Chapter 38
THIRTY-EIGHT
LEO
The ceremony concluded with traditional blessings—Theo’s acknowledgment as Alpha, Avine’s blessing as the coven’s representative, Elder Sue’s smug pronouncement that they were now formally recognized as mated.
But the claiming itself—that was private.
Leo managed to endure approximately forty-five minutes of congratulations, champagne toasts, and Bella Marini’s insistence that he wasn’t eating enough before Junie caught his eye across the garden. Her expression said everything: Now.
They slipped away while Beck was entertaining the crowd with a story about the time Theo had accidentally shifted during a council meeting. The path to Leo’s suite at the Siren’s Rest had never felt so long.
“We’re being rude,” Junie murmured as they climbed the stairs.
“We’re being efficient.”
“Is that what we’re calling it?”
He pulled her into the suite and kicked the door closed behind them.
And then his mouth was on hers, hungry and demanding. She kissed him back with equal intensity, her fingers working at his jacket, shoving it off his shoulders. His hands found the zipper at her back, and the dress pooled at her feet in a whisper of lace.
“Beautiful.” His voice came out rough. His eyes tracked over her body—the ivory lingerie she’d chosen, the curves and freckles and scars that made her uniquely herself. “You’re so damn beautiful.”
“Less talking.” She pulled at his shirt, buttons scattering. “More claiming.”
A growl rumbled in his chest—the predator rising to the surface. He lifted her, and she wrapped her legs around his waist as he carried her to the bed, laying her down with a reverence that surprised them both.
“This is permanent.” He braced himself above her. His eyes had gone darker, the beast bleeding through. “You understand what that means? Once I mark you—”
“I’m counting on it.” She pulled him down. “Make me yours, Leo. I’ve been waiting long enough.”
Control.
He’d spent his entire life cultivating it. Worshipping it. Believing that discipline was the only thing standing between him and the chaos that had destroyed his father.
Now, with Junie beneath him—willing and his—he let it go.
He kissed down her throat, her collarbone, the swell of her breasts.
She arched into him, making sounds that went straight to his cock, her hands dragging through his hair.
He unclasped her bra, baring her to his gaze, and took his time with her breasts—his tongue circling one nipple while his fingers teased the other.
“Leo—please—”
“Not yet.” He kissed lower, down her stomach, pausing at the waistband of her underwear. “I want to taste you first.”
He pulled the silk down her legs and settled between her thighs.
One long, slow stroke of his tongue, and her entire body arched off the bed.
He ate her with dedication, with focus, with all the obsessive attention to detail he’d once reserved for business deals.
His tongue circled her clit, then dipped inside her, then returned to that sensitive bundle of nerves while two fingers slid into her wetness.
She came with a cry, her thighs clamping around his ears, her hands fisted in his hair. He worked her through it, gentling his touch as the aftershocks rippled through her body.
“Good,” he murmured against her inner thigh. “Now we’re ready.”
He stripped off his remaining clothes and crawled up her body. She watched him with dark eyes, her gaze dropping to his cock, standing thick and ready.
“I love you.” The words came out before he could stop them. He’d never said them before—not to her, not to anyone. “I love you, Junie.”
Her eyes went bright. “I love you too, you impossible man.”
He positioned himself at her entrance and pushed inside slowly, inch by inch. The sensation was overwhelming—not the physical pleasure alone, but the knowledge that this was real. That she’d chosen him. That after tonight, everything would be different.
He began to move. Long, deep strokes that made her gasp and arch beneath him. She demanded faster, harder, and he gave her everything she asked for. The rhythm built, relentless and primal, two people who’d spent their lives holding back finally letting go.
“Harder,” she demanded, and he obliged, driving into her with enough force to make the headboard slam against the wall. “Yes—god, yes—right there—”
The creature inside him was close to the surface now. He could feel the shift pressing at his skin, the animal demanding what the human had been denying. The claiming. The bite. The bond that would seal them for life.
He felt his fangs lengthening, the predator bleeding through. His mouth found the curve of her shoulder—the spot he’d grazed their first night, the spot he’d been dreaming about ever since.
“Do it,” she breathed. “Make it real.”
The pleasure built to an impossible peak. Leo felt Junie tightening around him, heard her cries growing higher and more desperate. She was close—they both were—and the beast inside him roared with primal need.
At the exact moment she shattered beneath him, Leo sank his teeth into her shoulder.
The bite broke skin, drawing blood, his fangs marking her in the most primal way possible. Magic surged between them—ancient and wild, power older than language. Junie screamed, her body convulsing around him, and Leo came with a roar that shook the windows.
The bond snapped into place like a key turning in a lock.
For a long moment, there was nothing but sensation. Heat and magic and the taste of her blood on his tongue—not disturbing but right, the claiming instinct satisfied at last.
Then, slowly, awareness returned.
He was still inside her, still braced above her, his teeth finally releasing her shoulder. The wound was already healing, edges knitting into a scar that would never fade. His mark. Permanent. Forever.
“Junie?” His voice came out wrecked, barely recognizable.
She opened her eyes. They were wet with tears, but she was smiling—that brilliant, unguarded smile that had undone him from the start.
“Hi,” she whispered.
“Hi.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “Are you—”
“If you ask if I’m okay, I will hex you.” She laughed, the sound shaky but genuine. “I’m better than okay. I’m… I can feel you. Not your thoughts. You. Like you’re part of me now.”
He felt it too. The awareness of her, bright and new in his gut. Not telepathy—the bond didn’t work that way. But a sense of her presence, her location, her existence woven into his own.
Completeness. That was the only word for it.
He rolled to his side, pulling her with him, keeping her close. The sheets were tangled, the room wrecked, and Leo couldn’t remember ever being this content.
“I love you,” he said again, because he could. Because he’d wasted years not saying it to anyone, and now he had someone worth saying it to.
“I love you.” She curled into his side, her head on his chest. “Even though you’re bossy and controlling and have terrible taste in restaurants.”
“One restaurant.”
“That’s one too many.”
He laughed—a real laugh, the sound rolling out of him unbidden.
A month ago, he couldn’t have imagined this.
A year ago, he would have called it absurd.
But here he was lying in a rumpled bed in a coastal town he’d never planned to visit, wearing the scent of a witch who drove him crazy, feeling joy so sharp, it almost hurt.
Junie had given him that.
“We should go back to the party,” she murmured against his chest. “People will talk.”
“People always talk.”
“Elder Sue is probably already composing the gossip.”
“Let her.” He tightened his arm around her. “We have the rest of our lives for parties. Right now, I want this.”
This. The quiet intimacy of skin against skin. The weight of her in his arms. The bond humming between them, new and bright and permanent.
Home.