Something makes the hairs rise on the back of my neck.
I follow the sensation with my eyes and catch sight of Mason Quinn on the opposite end of the barn and he has a glass to his lips and his eyes are on Ivy. My Ivy. He’s drinking whisky by a doorway. I smell it from here. Whisky. Fucking fuck. My back straightens.
He’s watching her and she’s dancing with allure. Her ass is moving to the beat. Her dress shows so much leg. Even her ankles look appealing with all those straps crisscrossing over her feet.
“Wait.” Riley touches my arm, obviously picking up on my mood shift.
I bare my teeth and a growl moves up from my gut, getting caught in my throat.
Riley’s eyes flash with worry. “Let’s talk to him. I’m sure he wouldn’t be here if –”
I swallow it down but I’m already on the move, so Riley doesn’t get a chance to finish.
I see Jason move in on one side of Mason and Joel on the other. As they get there, all eyes are pointed at mine except for Mason’s. He’s still watching Ivy. He’s not even aware I’m coming for him until I get in front of him and stare.
I feel Lincoln and Grey move in step with Riley, flanking me.
“Why are your eyes on what’s mine?”
His eyes meet mine and I see what I can only construe as a flash of challenge in them. His mouth twitches as if he’s about to say something sarcastic.
And something strange occurs to me. It’s almost as if he’s got a right here. That something strange washes straight through me. I can’t label it. I don’t know what the fuck it is.
This guy feels like she’s his. And his feelings are… what… real? Legitimate? I can’t label it. It’s hurting my head. My head is swimming with confusion because in his head, he has a right to look at her and right now he doesn’t fear me. When he met me earlier, he was filled with other emotions. Remorse. Confusion. Conflict. Right now, he doesn’t feel conflict or remorse. Confusion? Yes. But something in addition to that. Entitlement.
The music changes to a new song with a slower tempo and Ivy’s scent is suddenly upon me as she’s right here, reaching for me.
“Hey, handsome. Wanna dance with me?”
He can reach her if he reaches out. She’s between him and I. All he has to do is reach and he could touch her hair, her arm, he could reach out and snatch her.
I watch, as if in slow motion, as he inhales and his eyes change. His pupils grow as he takes in her scent. He’s breathing Ivy into his lungs, into himself. He’s confused about why he’s doing it, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is doing it.
My Ivy.
Blood rushes through my ears and heat shunts through my body as I launch myself at him. He flies backwards with the force of my palms.
I hear gasps as he crashes into a table filled with drinks.
I see red. Only red. Lightning thrusts sharply up my spine, and I haul him off a table he’s landed on and he’s up off the floor in my grasp. I roar in his face with a deafening force that I’ve never had. It’s even more powerful than the day at Cornelius’s corpse.
I want to rip his heart out. His throat. But, first, his eyes. His eyes that touched her. His lungs that are full of her scent. I want to crush it all.
Something is stopping me. Something halts me from crushing his bones to dust.
He submits, curling into himself, showing me his throat.
I roar again, and I half-shift while the noise is still blaring from my mouth.
The floor shakes beneath us with the force of my anger and my teeth have extended. My jaw is inches from his throat.
Something inside prevents me from closing my teeth around it and ending his life. Something. What?
And there she is. At my feet, cowering, eyes wild with fear.
She’s mine.
Only mine.
I drop him and rip the shirt from my body before I go for my fly.
I need her.
I need to fill myself with her. I need the warmth of her skin against my heart. She’ll smell like me and he’ll see. He’ll watch me take her, knot her, he’ll know that she’s mine. Mine only.
Mine. Fucking. Only.
I stare into his eyes, which are filled with pain as he watches me, immobile. I push her to her belly on the floor and line up, rip her panties sideways, and haul her back by them because she tries to move away. I then spear into her from behind. My cock has never been harder. Her cunt has never felt better.
She’s trying to claw the floor, trying to get away. I sink my teeth into the back of her neck and hold her there until she stops squirming. And then I release my hold at her throat as I stare at him while I fuck her. I throw my head back and roar as I thrust my cock inside my mate, over and over, grunting as I feel her body around me. She’s mine. This beautiful little sprite is only mine. I feel her tightness around my cock as I ram up inside her with a slow and rhythmic pace. I show Mason Quinn that she belongs to me. Only me.