Lucien de Montfort had not intended to come here tonight.
He stood in the rain three streets away from the Ashbourne residence, water streaming down his face, his hands gripping the iron railing of a private garden until the metal bent beneath his fingers. The storm was convenient. It gave him an excuse to be outside, to be walking, to be anywhere except alone in his Kensington flat where the walls felt like they were closing in.
Three days.
It had been three days since he'd last seen her. Three days since that dinner at the Ashbournes' home, when Alastair had gathered a small group to discuss the infrastructure bill working its way through Parliament. Lucien had been there in his usual capacity—silent investor, strategic advisor, the man who wrote checks and asked nothing in return except access.
He'd sat across from Eliza Ashbourne and her husband.
And everything had changed.
Not gradually. Not with any warning. One moment he'd been listening to Sebastian Ashbourne discuss immigration policy, nodding in the appropriate places, calculating which MPs could be swayed and at what cost.
The next moment, his entire nervous system had seized.
The bond had struck like lightning. Instant. Absolute. Biological imperative overriding three centuries of carefully maintained control.
Mate.
The word had screamed through his mind with such force he'd actually flinched. Had gripped the edge of the table to keep from standing, from moving, from crossing the space between them and putting his hands on her.
No one had noticed. He'd spent lifetimes perfecting the appearance of calm.
But inside, everything had shattered.
Now, three days later, Lucien was losing the battle.
He'd tried everything. Isolation. Distraction. He'd taken Isabelle Laurent to bed two nights ago, fucked her with mechanical precision until she'd left his flat confused and vaguely insulted. It had done nothing. The bond didn't care about physical release. Didn't care about proximity or distance or the fact that Eliza Ashbourne was married.
It only cared about claiming.
"No," Lucien said aloud, his voice lost in the storm.
He would not do this. Would not become what his species had been before they'd learned to hide, before they'd learned to integrate into human society and pretend to be civilized. The bond was biology, not destiny. He'd studied it. Understood it. Knew exactly what it was—an evolutionary adaptation designed to ensure genetic diversity and pack survival.
It meant nothing.
It had to mean nothing.
Except his hands were shaking now. His vision kept tunneling, kept fixing on the direction of the Ashbourne house as though his body knew exactly where she was, could track her like a beacon. And beneath his skin, something was moving. Shifting. The wolf pressing against the boundaries of his human form.
He hadn't fully shifted in decades. Hadn't needed to. Control was everything. Control was how he'd survived this long, how he'd built his empire, how he'd managed to exist in human society without detection.
But control was slipping.
Just see her. Just confirm she's safe. That's all.
The rationalization was flimsy and he knew it. But Lucien was walking anyway, moving through the rain-slicked streets of Mayfair with inhuman speed. The storm had driven everyone inside. No witnesses. No one to see the CEO of Montfort Global prowling through the darkness like something feral.
The Ashbourne house appeared ahead of him. Georgian architecture, white stone, black iron railings. Elegant. Understated. Exactly the kind of house a family like the Ashbournes would own—old money that didn't need to announce itself.
Security cameras covered the front entrance. Motion sensors in the garden. But Lucien had been coming here for years. He knew every blind spot, every gap in coverage. Had memorized them without meaning to, the same way he memorized exit routes and threat assessments everywhere he went.
Survival instinct. Nothing more.
He told himself that as he scaled the garden wall.
The house was dark except for a few security lights. Everyone asleep. As they should be at this hour. Lucien landed in the garden without sound, his movements too fluid, too animal. He could feel the wolf closer now, just beneath his skin, drawn by her proximity.
She was here. Inside. Sleeping.
Leave. Leave now before this becomes irreversible.
But he was already moving. Already crossing the lawn toward the house. His senses were too sharp, processing too much. He could smell her. Even through the rain and the distance and the walls of the house, he could smell her—something floral and clean and fundamentally her that made the wolf in him snarl with need.
The scaffolding.
There was scaffolding on the east side of the building. He'd noticed it last week—restoration work on the facade. The workers had left it in place, probably planning to return after the weekend.
Lucien climbed.
His hands found purchase easily, muscles responding with strength no human could match. Up one story. Two. Three. The wind tried to tear him loose but he barely felt it. All his attention was fixed upward, toward the window he somehow knew was hers.
Guest bedroom. Third floor. Bay window overlooking the garden.
He shouldn't know that. Had never been to this floor of the house. But the bond knew. Could track her with unerring accuracy.
Lucien reached the ledge outside her window.
And stopped.
This was the moment. The choice. He could turn back. Could climb down and walk away and never return. Could book a flight to Singapore or Sydney or anywhere that put distance between himself and this biological madness.
Instead, he looked through the glass.
Lightning illuminated the room.
She was there. Asleep in the bed, dark hair spread across white pillows. Her face turned toward him, peaceful and unaware. So beautiful it hurt to look at her. So completely, devastatingly wrong for him.
Human. Married. Protected by family and law and every social structure he'd spent centuries navigating.
Untouchable.
The wolf didn't care.
The wolf saw mate and prey and mine all tangled together into one overwhelming imperative. Claim her. Mark her. Make her understand on every biological level that she belonged to him, that no human marriage could compete with what he was, what he could offer, what he needed—
"No."
Lucien's claws scraped against the glass.
When had his hands changed? He looked down and saw fingers elongated, ending in curved claws that had torn through his gloves. Felt his jaw aching as his teeth lengthened, canines pushing down into fangs designed for tearing flesh.
Partial shift. Involuntary. Triggered by proximity and the bond and three days of fighting something that could not be fought.
He should leave. Should leave.
He punched through one of the small glass panes instead.
The sound was lost in the thunder. His clawed hand reached through, found the window latch, twisted. The mechanism gave way like paper.
Stop. Stop this now.
But the window was opening. And Lucien was climbing through. And distantly he was aware that this was wrong, that he was violating every code he'd lived by, that he was becoming exactly the kind of monster his species had worked for generations to leave behind.
But he couldn't stop.
The scent of her hit him full force as he stepped into the room. Concentrated now without the rain to dilute it. His pupils dilated, his vision sharpening until he could see every detail in the darkness. The rapid flutter of her pulse. The way her chest rose and fell with sleep.
The absolute vulnerability of her.
She woke. He saw the moment awareness returned, saw her eyes open and focus on him. Saw the fear.
He wanted to speak. To explain. To tell her he meant no harm, that he would never harm her, that he just needed—
What did he need?
She screamed.
Not loud enough. The storm ate the sound. But it was enough to trigger something deeper in him. Prey behavior. Flight response. Every predator instinct he'd suppressed for centuries roared to life.
She was running. Scrambling across the bed away from him. And he was moving without thought, closing the distance, catching her hair in his clawed hand.
Stop. Let her go. STOP.
His hand tightened instead. Yanked her back. Felt her skull beneath his palm, so fragile, so easily crushed. He could kill her by accident. Could end her with one wrong move.
The thought should have horrified him.
It did horrify him.
But it didn't stop him.
She was struggling. Fighting. Screaming for help that wouldn't come. And Lucien was holding her down, pinning her to the bed, his other hand gripping her shoulder hard enough to bruise.
His face lowered toward her throat.
He could feel her pulse against his lips. Rapid. Terrified. The scent of her blood just beneath the surface making the wolf howl with satisfaction.
Mine. Claim. Mark. MINE.
"Please," she sobbed. "Please don't—"
The sound of her voice, broken and afraid, cut through the red haze.
Lucien froze.
What was he doing? What was he doing?
This was Eliza Ashbourne. Alastair's daughter. Sebastian's wife. A woman he'd met at charity dinners and political fundraisers, who'd smiled at him with genuine warmth, who'd never done anything except exist in his proximity.
And he was attacking her.
He tried to let go. Tried to pull back. But his body wouldn't obey. The wolf was in control now, and the wolf only understood one thing.
His teeth sank into her throat.
Not the neat bite of vampire folklore. Deeper. More savage. He felt skin tear, felt blood flood his mouth, hot and copper and wrong. This wasn't feeding. Wasn't hunger in any traditional sense.
This was claiming.
His teeth held her, canines buried in the muscle between neck and shoulder. A wolf's mating bite. Territorial. Permanent. The kind of mark that said mine in a language older than civilization.
She'd gone limp beneath him. Shock or unconsciousness, he couldn't tell. Her blood was in his mouth and on his hands and soaking into her pale nightgown.
What have I done?
Horror broke through. Real and devastating. Lucien released her, his teeth withdrawing from her flesh. She lay motionless on the bed, blood still flowing from the ragged wound.
"No. No, no, no—"
He pressed his hand to her throat, trying to staunch the bleeding. But his hand was wrong, still clawed, and he was only making it worse. She needed help. Needed a hospital. Needed anything except him.
Lucien stumbled backward.
Eliza didn't move. Her breathing was shallow but steady. Alive. Still alive.
He'd marked her. Had done exactly what the bond demanded. Had claimed her in a way that would be unmistakable to any other wolf, would brand her as his on every biological level.
And she would wake traumatized. Violated. Terrified.
Of him.
As she should be.
Lucien turned toward the window. His mind was fragmenting, wolf and human warring for dominance. He needed to leave. Needed to be gone before the household woke, before anyone saw what he'd done.
But his body wanted to stay. Wanted to curl around her, to guard her, to wait until she woke and understand what they were now.
Mates.
The word was poison.
He forced himself to climb back through the window. The rain hit him immediately, cold and cleansing and not nearly enough. He could still taste her blood. Could still feel the phantom pressure of her throat against his teeth.
Could still smell her on his skin.
Monster. You're a monster.
Lucien had known what he was for three centuries. Had made peace with the violence inherent in his nature, had learned to channel it into business and strategy and controlled ruthlessness.
But this was different.
This was the thing he'd always feared. The loss of control. The moment when biology overrode morality and proved that no matter how civilized he appeared, no matter how many boardrooms he conquered or politicians he influenced, he was still an animal wearing a man's skin.
He climbed down the scaffolding.
Behind him, in the third-floor window, Eliza Ashbourne lay bleeding in her childhood bedroom.
And Lucien de Montfort ran into the storm, knowing with absolute certainty that what he'd done tonight could never be undone.
The bond had been satisfied.
But at what cost?