Chapter 18 - Ava
I try to focus on my breathing in an attempt to drown out the roar of fighting through the broken window.
I can’t look, I don’t want to look. My heat doesn’t care about the fighting; my wolf just wants to breed, and the louder the fighting outside, the more my drive grows.
It’s wrong, and I hate it, how the sound of men fighting only turns my wolf on more.
My skin burns with desire, and the slick coating on my thighs.
I squeeze my thighs together, but the pressure only makes it worse, only sharpens the ache.
I want to curl into myself and vanish, but the violence outside calls to something deeper, something old and animal that wants to be claimed.
There's a crash, a snarl, the sound of vehicles approaching, and then voices.
Not just Ronan and Maddox, but more. I smell them before I hear them.
The air is suddenly dense with male pheromones, some familiar, some not.
The pack is here, or at least enough of the young wolves to send my pheromones into overdrive.
For a moment, I'm afraid Maddox has brought backup, that they're all in on his evil plan to oust Ronan. I couldn’t fight off Maddox.
What hope do I have if the other male wolves are driven crazy by my heat?
The thought should fill me with so much terror, but instead, my wolf arches her spine and bares her throat in anticipation.
I groan and roll onto my side, pulling my torn dress closer and trying to cover my body. It’s pointless, though, I know.
A chorus of howls seems to rip the world wide open.
It’s so sudden and so sharp that it sends vibrations rattling through the whole house.
The sound is everywhere at once; above and inside and behind my eyes, and for a moment, I think it will never end.
The fight is over, and the howls are victorious.
The pack has chosen. There is a winner, and I’m sure one of them is dead. But who?
I can't move. My heat has crested so high I feel drugged, my thoughts drifting in and out of my mind, and I’m left completely unable to focus.
The stench of blood and wolves, combined with my slick, is overpowering and thick enough to choke me, but I can’t even cough.
Every muscle in my body is locked, waiting for something.
I hate it. I want it. I am burning alive.
The sound of someone running up the stairs forces me into action, pulling the torn material of my dress higher, and I shut my eyes against the fear of who will come through the door. I want Ronan, but I am so sure I will look up and see Maddox, rabid and victorious, come to finish what he started.
To my relief, Ronan fills the doorway, almost blotting out the light.
He is in human form, but his wolf is still right beneath the surface, his hands still sheathed in claws.
I scan his body for injuries, of which there are many, though I can see some are already starting to heal.
He is covered in blood, red and dark brown, which covers the hair at his temples and is smeared down his arms.
He stares at me for a second, so wild he barely looks like himself at all. My wolf keens, but it isn’t fear, not exactly. It’s a relief. Recognition. And a heat so potent, I barely know how to contain it anymore. I never knew it could feel like this.
“Ava,” he rasps, and his voice is deeper and ragged. He steps toward me, taking in the ruined door, the torn dress, the blood on my leg, and his expression twists with something that’s not rage, but heartbreak.
He crouches, lifts me into his arms in one motion, and I let out a sound halfway between a sob and a moan. The contact is electric, unbearable, perfect. My skin lights up where his hands touch me, and I clutch at his shoulders, trying to find some kind of anchor.
He carries me straight out of the destroyed room and into his master suite, bypassing the bed and taking me into his large bathroom. Standing in the doorway, he pauses. “I’m so damn sorry, Ava. I should have been here,” he says, his voice shaky. “Did he—”
I lean against his shoulder, shaking my head, and I feel him physically sag with relief. “Still should have been here. You’re in heat, and I shouldn’t have left you to suffer through it. I should have looked after you properly.”
I don’t know what to say, my mind still in a fog and my heat raging out of control. Is it just my pheromones making him say these things, or does he mean it? Part of me doesn’t care. Even after everything that has happened today, all I want is his knot.
He sits me on the vanity next to the sink and steps away. I cry out at the loss of contact, but he’s back in a second after switching on the large walk-in shower.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere until this is done,” he says, his voice full of promise.
My body instantly responds, my breasts heavy and fresh, slick pouring from my channel.
I can tell the moment he scents it, as his eyes go darker than ever, and he falls to his knees in front of me.
“The knot is going to come fast; you need to be ready,” he murmurs, sending a thrill rushing down my spine at the thought.
He doesn’t hesitate, he just pushes my knees apart, his eyes fixed on my slick and the rawness of my need.
My thighs tremble as he hooks his hands beneath them, dragging me forward until my ass is at the very edge of the counter.
His breath is hot against my skin, every exhale sending a jolt up my spine.
“Hold still,” he growls, and then his mouth is on me.
At first, it’s almost gentle, the way the tip of his tongue traces the seam of my folds, gathering the overflow of slick that’s been leaking from me for hours.
He licks slowly, hungry to taste me. But when he finds my clit, he doesn’t tease.
He sucks it hard, drawing the little bundle of nerves into his mouth so fiercely that I cry out.
The sound echoes in the tiled room, obscene and desperate, but he just laughs, the vibration sending another pulse of pleasure through me.
His hands grip my thighs, fingers digging into the flesh, kneading and spreading me wider while his tongue works me with relentless purpose. He’s greedy, not just for taste, but for control. He’s claiming me and, at the same time, removing any trace of Maddox.
He barely gives me time to process one wave of pleasure before another hits, his tongue alternating between lapping and circling and then sliding lower, dipping into my opening as if tasting the source.
I gasp, my hands clutching the edge of the vanity so hard my knuckles go white.
I buck my hips, chasing the next hit, and he lets me, guiding my movements with his hands, as if he’s orchestrating my undoing.
At some point, I realize I’m making noises, little sobbing whimpers and helpless moans, but I’m beyond embarrassment now. My heat is in full control.
He slips one finger inside me, then two, at first sliding them in and out in a steady rhythm, scissoring them.
The stretch hurts at first, but it’s perfect.
It feels right. He curves his fingers just so, hitting some deep place inside that makes my vision go white.
My body clamps down on him like a vice, and the pleasure is so sharp, so overwhelming, that I can’t even scream.
I just writhe, my body arching off the vanity, hands tearing at his hair, dragging him closer.
He keeps finger-fucking me through my first orgasm, never letting up on my clit, and the sounds coming from me are pure omega surrender.
When I think I can’t possibly take more, he adds a third finger, stretching me wider, fucking me harder, and the pressure builds again, impossibly fast. I can feel myself getting wetter and wetter, the slick now running down my ass and pooling on the counter.
He groans against me, as if my taste is fueling him, driving him to ruin me completely.
“Ronan,” I choke out, desperate and almost frightened by the intensity, “it’s too much—”
He looks up, his mouth shining, his pupils so blown they almost swallow the blue of his eyes. “You’re going to take it,” he says, voice ragged and tender all at once. “You’re going to cum again, and then I’m going to knot you so deep you’ll never want another cock.”
The words hit me harder than his tongue, and the next wave slams into me without warning, the slick squirting around his fingers as he pushes them inside deeper than ever. He holds them there, and my channel convulses around him, sending waves of pleasure throughout my body.
He growls as he pulls his fingers out and slick gushes onto the counter.
Picking me up, he carries me through the steam until the waterfall spray hits my body, and I cry out at the sudden relief.
There’s a tiled bench under the showerhead, and he wastes no time in positioning me on my knees, my hands on the wall.
The tiles are cool on my palms, but the heat inside me is wildfire.
I brace myself as Ronan positions his body behind mine, his hands gripping my hips so hard I know there will be bruises, and the thought is intoxicating.
His cock, already hard and weeping, rubs through my slick folds, and I shudder at the promise of finally being filled.
He doesn’t ask if I’m ready because he knows I am, knows I need it more than anything.
With a single, unyielding thrust, he buries himself inside me.
My body takes him in, stretching and straining to accommodate the thickness and length I’ve been wanting and needing for days.
I cry out, the sound echoing off the shower walls, as he splits me open, filling me so deep I swear I can taste him in the back of my throat.
His rhythm is merciless from the start, driving into me with the force of a man possessed. The slap of his hips against my ass, the way his fingers dig in and spread me wider, every sensation is amplified by the haze of heat, by the animal need to be claimed and bred.
He leans forward, his chest pressed against my back.
For a moment, I think he’s trying to prolong the moment, but then I feel it.
The knot has started. The base of his cock swells, stretching me with every thrust, and I sob into the arm braced against the tile.
My body is strung so tight the pleasure feels like pain, but I don’t want him to stop.
He grips my hips and slams into me, harder, deeper, the head of his cock punching my cervix until I wail, and then he slows for half a second, grinding his knot between my aching, swollen folds, letting me feel every pulse as it grows.
The pressure is exquisite, a cresting wave of agony and relief.
“Take it,” he pants into my neck, his voice barely human, “take me, Ava, fuck, you were made for this, we were made for this—”
I can’t answer. The words are meaningless as I’m consumed by the white-hot overload burning through my core, so I just bear down, pressing back into him, desperate to be filled, claimed, and whole.
My cunt clenches around him, milking the length of his cock, and as his knot begins to work its way in, I shriek.
The world narrows to the point where my body meets his, where I am split wide and locked in place.
He doesn’t slow, just pistons his hips, pushing the swelling knot past my entrance with pure force. I feel like I’m going to rip open and begin to scream, but he reaches around and rubs circles on my clit until I’m panting again.
“So fucking hot, Ava,” Ronan murmurs, “I can feel your body milking my cock, I’m gonna—”
I feel the moment his orgasm begins, the knot swelling as his seed explodes inside me, thick and hot and endless.
My body tries to convulse around him, but the knot doesn't allow for anything but slow, grinding spasms, milking every last drop from his cock. The sensation is so overwhelming that I can only claw at the tile, gasping for air, as every nerve ending shatters and reforms around the fullness inside me. My body doesn’t just accept his seed, it drinks it in, greedy and desperate, as if I’ve spent my whole life waiting to be knotted.
Ronan's hands are everywhere, kneading my hips, gripping my breasts, then sliding down my belly to press against the place where his knot bulges my mound so obscenely that I can see it distend my skin. There’s an animal pride in his voice as he murmurs, "That's it, omega.
That's my good girl. Breed for me. Let the whole pack know you’re mine.
My luna." His teeth close over the back of my neck, biting down just hard enough to mark, to leave a memory in flesh that I truly do belong to him now.