Defy The Alpha(s)

Chapter 491: Runaway Mate

LYCANTHROPIC MEDICAL ARCHIVES, VOL. III

"Bondfire Fever: Understanding and Surviving the Mating Fever"

Filed under: Mating Bonds, Instinctual Disorders, Pack Reproductive Health

—Classified Text Reserved for Advanced Healers and Pack Medics Only—

---

There were stages to the mating fever—or the Bondfire as some called it—the best cruel gift from the goddess.

The first was the Spark, also referred to as the initial trigger. It begins the moment fated mates come into proximity or lock eyes.

Then their heart races, and the scent of the other becomes intoxicating. Mates could literally feel each other like a low hum across their skin, as though their nerves were reaching out.

This particular stage is quite seductive but easy to ignore until it isn’t anymore.

The second stage becomes the Pull, or heightened craving. It is the point where the fever begins to settle beneath your skin, and every thought becomes obsessive.

At this point, there’s the deep, relentless throb between your thighs. It’s as if your body is starving for one specific touch—and not just any—but your mate’s. Nothing else will do.

This is usually followed by the Scent Madness, where everything smells like him even when he’s clearly not around. Then there’s the trembling hands, hypersensitivity, and the possessive instinct that starts to form.

Many people fold at the second stage. It is resistible with discipline, but difficult if emotionally vulnerable.

from person to person. Hence, some might experience the first and second stages instantly, or

at this point. It is due to the fact that

it’s no longer just attraction but raging need. The wolf in her whines for release, desperate to

a simple shirt brushing across the nipples is enough to cause tremors of desire, or actual pain from resisting.

as forced separation may cause emotional outbursts

Override. It is the peak of the Bondfire when reason becomes non-existent. The wolf completely takes over.

are possessive mania, loss of

die from the

final stage is the Crash,

is completed and the fever melts into euphoric

of this stage are weakness, soreness, confusion, and intense

with this, as no wolf has been recorded to have reached this point without completing

fulfilled, the fever may recede temporarily. But

of a wolf riding out a mating fever. You don’t. You only crawl through it, clawing your sanity back inch by inch—and pray you

—----------

to conclude that Adele was in the fourth stage. The only reason she hadn’t gone feral was the Suppressor pills she’d taken—they had dampened her connection to her wolf, giving her more control. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t

asleep. She was drenched in sweat, burning from the inside out, her hair clinging to her flushed face. She gripped the sheets

The dreaming began...

see her own hands. She didn’t know why, but the hairs on her arms stood

where could she go? There

in control of this play all along, the

her eyes, she found herself standing beneath a single beam of golden light, the spotlight illuminating the round circus stage in pale gold. The rest of the sagging circus tent remained drowned in darkness. Not