Chapter 12 #2
“Why don’t you drop the innocent act?” he snapped. “How are you the victim in this situation when you are on my uncle’s arm, smothered in his scent barely three months after our separation?”
I let out a strangled gasp.
“Don’t you dare try to spin this on me—”
Elias didn’t let me speak.
“You claim you loved me, yet you seduced and drove a wedge between me and the only family I have left, even while we were still a couple.”
“I didn’t—”
Elias slammed his fist into the wall next to my head.
“Then fucking explain this situation to me!”
A dark, guttural snarl cut through the air. “Step away from her. Now.”
Elias stiffened, and then he spun to face Alpha Damien, who stood several steps away. Alpha Damien’s expression was so forbidding that it drove chills up my spine.
“Raven and I were having a conversation,” Elias challenged but his voice held a strain.
Alpha Damien prowled towards us, his eyes a molten gold, his wolf almost at the surface.
“What part about you aren’t allowed to talk to her did you forget since our last conversation?” He sounded like he was ready to remind Elias in excruciating detail.
Elias laughed, and it was a dark, lonely sound.
“You can have any woman you want, yet you steal mine, and now I’m not even allowed to talk to her?”
Alpha Damien stood in front of his nephew now.
“Raven is mine.”
My breath caught. The way he uttered those words, it almost sounded like he meant them. No. I was imagining things. I had to be.
“The council won’t stand for this,” Elias’s words were a bald threat. “I won’t stand for this.”
“This isn’t a democracy. You and the council fall under my authority as alpha,” Alpha Damien’s hand rested on Elias’s shoulder in a gesture that would have seemed paternal if Elias didn’t let out an almost muffled pained grunt.
“If my decisions are unacceptable, leaving my pack is an option you can consider, but make no mistake, on my territory, insubordination will not be tolerated.”
With that, he moved past Elias, took my arm, and escorted me away.
It wasn’t until we rounded an unfamiliar corner that I realized we weren’t heading back to the banquet hall.
My lips parted to question him, but he was already walking me into what seemed to be a guestroom, the door shutting behind us.
“Why are we here—”
Before I could finish getting my words out, Alpha Damien had already rounded on me, his words warping into a low growl.
“As long as our arrangement is in place, you aren’t allowed to entertain anyone but me.”
I bristled at the command in his tone. “I’m not allowed,” I repeated. “What the heck does that mean?”
Alpha Damien’s gaze darkened, and he took a step toward me that had my back against the wooden door.
“It means I expect your fidelity for as long as this arrangement lasts. Your loyalty is to me and only me,” his tone dripped with unmistakable authority. “You will not speak to Elias or any other male alone without my permission.”
What. The. Hell. Who did he think he was to dictate my actions?
“Your permission?” I huffed. “You controlling egomaniac.”
I stepped up to him, poking his chest with my index finger.
“You have no right to tell me who I should or should not speak to, or have you forgotten this relationship is just an act?”
Alpha Damien was silent for a beat, a strange gleam in his golden eyes. Then he smiled, and I had a sudden feeling that I’d been outmatched.
“You think I’m controlling?” he repeated. “Why don’t I give you a basis for comparison?”
Grabbing the back of my neck, Alpha Damien’s lips slammed into mine.
It wasn’t a kiss as much as it was a branding.
A claim. His lips captured mine, his tongue slipping into my mouth, stroking and deepening the kiss, his free hand shoving between my parted thighs to tug off my panties. My very damp panties.
I hated when Alpha Damien bossed me around. But more than that, I hated how much it turned me on. I hated how, with that single glance when he’d walked in on Elias and me, I’d been hopelessly aroused.
My legs shook beneath me as his fingers stroked my slick, aching core, and I let out an aroused gasp that Alpha Damien promptly stole off my lips, his kiss becoming even more consuming as his body rubbed against mine.
The delicious friction between his suit, my skin, and my tingling nipples beneath my dress had me so thoroughly enthralled that it took me a very long minute to realize what he was doing.
He was touching everywhere Elias had touched, replacing Elias’s scent with his. It shouldn’t have made me feel even hotter, but Goddess help me, it did.
I ground mindlessly against his fingers, my mind a fog of desire and want as I neared the edge of an orgasm. More. I needed him deeper. Alpha Damien retracted his fingers.
“No,” I sobbed. “Please.”
His golden gaze on mine, Alpha Damien slipped his fingers wet with my arousal into his mouth and sucked on it. My thighs pressed together, excruciating need pulsing through me.
“Please,” I begged.
Alpha Damien threaded his fingers through my hair, forcing me to bare my neck to him.
“Tell me, will you speak to another male alone, Raven?” he questioned, his lips at my ear, his cool breath on my heated skin.
Wait what? Was that what this was about? Turning, I met his gaze with a hot glare ready to give him a piece of my mind. But his fingers were between my thighs again, masterfully stroking me as his teeth bit into the soft skin of my nape, the sharp pain delaying my orgasm.
A rough gasp left my lips, my anger far gone, my mind spiraling, and my body trembling in his grasp. Alpha Damien dropped a kiss on the sensitive skin he’d bitten, and an unintelligible sob escaped me.
“Use your words, Raven.” His tone was steady and in control, and completely insincere. “Maybe then I’ll let you come.”