Chapter Text
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Hermione’s POV
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The orchard was quiet—too quiet. The kind of silence that didn’t soothe but pressed against the ears, heavy and expectant, like something holding its breath. Even the faint music drifting from the tent sounded far away now, muffled by the trees as if the world had folded in on itself.
My head swam, my pulse hammering behind my temples. It had to be the champagne. It had to be the hormones, the tension, the exhaustion of a long day. That’s what I told myself, anyway. Every look, every brush of fingers, every low whisper I’d received from Bill—it was nothing. Absolutely nothing. A fluke. A drunken mistake. Because the man with the bright, once-innocent eyes and the long hair that smelled faintly of cider and spice was married. Married to a woman who wasn’t me. Married to Fleur, glowing and perfect back under the lanterns.
And yet… my skin still tingled where his breath had grazed it.
I kept walking, my heels sinking into the damp grass, the soft hiss of fabric brushing my thighs sounding far too loud in the hush of the orchard. The lanterns strung between the trees cast a broken trail of gold before me, little pools of light on the ground like islands in the dark. I moved from one to the next, deeper and deeper into the garden, trying to make sense of everything, trying to wrestle the day into something that made sense. But every step only tangled the knot tighter.
A twig cracked somewhere behind me.
I spun, heart thudding high in my throat, my eyes searching the shadows between the trees. Nothing. Only branches swaying gently in the breeze, lanterns swaying with them, throwing their light into strange shifting shapes. But the feeling crawled back up my spine anyway—the sensation of being watched, of eyes in the dark, of something heavy and unseen closing in.
I knew he was there. I couldn’t see him, couldn’t prove it, but I knew. Everything about him felt unreal now, as though the man I’d known at Order meetings had been replaced by something else entirely—same body, same scars, but with something lurking beneath his skin. Something patient and wild.
I kept walking, faster now, until the hum of the wedding faded to a murmur, until the laughter and clinking glasses were just a memory, until I reached a part of the garden far enough away that it felt like another world. The trees here were older, their branches thicker, the lanterns fewer. Shadows pooled deep under the boughs, and the grass grew long enough to brush the hem of my dress.
I finally stopped. My hands trembled as I reached down, slipping off my heels, the cool blades of grass tickling my bare feet. I straightened and dragged in a long, shaking breath, the night air sharp and clean against my overheated skin. For a moment, I thought I’d outrun it—his eyes, his scent, my own shame.
Then the breeze shifted.
And it hit me.
Smoke. Pine. Leather warmed by skin. The scent rolled over me like a wave, heavier now, no longer a ghost but a presence. It slid down my throat, thick and dark, until my stomach tightened and my pulse tripped into a sprint. It was his scent. And it was close. Very close.
⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧ ⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧ ⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧
I turned.
And there he was.
Bill stood in the half-light between two swaying lanterns, his broad frame swallowing the shadows around him. He was still in his wedding suit—charcoal fabric stretched tight across his shoulders, the shirt at his throat unbuttoned just enough to expose a line of scarred skin. But his hair was down now, wild and loose, copper waves spilling over his collar as though he’d ripped it free himself. In the shifting glow, the scars Greyback had left across his face gleamed silver, catching every flicker of flame like ancient runes carved into flesh.
His eyes found me instantly. Not the warm Weasley blue I remembered. Darker now. Bottomless. Animal. The eyes of a predator crouched low in the grass, ready to spring. They locked on me and didn’t waver, didn’t blink, and every nerve in my body screamed that I had already been caught.
“Bill,” I whispered, his name dragging itself out of my throat like a prayer I shouldn’t be saying. My chest heaved, my pulse slamming against my ribs so hard it felt audible. Thump. Thump. Thump. The sound filled my ears until I was certain he could hear it too.
He stepped closer. One slow stride. Then another. The earth seemed to tilt under his weight.
“Hermione,” he growled back.
The word was rough, guttural, torn from deep in his chest. It wasn’t a greeting—it was a claim. My body betrayed me with a small, helpless whimper. I stumbled back, heart hammering, until my spine slammed against the rough bark of an apple tree. The impact sent a jolt through me, grounding me in reality, yet trapping me all the same. There was nowhere else to go.
“Why?” I whispered, breath catching on the word. I thought I knew. Merlin, I knew. But some desperate, breaking part of me needed to hear it out loud, needed the knife twisted.
“You already know,” he snarled, his voice lower now, rumbling like thunder before a storm.
The sound shivered through me, bone-deep, sinking claws into my stomach. His scent hit me then—sharp smoke, pine needles crushed beneath boots, leather warmed by skin, threaded with something feral. It coiled around me, thick and suffocating, until I swore I was drunk on it. I was dizzy, high, lost in the haze of him, every breath filling me with more of the wolf that lived inside him.
He moved in closer, until his shadow devoured mine, until the bark pressed harder against my back. His hands rose, wide and scarred, caging me against the apple tree. Not touching me—yet—but near enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his skin. His scent clung to my hair, to my dress, to my lungs, as though he were branding me with it.
I tilted my face up, my small frame dwarfed by the towering man above me. He was vast. His chest filled my vision, his presence eclipsed the orchard lanterns, his breath washed hot against my skin. I forgot how to breathe. Every inhale came too fast, too shallow, stolen between the suffocating waves of his cologne and musk.
His fingers moved at last, slow and deliberate. Rough pads brushed my jaw, tracing along the delicate line of bone with a gentleness that only made the danger worse. They dragged lower, down the soft column of my throat, following the frantic jump of my pulse. Each inch of contact lit up my nerves, a trail of sparks running into places I didn’t want to name.
I parted my lips to say something—anything. Maybe to beg, maybe to plead, maybe to curse him—but the words never came.
Because in the next heartbeat, his hand shifted. His fingers curled suddenly into my hair, fisting it tight, and with a harsh yank he wrenched my head back against the tree.
I gasped, a broken sound lodged between pain and something darker. My scalp burned, tears stung at the corners of my eyes, but beneath the sharpness was a hot, coiling throb that made my thighs clench against each other.
A whimper spilled from me, raw and trembling. Not entirely from fear. Not entirely from pain.
Something shameful, traitorous, laced through it too. Pleasure.
And his eyes devoured every bit of it.
The kiss wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t tentative, or soft, or anything resembling the fairytale romance that should have belonged to a wedding night. It was brutal. Rough. Animalistic.
Bill’s mouth crashed against mine with a force that rattled through my bones. His lips were hot, unyielding, and then his tongue was there—thrusting past my parted lips, filling me, claiming the space with a heat that stole the air from my lungs. It wasn’t a kiss. It was an invasion. His tongue moved with a hunger that tasted of smoke and champagne, of something feral and unrestrained, and every desperate stroke told me exactly what he was: a predator devouring its prey.
Our teeth collided in the chaos, sharp clinks that sent jolts down my jaw. The fight for dominance was clumsy, violent—my teeth dragging over his, his tongue pushing harder, hungrier. I knew I was losing, but somewhere deep down I realized I had no intention of winning. I surrendered without meaning to. My lips parted wider, my mouth opening for him, begging him to take more.
A moan tore itself from me, low and guttural, vibrating against his tongue. He answered with a sound of his own—darker, rougher—a growl disguised as a moan that reverberated through my chest and made my skin shiver.
My hands, trembling, pressed against his chest. At first, instinct screamed push him away, escape, run—but the instant I felt the heat of his body under my palms, the solid muscle shifting with restrained violence, my resolve shattered. Instead of shoving him back, I dragged him closer, fisting the fabric of his shirt and pulling until the hard lines of his body crushed against mine. Desperation roared through me. I wanted everything, anything—whatever Bill Weasley would give, I would take.
His lips tore at mine, his teeth grazing, scraping, until finally they clamped down on my bottom lip. He bit, sharp and merciless, and pain blossomed hot and shocking. A copper tang spilled over my tongue, metallic and raw.
I gasped against his mouth, but before I could recoil, he pulled back just enough to look at me. His eyes—dark, glimmering with the wolf’s hunger—dropped to the wound he’d left behind. For a beat, he lingered there, breathing heavy, lips slick with mine. Then he bent down, and his tongue flicked out.
Slow. Possessive. Claiming.
He licked the blood from my lip like it belonged to him.
The sight should have sickened me. The taste of my own blood on his tongue should have been horrifying. If it had been anyone else, I would have recoiled in disgust, turned away, run.
But it was him.
And on his mouth, under his teeth, every part of it was fire. Every part of it was hot, heavy, and perfect.
⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧ ⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧ ⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧
I couldn't believe how one kiss shattered the boundary between my frantic, secret longing and the savage, forbidden violence of Bill’s hunger. He pressed his mouth to mine with a force that buckled my knees, the metallic tang of blood sharp on my tongue where his fangs had broken the skin. I felt my own pulse in my mouth, racing, as he pushed me backwards until my spine slammed against the ancient oak. The bark was unforgiving, each ridge of it digging into my flesh through the thin, sweat-soaked cotton of my dress. I gasped, but he only grinned, lips wet with my taste, and yanked my wrists above my head, pinning them one-handed against the splintered trunk.
I had never seen his eyes like this. They glowed with a hunger that was barely human, a blue so clear it burned, and he drank in every twitch of my resistance as if it were a rare wine. My own body betrayed me, heat pooling between my thighs even as my mind skittered with reasons why I should say ‘no.’ But my throat was raw and tight and the word would not come, not even as he spun me roughly, pressing my breasts flat against the tree. The swell of them spilled over the neckline of my dress, pebbled nipples searing into the ridged wood as he bent me forward, his chest hot and hard at my back.
He leaned in, his teeth grazing the curve of my neck, and whispered, “You were always mine, you know.” His voice was a low growl, vibrating through my bones. I shivered, every nerve ending igniting as his hands seized my hips, fingers spreading me open, thumbs digging into the soft flesh just above my pelvis. My skirt rode up as he wrenched the hem upward, exposing my knickers—already sodden, already clinging damply to my skin. He shredded them in one practiced motion, the silk tearing with a sound that made me gasp. The summer air was shockingly cold on my bare sex, but his hands followed, burning against me, stroking me roughly until I was gasping, every thought blank except for the desperate need of him.
I should have hated him. I should have hated myself more for wanting this, for arching my hips back to meet his insistent touch, for the way I whimpered when he pressed me harder into the tree. He smelled like wild grass and blood and salt, and when he bit down on my shoulder—hard enough to draw beads of red—my vision went white at the edges. My hands scrabbled for purchase, finding nothing but rough bark and splinters. My knees threatened to buckle, but Bill’s arm was already coiled around my waist, keeping me upright, keeping me open and exposed for him.
He spat on his hand and stroked himself, the sound lewd and obscene in the silence of the wood, then lined up at my entrance. For a suspended moment he held me there, tip poised, breath hot on the shell of my ear. Then, with a single, brutal thrust, he filled me, the intrusion so sudden and complete it stole the air from my lungs. I choked on a sob, equal parts pain and relief, as my body adjusted to the thick, relentless invasion. Bill fucked me with a ferocity that bordered on animal, his hips pistoning forward again and again, each time driving my breasts harder into the bark, each time grinding my clit against the unyielding wood until all I could do was moan and sob and beg for more.
He wrapped his hand around my throat, thumb pressing just enough to make my vision blur, and growled, “Say it.” I knew what he wanted, the words I had sworn I would never give him. But my body was already betraying me, slick and open and greedy for him, and when he leaned in and bit me again, deep enough this time to leave twin crescents of blood, I shattered. The orgasm ripped through me, violent and endless, and I screamed his name into the dark, my hands clawing at the tree until my palms were raw. The shame was molten in my belly, burning away what little resistance I had left as the waves of pleasure made my whole body tremble.
Bill’s pace became ragged, desperate; I could feel his cock swelling inside me, and I clenched greedily around him, needing to feel him lose control. He bent me even lower, his hand still tight on my throat, and pumped into me until he came with a shudder that rattled my bones. His teeth were bared, his face twisted in a snarl, and for a heartbeat he looked more wolf than man. He collapsed against my back, sweat and blood and spit running down our skin, and for a long moment neither of us could speak.
When he finally pulled out, I whimpered at the loss, immediately cold and empty without him. My legs gave out and I slumped to the forest floor, dress bunched at my waist, thighs sticky with come and blood. Bill knelt behind me, gathering me in his arms, his hands tender now as he brushed the hair from my face and kissed the new wounds blooming on my skin. I wanted to hate him, I told myself again, but as he pulled me close and rocked me gently, I felt only the hollowed-out relief of someone who had finally been ruined exactly as I’d always needed to be.
My breath came in ragged bursts, each one a sob or a laugh or something between the two. My whole body quaked, spent and trembling, and the only thing that kept me from flying apart was the pressure of Bill’s arms, still tight around me, anchoring me to the ground as the world slowly spun itself right again.
⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧ ⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧ ⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧
When Bill and I finally came down from our sexual high, our eyes locked across the moonlit darkness. My once-pristine cotton knickers lay in tatters around my ankles, the elastic waistband completely severed where his fingers had desperately torn them away. I examined the constellation of half-moon indentations across my palms where my nails had dug in, and the raised red welts on my forearms where bark had scraped skin raw. A small, satisfied smile tugged at the corner of my mouth, my bottom lip still swollen from his bites. That fleeting euphoria—the endorphin rush that had momentarily erased all consequences—evaporated like morning dew. Cold reality flooded in, shame coiling like a serpent in the pit of my stomach, squeezing until I could barely breathe. "This is only the beginning, Hermione," Bill whispered, his voice husky and dangerous against my ear, hot breath sending involuntary shivers down my spine. "I am not done with you yet. The bond will get hungrier and hungrier. We will need this." He pulled away, adjusting his unbuttoned shirt, and walked backward three steps before turning, leaving me slumped against the gnarled trunk of an ancient apple tree, surrounded by fallen fruit crushed beneath our bodies, their juices staining the earth crimson in the orchard that had witnessed our surrender.
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Bill’s POV
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The orchard was quiet — far too quiet. The kind of silence that didn’t soothe but thickened, pressing against my ears like a living thing. Even the faint music drifting from the tent behind me had turned thin, muffled by the trees, as though the world had folded in on itself and left only this place: shadows, breath, and her.
My head swam. My pulse hammered behind my temples. I told myself it was the champagne. I told myself it was exhaustion, tension, the weight of a day built on vows I didn’t mean. That’s what I tried to believe. Because every glance I’d stolen across the tables, every brush of fingers when I passed her, every low whisper I’d let slip by her ear — none of it should have happened. I was married. To Fleur. Fleur glowing and perfect under the lanterns. Fleur with her lilac scent and silvery laugh.
And yet… my skin still burned where Hermione’s eyes had caught mine.
I kept walking, the soles of my shoes sinking into the damp grass. The soft hiss of her dress brushing her thighs ahead of me sounded far too loud in the hush of the orchard. The lanterns strung between the trees cast a broken trail of gold before us, little pools of light on the ground like stepping stones into the dark. She moved from one to the next, deeper and deeper into the garden. And I followed — not touching her, not yet — but tracking. Trying to wrestle the day into sense even as my wolf unspooled the knot tighter and tighter.
A twig cracked under my heel.
She spun, heart thudding so hard I could hear it, eyes scanning the shadows between the trees. She didn’t see me. Only the branches swaying in the breeze, lanterns flickering, shapes shifting. But the sensation crawled up her spine anyway — she could feel me. The way prey feels a predator before it leaps. The way a heartbeat knows when the claws are already out.
I was there. She couldn’t see me. Couldn’t prove it. But she knew. Because I wasn’t the man she’d known at Order meetings anymore — not fully. Same body, same scars, but something else living under my skin now. Patient. Wild. Waiting.
I stalked her further into the orchard, my pace slow, silent. The hum of the wedding faded to a murmur, the laughter and clinking glasses becoming nothing but a memory. The trees grew older here, branches thicker, lanterns fewer. Shadows pooled like ink beneath the boughs. Grass brushed her hem and mine alike, whispering with each step.
She stopped at last. I watched from the darkness as she bent, slipping off her heels, trembling hands revealing the faint shake in her wrists. The cool blades of grass tickled her bare feet. She straightened, dragging in a long, shuddering breath. The night air was sharp and clean against my overheated skin. For a heartbeat, she thought she’d outrun me — my eyes, my scent, the shame threading through her veins.
Then the breeze shifted.
And it hit her.
Smoke. Pine. Leather warmed by skin.
My scent.
I let it roll over her like a wave, heavier now, no longer a ghost but a presence. It slid down her throat, thick and dark, and I watched the way her stomach tightened, the way her pulse tripped into a sprint. She didn’t have to look. She knew.
I was close.
Very close.
⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧ ⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧ ⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧
I stood in the half-light of the orchard, framed by two lanterns swaying in the night breeze, my broad shoulders swallowing the shifting glow. My wedding suit was still clinging to me—charcoal fabric stretched tight, the collar unfastened just enough to expose the scarred line at my throat. I let my hair fall loose over my collar, wild copper waves catching the lamplight like fire. Every rune-bright scar Greyback had carved across my face gleamed silver, an unspoken warning in the flickering flame.
And there she was—Hermione—her form trembling where she’d turned to face me. I watched her chest rise in shallow breaths, eyes wide and drowning in question. My name hung between us, a prayer or a plea—I wasn’t sure which.
One step, then another, and the earth seemed to bow under my weight. She stumbled backward until her spine slammed against the rough bark of an apple tree, her small frame pinned and vulnerable. I could smell her then: the faint musk of sweat, the ghost of soap in her hair, and something sweeter, a lilt of fear tangled with something darker. I inhaled it all, felt it coil in my gut.
“Hermione,” I growled, the word torn from my chest like a claim. My voice rumbled low, thrumming against her ribs in time with my own racing pulse.
Her breath hitched. She tried to shrink away, but there was nowhere to go. I raised my hands—scarred, wide—until my palms hovered just above her shoulders, the heat radiating off me a silent demand. I watched her eyes flicker to my fingertips, the question in them clear: Why?
I leaned in close enough that she could feel each labored exhale. Pine needles, smoke, leather warmed by my skin—they all mingled around us like a storm gathering in a midnight sky. My voice was darker than I meant it to be. “You already know.”
She whimpered, a small sound that matched the tremor I felt in my own chest. For a moment the world held its breath. Then I let mine out in a growl and closed the distance. My fingers brushed her jaw, rough pads mapping the delicate line of her bone. I traced down the curve of her throat, fingertips dancing over the frantic drumming of her pulse. Every nerve in me ignited at the pressure under my touch.
When I felt her begin to panic, I let my grip tighten—curling into her hair, yanking her head back until her neck arched beneath me. Pain flickered behind her eyes, tears glimmered on her lashes, and I saw something else there too. Shame, desire, betrayal all tangled together in that single look.
I couldn’t stop myself. My mouth crashed against hers with the force of a winter gale. My lips were unrelenting, my tongue thrusting past her parted lips, staking a claim with every hungry stroke. She tasted of smoke and champagne, her salt mingling with the copper tang of my own scar. I drove deeper, invading her space like a wolf claiming territory.
Her teeth clashed against mine—sharp metal sparks glittering on impact. I fought for dominance, but her surrender was immediate; her lips curved apart, welcoming me in. A low moan ripped from her, an echo of my own primal growl vibrating through my chest.
Her hands came up to my chest, trembling, but when she pressed into me I felt my resolve shatter. I tightened my arms, pulling her flush against me so that every hard contour of my body pressed into her softness. Her desperation ignited something feral in me.
I bit at her bottom lip—cruel, sharp—and tasted blood. She gasped, a gasp that turned into a ragged sound somewhere between pain and pleasure. I paused, breathing heavy, and watched my fingers tremble against her hair. Then I bent to her wound and licked the crimson bead from her lip, slow and possessive, marking her with the heat of my tongue.
Her eyes fluttered closed. The world narrowed to the taste of her on my mouth, the weight of her body against mine, the fierce, unspoken truth between us. And for a moment I knew nothing but that she belonged to me entirely—scarred, trembling, and utterly consumed by the predator in me.
⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧ ⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧ ⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧
I couldn't believe how one kiss shattered the boundary between her frantic, secret longing and my savage, forbidden hunger. I pressed my mouth to hers with a force that buckled her knees, the metallic tang of her blood sharp on my tongue where my fangs had broken the skin. I could feel her pulse racing in her mouth, and I pushed her backwards until her spine slammed against the ancient oak. The bark was unforgiving, and I could see every ridge of it digging into her flesh through the thin, sweat-soaked cotton of her dress. She gasped, but I only grinned, my lips wet with her taste, and yanked her wrists above her head, pinning them one-handed against the splintered trunk.
I had never seen her eyes like this. They were wide with a mix of fear and desire, and I drank in every twitch of her resistance as if it were a rare wine. Her body betrayed her, and I could smell the heat pooling between her thighs even as her mind skittered with reasons why she should say ‘no.’ But her throat was raw and tight, and the word would not come, not even as I spun her roughly, pressing her breasts flat against the tree. The swell of them spilled over the neckline of her dress, and I could feel her pebbled nipples searing into the ridged wood as I bent her forward, my chest hot and hard at her back.
I leaned in, my teeth grazing the curve of her neck, and whispered, “You were always mine, you know.” My voice was a low growl, vibrating through her bones. She shivered, every nerve ending igniting as my hands seized her hips, fingers spreading her open, thumbs digging into the soft flesh just above her pelvis. Her skirt rode up as I wrenched the hem upward, exposing her knickers—already sodden, already clinging damply to her skin. I shredded them in one practiced motion, the silk tearing with a sound that made her gasp. The summer air was shockingly cold on her bare sex, but my hands followed, burning against her, stroking her roughly until she was gasping, every thought blank except for the desperate need of me.
She should have hated me. She should have hated herself more for wanting this, for arching her hips back to meet my insistent touch, for the way she whimpered when I pressed her harder into the tree. She smelled like wildflowers and sweat and desire, and when I bit down on her shoulder—hard enough to draw beads of red—her vision went white at the edges. Her hands scrabbled for purchase, finding nothing but rough bark and splinters. Her knees threatened to buckle, but my arm was already coiled around her waist, keeping her upright, keeping her open and exposed for me.
I spat on my hand and stroked myself, the sound lewd and obscene in the silence of the wood, then lined up at her entrance. For a suspended moment, I held her there, tip poised, breath hot on the shell of her ear. Then, with a single, brutal thrust, I filled her, the intrusion so sudden and complete it stole the air from her lungs. She choked on a sob, equal parts pain and relief, as her body adjusted to the thick, relentless invasion. I fucked her with a ferocity that bordered on animal, my hips pistoning forward again and again, each time driving her breasts harder into the bark, each time grinding her clit against the unyielding wood until all she could do was moan and sob and beg for more.
I wrapped my hand around her throat, thumb pressing just enough to make her vision blur, and growled, “Say it.” I knew what I wanted, the words she had sworn she would never give me. But her body was already betraying her, slick and open and greedy for me, and when I leaned in and bit her again, deep enough this time to leave twin crescents of blood, she shattered. The orgasm ripped through her, violent and endless, and she screamed my name into the dark, her hands clawing at the tree until her palms were raw. The shame was molten in her belly, burning away what little resistance she had left as the waves of pleasure made her whole body tremble.
My pace became ragged, desperate; I could feel my cock swelling inside her, and she clenched greedily around me, needing to feel me lose control. I bent her even lower, my hand still tight on her throat, and pumped into her until I came with a shudder that rattled her bones. My teeth were bared, my face twisted in a snarl, and for a heartbeat, I looked more wolf than man. I collapsed against her back, sweat and blood and spit running down our skin, and for a long moment, neither of us could speak.
When I finally pulled out, she whimpered at the loss, immediately cold and empty without me. Her legs gave out and she slumped to the forest floor, dress bunched at her waist, thighs sticky with come and blood. I knelt behind her, gathering her in my arms, my hands tender now as I brushed the hair from her face and kissed the new wounds blooming on her skin. She wanted to hate me, I could see it in her eyes, but as I pulled her close and rocked her gently, I felt only the hollowed-out relief of someone who had finally been ruined exactly as she’d always needed to be.
Her breath came in ragged bursts, each one a sob or a laugh or something between the two. Her whole body quaked, spent and trembling, and the only thing that kept her from flying apart was the pressure of my arms, still tight around her, anchoring her to the ground as the world slowly spun itself right again.
⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧ ⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧ ⛧°. ⋆༺☾𖤓༻⋆. °⛧
When Hermione and I finally descended from our carnal summit, our gazes met across the silver-dappled darkness. Her cotton undergarments—once white as fresh snow—now hung in ruins around her delicate ankles, the elastic band completely rent where my desperate fingers had torn them in my frenzy to possess her. I noticed her examining her palms, where tiny crescent indentations marked where her nails had bitten into flesh during her passion. My chest tightened at the sight of angry red welts across her forearms where the rough bark had abraded her soft skin. Something primal stirred within me—satisfaction, possession, hunger—when I saw the small smile playing at the corner of her mouth, her bottom lip still visibly swollen from where my teeth had claimed her. I watched as her expression shifted, the fleeting euphoria that had coursed through us both—that magnificent rush of endorphins that had temporarily obliterated all sense of consequence—dissipating like morning mist over the Scottish highlands. Cold reality was settling in; I could see it in her eyes, the way her shoulders tensed, the subtle change in her breathing. Shame was taking hold of her, and something in me—the wolf part, the cursed part—relished it. "This is only the beginning, Hermione," I whispered, deliberately keeping my voice low and dangerous against the shell of her ear, feeling her involuntary shiver against my chest as my hot breath caressed her skin. The wolf in me howled with triumph at her response. "I am not done with you yet. The bond will get hungrier and hungrier. We will need this." I reluctantly pulled away from her warmth, my fingers working mechanically to adjust my unbuttoned shirt, the fabric cool against my overheated skin. I forced myself to walk backward three steps, maintaining eye contact until the last possible moment before turning away. The image of her burned into my retinas: Hermione Granger, brightest witch of her age, slumped against the gnarled trunk of an ancient apple tree that had stood sentinel in this orchard for centuries. All around her, fallen apples lay crushed beneath where our bodies had writhed, their sweet juices staining the earth a dark crimson in the moonlight. The orchard had witnessed our surrender, and now it would keep our secret. As I walked away, my enhanced senses could still detect her scent, her rapid heartbeat, the shallow cadence of her breathing. The curse that flowed through my veins sang with satisfaction, but the man in me wondered with growing dread what we had begun.