Our kiss draws a soft sound from deep in Lilliana’s throat, and suddenly my balls feel heavy. My cock aches.

Claim her.

The order is so clear that I almost growl it into her soft, sweet mouth. Instead, I kiss her harder, trying to shove the beast’s demand to the back of my mind. But this time, he won’t be exiled.

She will enjoy it, he insists. And once you give her pleasure, she will recognize your claim to her.

The thoughts aren’t his, exactly. The beast has been dead at least a thousand years, and resurrecting him in my genes hasn’t literally brought him back to life.

But the thoughts aren’t mine, either. As near as I can tell, these—and everything else the beast tells me—are a manifestation of genetic memory. They’re an instinctual imperative, which my mind interprets as orders from my wild half. The half of me that Brennan stitched piece by piece into my genetic code.

I think members of the beast’s species knew from birth how to seduce a woman, the way human babies know how to suckle and cry.

Well, they knew their way to seduce a woman. And now I know it too. But that doesn’t mean his methods will work on Lilli. “Claiming” a human woman without consent will bring her trauma, not pleasure. Especially a woman who was forced into prostitution on a prison planet. At least, I think that’s why Lilli was included in a catalogue of naked women…

She has no way of understanding the beast’s drive to be with her—hell, I don’t fully understand it—and even if she did, it would only scare the shit out of her.

I should go slowly.

Instead, I sink my teeth gently into her lower lip, and when she opens her mouth for me, I plunge inside. I want her so badly. And based on the way she’s feeding from my mouth, that seems to be mutual.

Maybe the beast does know what he’s doing.

My tongue teases hers, delving into her mouth in long strokes, and her groan makes my already hard cock throb. Then, suddenly, she pushes me away with one hand on my chest.

She’s breathing hard when her gaze meets mine. Her eyes are wide and her lips are damp and swollen. “What the hell was that?”

“You said I could kiss you.” Her nipples are hard. They’re poking through the front of her shirt—through whatever bra she’s wearing—and when she sees me looking, she crosses her arms over her chest. Her cheeks are bright red, and the flush looks beautiful on her.

I want to make it deepen. I want to see what other parts of her are blushing.

“I know, I mean what the hell just happened? Did that feel like a normal kiss to you?” Her brows are drawn close together. She looks scared, not of me, but of what’s happening. Of the fact that she’s no more in control of this than I am.

“Nothing has felt normal to me in a long time, so I might not be the best judge,” I admit, fighting the urge to adjust the erection pressed against my zipper.

Her eyes widen when she sees the bulge. “Does that always happen when you kiss someone?”

“Maybe when I was thirteen.” And that’s what this feels like. I feel like my body is drowning in hormones and I can’t control my own reactions.

Last month I spent seven days in the breeding room with Tirzah Dreyer, drugged with a stimulant designed to keep my dick hard for a week. My body demanded sexual relief, and I had no choice but to give in. Yet that felt nothing like this. That felt like paint-by-numbers. Like scratching an itch just for respite from an impersonal need.

This is like trying to put out a fire by tossing gasoline on the flames.

“Do I…um…do I still smell good to you?” she asks, her gaze focused on me in spite of a question that clearly embarrasses her. She’s breathing too deeply. Her heartbeat is too fast.

“So good. Even better than before.” She smells like sex, and need, and woman, and mine. She smells like mine. And I don’t even know what the hell that means.

Lilli backs away, and I echo her movements. Stalking toward her. Pulled by a need to be near her. To touch her.

“What’s happening, Carson?” Her voice shakes as she takes another step back, and a new urgency rolls through me. She’s worried. Confused.

Comfort her, the beast demands.

I need to taste her skin. Her sweat. I need to understand what she’s feeling—nuances not carried in her scent—so that I’ll know how to soothe her. And I will if I can taste her. Her body secretes signals mine will understand.

Signals the beast will understand, anyway.

I step toward her, and she steps back, eyes wide, and we repeat this dance over and over until her back hits the wall. Her scent changes again, fear emanating from her pores to mix with the scent of her arousal, forming a tantalizing bouquet I can’t resist. Because the beast knows this composition of scents. This ritualistic retreat and surrender.

This is the mating game. And Lilli is playing, whether she knows it or not.

“Carson. What’s happening?”

“I can only make a guess.” I step forward again, and my body is pressed against hers, pinning her to the wall. My hands form a cage on either side of her shoulders. She is caught, and I have a raging erection.

I lean in slowly, and her heart races. She’s like a rabbit held in my grip, and the race of her pulse—the adrenaline, fear, and arousal swimming in her scent—rouses something feral inside me. Something ravenous and covetous.

I don’t want to hurt her. I want to devour her.

Take her, the beast demands.

“Fine. Guess.” She puts both hands on my chest and applies a light pressure. A warning for me to back down. I know that’s what she’s telling me. But the beast glories in this resistance. It’s part of the game, and she plays it so well.

Resistance is a challenge, the beast insists. A request for you to show off your strength. To demonstrate your ability to protect her. To prove yourself worthy.

“If this doesn’t start making sense soon, I’m going to seriously lose my shit,” Lilli whispers, her breath brushing my cheek in tantalizing little bursts of damp heat.

I blink, forcing my thoughts to refocus. But that’s difficult, because I think the beast is right. Lilli said she wanted someone who would fight for her…

“Dr. Brennan—she’s the scientist in charge of Project Vetus—”

Lilli’s nose crinkles. “Vetus?”

“It means ‘old.’” I lean in again, and rub my cheek along hers, unable to fight an impulse I don’t understand. “Probably because the genes we’ve been spliced with are from an ancient civilization.” I’m whispering now, stroking my face against her temple. Inhaling the scent of her hair.

“Okay, so what did this doctor say?” She pushes me back firmly, until her gaze captures mine and holds it. My heart leaps at her cleverness. At the calm, subtle way she regains control and refocuses my attention while giving me hers, without escalating the intensity of this encounter. Or my urge to touch more of my skin to hers.

I take a deep breath and pull my thoughts into order. Trying to give her the understanding she needs. “Brennan thinks we’re capable of pheromone production not possible in human beings. She tried to trigger that, but had no luck.”

Lilli blinks at me. “You’re saying that somehow you’re producing those now? That I’m smelling some hormone you’re making?”

“Not a hormone. A pheromone.” I lean in and rub my face along her other cheek, whispering into her ear as I…mark her. That’s what this is. What this feels like, anyway. Scent-marking. “Pheromones works outside the body. On other people. Or animals, as the case may be. Pheromones secreted by mother rabbits encourage their young to suckle.” I pull the collar of her tee over her shoulder and kiss my way down her neck and over the newly exposed flesh, pleased at the shiver that runs through her. At a swell of arousal in her scent.

“In insects that live in colonies, nearly everything the workers do is driven by pheromones produced by a queen.” My left hand leaves the wall and slides slowly, carefully up from her waist, over the side swell of one beautiful breast, then back down. Then up again. I’m stroking her. Petting her. And each touch makes her heart beat harder. Her pulse thrum a little faster. “And pheromones from female silk moths—among many other animals—draw potential mates, sometimes from miles away.”

“She told you all that?” Lilli’s voice is soft and wispy, the sounds nearly swallowed by the breath they ride on. “The scientist?”

“No.” My tongue flicks out for a taste of her skin, on the point of her shoulder, and her gasp makes my cock twitch. “She doesn’t tell us much. I heard her explain it to a new guard.”

“So, that’s what you think is happening? That your body is producing some kind of chemical that makes mine want to…sleep with you?”

“That’s my guess.” I pull back far enough to pin her with a heated gaze. “Why? Is that what you want?”

“Focus, Carson.” She shakes her head, as if she’s trying to wake herself up. “So, why do I smell so good to you, if I can’t produce this pheromone?”

“I don’t know. My sense of smell is much sharper than it was before the procedure. Maybe I’m smelling normal human hormones.” Though I’m not sure that’s possible. “Or maybe you just truly smell good.”

“And that’s enough to make you…” She glances down at my erection, and I fight the urge to press it against her, when the beast insists that she will be flattered by the demonstration of my desire for her.

“It would seem that our bodies want us to…be together.”

Lilliana snorts and pushes me back again. “You’re the one with a raging hard-on.”

I glance pointedly at her nipples, poking through her shirt.

“Okay, that’s because I’m cold!” she insists, and I decide not to mention the fact that I can scent her arousal. Which is how I know that she’s wet. That her body aches for me.

That isn’t something I should know about a woman I just met, but the beast finds nothing odd in this intimate understanding, and my cock throbs, insisting I put the knowledge to good use.

“I should go,” she murmurs.

This is more posturing resistance, the beast insists, while Lilli seems to be having some kind of internal debate. She wants you to give her a reason to stay.

“It’s about to rain,” I blurt out.

She rolls her beautiful blue eyes. “How can you possibly know that?”

“I can smell it.”

“Seriously?” She’s frowning at me, and dimly lit by the flashlight across the room, the expression is exaggerated. Yet she still looks beautiful.

As if on cue, a clap of thunder echoes from outside, and Lilliana jumps. “How did you do that?”

I can’t resist a smile. “I didn’t make it happen. I can only smell it coming.”

“Why does that sound so dirty?”

I give her a wink. “Subtext and innuendo.”

She laughs, and the sound echoes in my soul. I need to hear that sound again. Everything is right, if she’s laughing, because that means she’s happy. With me.

“Stay the night. With the rain, no one will expect you back, and in the morning, I’ll take you to say goodbye.”

She glances over my shoulder at the only window in the room, where the first drops are beginning to pelt the pane. “Why don’t we say I’ll stay until the storm passes, or until the sun comes up? Whichever’s first.”

Warmth washes over me and my cock swells a little more. She’s trusting me to protect her through the night.

This is as it should be. The beast is practically purring.

“Okay, then, we should at least try to rest.” Lilliana glances over my shoulder, and when I realize she’s looking at the bed, I step back and let her go. She digs around in her bag until she comes up with what looks like a folded flat sheet. “But I’m not going to sleep with you.” Her face flushes again. “I mean, we should actually sleep. But I’m not going to have sex with you.” Her flush deepens. “Not that that’s what I was thinking about.”

“Yes, it is.” I hold her gaze as I help her spread the sheet over the mattress, and she doesn’t bother to deny it.

“Sorry I don’t have a blanket. Or pillows.”

“Why would you?” I ask as I tuck the sheet beneath the mattress, on my side. “I’m not sure why you even have this.”

“It was from a picnic. A friend took a few of us out to practice setting traps a couple of days ago, and I brought this so we wouldn’t have to sit in the dirt while we ate lunch. But then I forgot to put it back with the communal bedding, so…” Lilli shrugs.

She wields a spear and traps her own game. This is a good mate, the beast informs me. As if I didn’t already—

Wait, mate?

The images that word brings to mind aren’t things I associate with the human concept of mating. Which is something animals do in the wild.

Defend. Pleasure. Breed.

Suddenly I smell phantom wood-fire and fresh leather. I taste thick, hardy broth and dry, dense bread. I feel warm, soft flesh. I hear a feminine moan, and—

My cock throbs again. The beast’s rustic idea of happily ever after feels primitive, alongside the sleek high-rise apartment that was always the setting of my hypothetical future, before Rhodon. Yet the genetic memory feels…warm and comfortable. Intimate.

I tuck in the bottom corner, and I can smell the scents of earth and grass clinging to it. And…tomato sauce. There’s a smear of it near the foot of the bed, where someone spilled, then tried to wipe the sheet clean.

The real scents from Lilli’s picnic seem to merge with the beast’s mental description of mating in his culture, and the line between those two realities blurs. They’re compatible. In fact, they seem to coexist in the mental space where the beast keeps insisting Lilliana is mine to cherish and to protect. That her children will be my children, and that our futures will be intertwined, whether that plays out in a sleek steel spire overlooking glittering green oceans or in this dusty red wilderness.

“Ground rules.” She eyes me from across the mattress, and her words jar me back into this reality, where she doesn’t yet understand what’s happening between us. That her resistance is an expected step in an age-old dance, yet also a pointless struggle against the inevitable. That we belong together. “Since there’s only one bed, we’ll share. But our clothes stay on. Okay?”

“Why are you asking for things you don’t want—” Clothing. “—and ignoring what you do want.” Which includes, but is not limited to my tongue sampling every square inch of her skin.

“I…” Lilliana gives her head an exasperated shake. “Okay, regardless of what either of us wants, what’s going to happen is that we’re going to try to sleep.”

“Try?” I arch one brow at her, and she rolls her eyes.

“This is not a normal roommate kind of situation. I have no idea whether I’ll be able to sleep with a strange man curled up at my back.”

My smile widens. “So, in this scenario, you see us spooning, and I’m the big spoon?”

“Well, you are the bigger person. But there doesn’t have to be any spooning. And there certainly won’t be any…um…forking.”

That takes me a second. Then laughter rumbles up from inside me, followed by that odd thrum resonating from deep in my throat. It’s a soft sound, like before. Only lower. Throatier. When Lilliana hears it, she bites her lip. Then the scent of her arousal floods the room. She presses her thighs together, and my cock throbs painfully in my pants.

Holy shit, that sound—whatever it is—turns her on. The beast has a fucking mating call! And the scent of her arousal is almost more than I can take. I need to taste her. I need to dip my tongue into her and sample the source of this delicious scent. And while I’m down there—

“Carson?” She frowns at me as if she has no idea what I’m thinking, even though her cheeks are flushed again. She’s trying to pretend that sound had no effect on her.

Claim her. Show her what this could be.

The beast is frustrated by her disregard for her body’s response to my mating call. He seems to think she should recognize her own physical reaction as meaningful, in some way. As remarkable. But if I can’t really understand that, how can she?

Her head tilts to the right. “You’re with me on the part where we stay fully clothed, right?”

“No,” I growl, surprised by the gravelly depth of the sound as much as by the word itself. “No, I am not.”