Crown of Claws - The Hollowborn Lycans I,
Author
E. Hereygers
Reads
19.5K
Chapters
71
She thought she knew monsters. Then she met them.
The Black Skulls were kings without crowns...beautiful, brutal, and broken by the magic etched into their bones. Their power burns. Their hunger never fades. And once you belong to them, there is no such thing as safe.
A dark romance series filled with: – morally grey anti-heroes – obsessive, possessive love – power imbalance & dangerous devotion – found family twisted by violence – slow-burn tension that turns feral – and a heroine who learns that choosing the monster may be the only way to survive -dark themes
- sex
Chapter 1: Blood on the Neon
BECKHAM
I couldn’t remember the last time my need had run this high. Not just want…need. Filthy, crawling, under-my-skin need. My Burnmark itched under my left palm like a live wire, Breakmark pulsing cold in the right.
It always did this to me when it got quiet: filled me with a hunger I couldn’t name, only fuck away.
Rain slicked down the streets of the Dominion, neon bleeding into puddles on the wet pavement. The air tasted of ozone, lacing everything in its scent. Every shadow here knew me. Every camera too.
Being Beckham Cross meant the doors opened, drinks flowed, and thighs parted. It wasn’t just the gym hours or the sharp suit hugging my broad shoulders; it was the name. Our name. The Black Skulls. Biggest, baddest crew in the city. The Dominion was ours, and everyone knew it.
I finally saw my destination for tonight. Blue bulb above a black door. My bar, my fix. Inside, heat hit me like a fist. Heavy perfume, a lot of sweat, and the bass thrum in my chest.
Heads turned the second I stepped through. Some dipped their gazes, some stared too long. A couple of guys at the end of the bar muttered my name under their breath like a curse. A girl in a red dress, with long blonde hair, straightened her spine, eyes already on me, like she’d been waiting. They always did.
My reputation had turned me into a pussy magnet; my face and body made me a weapon. And tonight, I was about to use it once more.
One flick of my eyes toward the hallway leading to the toilets. The blonde followed, heels clicking like gunshots on tile.
Two minutes later, her hands were flat to the bathroom stall wall, red dress bunched around her waist. My fists locked around her hips, and I drove into her with all the pent-up fury rattling my bones.
Each thrust slammed her against the tiles, the stall shuddering with it. Her moans spilled, sharp and high, but they barely cracked the haze roaring in my skull.
I wasn’t even thinking of her. Just Burn. Just Break. And the need to feel anything but hollow.
Her sweet perfume clogged my throat. Sweat slid from my temple down my jaw. I pressed my chest to her back, teeth gritted, grunting through clenched jaws. My hips piston-fucked into her like she was nothing but the outlet I needed her to be.
Shame crawled under my skin, but I didn’t slow. Shame was part of the ritual. Of my ritual. It was the need I could never let go of. My curse.
“Fuck! Beckham!” she whined.
I gave it to her. Harder. Relentlessly. I didn’t care who might be listening. I didn’t care we were in public. This needed to happen, and it needed to happen now.
I tilted my head, eyes squeezed shut. All I could see behind my closed lids was the Dominion’s skyline, lights humming like a neon crucifix. The itch in my palm screamed, and I shoved deeper, trying to bury it there, in her body, in the heat and slick.
My phone buzzed.
I snarled at it, but kept moving. It buzzed again, insistent. My pocket rattled against her hip. And I knew it wasn’t going to stop.
With a curse I dug it out one-handed, the other still bruising her waist, still moving out of reflex. I barely looked at the screen. Johnny Vega. Of course.
I thumbed it open, voice a jagged growl. “What?”
Static, then Johnny’s deep, gravelly voice, clipped and ragged as if he had been running. “Beck. We’re hit.”
I froze mid-thrust, chest heaving. “Hit? By who?”
“Somebody took Grayson.”
The world collapsed in on itself. The itch, my burn, all the noise in my head…gone. Only ice remained as his words traveled down my chest. My Burnmark flared hot, Breakmark freezing cold.
The girl moaned beneath me, writhing back, fucking me back, desperate for what I’d stolen mid-stroke. “Don’t stop, please, Beckham, please!”
I wasn’t listening. My body went mechanical, my hips pounding again, harder, faster even. Johnny’s voice barked through the phone, but it was background noise to this. I needed release before my head could clear, before the Skull part of me locked back in. I couldn’t focus with the curse running wild.
I slammed into her with brutal, punishing thrusts, the stall rattling like it might tear loose from the floor. Her cries echoed sharp in my ears, bordering on pain, but I lived and fucked on that border, and that’s just how that was.
My hand clamped down, knuckles bone-white on her hip. I bent over her, panting into the crook of her neck, phone pressed to my ear, Johnny shouting some more.
My vision tunneled, black and red at the edges. The itch in my palm reached fever pitch, the cold in my other hand slicing like glass. My body coiled, snapped, and I yanked free just in time, jerking myself to finish, groaning as I spilled across the small of her back. It was hot and messy, claiming her in a way I never let myself claim inside.
Never inside. Not her. Not anyone. Not here. Not ever.
She gasped, shuddered against the wall, whispering a curse I didn’t hear. I was already tucking back in, chest still heaving.
Phone still to my ear. “Get the car to the Crossing,” I barked, cutting Johnny off mid-sentence. “I’m on my way.”
I didn’t look at her. Didn’t care about the mess I left dripping down her spine, the lipstick smeared on her cheek, the hunger still in her voice.
I shoved the stall open, stepped back into the hallway, neon spilling through the cracked window. The cursed predator was gone. Only the Skull remained.
And Grayson was out there. Taken.
Which meant blood was about to run down the streets in the Dominion tonight. My other mark burned, as it was ready for some killing.
