Vengeance in His Bed

Dorrent slowly withdrew his head from her neck, his frame shifting as he got off Jannah. He sat back on the edge of the mattress, the linen sheets rustling beneath his weight. The S-tier Alpha looked completely drained, his broad chest heaving in cycles, the white bandages wrapped around his torso strained and slightly stained with a fresh speck of crimson where his stitches protested the sudden movement.

Jannah pushed herself up against the headboard, her back pinning against the pillows. She was trembling violently, her chest heaving as she drew the suffocating, hot air into her lungs. She reached up with a shaking hand, her fingers brushing the shell of her ear where she had bitten him. Her fingertips came away stained with blood. She looked across the small distance at him, watching the blood slowly trickle down the side of his neck, painting his sharp jawline in a gruesome smear.

"Are you... are you completely a psycho?" Jannah whispered, her voice fracturing as tears welled up in her eyes, blurring her vision. She clutched the sheets tightly against her bare chest, her voice rising in a toxic mix of confusion and deep, emotional agony. "Why didn’t you stop me?! You are an S-tier Alpha! You have the strength to crush a man’s skull with your bare hands, Dorrent! Why the hell did you just sit there and let me do it?! Why didn’t you pull away?!"

Dorrent slowly turned his head to look at her, his eyes completely calm, devoid of the predatory fire that had consumed him moments before.

"Because I understand you," he delivered flatly, his voice dropping into a low, rough vibration that carried an uncharacteristic softness. "I know you are angry, Jannah. I know the hatred inside your chest is burning you alive. If drawing my blood is the only way you can vent that anger... then I will let you do it."

Dorrent moved closer on the mattress. He reached out his hand and gently used the pad of his thumb to rub the tears away from her cheeks.

"I am very sorry, Jannah," he murmured, his breath fanning across her forehead, his eyes locking into hers with a sudden, heavy solemnity. "I am sorry about everything. I realize now... I’ve been treating you like a fully grown, seasoned woman who knows how to navigate this psychological warfare. But you are way younger than me. You are only nineteen. Compared to me, you’re just a kid who shouldn’t have to bear the weight of my damage."

"I am not a kid!" Jannah snapped fiercely, violently slapping his hand away from her face, her eyes flashing with immediate indignation. "Don’t you dare call me that! Do not use my age to dismiss my mind, Alpha Grefo! If we are talking about maturity, I am far more mature than you are, considering the pathetic way you usually behave! You act like a hormonal, undisciplined teenager who completely loses his mind the second he gets horny and can’t control his basic bodily urges!"

Dorrent’s jaw clenched slightly, a sudden, dark flash of his habitual arrogance flickering within his eyes. He leaned in a fraction of an inch, his voice dropping into a dirty rasp that cut straight through her defense.

"Well... I can certainly tell you’re not a kid when it comes to handling his cock, little physician," he murmured, his gaze deliberately dropping to the curve of her throat. "Your body takes that like a fully grown woman, and you know it."

"You disgusting, perverted monster!" Jannah cursed him thoroughly, her face burning crimson under the golden lamp light as she pulled the covers tighter around her frame.

Dorrent let out a short, heavy breath, his expression softening back into that troubled, complex gravity. He stared down at his own palms, his chest expanding with a slow sigh. "But you’re right. I am also wondering why the hell I behave like a complete teenager when it comes to you. I don’t recognize myself anymore, Jannah. The moment I see you, my systems completely malfunction. I just lose it. I am going completely crazy."

He looked back up, his eyes swamped with an intense vulnerability that made her breath hitch. "I get so intensely worried the second you are in even the slightest danger. My mind fractures at the mere thought of you being hurt. I never want to see you leave my side, and the thought of another man touching a single millimeter of your skin makes me want to burn this entire city to the ground. Maybe... maybe I’m..."

He stopped abruptly, the words trapping themselves in his throat.

Jannah went completely still against the pillows. She waited, her heart suddenly hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird, the silence in the room turning heavy and thick as lead. She found herself anticipating the end of that sentence, her mind racing through the terrifying, impossible implications of what he was about to say.

Dorrent shook his head, his jaw locking as he looked away. "Forget about it. It’s nothing."

A sudden wave of rage crashed through Jannah’s chest. "Don’t you dare do that!" she hissed, her voice trembling with frustration. She sharply turned her back on him, curling her naked frame away from his shadow. "Don’t you dare talk to me if you are not going to finish your pathetic sentences! Keep your mouth shut entirely!"

Dorrent slid closer, his hand shooting out to firmly grasp her bare waist, his fingers digging slightly into her skin to anchor her. "Why are you getting so angry, Jannah? Is it because I didn’t finish saying what I started?" He leaned over her shoulder, his hot breath brushing her neck. "Is it because I couldn’t bring myself to say the word you wanted to hear?"

Jannah tried to wiggle out of his grip, but his hold was iron. "Let go of me!"

"I can’t bring myself to say it because I am not entirely sure of it myself yet," Dorrent confessed quietly, his voice rough and strained against her skin. "My life has been built on detachment, Jannah. I don’t know what this madness is, and I refuse to lie to you just to appease your mind."

"That is not what I wanted to hear!" Jannah yelled, violently wrenching his hand off her waist and scrambling a few inches away on the mattress.

But Dorrent was relentless. He shifted his weight, closing the distance instantly until his broad chest was practically pressing against her bare back. He leaned down, his lips grazing the shell of her ear as he whispered into the darkness of her hair.

"I would also love to say it, Jannah," he rasped out, the words vibrating straight into her core. "The words... I love you. I would love to see how they feel on my tongue when it comes to you."

Jannah froze entirely, her blood turning to pure ice in her veins.

A suffocating, terrifying sensation gripped her heart. Why am I behaving this way? she thought frantically, her mind spinning into a chaotic vortex of self-loathing. Why does a hidden, buried part of my soul desperately want the very monster who slaughtered my parents to say those words to me? A sudden horror struck her—she hoped with everything she had that she wasn’t becoming emotionally masochistic, craving the affection of her enemy. Because when he said it, it sounded so terrifyingly real, so profoundly devoid of his usual deceit, that her heart began to beat at a crazy, frantic rhythm that she couldn’t control.

She violently turned around to face him, her eyes flashing with a desperate, defensive anger as she glared into his handsome features.