CH 21.8

Today he and Owen made the rounds of the estate. He recognised, with familiarity, that full-blown winter had arrived.

With the first snow in the forecast, Lucas wanted to get the job done quickly so he could get home and see the first snow with her.

But he felt increasingly unwell. Signs of heat, even more familiar than the winter weather he was used to, forced him to hurry home.

He endured the rising heat, thinking only of Lila. And then a gnawing fear hit him. This was the first time he’d ever been in heat without the potion for estrus.

Will I push Lila too far? Will I lose my senses so badly that I wouldn’t remember?

What if I hurt her? Was this really the only way?

Was I really making the right decision?

As soon as he stepped out of the carriage, he was convinced.

The faint scent of her wafting over him was enough to bring him back to his senses. From then on, he ran like a madman. Vincent found him at the mansion, where he rushed in, surprised to see him.

He hadn’t seen any of the servants freaking out over his unannounced return home.

Without anyone telling him, he instinctively knew where she was.

With impatient steps, Lucas reached the garden and felt as if his breath had been released.

He wanted to run, to get to her, but then a thought occurred to him.

‘What if I run?’

The bottomless pit of anxiety was the only thing keeping him sane.

So he forced himself to take slow steps. But the moment he saw the surprised cobalt eyes avert their gaze, he felt a surge of heat, like a fallen leaf on fire.

Why is she averting her eyes?

Why won’t she look at me?

It was only a matter of moments before his worry about running away turned to madness. He was desperate to get his hands on her.

And when it was in his hand, he could finally breathe. He hadn’t realised he hadn’t been breathing.

He was lost in his thoughts, his nose buried in the nape of her neck, when Lila called out to him in surprise.

Her voice sounded lustful.

“…Lucas?”

“Why do you call me Lucas. You called me Lu earlier.”

As if whimpering, Lucas rubbed the nape of her neck with the tip of his nose.

Even with that small contact, Lila trembled thinly. It was only then that she realized his scent was very different from usual.

“By any chance….”

Embarrassed to ask if it was his mating season, Lucas, who grabbed her hand tightly, raised his head.

“Now you notice… how sad.”

As he spoke, he pressed his lower body against hers. Lila’s warm body burned even hotter. She gulped down a breath and forced her blurry eyes to meet his.

Although he was pretending to be nonchalant, his mood was very strange. Just smelling his scent made her involuntarily excited.

This sensation was not new. It was always like this whenever he went into heat.

His scent during mating season was very different from usual. It was so much thicker and heavier than his usual mating season scent that she wondered why she only noticed it now.

“Ah….”

Lila let out a moan without being touched anywhere. The thick mint-colored pupils stared at her persistently.

“I want you.”

Lucas slowly released the strings of reason he had been holding onto until now. As soon as he let go, it disappeared instantly, as if someone had been pulling it.

“Ah, Lucas….”

Lila breathed out. She wanted to relieve the hot heat somehow.

“I trusted only you. So, give yourself to me.”

With a much rougher touch than usual, he began to undo her dress. No, it wasn’t just rough, it was reckless.

Lucas, who couldn’t untie the trembling strings with his shaking hands, eventually began to tear the dress into pieces.

His own clothes were also torn to shreds and thrown to the side of the bed.

Lucas, who had now become a beast, looked through her body with a fierce gaze.

His usually colorless expression was a bonus. Lila couldn’t even breathe properly as she watched him slowly lick his lips.

If she deviated even a little here, she felt like he would bite her neck right away. She felt as if she knew the heart of a beast.

Pressing her shoulder with one finger, Lucas pleaded with her. Despite his pleading appearance, he looked very authoritarian and extremely sensual.

“Lala, tell me you give me everything you have.”

His eyes already glazed over, Lucas waited to hear her answer.

“Yes? Come on.”

If she answered yes now, what would happen… Lila suddenly had that thought.

If she did, Lucas would pounce on her right now. His gaze was blurry, his forehead beaded with sweat, and his scent washed over her.

His scent washed over her, as if to say, why don’t you answer me?

But the reason she couldn’t answer readily was…

‘I feel like I’m going to get eaten…….’

Lila felt as if she saw a spark trapped within those mint-colored eyes. Those searing mint-colored eyes looked so deep.

It wasn’t a bright and fresh sprout, but a dark forest of the night. She felt like she was alone in the black night forest where all the bird songs and insect sounds were devoured.

His scent filled the room. Like time had stopped, she couldn’t hear any sound. Looking up at him slowly closing his eyelids, Lila was soaked in it.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t answering her, it was just that she couldn’t bring herself to say anything.

Lila stared wordlessly at Lucas as he closed his eyes, silently, like a man who had fallen asleep in his seat.

His scent swirled fiercely in contrast to his serene face. It became increasingly difficult to breathe.

Lila lifted a trembling arm. She wanted to touch his face.

Her white fingertips brushed against his firm jaw. Then, in a flash, he was there.

“Lucas…”

She called out to him desperately instead of giving him the answer he wanted. His thighs pinned her against him, and she couldn’t move, which only made her struggle harder.

Even though she called out to him, he didn’t flinch. His stillness with his eyes closed was unfamiliar.

Lila realized that he was waiting for her answer. She had to give an answer for him to open his eyes.

She was still afraid, but she wanted to see those mint-colored eyes–not just any mint-colored eyes, but eyes that held her.

“……I’ll give you everything.”

Lucas’s eyelids slowly lifted as she spoke, and so did the corner of his mouth.

On the surface, he might have looked like his usual grumpy self, but Lucas had long since lost his cool. Despite his seemingly casual demeanor, he was acting on instinct.

Instincts that told him how to win her over.

A look, a gesture, a word, a gesture, whatever I can do to provoke her weak mind, I’ll have her in my hands.

Every strand of her hair, every drop of her blood, will be mine. Everything about her, from her heart to her gaze, must be mine.

I will take her scent, her exhaled breath, and put it all in my belly.

Just like that…….

I will take all of her inside me!

Before she could finish her sentence, Lucas grabbed her snow-white legs and spread them wide. With a seemingly nonchalant expression, he checked her depths and took her roughly.

The usual caresses had long since flown out of her head, but Lila’s body was very familiar with him.

His scent had long since heated her body. No matter who taught her, he was a descendant of wolves.

And she was a woman born to carry his scent.

Their flesh meshed like fate, and their bodies tangled in an instant.

“Khk, hmmp…….”

Moving his hips savagely, Lucas sought her lips. What little rationality she had left evaporated completely.

The heat that had been simmering since the blackout would not let him rest. He darted his tongue against her sweet-scented lips. He was too busy devouring her greedily.

He was horrified at his lack of reason, but it was only a fleeting one.

“Hmph!”

Lila bounced on the edge of her seat in uncontrollable pleasure. This was nothing like the usual.

As lightning struck again and again in her head, Lila let out a screaming moan. She gripped his firm, muscular arm hard, her nails digging in, but he didn’t mind at all.

It only made him grind harder against her.

Cold, cold, inhaling and biting every bit of flesh that touched his lips, Lucas grabbed her around the waist.

He grabbed Lila’s arm that hung from his shoulder and spun her around at the same time.

“Ugh!”

Their connected bodies spun and landed on their stomachs. Before she could feel the fluffy bedding against her palm, Lila cried out at the sensation of a hard thrust from behind.

As if he’d been true to his word when he’d asked for her, Lucas was desperate to reach her innermost depths.

He tugged at her slender forearms, trying to bury himself deeper and deeper. He wanted to leave his mark in the deepest places.

She wanted to leave her mark, to inscribe herself in a place where no one would notice, where no one should know.

“Khheuk, Lila!”

Lucas didn’t know what he was saying. Only Lila flew in front of him, clear as day.

He moved frantically, like a horse gripping the reins hard and running wild. Sweat poured down his face like rain, but no one noticed.

The scent of each other’s sweat drove them even more mad.

Like an insatiable hunger, he tugged at Lila’s hair. Then he took it in his mouth and sucked. If that wasn’t enough, he slipped her fingers in, rolling them around on his tongue like candy, savoring them.

Her body must have been a doll made of sugar. Anything she put in her mouth was sweet enough to make her teeth ache.

But a sugar doll would melt and disappear. That was a no-no.

“Lala, ah…….”

Her body was clearly like a doll made of sugar. No matter where he put his mouth, it was so sweet that his teeth hurt.

But a sugar doll would melt away. That was the one thing that could never happen.

Feeling her with his whole body, he felt a slow rush of satisfaction. But it was only a slight satisfaction, not the slightest bit sated.

I’m still thirsty.

Still hungry.

Like the damp air, his scent shifted sullenly, the opposite of her still fragrant, clean scent.

The scent swirled around her like she was wearing her mark all over. It began to wrap around her, layer by layer, carefully, so that no one could lay a finger on her.

“Mmmm, mmmm!”

Lila’s hips bucked as she climaxed without realizing it. A large hand wrapped around her face, which was covered in tears and saliva.

A long, hot mound of flesh, which stretched out patiently, licked her face. Even her tears tasted sickeningly sweet.

Grabbing both her legs as she collapsed to the ground, Lucas rose to his feet.

Lucas, whose eyebrows were slightly wrinkled due to the light body, hung her legs over the sofa and began to move wildly.

“Hmpp!”

Unable to get a grip on anything, Lila flailed her arms in the air. Each time she did, her body would rise and fall.

She felt dizzy, like she was on a swing.

For both of them, reason was nowhere to be found. Only instinct remained, craving and wanting each other.

“Aah, Lucas!”

The climax swallowed her again, like a rough wave. Her trim waist was pulled into a taut bow.

His hard chest pressed against her tilted head. Her heartbeat pulsed through her body.

She reached out and grabbed his head. He let out a ragged gasp as she tugged at the chocolate hair that caught in her fingertips.

“Khk!”

Lucas’s eyes flashed open as a jolt of pleasure shot through his mind and body. His vision was washed out and all he could see was mauve hair fluttering like jacaranda petals.

He crossed his hands and took her in his arms. He squeezed hard enough to make her soft flesh burst under his touch.

He licked the sweetly scented nape of her neck, then opened his mouth wide and bit down.

“Hmph!”

Despite the intense pain, Lila could only moan, every sensation he gave her bringing nothing but pleasure.

Her toes spread wide. Fear flashed through her mind, and she lost control of her body to the excruciating pleasure.

He paused, then began to thrust, then lightly lifted her and slammed her against the bay window.

Stumbling backward, Lila twisted at the sensation of being tugged, and even as he grabbed both her legs and moved roughly, Lucas didn’t stop making his mark.

He moved ferociously, leaving mark after mark on her thin legs, her tiny white body moving in unison with each movement.

As he stimulated her deepest, her white, untethered body curved like a half-moon overhead.

The faint moonlight made her body look even more mysterious. Lucas was dazed as he took in the sight.

Outside the window, the snow had turned to flurries. The moonlight sliced through the flakes as they fell without a sound.

Lila swayed in the moonlight, her mauve hair spreading like paint across the bay window along with her white body, the shadows of the snow falling on it.

The sight of Lila, white as snow and more beautiful than the moonlight, was almost too much to bear. Lucas felt his heart drop, even though he knew it wouldn’t.

Her hazy mint eyes stubbornly searched her cobalt ones. As if he wanted to see her, he filled her with his scent.

Still not looking at her, he nibbled at her calf as she stared off into space.

“Aww!”

Her little toes curled. Her cobalt eyes, which had been darting around, landed squarely on Lucas.

He loved the way her pink lips curled into a smile, the way her soft flesh bounced when he shook her.

Her heated body and even more heated expression and gesture were as slow and intense as the falling snow.

“Lucas…….”

Her voice seemed to grow distant as she called out to him, reaching for him. Not only that, but her colorful glow faded to black and white.

“Lila…….”

He called her name in fear, but his own voice faded away, as if sucked into subspace.

Silence descended as everything flickered in black and white.

Thump, thump, thump, the only sound he could hear was his own heartbeat.

Was it…….

No, no, it wasn’t just his own heartbeat. He could feel another heartbeat, smaller, but just as strong.

It was beating alongside his heart, as if it were.

Hwaaaa~

As if on cue, the colors that had been black and white burst into color, starting with her dark blue eyes, which shone even brighter than before.

Shimmering, clusters of light fell upon her. Her distant breathing seemed closer than it had been a moment ago.

“Huhmm, Lucas…….”

Lucas snapped out of his reverie at the sound of her urgent call to him. As she exhaled, her scent washed over him.

Gentle as it was, her scent came in waves, dynamic as a tidal wave, and her gesture was so clear he could see it etched in his mind’s eye.

Lucas recognized it.

‘Aaah…….’

At the same time, the voice of the gray wolf, Lupus, came through.

[If you love and love again, you and your mate will be imprinted. That imprint, which cannot be made artificially, cannot be dissolved in death, once the connection is made.]

He knew instinctively that this was the imprint Lupus had spoken of. And…….

‘A one-sided imprint…….’

Lucas’s entire body boiled like a fireball. His eyes narrowed at the sight of his own imprint.

He’d imprinted, by instinct, by feeling, and he knew it all.

He was saddened, even though he knew it was through no fault of her own, but he took her outstretched hand.

His own grief didn’t matter. Keeping her by his side was more important.

Contrary to his complicated and dizzying thoughts, his body rejoiced. The sensation of his imprinted mate clinging to him was indescribably ecstatic.

Lucas scooped her up into his arms. And kissed her roughly. He wrapped his large hands around her round head. Each finger dug into her mauve hair.

Hot lips pressed together. Even hotter flesh tangled together.

If the imprint had given him a moment of sanity, Lucas was losing it even faster than before.

Carrying her to bed, they moved as fluidly as if they were just getting started. The night is still young