Mark of Sin: Bound to the Cruel Alpha

Fear squeezed my throat, and I whispered in a strained, broken tone, "I don’t want this... We don’t even know each other..."

"That doesn’t stop us from having good sex," he snapped, his grip on my breast tightening as his thumb stroked over my hardened nipple with dark satisfaction. "Stop acting like this and take off these damn clothes. I want to see you naked."

"No!" I thrashed, trying in vain to push him away while shaking my head. "If you just want to sleep with someone, I am not the right girl for the job!"

"I don’t want to sleep with someone," he growled, his lips sliding back to my neck, biting down hard enough to ensure a dark bruise would blossom by morning. "I want you."

My skin was pale and delicate. I knew with sickening certainty that wherever his lips touched, wherever his teeth sank in, he would leave permanent scorch marks.

He was marking me like a piece of property, and every possessive gesture made my stomach twist in dread of what felt inevitable. Horrifying. His hand slid down to intertwine his fingers with mine, and through the contact, I could feel the violent tremors coursing through his muscles.

He was fighting for control. I felt like a single exposed nerve, stretched so taut I was on the verge of snapping.

"But I don’t want this! Why don’t you care about what I want?!" I cried out, tears burning my eyes. "I’m not ready for this!"

"And when will you be ready?" he growled, abruptly pulling back and releasing my hand—the same hand he had forced onto his waist. I didn’t even want to think about the imposing length beneath his pants.

"When we actually get to know each other!" I shouted, scrambling backward toward the headboard. "We can’t just sleep together! We’re practically strangers!"

"We are fated mates," he cut in, his voice ringing like cold steel. Reaching out, he grabbed me under the knees and yanked me back down beneath him. "You carry my mark."

"But we haven’t even talked like normal people! We haven’t gone out on... on dates!"

"So you’re denying me because we haven’t held fucking hands under the moonlight?!" His tone turned louder, sharper with rising fury.

Magnus was losing his temper. His wolf’s heavy aura surged through the room, suffocating and thick, but he finally pulled his hands off me.

I scrambled away as far as the bed allowed, pressing my back against the headboard and pulling my rumpled clothes into place with violently shaking hands.

He stood up in one fluid, violent motion and strode over to the window, throwing back the heavy black drapes with a single harsh pull.

The image stamped itself into my mind: the vast, intricately inked black dragon stretching across his back from his shoulder blades to his lower waist, illuminated by the pale rays of dawn breaking through the glass.

In the shift of morning light and shadow, my terror made the creature on his skin look almost alive.

***

Before my morning lectures, I decided to stop by the dormitory to survey the damage. Standing in front of my room, I felt my heart sink into my stomach.

The new steel door was warped, coated not only in black soot from the fire that had raged inside, but also in a thick layer of wet paint running down the metal in uneven drips. Sprawled across the center in jagged, ugly letters was a single word:

SLUT.

I let out a slow, trembling breath, fighting to control the panic threatening to paralyze me. The message was clearly meant for me. It couldn’t be for Annie.

My door had been vandalized like the wall of a grimy public restroom.

The fact that the blistering heat of the fire hadn’t burned the paint off meant whoever did this hadn’t used cheap spray paint. They had deliberately bought something industrial and heat-resistant—ensuring the insult stayed intact for the entire building to see.

Magnus hadn’t answered my questions earlier. He had simply cut me off, asserting that he would handle everything. But staring at this vile display, I realized I couldn’t just brush it under the rug.

I couldn’t. I needed to know who had branded me with that slur and incinerated everything I owned. What had I ever done to warrant such pure, targeted malice?

Cruelty like this always chilled me to the bone—this cowardly, venomous spite. To strike from the shadows and run. No confrontation, no voiced grievances, just total, merciless destruction. The person who set that fire could have easily burned me alive. Had I been in the room, had I returned early to sleep, I never would have made it out in time.

I clung to the desperate hope that whoever did this had verified I was away. Because if they hadn’t... if my life had been an acceptable casualty to them... then I was in far greater danger than I had imagined.

"Let’s go. Stop staring at this shit."

A sharp gasp escaped my lips, and I spun around. The entire time, I had believed I was completely alone, stranded in the heavy silence of the scorched hallway. But I wasn’t.

Magnus was standing directly behind me.

"How are you even here? Weren’t you supposed to be in class?"

We had arrived on campus early. Magnus had left me with a strict order that he would pick me up later to take me somewhere, mentioning his lectures started sooner than mine. He was enrolled in an elite, specialized track with a completely separate schedule. Yet his presence here now meant only one thing: he had skipped his classes entirely.

"I knew you’d run straight to the dorms first," he said, his tone flat and unreadable. "There’s nothing left to see here, Lang. It’s all reduced to ash."

I hung my head, a heavy knot of defeat tightening in my chest. Shoving my hands deep into the pockets of my hoodie, I turned toward the exit. My feet moved on autopilot while my mind raced through the overwhelming logistics of my new reality. I was going to need a second job.

But where could I possibly find a job on short notice, and how would I balance the hours with my classes?

Near the stairwell, I bumped into the dorm supervisor. The woman was hurrying up the steps toward my floor, holding a thick folder against her chest. When her eyes landed on Magnus and me, her expression instantly hardened into a tense, nervous grimace. She came to a sudden halt.

"Jane, do you have a moment?" she asked anxiously, her fingers fidgeting with the edges of her papers. "We need you to inspect what’s left of the room and sign the official damage liability form."

"Yes, of course, let’s go take a look," I agreed, nodding before glancing up at Magnus. "You go ahead without me. I’ll inspect it and head straight to my lectures."

Magnus leveled a cold, heavy stare at the supervisor. The woman instinctively took a sharp step back, her posture stiffening in alarm.

Before I could move, Magnus’s heavy arm slid around my waist, pulling me flush against his side in an unyielding grip.

"There’s no need for that," he declared, his voice cutting through the hall like ice. "Jane is no longer living in this dormitory."

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