Claimed by the Beast. Saranna DeWylde

bucked and moaned, begged him for more—and he obliged her. Daphne’d never experienced anything like that, not in the real world and certainly not in her own head. As impervious to damage as he was, her nails raked little gashes up the smooth plane of his back—her mark on him.

      Mine. No, no! Not hers. She shook her head.

      Only, she’d said the word aloud.

      Konstantin.

      His voice touched her as intimately as these foreign thoughts, reverberating through her and burrowing under her skin, past fascia, deep into the marrow of her bones. Invading her on a cellular level.

      There was a bomb inside her, and it started the countdown to detonation.

      “Mine,” he said, his lips curled in an expression of purely male satisfaction as the aftershocks of the orgasm shook her.

      He dropped his hand and backed away from the observatory slowly, as if she were the animal and he the scientist.

      The ramifications of what had just transpired made Daphne grab the console for support, before she crumpled to her knees. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

      Daphne slapped blindly at the console, sending the wall crashing down between the observatory and terrarium, but it was too late.

      A demonic aria of howling echoed throughout the facility, but it was his howl that took the lead. His howl that scraped against her skin. And in every nuance of the song, all she heard was that one, single damning word.

      Mine.