Chapter 56: Zero, The Instructor

"Mate with me."

The words rasped out of his throat, instantly cutting off my rambling internal monologue. My body went dead rigid.

"What?" I blinked. "Are you crazy?"

He lifted his head slightly. Through the dark, his sharp emerald eyes looked down at me—no longer predatory, but wide, glazed, and filled with a desperate, pathetic puppy-like plea.

Just... What kind of absurd situation is this?!

I had literally just sprinted across the school grounds to escape Damian Raven’s suffocating aura, only to dive headfirst into another wild beast’s open jaws.

"I can’t—ah!"

I froze, my jaw snapping shut, another one of those embarrassing sounds escaping my lips. I was red with fury and embarrassment.

His large hand had slid up under the edge of my top, mapping the curve of my ribs, his touch hot, before firmly cupping my left breast. My eyes widened. This was assault. This was...

"Please," he rasped, his forehead resting heavily against mine, his hot breath fanning across my cheeks. "I... I can’t hold on..."

"I’m a minor," I forced out through grit teeth, trying to maintain an icy, unyielding tone despite the chaos happening inside this weak body.

"I promise... I’ll take responsibility," he groaned against my skin.

"Are you kidding me?!" I hissed. "You’ll lose your teaching license!" I didn’t care about him, just trying to find a logic that would stop him. But it didn’t.

"Better than being dead..." he said.

My mind flicked back to some rumors I had overheard back in the day. Alphas who couldn’t purge their rut on time either suffered severe internal organ failure from their own unbridled arousal, or went permanently impotent.

I had thought those stories were exaggerated myths, but looking at the feverish, agonized sweat pouring off his chest... was it actually real?

It has nothing to do with me, my mind screamed. Why should I care? If he dies or goes impotent, that’s one less dangerous Alpha in the world for me to worry about!

Except I couldn’t physically shake him off. He was asking for permission, sure, but his body was completely trapping mine. If I flatly refused and stood my ground, my instincts warned me that his feral, rutting mind would snap, and he would simply force himself on me by raw strength alone.

"I don’t... want to," I breathed, my fingers digging into his damp shoulders as I tried to hold his heavy chest back. "But... Instead of mating... can’t we do something else? I can help you somehow... just... not giving you my body like that!"

A kiss was fine. Touching was fine. Even if both were still foreign territories to me, I knew with absolute certainty that it was infinitely better than letting him take the real thing.

I valued my own physical integrity, and no circumstance in this world was going to force me into giving up my body against my will.

He didn’t speak. He lowered his head, pressing his hot lips directly over mine.

Ah—wait!

Wasn’t this the exact same oxygen-deprivation method Benjamin had used on me in the vault?!

His tongue slid aggressively into my mouth, wet and burning hot, sweeping through as if he were trying to completely erase any lingering trace of another wolf.

He sucked the very air straight out of my lungs, his deep, needy groans echoing through the pitch-black, locked equipment shed.

His grip tightened on my waist, pulling my body flush against his burning frame until there wasn’t a single inch of space left between us. Every time I tried to draw a breath, he swallowed it whole, his tongue sweeping deep, ruthless, and utterly possessive.

And before I knew it, my body was already responding, a soft, helpless moan slipping past my lips right into his mouth.

A dark, shuddering gasp rippled through his chest at the sound.

"What’s your name?" he rasped out against my skin, his voice rough and broken with feverish heat.

He didn’t give me room to speak. Before I could even open my mouth to answer, his lips slammed back down onto mine, devouring me with no second to spare. His large, calloused hand kneaded my left breast through the thin fabric of my top like it was dough, applying a firm, rhythmic pressure that sent electric shocks straight down to my toes.

Damn this weak body! I screamed inwardly, my knuckles turning white as I clutched at his broad, sweat-slicked shoulders just to keep from completely drowning in the sensory overload.

"Br—ah—Brianna,"

The scent of his wild, pine-and-ozone Alpha pheromones was so thick in the sealed shed that it was practically coating my lungs.

Every time he squeezed, every time his tongue tangled with mine, the strange, melting heat pooling between my thighs flared hotter, threatening to completely dissolve what little rational thought I had left.

"Brianna..." he rasped into my mouth, the deep, gravelly vibration of his voice sinking directly into my chest.

Hearing my name spoken with such raw, unbridled hunger caused my entire body to shudder violently—a sudden, electric tremor that rippled straight down to my fingertips.

Just... Why?!

My mind was spiraling. In my previous life as a cold, calculating assassin, I had survived knife wounds, extreme temperatures, and psychological torture without shedding a tear or breaking my composure.

Yet here I was, completely paralyzed and trembling under the weight of a half-naked, rutting Alpha who was whispering my name like a prayer between ruthless, oxygen-stealing kisses.

His large hand slid down from my chest, his fingers tracing a burning trail over my ribs before pressing firmly against my hip, dragging me even closer. Every point of contact felt hyper-sensitized, as if his blazing body heat were physically melting through the thin fabric of my clothes.

"Brianna..." he repeated, lower this time, his lips dragging across my jaw to press against the sensitive skin right beneath my ear. A hot, feverish groan escaped his throat as he buried his face into the crook of my neck, his erratic breathing scattering scorched air across my collarbone. "Remember it... I’m Zero..."

I lay there trapped on the dusty gym mats, my hands still clutched tightly against his sweat-slicked shoulders, my chest heaving in short, desperate gasps. The pine-and-ozone scent of his pheromones was completely overwhelming, clouding my thoughts with a thick, heavy haze that made it nearly impossible to hold onto my icy composure.

I was an elite killer, a ghost in the shadows... So why was a simple name on a beast’s lips making my heart hammer against my ribs like a trapped bird?