Annalise's POV
"What is he doing here?" I stammered, trying to maintain composure, though my body betrayed me. My heart thundered in my chest, and every nerve in my body screamed at me to run. Yet, I was frozen, caught in his gravitational pull.
"When did he arrive? Why didn't I hear any commotion? Why didn't I sense it? And why the hell is Vincent standing in front of me miles away from the capital?"
He stood there, towering, his dark gaze fixed on me with a heat that made my pulse race. My breath hitched as he started moving closer, his steps deliberate, predatory.
A shiver ran down my spine earlier, but I never imagined Vincent was the cause. Yet here he was, looking different—more dangerous, more… heated. His presence seemed to suck the air out of the room.
"I missed you, Iris," he said, his deep, velvety voice sending another shiver through me.
I blinked, frozen as his words sank in. "What did you just say?" I managed to ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
"Now, come here," he commanded, his tone low and sharp, laced with an undeniable authority.
Instinctively, I took a step back, my eyes darting around the room for an escape route.
The man standing before me looked like he wanted to devour me whole, and every survival instinct I had screamed run.
But Iris's wolf inside me stirred, her desires clawing at my restraint, throwing me into chaos.
"You missed me? What a joke!" I scoffed, trying to mask my fraying resolve.
But Vincent wasn't moved. He took a deliberate step forward, closing the distance between us.
His intoxicating scent filled the room, clouding my thoughts and making me dizzy. Heat spread through my body, the air thick with tension was unbearable.
I shot my arm out to stop him, pressing my palm against his chest, but it was a pathetic attempt. His amused smirk sent my heart racing. Before I could pull away, he seized my arm in a firm grip and yanked me close, his other arm wrapping around my waist.
I shoved at his chest, though it was half-hearted, my traitorous body trembling under his touch. "Let me go, Vincent. This is insane," I managed, though my voice lacked conviction.
"Insane?" he echoed with a dark chuckle, his hand sliding to the small of my back, holding me tighter. "What's insane is that you think you can run from me."
"Vincent, stop—"
"Why are you being so stubborn, Iris?" he murmured, his lips brushing my ear as his warm breath caressed my skin. "Can't you see what you're doing to me?"
My stomach flipped, a dangerous heat pooling deep within me. I tried to break free, but his grip only tightened. His body pressed against mine, and I couldn't ignore the hard bulge that pressed against my abdomen.
"L-let me go, Vincent. What do you think you're doing?" My voice wavered, betraying me.
He didn't answer, burying his face in my neck instead. His fingers slid down my back, tracing my curves with a deliberate slowness that made me shiver.
"Wait! Vincent, stop—let's talk about this!" I pleaded, the words tumbling out in desperation.
"I'm done talking, Iris," he whispered, a light chuckle following his words. "Maybe I need to show you instead."
Panic surged through me. What does he mean by 'show me'? His lips brushed my neck, and I stiffened as realization dawned.
"What are you going to show me?" I croaked, my voice a mix of fear and something I didn't want to admit.
"That you're mine," he growled.
His hands slid further down, fingers gripping my thighs possessively. Iris's wolf howled in pleasure, but I fought to stay in control.
"Vincent, please stop. Why do you have to prove that?" I gasped, my breaths coming in shallow pants.
He paused, his intense gaze meeting mine. His determination was unshakable.
"Isn't it obvious?" he smirked. "You seem to have forgotten your place."
I opened my mouth to argue, but before I could utter a word, his lips crashed against mine. The kiss was rough, claiming, leaving me breathless as his tongue dominated mine. My resistance wavered, my thoughts growing hazy.
Then, abruptly, he pulled back, his gaze dropping to my neck. A new kind of fear gripped me as his lips brushed the soft flesh there.
He wouldn't…
But he would.
"Vincent, wait, I—"
Before I could finish, his teeth sank into my neck. A cry escaped my lips as pain gave way to an intoxicating pleasure that left me trembling. Heat coursed through me, and I clung to him as though he were the only thing tethering me to reality while the warm sticky liquid tricked down my neck.
After a moment, he released me, licking the wound with a possessive hunger. His triumphant gaze locked with mine as he straightened.
"I may have overdone it," he said, his tone casual, but the satisfaction in his eyes told a different story.
I touched the bite, feeling the sting, and stared at him, fury building in my chest.
"You bastard," I whispered, my voice trembling as tears stung my eyes.
A flicker of guilt flashed across his face, but it vanished as quickly as it appeared.
"Don't be dramatic, Iris," he said, his voice colder now. "This was going to happen anyway."
He loosened his grip, giving me just enough space to shove him away. I stumbled back, glaring at him.
"YOU BASTARD!" I screamed, my voice cracking as my hand shot up to wipe my mouth. The bite on my neck burned, a cruel reminder that I was his now… well almost completely.
Vincent didn't flinch at my anger. Instead, he smirked, standing tall and smug as if he'd won some twisted game.
But it wasn't over. No, it wasn't over at all. Iris's wolf howled in pleasure, her primal instincts awakening, eager for more.
Vincent sensed it, his eyes darkening with understanding, and before I could react, he took a step closer. I had never wanted to disappear so bad at that moment.
I backed away, my heart pounding in my chest, but he followed, relentless, closing the distance between us until my back hit the cold, hard wall near the window where I had just been sitting.
The air grew thick, charged with an intensity I couldn't escape, and I swallowed hard.
"Why are you still here?" I asked, my voice betraying me with a slight tremble. "Haven't you done what you wanted?"
Vincent stopped right in front of me, his tall, muscular frame looming over mine, barely an inch separating us.
His hands pressed against the wall beside me, caging me in. His breath, heavy and warm, brushed across my face. "I'm not done with you," he rasped, his voice dark and dangerous.
"What are you talking about?" I tried to raise my hands defensively, but my body betrayed me, trembling under his stare.
His smirk deepened, and the air around us thickened with heat. "I've had a taste of you, Iris," he said, his eyes glowing with lust. "But I'm not satisfied."
Before I could react, his hands were on me, gripping my waist and pulling me effortlessly over his shoulder.
I gasped, the sudden movement disorienting me, but I couldn't protest. My body was on fire, every inch of me alive with the pull he had over me.
He carried me to the bed like I weighed nothing, dropping me onto the soft sheets with a firm, possessive push.
His body towered over me, and I couldn't tear my eyes away as he began to shed his cloak, followed by his jacket.
His white shirt clung to his broad chest, and my gaze involuntarily drifted lower, landing on the bulge that strained against the fabric of his pants.
"Oh no!" I panicked. My heart thudded in my chest, the pulse in my throat making it hard to breathe as I watched him undress. A coil of heat twisted in my stomach, and I couldn't suppress the hunger that flared to life within me.
Vincent noticed my gaze, the smirk never leaving his lips as he caught the way I looked at him.
He leaned in close, his breath hot against my ear. "You want this, don't you, Iris?" he whispered, the words laced with dark satisfaction.
I could feel the tension between us, the line between hate and desire blurring more with every passing second.
My skin burned with the need for him but it wasn't mine, and even though every rational part of me screamed to stop, I knew deep down that it was already too late. I was bound by desires, desires that weren't mine. For the first time, I hated being Iris.
***
The morning light filtered weakly through the curtains, but it did nothing to soothe the sharp ache in my body.
My muscles were sore, each movement sending a wave of discomfort through my limbs. My skin felt like it was burning, as if Vincent's touch had left marks that went deeper than just the surface.
I sat up slowly, the pressure in my chest tightening as my legs instinctively curled toward my body, my knees drawn up like a protective shield.
My face sank into the crook of my arms as I buried my head between my thighs, trying to hide from the reality of the night before.
Vincent was no where to be found and it was honestly better for me because I couldn't even bring myself to face him now. His absence was a silent relief, but it also left a gaping hole in me.
His absence was a reminder of everything I'd just endured. I pulled my knees closer, the motion only making the ache in my lower abdomen sharper, more pronounced.
Flashes of last night sliced through my weakened mind, every flashback more vivid that the last. That was my first time with a man both in the world and the one I came from.
I was always curious but that wasn't the way I wanted to find out. Every pleasure I experienced was invasive… it wasn't me.
I couldn't escape it, no matter how hard I tried to push it from my mind. Last night had carved itself into me in ways I couldn't understand. My breath was shallow, my throat dry, the taste of him lingering at the back of it.
Every time I closed my eyes, flashes of that moment, of him inside me, came rushing forward.
The sensation of being so completely taken, of feeling both trapped and overwhelmed by his presence, it was suffocating. My body had responded, but my mind hadn't. It wasn't me.
The anxiety twisted inside of me, sharper and more insistent. It felt like something alive, writhing within me, crawling up my spine and choking me.
My stomach churned, a wave of nausea creeping up from the pit of it as I tried to ignore the emotions crashing inside me.
My insides felt like they were caving in, a sickening weight pressing down on me from every direction.
The weakness I felt from Iris's urges, the wolf inside me, the one that craved Vincent's touch was suffocating.
I could feel its presence like a shadow in my mind, a constant hum in my blood, urging me to submit, to give in.
It wasn't my choice, but it didn't matter. My body or rather Iris's body had betrayed me, and now the physical ache I carried was just as much from the beast inside me as it was from Vincent's forceful embrace.
I felt stuck.
For the first time it truly dawned on me what predicament I found myself in. "if I continue to let this happen, what will be my fate then?" I muttered silently.
Iris's fate with Vincent was doomed, the moment he found his true love, he would abandon Iris like she never existed and Iris would be left to slowly go insane until she ended her own life.
I didn't want that, the only thing I wanted was to live a carefree life in Iris's body but now that future didn't seem so possible especially since Vincent now proved to be a difficult obstacle latching himself onto me so strangely.
My eyes burned as I forcibly swallowed the lump forming in my throat. I didn't want it. I didn't want to be Vincent's bride, I didn't want my second chance at life to be reduced to a mere villain's role.
I hated that I couldn't complain about it because even in my blurry mind, I remembered the pleasured moans escaping my lips as Vincent entered me.
My claws dug at his back while kept going back and forth. At that point I had completely given up and let myself be ravaged by him.
I bit my lower lip forcing myself to hold back my tears but my efforts were futile as it had always been, against everything, against Vincent, against Iris herself.
Soon the tears rushed in, a mix of anger and frustration swelled inside me. I felt violated but at the same I didn't, it was confusing and I wasn't sure of what to think or how to feel.
I hated the familiar ache that spread through my body, I hated how broken I felt, how empty I was becoming again… like the real Annalise.
My mind traveled back to my former life, how pathetic I felt then too, how awfully it was. I always knew I was a weak person and I tried to change that but instead… here I was crying again, like I did on that bridge.