Chapter 8 #2
I drove into him one last time, burying myself as deep as I could go, my knot swelling to lock us together. At the same moment, I sank my teeth into the soft flesh of his neck, right over Vernon's old claim, obliterating it, replacing it with my own.
The bond snapped into place.
It was like nothing I'd ever experienced.
A flood of sensation and emotion that wasn't my own, pouring into me through a connection I could suddenly feel humming in my chest. Dalvin's pleasure hit me first, the echo of his orgasm crashing through my nervous system and triggering my own release.
I came with a roar muffled against his neck, spilling into him in hot pulses, filling him while my knot kept us locked together.
But beneath the pleasure, I felt everything else.
Years of fear. Years of pain. The cold terror of Vernon's cruelty, the desperate hope of escape, the fierce protective love for a child I'd never met. Relief, so much relief, that it was finally over, that he was finally safe, that the alpha claiming him was the one he'd wanted all along.
And underneath all of it, love. Quiet and steady and unshakeable, a foundation that had survived years of abuse and over a decade of separation. Love that had never wavered, never faded, never stopped believing that somehow, someday, we would find each other again.
I held him through the aftershocks, my body curved around his, my teeth still buried in his neck as the bond finished forming. He trembled beneath me, crying quietly, his hand reaching back to grip my hip and hold me close.
"I've got you," I murmured against his skin. "I've got you. You're safe now. You're mine, and I'm never letting you go."
He nodded, a small movement, and I felt his agreement through the bond. Felt his trust, fragile but real, unfurling in his chest for the first time in years.
We stayed locked together for twenty minutes as my knot slowly subsided.
I shifted us onto our sides, pulling him against my chest, wrapping my arms around him to ward off the cooling air.
His torn clothes offered no protection, so I pulled off my jacket and draped it over him, covering his bare skin.
The forest was quiet around us. Birdsong filtered through the canopy, and somewhere nearby a stream burbled over rocks.
The late afternoon light slanted golden through the trees, painting everything in shades of amber and honey.
It was peaceful. Perfect. A stolen moment of calm after the storm of our joining.
"The beacon," he said eventually, his voice hoarse from screaming. "You need to activate it."
"Not yet." I pressed my lips to the fresh claiming mark, feeling it pulse with new blood, with the chemical signature that would forever bind us together. "Let me hold you a little longer first."
He relaxed against me, his body going soft in my arms, all the tension of the past year finally releasing.
I could feel him even with his eyes closed.
The exhaustion, the relief, the cautious bloom of hope.
He was marveling at this connection between us, this new awareness of another person's emotions humming in his chest.
"I can feel you," he whispered. "I can feel what you're feeling."
"I know. I can feel you too."
"Is it always like this?"
"I don't know." I pressed my face against his hair, breathing in his scent, now mingled irreversibly with my own. "I've never bonded anyone before. But I suspect it gets stronger with time."
He was quiet for a moment, processing that. Then his hand found mine and squeezed.
"Good," he said. "I want to feel you. I want to know you're there, even when you're not beside me."
I pulled him closer and didn't trust myself to speak.
When I finally reached for the beacon clipped to my belt and pressed the button, the sun had moved across the sky and the shadows had lengthened around us. Dalvin dozed against my chest, his breathing slow and even, his hand curled around mine where it rested on his stomach.
Fifty yards away, behind a dense wall of rhododendron, Mercer was still unconscious.
I could smell the blood from his broken nose, could hear the occasional shift of his body as he breathed.
He would wake eventually. Would report his failure to Vernon.
Would set in motion whatever retaliation the senator planned.
I didn't care. Let Vernon come. Let him send an army.
Dalvin was mine now. Bonded. Claimed. Protected by law and biology and the absolute certainty that I would die before I let anyone take him from me again.
The extraction team arrived thirty minutes later.
They found us in the clearing, still tangled together, my jacket draped over Dalvin's bare shoulders and my arms wrapped around him.
Professional to a fault, they asked no questions, offered blankets and water and a stretcher that Dalvin refused, insisting he could walk.
He leaned on me the whole way back to the facility. I supported his weight without complaint, without hesitation, without any thought except the warm pulse of the bond in my chest and the knowledge that after all this time, I had finally found my way home.
***