Chapter 22 - Amelia
I blink open my eyes, adjusting them to the bright light ahead. Like the prophesied white light one supposedly sees upon dying, my first instinct is to call out the name of the man I love.
“Dorian…?” Half-expecting to see his face manifest from the curtain of white in front of me, I’m surprised when I feel a strong set of fingers curl over my hand.
I shouldn’t be able to feel physical touch if I’m dead. Frowning, I turn to the side to see him standing next to me with tear-streaks crusted on his cheeks.
“Amelia!” he sighs with relief as he immediately leans in and wraps his arms around me, sliding his hands across my back to draw me flush against his chest. When he pulls away abruptly, he frowns, raking his eyes down my body while he holds my hand and gently caresses my fingers. “How are you feeling?”
“I-erm—” I clear my throat which still feels dry like it did before I blacked out. “I feel fine,” I admit bewilderedly. It’s almost like the accident was just a fever dream because I don’t feel a stitch of pain or numbness in my body. I feel fine, able to move my head freely and wiggle my toes and fingers.
I turn to Dorian to find him grinning proudly from ear to ear. When our eyes meet, I notice something different about the warm, chocolate depths—they’re a shade lighter than I remember them, and I’d been lost in those eyes too many times to have mistaken their shade before. Suddenly, everything about him appears different, and it’s like I’m seeing him through a clearer lens.
Perhaps it’s because I’m no longer angry at him. When he appeared unexpectedly outside the lakehouse, I’d still been wrestling with mixed emotions and how he rejected me at the warehouse. Now that I know he’d only rejected me to save me, I can’t be upset with him. With the veil lifted, I see an honorable man standing before me, his smile touching his eyes and glowing the earthy depths with a warmth that beckons to me as if silently signaling to my heartstrings.
As if I needed to be more attracted to him, my pulse races now, and heat pools between my thighs.
“ She needs to stop that…”
“Stop what?” I frown, shuffling to lift myself to an upright position.
Dorian blinks at me as if he’s confused. “You—You heard that?”
“You just said I need to stop that.”
“No…” he frowns. “I thought that.”
“So now I’m reading your thoughts,” I scoff as I roll my eyes. Absentmindedly lifting a hand to the left side of my neck, I feel it vibrating where the spots Dorian bit before feel raised now, and moist. Frowning, I pull my hand away only to find streaks of blood on my fingertips.
“Why am I bleeding?” I gasped, confusion furrowing my brows. I know I was badly injured when Jackson struck me, but I feel fine. I feel more than just fine, I feel liberated and better than I’ve ever felt before. I’m just confused right now.
“I mean… Why am I bleeding from my neck?”
Dorian stares at me contemplatively through hooded eyes, then nods once and turns around to pull up a chair beside the bed. It gives me enough time to observe my surroundings and realize that I’m in a hospital room, with a heart rate monitor hooked to my left middle finger. The machine shows a steady pulse of thirty beats per minute—the slowest it’s ever been. That kind of resting heart rate is only present in athletes.
God knows I’ve been out of shape for months since the warehouse.
“I bit you again, Amelia,” Dorian reveals as he reaches for my hand. Now that he’s so close, I notice how red his eyes are, as if he’d been crying. It moves me to think that he’d been crying over me, and I’m compelled to reach out and cup his cheek.
“You thought I wasn’t gonna wake up…” I lament, staring deeply into his eyes and losing myself in the reflections of my soul that suddenly give me all the answers I need. It’s like I just know, even before he nods. It’s a deep, intuitive feeling that has me realizing that the mate bond between us is stronger than ever, allowing me to enter his mind and read his thoughts when he says,
“I’m so glad she’s awake.”
“I’m glad too,”
Dorian’s eyes widened with realization. “You really can read my thoughts, Amelia,” he smiles. “I was powerless when I watched you lie here, unmoving. I had to do something.”
He places a hand over the one I have cradling his cheek, and my heart skips a beat. “You’re gonna have to tell me everything that’s happened,” I say, quickly holding off the sudden urge to lean in and crush my lips to his. “Is Damita safe?”
Dorian nods. “She’s perfectly fine. My mother and Damian are taking care of her at the house.”
My lips lift into a half-smile of relaxation. “So your brother isn’t angry with you anymore…”
“I don’t know how much he understands,” Dorian sighs. “But he seems to have put our differences aside to be a part of Damita’s life.”
A wave of sadness washes over me and I remove my hand, anxiously folding and unfolding my arms on my chest as I stare blankly ahead. “My brother…?”
There’s a heavy pause before Dorian says, “He erm—he’s gone.”
I nod slowly as I let the detail sink in. Some relationships are meant to be saved, like Dorian and Damian’s. Others are destined for destruction, but Jackson made his choice when he
Dorian goes on to recount everything that happened from the moment I blacked out after Jackson struck me. I listen quietly as he gives me the details about how they finally took him down outside and Damita and I were saved.
A shiver runs down my spine as I picture how things went down, and I know that it’ll take me some time to get over the traumas that we faced. Thankfully, Dorian is by my side, looking equally as relieved as I am when he gazes into my eyes.
I touch a hand to my neck, able to push aside the horrifying thoughts while focusing on the present moment and concentrating on what the marking bite means for Dorian and me. Now that the effects are heightened and I miraculously healed, I’m able to hear his thoughts sporadically.
Taking a deep breath, I ask the question that had been plaguing my mind ever since he brought Damita and me to the town where his werewolf pack resides.
“What happens now?”
Dorian clears his throat as if he’s about to say the most important thing he’s ever said to me—and there’s been a lot of that. He’d opened up about his past in the cage, told me about his lifestyle as a werewolf, and everything in between. He wore his heart on his sleeve back then when he was at his most vulnerable, and I see it manifest in this moment as his eyes glimmer with hope.
“You get to decide, Amelia.” He lowers his gaze. “I cannot force you to be with me, but you must know that I want you in every way possible. If you’ll have me, of course,” he adds as he lifts his face once more, his eyes saddened in the corners with sincerity.
I know he’s being genuine because I can feel his emotions roll off him in waves and pulse around his auric field with how open and honest he is. Unlike before, he isn’t demanding that I be his mate—he bit me today not to claim me, but to save my life.
A tooth-aching sweet scent fills the air around us, and it’s not just the minty notes on his breath that waft into my airways. It’s something more primal, and it compels me to let my guard down. I might not understand the logistics of being able to read his thoughts, but I hope it’s a mutual thing when the words I want to say hang on the tip of my tongue, shying away from being spoken. I gulp down a load of emotions lodged in my throat, blinking away the tears pooled in my eyes.
“Wh-what we shared in the cage was unforgettable…” I begin, my voice hoarse. Dorian instinctively reaches for the bottled water on the nightstand and makes quick work of passing it to me. I’m moved once again by his attentiveness, and as I take a huge chug of water to quench my thirst, I realize that I’m making the right decision.
As if I’d want anything else…
“... But I wouldn’t dream of living my life without you, Dorian,” I admit, and he gasps in surprise.
He must have been half-expecting me to reject him as punishment for his rejection in the warehouse. His eyes sparkle with glee, lightening the warm brown depths of his irises.
“You mean that?” he asks for confirmation, and I give it when I lean in and press a chaste kiss on his lips. When I pull back, I give him a reassuring smile.
“Leaving you and saving myself was heartbreaking,” I admit glumly. “I didn’t want to leave you there.”
Dorian shifts to the edge of the chair and plants his forehead to mine, breathing a heavy sigh. “I couldn’t let you stay with me when I knew what the punishment for trying to escape would be. The only reason I rejected you was to save you, you must understand.”
“I know,” I say as I cradle his cheek and stare deeply into his eyes. The air is charged with emotions that squeeze my heart and have every nerve fiber in my being fueled with reactiveness that has me saying, “Let’s just forget about the past and move forward,” I sigh.
Dorian nods slightly. “We have a hybrid child to raise, and she’s gonna need both of us to nurture both sides of who she is—the human side and the werewolf side.”
I hum contentedly, giggling lightly when a mischievous thought enters my mind.
“You said that your mother and Damian are watching Damita, right?” I ask coyly.
Dorian moves back to stare skeptically at me. “Yes, they are. Why?”
“Well…” I shrug, biting my bottom lip suggestively. “I’m all healed now, but if we go back, I doubt we’ll have time for ourselves…”
“What are you saying, Amelia?” Dorian asks, a hint of amusement in his voice even when he raises a brow.
“Why are you asking me when you could just read my mind?”
Dorian’s lips curl into a sly smirk. “I can’t read your thoughts unless you want me to…”
“You’re saying I can control it?”
“Uh-huh,” he nods. “Right now, you have many thoughts in your mind. I’d say you aren’t making your intentions very clear.”
“This is all very new to me,” I blush.
“It is to me, too. I didn’t think it was possible to share the mind link with a human, but you keep proving me wrong.”
“Wait,” I say as I lift a hand. “I’m gonna give this a try.” I close my eyes and take a deep breath to clear my mind, focusing on only one particular thought. When I open my eyes, Dorian stares at me, perplexed.
He leans in again, carrying with him that intoxicating scent of his masculinity coupled with the sweet notes of something I can’t put my finger on. It’s minty and sweet, and hypnotizing all at once. My heart skips a beat as a tiny gasp escapes my lips.
“We’re in the local clinic, Amelia,” he chuckles.
“So?” I shrug, my cheeks heating up with a deeper blush. “We’ve been in worse conditions…”
Dorian seems to be at war with himself, his strong features contorting as he grunts a curse under his breath and seems to finally cave when he cups the back of my head.
“Just know that this isn’t the reason why I marked you…” he rasps, his breath hot as it fans my lips.
“I know…” I breathe, letting the final straws of my guard down and surrendering to my body’s natural reaction to the man, and my back arches as I lean into him. “But I can’t wait any longer.”
“Neither can I…” Dorian drawls as he applies just enough pressure on my nape to draw me in for a kiss. When our lips meet, our internal worlds seem to collide, crashing only to be erected again in the image of a joined future where we don’t ever have to part again.
The thought is explosive enough to send me into a frenzy, clambering at his shirt in my quest to feel his skin and trace my palms on the defined body I missed all these months. Something shifts inside me, and I become ravenous, clamping my teeth on his bottom lip and tugging it to draw out a pulsating moan from him.
“Amelia…” he husks breathlessly, fingers tightening around my nape. He draws his hand to my neck, and I gasp from the sudden influx of sensations that pool between my thighs.
My eyes become fiery pits of desire as I practically glare at him now, challenging him to keep the necklace of fingers around my neck with a coercing hand on his. His eyes become darker too, glazed with a primal need that testifies to his authoritative rank amongst his werewolf pack.
The sheer magnificence of his aura is enough to tingle my bundle of nerves even though he’s nowhere near touching my folds. A staggered moan escapes my lips, scampering over the chokehold he has on me.
The thrill of having my breath controlled by his hand is electrifying, and I bat my eyelids seductively to show him my consent. With a thunderous growl, he snatches my lips with ravenous passion, pushing me onto the bed and ripping the IV drip from my arm while the monitor simultaneously slips off my finger.
The ardor that settles in the air is magnanimous, and the moment Dorian breaks the kiss with a cracking, lewd “pop”, I mewl with a protest at the loss of his lips.
“We wouldn’t want anyone to see what’s about to happen…” he drawls, skimming the pad of his thumb across his moist, swollen bottom lip as he stares headily into my eyes. “Undress for me.”
He turns and walks off toward the door, and I’m left in a puddle of wantonness that has me quickly heeding his strict order. It’s not just me who’s consumed by fierce passion, but Dorian has taken a new direction, and I’m more aroused than I’ve ever been before. Maybe it has to do with him marking me again, but whatever it is, I know one thing for sure—I’m ready to do whatever the man says I must.
He locks the door and turns, waiting there as he watches me undress before lying back down. When I’m ready, he begins prowling forward, calculatedly removing each item of clothing until he approaches me in nothing but his body of muscled armor. Like a predator stalking its prey, he rakes his dark eyes over my bare frame, licking his lips.
“You have a beautiful body,” he praises, placing only the tip of his forefinger on my belly. The sudden touch makes me gasp, but I keep myself still as he goes on to say, “Remember that, okay?” He pauses, waiting for me to nod in agreement before he continues. “For what I’m about to do, you have to remember that I care about you, okay?”
I nod again, hanging on his every word as if it’s the air I breathe, even if I have no idea what he means. But when he travels his hand up the ravine between my breasts and settles his fingers on my neck to draw me up, I know that this is not like the other times we’d made love.
No.
This is pure, raw, and primal as he growls against my lips, moving me like a ragdoll to mold to his will until my knees are bent on the bed and he releases my lips.
Somehow, I’d been constructed in a way that has my back facing him, and he smooths a hand down my spine. My back arches into his touch until my rear sticks out and I’m crouched on all fours.
“Perfect…” he appraises from where he stands behind me, a single finger drifting down the slit between my cheeks. With deft strokes of his fingers that frustrate me because he touches me everywhere except where I most need it, he parts my thighs and sucks in a breath.
“Goddess, Amelia… I’m gonna fuck you so hard right now.”
I squeal when the statement is followed by a firm thrust of one finger between my folds, filling me to the brim until his palm slams against my clit. He curls the finger against the soft, spongy mass of my g-spot, rubbing circles against my swelling bundle of nerves.
Moaning and rocking my hips against him, I almost sob when he abruptly pulls out. But without warning, he rams his rigid length into me with a firm thrust, grabbing my hips as he pulls me back.
“Fuck!” he groans, beginning a steady pace of thrusts that slowly escalate. I’m so close, my belly knots with the nearness of my climax, and I grab fistfuls of the sheet to keep myself contained.
“Dorian! Oh, my G-God!” I cry out when she slams into me with a powerful thrust. I’m on the verge of exploding, but he doesn’t let me breathe.
Instead, I’m imbued with sharp nips of his teeth on the mounds of my ass while he pounds into me. I can’t take it any longer, and scream at the top of my lungs as the knot unravels and quakes my body until all I can see is stars. I surrender my entire being to Dorian, who keeps me steadied with strong hands. My body turns to mush as my orgasm climbs through me, and Dorian releases hot ropes of cum deep between my convulsing walls.
My mind is blank, but my sensitized nerves feel every movement as he pulls me against his chest and kisses me softly.
My heart feels like it bursts open and from it blossoms a love so profound, that it brings tears to my eyes. I’d been with Dorian before—on those nights when our captor didn’t need to steal his powers from him. But the passion I felt today is extraordinary, and it feels as if I have nothing to worry about.
Dorian confirms my feelings when he catches his breath and peppers kisses on my cheeks, then gazes into my eyes with newfound appreciation.
“I’m gonna marry you, Amelia. For real this time,” he promises. “I want us to be a family, and my wolf pack will bear witness to the happiness you give me.”
Staring into his eyes, I know he means every word he just said. That’s all I could ever want, and I know that despite how this all began, we were meant to find each other.