Claimed by the Alpha and the Vampire Prince: Masquerading as a Man

Clare POV:

I doubled over again, the pain ripping through my lower stomach like something was clawing from the inside. I barely registered the hands wrapping around me—strong, firm, but oddly careful. There was this strange... flutter, like static under my skin, right where he touched me.

"Let go," I tried to mutter, weak and pissed, but the words fell apart in my throat as another cramp hit, harder this time.

I was being moved. Carried.

Goddamn it, Reed.

I thrashed weakly in his hold, more from instinct than strength. But his grip was unshakable, like he didn’t even notice I was struggling. I was so not in the mood for his macho-man, alpha-wannabe bullshit.

Then suddenly I wasn’t in his arms anymore. Something soft touched my back. A bed? fɾēewebnσveℓ.com

I cracked one eye open and saw him looming over me, his face horrified—like I was a dying thing he didn’t know how to save. Like he’d just witnessed an exorcism.

I blinked, confused. "What the hell...?"

Then he reached for my waistband.

"Don’t you dare—"

But he was already pulling. The pain made my limbs slow, clumsy, and by the time I tried to stop him, my pants were down and my bloody underwear was out in the open.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?" I screeched, trying to kick him. "Ever heard of privacy, you deranged psycho?!"

His eyes went wide, mouth slightly parted in something between horror and confusion.

He gasped.

He actually gasped.

What the fuck did he expect to find? A dick dripping blood? Was that why he didn’t believe me when I said I was a girl?

Seriously—hasn’t this man ever seen a woman on her period?

"You act like I just grew a second head," I growled through gritted teeth, curling back in on myself, ignoring the blood, the humiliation, him.

I was cramping. Bleeding. Mortified. And now I had to deal with this idiot’s wolf-wannabe panic attack because Mother Nature decided to punch me in the uterus today of all days.

Perfect. Just... fucking perfect.

And then—then—he had the audacity to kneel beside me, all wide-eyed and frantic, and ask:

"Who did this to you?"

I stared at him.

Absolutely fucking stared.

The silence was thick enough to choke on. My brain, already foggy from the pain and the emotional exhaustion, just... short-circuited. I blinked once. Twice. Waiting for my sanity to kick back in.

It didn’t.

"...Are you serious right now?" I hissed, voice sharp with disbelief.

He looked dead serious. Like full-on rage-boiling-under-his-skin, murder-mode, who-hurt-my-possession serious.

God, he wasn’t letting this go.

"I swear to fucking everything—" I started, curling tighter into myself, "—if you ask me that again, I’m going to gouge out your eyes and feed them to your fucking wolf."

He flinched. Just slightly. Like he wasn’t used to someone snapping at him.

Good.

His brows furrowed like I’d just told him I was transforming into a demon, which—honestly—wouldn’t be far off from what it felt like.

I shoved weakly at his shoulder. "back the fuck off. Let me bleed in peace, you overgrown, alpha-wannabe lunatic."

And then, because the universe has no chill, another cramp rolled through me like a wrecking ball, dragging a groan from my throat as I clenched my jaw to keep from screaming.

I buried my face in the pillow.

What I wouldn’t give for a heating pad and five minutes without being manhandled by a supernatural himbo having a gay panic spiral.

"Who did this to you?" he asked again, all serious and intense like some fucking knight out of a horror movie, as if I’d been attacked, as if this was some fresh new trauma he needed to avenge.

I stared at him.

Was he kidding me?

Was he actually asking that?

I was doubled over, bleeding, in pain, humiliated out of my mind—and that was the moment he chose to go all alpha-avenger?

"No one did anything to me!" I snapped, or tried to, because my voice broke in the middle from the cramps. "Just—leave me alone, okay?"

But of course, that wasn’t enough. He was still hovering, wide-eyed and confused and looking like I’d been brutalized by some invisible enemy.

God.

Why couldn’t he just go away?

I didn’t want to explain. Didn’t have the energy. Didn’t think I owed it to him—not after everything. Not when he’d manhandled me, undressed me, questioned what I was like I wasn’t even human.

Now he wanted to play protector?

I turned my face away, pressing my forehead into the mattress, gripping the sheets as another cramp twisted through me like barbed wire. He just stood there, his confusion morphing into a deeper kind of panic I didn’t have the patience for.

He didn’t get it. Of course he didn’t. And I wasn’t going to spell it out for him.

Let him stew in his ignorance. Let him drive himself crazy.

Let him think whatever he wanted—because right now, I was too tired, too angry, too done to give a shit.

Fuck Mother Nature.

Of all the damn souls to toss into a human meat suit, she chose me—the female twin. The one who had to bleed every damn month like a sacrificial lamb.

Reed was pacing. Back and forth. Back and forth. Like a damn woman in labor. Muttering to himself in this low, agitated tone that I couldn’t even bother deciphering anymore. It was like watching a tall, broody, half-deranged metronome losing its mind.

I tuned him out. I had to. Between the cramps gutting my insides like a rusty blade and the humiliation of being practically half-naked in front of a lunatic who still thought I was some kind of biologically confused cryptid... my sanity was hanging on by a thread.

Let him mutter. Let him pace.

Let him figure out whatever twisted, supernatural midlife crisis he was currently having.

Me? I was just trying to survive this damn uterus apocalypse.

"Fucking blood suker," Reed cursed before leaving thank God.