More like she doesn’t want to admit them to me.
Fine. We all have secrets.
“Close your eyes.”
Izzy is too fucking trusting. Her thick, dark lashes flutter closed.
For a second I just stare at her and the delicate curve of her jawline, the slight parting of her full lips.
My throat clears in the silence.
“Think back to the moment your Prod lost control. Who are you with?”
She replies tentatively. “Adam.”
Just hearing another man’s name on her perfect lips makes that irrational beast inside me want to fucking murder someone. I take a breath to calm the wolf down and remind him we barely know this girl.
Within me he snorts pretentiously in response, like it’s my fault two whole days have passed and we’re not already trying to have a litter of Prod pups with his mate.
Mate?
I clear my throat once more and try to focus on helping her. “Where are you with Adam?”
“At—at his house…”
“What does the room look like?”
Her breath comes out shakier, but she tries. She struggles to answer this for a moment as her brain tries to remember. “He has a twin bed with Star Wars sheets…”
A soft snort that I can’t help, pushes out of me. Was she dating a man or a boy?
“There’s a picture of us on his dresser, from when we went fishing with his family, and an oil galaxy painting I made him is in a little blue frame on his desk.”
“What are the two of you doing?”
“M-making out… Malek, I don’t think…”
My voice cuts through her protest. “Is he touching you?”
Fuck. I’m not entirely sure I’m asking for her benefit anymore, rather my own. If she hadn’t already killed the bastard, I’d rip him to pieces.
Calm the fire, I remind myself. Control the beast.
I shake my head at the chaos that’s spinning around in my body.
“He’s grabbing my chest and his hand is in my pants, if you really must know.”
“Are you enjoying it?” The words nearly come out a snarl, one I try to bite back only to realize I can’t. I’m pissed, and the Prod is taking it as an invitation to rip through me.
This is getting out of hand.
I breathe in, out, willing the lengthening of my claws to turn back to fingernails.
It’s not fucking working.
Fuck, this is a bad idea.
I shouldn’t have brought Izzy out here.
The woods, the rage, it’s all clashing together now to set me into a state of mind that I try so damn hard to contain.
This out-of-control feeling, this is what got me into this academy in the first place.
“Surprisingly, no. I am not enjoying it,” she whispers, interrupting my memories and my rising aggression.
This stops me cold. The beast, everything in me pauses at her carefully placed words.
“Why not?”
“I was going to break up with him.”
Everything stills and the savage part of me spirals right back into the darkness where it came from.
“Why?”
Izzy shrugs and her eyes slowly open. “Because he was awful in bed. Seriously, I had a better time jerking off than I did with him. Awful in bed, awful in conversation, just... awful.”
The breath I am about to inhale catches painfully in my chest. Strangled noises come out of me that aren’t words but they’re not beast either. It’s incoherent, and I’m suddenly imagining Izzy lying in her bed. Izzy naked. Izzy with her fingers sliding down the dip between her thighs to touch herself.
Would she like it slow or fast? Gentle or rough? Did she want to be worshipped? I’d worship her. I’d worship every fucking inch with my tongue and teeth. I’d whisper secrets across her flesh of all the naughty things I want to do to her, like take her from behind.
Maybe I’m more beastly than I want to admit.
Maybe my Prod is on to something and we should claim Izara Castillo right here under the moonlight.
“Are you done with the interrogation on my sex life, pervertido?”
Pervert. Great.
At the moment, she’s not wrong, and she hasn’t even seen the things my beast wants to do to her.
We are getting fucking nowhere and it’s all my fault.
“Close your damn eyes.” I ask the next question when she does. “Describe what happens next. You can leave out the dirty details.”
I just might murder someone if she doesn’t.
She sighs and launches into her story. Her voice is full of wariness at first as she picks through bits and pieces, describing what she remembers. She tells me how she wanted to give him one last chance but it didn’t feel right. Then the timbre of her tone changes, her voice rises and I smell the fear, the hopelessness before it hits.
“And then—I—I—I don't know. There’s too much, and I’m suffocating. I can’t breathe. He’s—I’m—” Her eyes shoot open in panic and she whispers one word that sends me hurtling towards her right before she drops to the ground. “Malek.”
I reach her before she hits the dirt and cradle her body to my chest. Every inch of her is trembling like she’s having a fucking seizure. And I’m helpless to stop it.
I push her hair from her face and turn her sideways. That’s what you’re supposed to do when someone has a seizure right? But this isn’t normal. None of this is fucking normal.
We’re not normal.
“Izzy.” I hope my voice doesn’t betray the fear burning in my gut. “Izzy wake up.” She doesn’t, and I curse. I try everything. I speak to her softly and because I don’t know what else to do, I sing softly to her in Spanish like my mother used to do with me and my brothers.
It’s the only thing I can think of.
She’s okay. She’s fine. She’s going to be okay.
Fuck.
After a while, her trembling subsides, and when she slowly opens her eyes, I see they’re bloodshot in the darkness. She gifts me a tentative smile that slices through the tangle of dread inside me.
“I love that song,” she whispers.
“You scared the shit out of me.”
She pushes up in my hold, remaining close so her cheek rests near my shoulder.
I inhale the scent of her, the dark traces of fear that still cling to her like sweat. I want to wash the stench away. I want to pull her close, but the beast in me is already too out of control with how fast my heart’s pounding and refusing to come down.
I extricate her from my body slowly and help her stand. When she doesn’t sway, I put distance between us. As if those three feet would make me less aware of her presence, of the way she felt in my arms. Like she belonged.
“I don’t remember, Malek,” she says finally with a little embarrassment. “I’m starting to think I never will.”
“I’m sorry.” I’m breathless because I want to hold her in my arms and never let her go. Because I want her to feel safe and protected.
But I’m a criminal with an out-of-control Prod. I can’t fucking protect her. I can’t even help her protect herself. I was a fool for thinking I could try.
“Let’s go back.” I walk away, leaving her to follow. I’m aware of her every labored breath, every footstep, and the scent of confusion swirling around her.