I fought him. I want to be clear about that , I fought him with everything I had. But I was tired and thin and hollowed out, and he was an Alpha who had spent his entire life built for exactly this kind of control. The gap between us wasn't just physical. It was ancient, something written into the marrow of both our kinds, and I had never felt it more sharply than in those moments when I stopped being able to stop him.
"Taylor, let me go." My voice cracked. "Please , don't do this."
He leaned close to my ear. "Just be good, Anna."
I turned my face away and let the tears fall silently. I was grateful to him , some part of me always had been, for every year he had stood between me and the worst of what the world could do. But gratitude was not love. It had never been love. And there are lines that, once crossed, change the shape of everything after.
