Chapter 35 #3
I’m close now too, hovering on the edge of that white-hot release I know is waiting for me.
I cup her face between my palms and look down at her.
Her eyes are squeezed shut, sensation devastating enough that she can’t keep them open, but I need to see her.
Need that gaze locked on mine for what happens next.
“Look at me, Noa,” I order softly, but with enough command threaded through it to make her obey. Her eyes snap open, focus hazy for a second before clearing as they meet mine. “There you are…my little mate.”
She whines, the sound purely omega, and calling to my alpha nature and the beast battling beneath my skin, pacing as he waits patiently for the moment I lock myself into the heaven between our mate’s thighs.
“You’re amazing,” I murmur just above her parted lips, our air mingling, then I drive forward one last time and come with a rough, torn snarl.
My release hits me hard, crashing through me in waves, my cock buried deep, the tip pressed tight to her womb as I fill her with my seed. At the same time, blood surges to my knot. With every rush of cum, it swells further. Claiming space her body doesn’t want to give at first.
My vision blurs, and euphoria like I’ve never known rushes through my veins so intensely it nearly steals my breath, my thoughts. I want to sink fully into it. I want to let it take me under. But I don’t.
I can’t afford to—not now—not when I need to stay present for her.
I know the second my throbbing knot reaches the point where it becomes too much for Noa. Her eyes flare wide, pupils blown so large they nearly swallow the color of her irises, her lip parting into a silent O. And then it swells past that.
Panic seizes her all at once.
My mate cries out, arms falling from my neck only to press against my chest. She shoves, legs scrambling beneath me like she might be able to push me away, to escape the stretch and pressure my knot is causing her.
“It’s too much,” she sobs, alarm clinging to every word, guilt and fear tearing straight through me. “It’s too— No, I can’t take it! Ren, you have to stop…it’s too much.”
“I know, baby, I know. I’m so sorry,” I sooth, still cupping her wildly shaking head between my hands. “I can’t stop. Not now. If I pull out, I’ll only hurt you worse—you could tear.”
But she’s not hearing anything I say.
She’s thrashing beneath me now, movements past the point of reason, past any concern for her own safety.
She’s so consumed by the pain of being stretched wide that she isn’t aware of the damage she could do if she keeps fighting it—if she keeps fighting against the intrusion instead of relaxing into it.
Which is the opposite reaction a body is conditioned to do when faced with pain.
And I understand, more than ever, why people wait until they’re in a heat.
Seeing her like this is killing me.
“Noa, baby. Please.” I gather her up in my arms slipping them between her back and the mattress so I can hold her tight against me.
I have to pin her with my body, using my weight to still her, to keep her from hurting herself.
“I know it feels like too much—like you’re being torn apart—but you’re not.
I promise you, sweet one, you’re not. You’re safe.
I’m with you. Just breathe for me. Please. ”
Her hips keep twisting beneath me, frantic attempts to dislodge herself, but there’s nowhere for me to go. My knot is fully inflated now, locked tight behind her pelvic bone. I won’t be able to pull free until it goes down, and since this is our first time, that could be a while yet.
The only thing keeping me tethered to my sanity for hurting her like this is knowing this pain is only temporary.
An unavoidable initial reaction, but it will pass.
Her omega instincts will take over and recognize this isn’t a violation or harm, but something her body was made to do.
To accept the too-much fullness instead of rejecting it.
“It hurts,” she sobs, chest shuddering against mine.
“I know,” I whisper, trailing more soothing kisses along her cheek until I reach her ear.
“Just for a moment and it never will again. Only this first time.” She melts into my touch even as her body half-heartedly keeps trying to escape.
“Don’t fight it, baby. Relax into it. Let me in.
You were made for this—for me. You’re the only one meant to take my knot, Noa. And you’re doing it beautifully.”
My words finally reach her. Thank fuck.
She exhales slowly, deliberately, and I feel her body soften beneath mine as she releases the tension coiled in her muscles.
Her nails, which have buried themselves into my flesh, deep enough to draw blood based on the coppery scent now in the air, remain embedded there.
I don’t give a damn. I’ll gladly carry these wounds if clinging to me like this brings her any semblance of comfort.
We stay still, silent and breathing as one, for a few moments longer. Gradually, the worst of the panic fades—the too-much, stretched-past-her-limit sensation easing at last. I loosen my hold with tentative care, watching closely in case the panic surges once more and she starts thrashing again.
She doesn’t.
I shift my weight off her frame so I’m no longer pressing her into the mattress and prop myself up on my elbows again.
The small shift has my trapped knot tugging where we’re locked together.
I freeze, fear flaring that I’ve hurt her, but there’s no pain.
Instead, a long, heady moan slips from her lips.
“Does that feel good, baby?” I ask, brushing a kiss to that swollen bottom lip of hers, but I don’t dare move anything else.
Somewhere in my head, I note that giving her my knot has finally broken her heat spike.
It’s Noa who shifts first, her hips giving an experimental roll.
Her eyes fly wide, this time in pleasure and not pain, and her breath catches. She does it again and lets loose another moan.
“Fuck…” she breathes. “Yes, it feels good.”
I offer a silent prayer to the Goddess. Something I never used to do since faith has never been something I’ve leaned on, but since Noa returned to my life, I find myself reaching out to the deity frequently. Mostly to thank her for this gift that is my mate.
“Do you like the way my knot is stretching you, omega?” I ask, giving a slow, barely-there thrust of my hips.
Noa’s eyes all but roll back in her head at the sensation. She gives a jerky head nod in answer, pleasure pushing her past the point of forming words. It’s a sight I let myself bask in, especially after seeing pain—pain I caused—twist those same beautiful features only moments ago.
And now that I know she’s okay, that the discomfort has dissipated, I can let those darker, more primal thoughts breathe.
Knowing my mate is filled with my cum, my knot sealing it inside her, soaking her womb and keeping every drop where it belongs, floods my head with something feral and possessive.
My wolf purrs in quiet satisfaction, just as consumed by the thought of his omega being filled with his seed.
That carnal, animalistic drive to leave his mark in her, to fill her with his young, riding him as hard as it rides me.
I never thought much about children. Not until the first time I spilled inside Noa.
Something ignited then, a desire I hadn’t known was there.
And it’s only grown stronger each time I’ve coated her walls with my cum.
Rationally, I know she-wolves aren’t fertile until after their first shift.
It does nothing to quiet the instinct to put my pup in her.
I’ve watched her with Ivey. Seen the way she cradles that baby to her chest, her face softening with a kind of tenderness reserved only for children.
I’m also, admittedly, still awed by my mate and the instinctive, ruthless protectiveness she showed Ivey during the attack on Ashvale.
I don’t think I’ll ever move past the image of finding her in the woods, covered in blood and mud, with the baby safe and sound against her.I can only pray that one day I’ll get to watch her with our young, too.
Noa’s nails lift from my chest, her palms warm and damp as they cup my face. She draws me down into a deep kiss, tongue tangling with mine until another rush of heat slides down my spine.
“Thank you,” she says against my lips. “Thank you for giving me this.”
I exhale sharply, resting my forehead to hers. “I don’t like hurting you.”
“I know.” She carts her fingers through my hair. “But it doesn’t hurt anymore.”
A wicked smile curves her mouth as she shifts her hips again. My knot is too thick for more than the barest movement, but it’s enough to drag against the newly awakened nerves inside her drenched channel.
A warning growl rumbles from my chest. “If you keep that up, my knot’s never going to go down.”
She nips at my lip again. “It’s a good thing we’re stuck in this motel room for a while then.”
I slide my arms around her and roll us, ending flat on my back with her straddling me. Noa throws her head back, a low, guttural moan spilling free as the new angle drives me even deeper.
Her palms rest against my abs, and I grip her hips firmly, fingers digging into her soft flesh.
“Ride me, sweet Noa,” I order, my eyes shifting as my wolf presses closer to the surface, staring up at his mate. “Like you said, we’ve got time to kill. I want to see how many times you can make yourself come like this. On top of me. My knot buried deep in that pretty pussy of yours.”