Some feeling, some knowledge she wasn’t yet certain of, that she knew would change her forever.

The knowledge of it had a wave of fear just waiting to tear through her.

“What have you done to me?” She was too exhausted, too drained to feel anything other than repletion at the moment.

Repletion, and a certainty that there was no preparing herself for what was to come.

“The same thing you’ve done to me.” His voice was heavy, dark and indolent with the pleasure and release that had swept through him as well.

“And what is that?” She had to force each word past her lips.

Exhaustion was making her voice slurred, heavy. Making herself worry was impossible. Fear didn’t have a chance.

Yet.

As she waited for him to speak, she felt him shudder above her, the knot that had locked him inside her slowly receding and losing possession of her inner flesh.

“What is it?” He sighed. “Possession. You own me, Liza. That’s what mating ensures. Heart. Body. God, my very soul. You own it all. We belong to each other in ways we’ve never belonged before. In ways I never imagined I could belong to anyone.” His lips pressed against her shoulder, warm, lazy with satisfaction. “I love you, Liza. With every part of my body, my heart and my soul. I love you.”

Trepidation was rising inside her now. She’d already begun to suspect the truth, and the certainty of it now filled her with dread.

“I wasn’t in the market to be owned,” she whispered as panic tried and failed to rise inside her. “I liked myself nice and free and single, thank you.”

“I think you’re very nice,” he drawled as he eased his cock slowly from the grip of her pussy and collapsed beside her before pulling her against the warmth of his chest. “You’re free. You’re single,” he said gently as he brushed his cheek against her hair. “But, you have to admit, Liza, it’s nice to belong, isn’t it? To know you were the dream that kept me fighting for my freedom, for all the Breeds’ survival. For this moment in time, for the heart of a woman I knew awaited me. Surely it’s not so terrifying?”

Terrifying? No, it wasn’t terrifying.

Levering herself up enough to stare into the drowsy depths of his now dark blue eyes, Liza glimpsed the wild, dark, primal core of the man now.

He was like the earth itself: safe, strong and as unpredictable as the wildest storm.

And he wanted to belong to her?

He believed he did belong to her?

“What makes you think I deserve you?” she whispered then, her lips trembling with a sudden surge of impending panic.

“What could ever make you believe that you don’t?” He brushed her hair back, the gesture so tender, so gentle that her heart clenched in such emotion that it sent a shaft of agony radiating through her senses.

“Ah, Liza.” His expression softened, though still, the arrogance and dominant male power was still there. “You deserve better than I could be. But I’m such a selfish bastard. Completely and irrevocably unredeemable where my need for you is concerned. I’d die without your heart to warm me now. I’d cease to exist if I thought I’d never have your love. I told you, no matter the fear, no matter the secrets you have, nothing can change what I feel for you. Nothing can ever touch my determination to protect and hold you. You and your secrets, should you ever trust me with them. I’m yours, sweetheart. But I’m not the only one who belongs. You belong now as well. To me.”

She belonged, and she could feel it, whether she believed it was safe or not. Whether she believed, before him, she had even wanted it.

She belonged to him.

And she knew, somehow, someway, she knew—

“You’ll destroy me.”