Chapter 3: I want to dissolve the contract

Lucian's POV

I stood outside her bedroom door, chest heaving, my beast ears flat and my tail lashing with barely contained rage. My claws had already sunk into my own palms—it stung—but I didn't care.

I still wasn't done. I slammed my claws against the door again, the sound screaming down the hallway.

"Faye! Do you have any idea how filthy that lowlife beastman is? Go ahead and sleep with him—don't come crying to me when you catch something!"

The noise inside the room seemed to pause for just a heartbeat, and then her voice came back louder, more heated than before.

Something clenched hard in my chest. I didn't even get a chance to figure out what it was before the rage—the humiliation of having my pride ground into the dirt—came roaring up and buried it.

"Fine, Faye. You want to throw this away? There are plenty of people lining up for an alpha-class beastman like me. Your loss."

I spat the words through gritted teeth and kicked the door hard enough to rattle the frame.

Then I turned and walked straight to the entryway without looking back. No hesitation. Door open. Door slammed. Engine on. Gone.

I'd walked out on her more times than I could count. She always came and pulled me back.

The thought of getting back at her was already rising in my chest. If she could go running to someone else, so could I.

I could go to Lucy.

Lucy—Faye's younger sister. From what I understood, the two of them had a bad history tied to some old guardian situation. I didn't know the details.

But Lucy was soft. More attuned to me than Faye ever was. Honestly, if I was being honest with myself, Lucy and I were the ones who felt like kindred spirits.

I drove fast. Less than half an hour from sending her the message to pulling up outside her place.

She was leaning in the doorframe in a silk slip dress, pale pink nails, bare feet on the floor, a slim cigarette dangling between her fingers—lazy, unhurried, like she had all the time in the world.

I hate the smell of smoke. My brow furrowed before I could stop it, my tail flicking with irritation. But when she tilted the cigarette toward me, I still cupped both hands together and held them out in front of my chest, letting the ash fall into my palms.

"Don't just stand there." She lifted her left arm toward me. "Carry me in."

I gave her a helpless smile, stooped down, and scooped her up against my chest, carrying her inside.

She wasn't done playing. She squirmed and gestured toward the dining table.

"Take me over there. And hold me properly."

"Of course." Something coaxing crept into my voice without me meaning it to. I set her down on the table, and she planted her foot flat against my chest while she finished the cigarette, holding the last drag in her lungs.

She crooked one finger at me.

I leaned in without thinking, my white ears folding obediently to either side of my head. She pressed her mouth to mine, one hand cupping the back of my skull, and breathed the smoke directly past my lips.

I turned my head away, coughing, and felt a flicker of something unpleasant stir in the back of my mind. My tail stiffened for half a second.

Then a thought surfaced, unbidden: Faye never smokes in front of me.

I immediately recoiled from it. What are you thinking? I told myself firmly. You love Lucy. Whatever she does, you love it.

I pulled myself back together—but when I looked at Lucy again, I knew she'd caught something.

She pressed her foot deliberately between my legs, putting real weight behind it. I exhaled and leaned closer to her.

I caught her ankle, looked up, and kept my voice easy. "What's wrong? Don't be upset with me."

"You weren't even here with me just now." She pulled her foot free and touched her toes lightly to my throat, expression all spoiled impatience—less angry, more a performance of it. "You were thinking about someone else."

I went still for a moment. Breathed. Guided her leg up onto my shoulder. "You're right. Let me make it up to you."

Her eyes went half-lidded, full of expectation. "How?"

I pulled her forward and let her feel exactly how much I wanted her, heat and pressure pressing through the fabric between us.

I rolled my hips slow and deliberate. She gasped, then gasped again.

"Like this," I murmured against her lip. "Good enough?"

"Only if you put it inside," she managed, barely coherent.

That was all I needed. I shoved my pants down and pressed flush against her entrance.

She was already rocking her hips, already gone enough that she could barely hold still, like she needed to be filled now.

I looked at her face—so much like Faye's—and the image slid in before I could stop it. Faye beneath me. Faye looking up with that same desperate, wanting expression. Faye begging.

Just the thought had me so hard it was almost painful. My pupils contracted. My tail snapped rigid. I shoved in to the hilt in one stroke.

Then I set a pace that didn't let up.

My hands locked around her thighs. I kept my eyes shut and let myself drown in the sounds she was making—the same breathless sounds Faye would make.

It felt, just like that, like it was Faye.

The thought drove me harder and faster. She came in waves, slick and clenching, the edge of the table dripping beneath her.

"You're soaked, Lucy," I rasped, voice gone rough. "So tight—squeezing me so fucking good." My hips hammered faster, the urge to finish climbing through my skull.

A low groan broke out of me. My ears trembled with the pleasure of it.

Then she shoved me out.

The pressure that had been cresting—gone. Just like that. Throbbing against her entrance, cut off, with nowhere to go.

"Lucy." My voice cracked into something close to begging. "Don't do this. Let me back in."

She was flushed, chest rising and falling, wearing a smile that was pure mischief. "That's your punishment for thinking about Faye while you're with me."

"Do you want it?"

I nodded. More than once.

"Then beg."

I was panting. I couldn't say those words to Faye, and I sure as hell wasn't going to say them to her either. My mouth opened. Closed again.

I swore under my breath, let my claws come out, grabbed her thighs, forced them wide, and drove back in hard.

I didn't slow down after that.

Her eyes rolled back. Her thoughts unraveled.

I wrapped my hand around her throat, brought my mouth to her ear. "Tell me how it feels. Say it."

She shook underneath me, voice breaking on a sob: "So good—so good—"

Good enough.

I pushed harder, and when I finally let go, I came deep inside her, my tail seizing in tight spasms before uncurling all at once.

Afterward, I felt considerably lighter. I cleaned her up and held her, rubbing slow circles on her back.

"You were so rough tonight," she complained against my shoulder.

I touched her face. "Sorry. You're just too pretty to be gentle with."

She curled closer, tracing idle patterns on my chest, and said almost offhandedly: "What if I went to Faye and asked her to transfer your contract to me?"

"No."

The word was out before she'd even finished the sentence. My ears shot straight up.

She flinched. Hurt moved across her face. "Are you in love with her?"

I paused—tail tucking in between my legs—before I answered.

"She's my contracted Master. But between the two of you, you matter more to me."

She squeezed a fistful of her dress. The pout on her face was performance; the flash in her eyes was something sharper, something almost vicious. But she smoothed it over and said, with exaggerated generosity:

"I understand. It's fine. In that case—let's keep tonight between us. Faye doesn't need to know."

Relief broke across my face before I could contain it. My tail gave two quick, bright swings.

Because honestly, that was exactly what I wanted.

As many times as I'd told myself Faye couldn't compare to Lucy, the truth was I'd always kept things between Lucy and me to a certain kind of tasteful. Even when she'd made it clear more than once that she wanted something physical, I'd only given in a handful of times.

Tonight was just another moment of weakness—Faye had pushed me past my limit, I'd made a small mistake, and there was no reason to let it blow up something that still mattered to me.

At that thought, my mind swung back to the beastman sitting in my house. The veins in my forearm went rigid. My tail went stiff as wire.

I will tear his throat out. I swore it silently, like a vow.

Lucy mistook the shift in my body for another round of desire and reached up to wind her arms around my neck, pulling her mouth toward me.

I was about to turn her down when my phone rang.

I glanced at the screen.

Faye.

I answered.

Of course she called. She still cared—she was calling to back down, just like she always did. A familiar satisfaction rose in my chest, and my tail lifted high.

If she apologized, if she sent that beastman packing, I could find it in myself to forgive her. I could go home.

"What?" I answered. "Decided you were wrong?"

Her voice came through the line, steady and quiet.

"Lucian. I want to dissolve the contract."

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