A/N: *jumps out of the wardrobe to surprise you*

*rraaghh!*

*flings the chapter at you while you're still recovering*

*dashes away into the night*

xx-Kitten.

Addicted to You

By Kittenshift17

Chapter 17

Hermione didn't return to the common room that night. She should've. She knew Harry would be sitting up and waiting for her. She knew her friends would be worried; that they would be lying in wait to demand explanations from her about Malfoy and him being a werewolf and her being his mate and Hermione didn't have the energy for that.

Malfoy didn't leave her the energy for that. Every time she tried to get up so she could get dressed and leave, he growled and held her tighter, and every time she tried to argue that she needed to be getting to bed, he ravished her all over again until she was aching and raw, utterly spent and unable to rise to her feet anymore. She suspected that pleased the ridiculous werewolf immensely because when she surrendered to the fact that she couldn't even stand and thus, climbed under the covers intent on sleep, he hummed approvingly and followed her under the blankets.

"Don't even think about touching me again," she warned him irritably when he reached an arm over her hip while she curled up with her back to him, not interested in so much as looking at him again until she didn't feel like she'd been run over by an eighteen-wheeler.

"Shhh," he shushed her, curling himself around her from behind, spooning her snugly, and looping his arm over her tightly, evidently planning to keep from letting her slip away in the night.

"Malfoy," Hermione protested.

"Sshhh, Granger," he muttered against her shoulder. "Sleep now."

"You're cuddling me," she pointed out.

"Mmmm," he agreed. "Feels nice."

Hermione sighed.

It did feel nice. But that wasn't the point. The point was that this was still her body and she didn't want him touching it anymore.

"Everyone will have heard you howling, you know?" she said. "I'm surprised the teachers haven't mounted a search party."

"Snape knows what I am," Malfoy murmured. "He'll have told Dumbledore."

"Yeah, but it's not a full moon and there's a wolf howling inside the castle," she reminded him.

Malfoy only shrugged. "They won't find us."

"They probably will," she frowned. "And then we'll be expelled for breaking school rules, fraternizing, and canoodling."

He huffed a laugh against the back of her neck, unsettling her sweat-dampened curls.

"You worry too much, Granger," he told her. "Now hush up and let me sleep. I'm tired.

Hermione thought about telling him to shove his commands and his tiredness and his intimacy, but what really would be the point? It was done now. They were officially mated. There was no going back on this now. For the rest of her life, the only man she would ever be able to shag would be Draco Malfoy. Until the day she died, if she hoped for children, she would have to have them with him or not at all. What point was there in taking umbrage with his attitude when she couldn't even get up and dramatically storm out of there?

"I hate you," she told him quietly, even if her body was sated and sore and contented in a way she'd never known before.

"Mmmm," he grumbled, sounding closer and closer to sleep by the second. "Hate you too, darling."

Hermione rolled her eyes when he pressed his lips to her neck before burrowing his face into her curls and dropping off to sleep with a soft snore.

She was so screwed.

Figuratively and literally, she thought bitterly, glancing down at the arm he'd wrapped around her midsection. She really should go. She didn't want this. She wanted to be on her way. She wanted to get on with the rest of her life. She didn't want this to be it for her. How could it be? Of all the people in all the world, she just so happened to be fated to a destiny involving the cruel, bigoted git she'd hated for six years? Where was the justice in that?

What terrible things had she done in a past life to deserve this fresh hell?

Sighing, Hermione closed her eyes, resigning herself to sleep since there was nothing else she could do right now. She drifted off to the sound of her wolf mate's soft snores and the hum in her blood of kismet unfolding

~O~

"Don't you dare," her eyes snapped open sometime in the night when she felt a hand on her hip tipping her upper body forwards and canting her hips back a little while something hot and hard prodded at her nethers.

"Shhhh, pet," Malfoy hummed, and Hermione groaned when he found his mark, sliding inside her abused passage unforgivingly.

"Damn it, Malfoy," she groaned, her eyes crossing at the buzz of raw skin being tormented again even while endorphins ricocheted through her, sensations suffusing her in the dead of night as he rocked his hips, tunneling into her and withdrawing to tunnel again.

"Feels so good to be inside you," he murmured, nibbling her neck and the top of her shoulder, rocking into her over and over.

"Mmmm," Hermione whined, panting at the attentions as her body stirred to accommodate him, her synapses recognizing their role in this and firing at hyper-speed, making her crazy in a heartbeat. Heat suffused her and she wanted to cry because, Gods, it wasn't fair that it felt so good.

She wanted to hate it. Wanted to hate him.

Her body didn't care what she wanted. It only cared about what it was fated to do, and in this, there could be no mistaking that they were a perfectly matched set, designed to slot together just like this and be joined for all eternity.

"So warm," Malfoy muttered into her skin. "Could stay inside your warmth forever, angel."

Hermione only moaned, rocking her hips back to meet him, pressing into his warmth and his strength, craving more.

"Mine," he whispered in her hair as he took her slowly, ravishing her thoroughly, claiming every inch of her. "Mine. All mine. My witch. My mate. Never letting you go, love."

When the orgasm built inside her, Hermione sobbed, knowing every word he said was true and both loving and hating to hear them. Gods, what had she done? What had they done?

"Yours," Hermione sobbed as the orgasm broke over her, her body responding to her mate's as it'd been made to do.

"Fuck," Malfoy muttered in her ear. "Mine. All mine. Forever."

He didn't howl this time when he found release, but he did bite her, groaning from way down deep as his body emptied into her clutching heat, filling her completely and making it all the better for Hermione. And she was doomed. Doomed forevermore to craving this feeling; doomed to yearn for his touch until the day she died.

~O~

He woke her several more times during the night, seemingly insatiable and Hermione was certain she was going to have to skip tomorrow's classes citing an inability to walk. When dawn broke over the castle, they were both still in bed in the forgotten quarters, Draco curled around Hermione possessively, unwilling to relinquish his hold on her even in slumber.

Hermione groaned as the sun filtered in through a window and onto the bed, illuminating the bright autumn morning and reminding her that no matter her aches, the world would spin on. She idly blinked her eyes open and thought that it seemed unfair that something so life-altering for her could be met with such indifference from the rest of the world. The stars had all but aligned as far as enacting the Soul Bond was concerned, but from the way the birds trilled beyond the castle, singing in the trees, they might as well have changed nothing at all.

She frowned when she recalled that even if the birds were indifferent, she could think of a few people who certainly wouldn't be. Harry and Ron would be ropable when she finally made it back to the common room. It was a wonder they hadn't come looking for her here at all. Maybe Harry didn't think to look on the map for them here. After all, this part of the castle was warded heavily so students couldn't roam into it. If they knew she was still using it at all – let alone that she was now using it to fuck her wolf-mate - she was sure the teachers would be apoplectic.

Sighing, Hermione supposed she had better get up. With all of his howling last night, the last thing either of them needed was to draw attention to themselves by doing something so conspicuous as missing a full day of classes. Everything that had gone down during the dueling club the previous evening would undoubtedly already have the student gossip wheels turning. She didn't doubt that tongues would be wagging and that by lunchtime, everyone would have heard that Malfoy was acting weird. She only hoped those tongues wouldn't be wagging about her weird behavior as well. At this point, she'd gladly take her story about bleeding through her knickers getting about the school, rather than the truth.

"Where do you think you're going?" a gravelly voice asked in her ear when she resigned herself to rising and began peeling back the covers and trying to figure a way out of Malfoy's possessive hold.

"We have class," she reminded him. "Unless you want everyone having another reason to think it was you howling last night, we both have to make an appearance in public today.

He growled unhappily, tightening his arm around her even more and pulling her back against his chest even more snugly. Hermione huffed, surprised he managed it since he'd been plastered to her back all sodding night.

"You're crushing me," she complained.

"Don't want to let you go," he replied, his voice still husky with sleep and a little gravelly.

Hermione looked over her shoulder at him to see his face, wondering if it was the boy or the wolf making such claims. His eyes were still mismatched, one silver and one gold, when he met her gaze sleepily. He looked like hell. His hair was a mess from having her running her fingers through it during his numerous, insatiable attacks during the night, and he had dark circles under his eyes from the lack of sleep.

"You need a shower," she told him, frowning.

"Real nice, Granger," he grumbled, narrowing his eyes at her and sighing before unfurling his arm from around her hip, but only after hooking his fingers under her and rolling her to face him with frightening ease.

Hermione made a mental note to revisit some of her research of werewolves, alarmed by his strength.

"You're healed, I see," she noted, inspecting the stab wound on his chest where it had scarred.

"Not entirely," he said, running a hand over the angry red gash. "Can still feel it knitting together internally. Silver delays the healing process."

Hermione nodded, having known that already.

"You're going to draw attention if you try and walk through the castle in that blood-stained shirt," she pointed out, noting the sight of his shirt on the floor across the room, dark with blood in several places.

"I'll glamour it," he shrugged, not even bothering to look.

"Right," she muttered. "Well, I need a shower. I think I still have leaves in my hair from the sprint in the forest, too, which means washing my hair, which means I'm already late."

"Don't go," he protested, his palm sweeping the length of her bare back when she sat up, intent on leaving.

"Malfoy," she warned. "We agreed to do this to prevent you from losing control in public. That's all. It doesn't mean we're going to skip class and stay here snuggled up together like honeymooners."

He growled softly at her hard tone, but Hermione ignored him, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and rising to her feet. She whimpered when her sex pressed to the sheets as she moved, the raw ache there stinging after his repeated abuse.

"You alright?" he asked, and she refused to look at him despite the concern in his tone.

"Sore," she confessed quietly. "I was a virgin until last night."

"Not anymore," he replied, and Hermione would swear she could hear the smugness in his voice.

"Are you always that… virile?" she asked without looking at him, her legs a little wobbly before she got them moving, heading for her clothes and curling her lip at the thought of last night's knickers before deciding to forgo them for the quick walk back to her dormitory.

"No idea," he admitted. "The first time I tried it, I didn't even finish before… you know… the wolf took issue with my choice of bed-mate."

Hermione shuddered at the thought of what he said he'd done to Daphne.

"Will she ever recover?" she asked, turning to face him when she had her bra on, noting that he was still sitting in bed, his knees drawn up with the sheet thrown over them, his elbows hooked over the tops of his knees while he watched her like he wanted to devour her.

"Daphne?" he confirmed.

She nodded.

Malfoy sighed. "I believe so," he nodded. "She'll suffer the effects of anyone attacked by a werewolf without the full effects of the curse. Crave her steak bloody, heightened senses, irritableness as the full moon draws near. The usual things. You will too, now that I've bitten you."

Hermione nodded again before pulling her shirt back on over her head. She knew what she was in for now that he'd bitten her. She'd known since she'd been bitten by him as a wolf in the forest and triggered this entire mess.

"But beyond that and the scarring, eventually she'll be fine."

"And the effects of long-term exposure to the Imperius curse?" Hermione challenged, narrowing her eyes on him.

"Doubt anyone's ever studied it, so who knows?" he shrugged. "Should be fine though. I only use it insofar as to protect her from the mental anguish while she's still healing. I'll be able to lift it soon and she'll be none the wiser to how she came to be scarred."

"Won't that be worse?" Hermione challenged. "When you finally lift it, she'll wonder how she didn't notice, and who might've done it to her, and how she's survived and not noticed in all this time while it's been healing."

"The alternative is outing myself to her as a werewolf and admitting that I mauled her because she's not my wolf-mate," he retorted, scowling before he flung the sheet off and rose to his feet, seemingly unbothered by his nudity.

Hermione gulped, her eyes drawn down the full length of his powerful frame, resting an inappropriately long time at the base of his abs. He smirked at her in that way of his that made her want to smack him.

"Still worried about getting to class, pet?" he taunted, bouncing his eyebrows suggestively. "I can think of a better way to spend the day."

Hermione slammed her eyes closed, tearing her gaze away from his cock as it inflated under her scrutiny, obviously willing and ready for more action.

"I can barely walk as it is," she retorted. "Paws off."

He snorted.

"Spoil sport."

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"I'm going to class," she said, shaking her head and turning away from him.

"Meet me back here tonight?" he called after her before she could hurry out of the room, already dreading all that would await her beyond this freshly defiled sanctum.

Hermione laughed as she left.

"Not a chance," she threw over her shoulder before she fled, intent on a shower.