<h4>Chapter 209: Stupid Horny Wolf</h4>


    <strong>Elena </strong>


    So yeah... I was left halfway drunk on lust thanks to the scandalous Chapter I’d just read—panting, flushed, and unreasonably hot under the cor—and then Damon had to go and walk in naked like some kind of sinful fever dream brought to life.


    And now here I was.


    Confused. A little mad. Kind of relieved. Definitely irritated. And still <i>soaked</i> in the aftershocks of that CEO-and-secretary smut scene.


    Was it... relief I felt seeing him again after three days of him vanishing off the face of the earth? Yeah. Maybe. Kind of. But it was tangled up in something sharp and ugly—anger.


    Because of all the things he could say after disappearing, he thought <i>I</i> was <i>d</i>—<i>d</i>—because I assumed he might be injured?


    Seriously?


    I mean, yes, we weren’t exactly sending love letters and heart emojis to each other. I <i>did</i> tell him I didn’t want anything to do with him. I <i>did</i> mourn Kane in his face during our make-out session. So, sure, I haven’t exactly been Miss Sunshine about this whole mate-bond-from-hell situation.


    Bute on. Did he really think I <i>hated</i> him so much I’d be <i>happy</i> if he came back bleeding and broken?


    I don’t like him. True. I definitely don’t trust him. Absolutely. But I don’t sit around wishing him dead. I’m not that cold. I might fantasize about strangling him sometimes, but not <i>actually</i> killing him. There’s a difference.


    And besides—look at it from my side for once.


    I lost my mates.


    Gone. Just like that.


    Dean literally <i>melted</i> or maybe <i>disintegrated</i>—still not sure what the hell happened there—into some creepy ck smoke, which then dove straight into Kane like it was iming his body. One second Kane was there—my mate, my heart—and the next, something dark and ancient was wing out of him.


    And then that... that <i>thing</i> that Kane became—Damon, apparently—<i>killed</i> the only witch who could’ve helped me bring him back.


    So no, I wasn’t exactly rolling out the wee mat when I found out my new mate was the lovechild of chaos and darkness itself.


    And we’re not even done.


    The guy—Damon—apparently isn’t just content with ruining my love life. No, no, he has <i>bigger</i> ns. Tyrannical ones.


    He’s gone and proimed himself <i>king</i>. Over what, you ask?


    Oh, <i>everything</i>.


    All the supernatural realms—wolves, vampires, who the hell knows what else.


    Like, what the actual fuck?


    He wants to pull the wolves under one banner, shatter the sovereignty of the alphas, and <i>merge</i> that with the vampire kingdom? That’s not unification. That’s a powder keg waiting to blow.


    Civil war is practically guaranteed among the wolf packs. Alphas don’t bow. That’s the whole <i>point</i> of being an alpha. And the vampires? They’ve got their own hierarchy, their own twisted politics—and now they’ve got a self-dered king who isn’t fully one of them either.


    He’s bringing <i>chaos</i> to the carefully maintained order we’ve clung to for centuries. It’s like he wants to burn down every boundary and throne and rewrite the world in his image. Wolves and vampires under one crown? That’s not revolution. That’s <i>hell on earth</i>.


    And now that same man—my supposed mate—is standing bloody and bare in our bedroom, fresh from gods-know-what massacre, probably stinking of war and bloodlust, and I’m supposed to just what? ept this? Fall into his arms and forget the nightmares he’s spawned?


    No.


    Even if my wolf Zena keeps telling me "they’re not dead," that "they’re part of him now," that Damon is the original and the others were fragments—


    I’m not there yet.


    Maybe I’ll never be.


    Because when I look at Damon, I don’t just see my mate.


    I see the death of everything I once loved.


    And the beginning of something terrifyingly unstoppable.


    <strong>*******</strong>


    And of course, because the universe hates me, my stupid, horny wolf just <i>had</i> to get involved.


    Zena—the ever-ravenous, inconvenient, sex-crazed <i>traitor</i>—perked up like a bitch in heat the second Damon walked through that door, naked and dripping blood like some barbaric Greek god returning from war. I swear she’d been half-asleep, sulking in the back of my mind for days, but <i>nooo</i>, now she was wide awake, tail wagging, ears perked, practically panting like, <i>"Look at our mate! Look at him! Let’s climb him like a tree!"</i>


    I wanted to strangle her. If I could throw a shoe at the inner workings of my soul, I would.


    And now that she’d gotten her fill—one <i>glimpse</i> of Damon’s gloriously naked form—she was ying it back in my mind like some perverted PowerPoint presentation. Chest... abs... that V-cut to hell... the blood glistening on his skin... and <i>oh</i>, the absolute <i>monster</i> hanging between his thighs,zily swaying like it had all the damn time in the world.


    I was <i>very aware</i> of the sound of the shower running now.


    Very. Fucking. Aware.


    My traitor body was heating up, and not from the thick nket wrapped around me.


    <i>Nope</i>, not today, Satan.


    I grabbed my book—my very <i>inappropriate</i> book—and flipped it open like it was a lifeline. I was going to drown in this CEO x Secretary fantasy and forget the real-life walking, bloodstained porno currently soaping himself in the next room.


    Back to the office, sweetheart. Where were we?


    Oh, right.


    The secretary’s legs were still spread wide on the mahogany desk, one stiletto dangerously close to falling off her foot. The CEO had just torn her panties in half—<i>very unrealistic, by the way, but who cares</i>—and he was still thrusting into her like a man who’d just discovered the meaning of life was located somewhere between her thighs.


    God, somebody’s <i>definitely</i> about to walk in on them.


    Just like <i>I</i> was about to be walked in on by my damn thoughts.


    Because every time I tried to picture the faceless, hot CEO... my brain pped Damon’s smug, naked, bloody face on him like he’d been cast in the role by my wolf herself.


    Zena purred, <i>"Now imagine him bending you over that desk—our desk."</i>


    "Shut. Up," I muttered under my breath.


    I was going to burn this book. Right after I finished the Chapter.


    Unless Damon walked out dripping wet and towel-less, in which case I might just spontaneouslybust before I could light the match.


    Gods help me—I was not surviving this night.