21. Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-One
Halley
I come awake slowly, cradled against a hard chest with warmth beneath my cheek and a scent I know before I understand where I am.
Ink and spice.
The scent is Knox.
My Alpha is here. My mating gland throbs, reminding me that he claimed me as his. He's my mate. Mine.
I nuzzle closer, breathing him in until the ache under my skin lessens.
There are voices around me, low and careful. One of them belongs to Shade. I know that much because my body recognizes my Beta even when my thoughts won’t stay clear.
"She needs to stay hydrated," he says.
The words reach me slowly. Hydrated, fluids, sweat, and slick. It all sounds practical and distant, a problem for someone else to solve.
Knox answers him, and Shade says more. Then Knox grunts, "Affirmative."
The voices fade after that.
Knox shifts me higher against his body, trying to sit me upright, and I fight him because upright is wrong. Upright takes his weight away from me and leaves space between us, and every part of me needs him as close as possible.
"Alpha, no," I whimper, twisting in his grip.
"None of that," Knox growls near my ear. "Alpha has you. Alpha will take care of you."
What an odd thing for Prime Asshole to say. Surely his form of care involves a hundred sit-ups and a lap around the training yard?
The thought fades before I can hold it.
My bones feel liquid. My skin is slippery with sweat. When I try to grab him, my hand slides over muscle and skin, and the sound I make is needy and pleased because he is right here. He is solid and hot and mine.
I fight his careful hold harder, trying to wiggle closer and closer, but Knox tightens his arms, and the pressure makes me moan because it feels good but still isn’t what I need.
I need more of him. I need his weight, his mouth, and his cock inside me until my empty, aching pussy finally stops hurting.
"Need you," I tell him, panting as I try to shove my hand between us. "Please, Alpha."
Thick fingers curl around my jaw. Something cold presses against my lips.
I turn my head away, and metal clicks against my teeth.
"Drink it," he orders, holding my face still.
I try to squirm free, and he pins me beneath him with terrifying ease. I don’t want water. I want his cock. I want him inside me, filling the ache that keeps twisting tighter with every breath.
Shade's talking again.
"… make her drink…"
He sounds distressed, and I whine because I don't want my Beta to be upset.
"Princess, listen to me." His voice drops lower, and even through the fog, the authority in it makes my body pause. "You need fluids. You’re sweating, and you’re leaking slick. Drink this for me, and your Alpha will be very pleased with you. Don’t you want to please your Alpha?"
I stop fighting.
Pleasing my Alpha matters to me.
I want to please him. I want to be good for him. I want him to look at me with that dark pride in his eyes and tell me I’m his perfect Omega.
So I drink.
The water is so cold it hurts my teeth, yet I swallow because Knox told me to. His thumb strokes my jaw while I obey, and his voice turns rough with approval.
"That’s my good Omega. Such a good girl for me."
The praise moves through me, and suddenly I can’t stop drinking. I’m parched. My body remembers thirst all at once, and I swallow mouthful after mouthful while Knox keeps me steady.
My hand keeps searching between us, looking for the one thing I need more than water.
I find his cock at last, hot and thick beneath my fingers, and the desire in me surges so fast I choke on the next swallow. Water spills down my chin and onto my chest.
A long, breathy moan leaves me.
"Messy girl," Knox murmurs, his thumb sweeping the water from my skin.
"Please, Alpha." My voice catches on a hiccup. "Need you."
The heat is everywhere now. Between my legs. In my gland. Beneath every inch of damp skin. My core clenches with a pressure that hurts, and I wince, my fingers tightening around his shaft.
This time, Knox relents. He puts down the canteen and rearranges so he can slide his hand down my stomach.
His fingers dip between my thighs.
I cry out as they slide through my folds, pleasure breaking through the pain with such force that my hips lift into his hand.
"Sopping wet, princess," he says, his voice strained. "Look at the mess you've made."
He likes my mess. I know he does because pre-come beads at his cockhead and slides over my knuckles.
"Please," I beg again, tears prickling at my eyes.
This time, he gives me what I need.
Knox rolls me onto my back. The nest tilts around me, the ceiling shifting in and out of focus, and then he is there between my thighs, broad and hot and shaking with restraint as he feeds his cock into me.
My body opens for him, accepting every inch of his girth and length, and I revel in the delicious stretch.
He fills me until his fat cockhead kisses my cervix. He holds there, buried deep, and I know he’s leaking a steady stream of pre-come inside me.
"That’s where you need me, isn’t it?" he growls, mouth brushing my throat. "Right there. Deep in this wet pussy, giving you what your body’s begging for."
My eyes flutter as tiny white dots spark behind my lids.
"Uh-huh," I gasp, nodding furiously.
He starts slow and deep, each thrust rolling through me with a force that shifts the nest beneath us. My breasts bounce with the slap of damp skin.
I try to make him move faster. My hips roll, my heels dig into his back, and my hands grapple over his shoulders because slow is unbearable now. I twist and thrash, desperate for friction and rhythm, and for Knox to stop treating me as fragile when my body is begging to be taken.
"Greedy little thing," he says, voice rough with strain. "I’m trying to take care of you, and you’re down here trying to make your Alpha lose his mind."
Finally, his rut frays his control, and he snaps. In an instant, his pace turns demanding.
"You want to fight your Alpha? Huh? Make him fuck you hard when he’s trying to be gentle?" His teeth nip little welts into my flushed skin. "Fine, princess. Take it."
His hands hold me open while he drives into me again and again, never pulling away far, keeping me full through every stroke.
"Feel that?" he snarls. "Every inch is yours. Every drop. You’re going to take my cock, take my come, and soak this nest while I fuck the heat out of you."
My hands keep finding different parts of him: the heat of his chest, the flex of his back, the damp strands of his hair, before his fingers close around my wrists and pin them above my head.
"That’s it," he growls. "Pinned under me, dripping around me, making those pretty sounds. You wanted your Alpha to ruin you, so scream for me."
I stop trying to understand where I am.
Knox is all that matters.
"Feels good," I gasp, my voice thin as tremors start in my thighs and spread through my body. Every thrust rubs deep and perfectly against my swollen O-spot.
Knox’s answer is a broken roar as he drives in deeper, harder, and my whole body jolts beneath him as his pleasure builds fast.
"Knox, ease up," someone says from close by.
The voice reaches me through the haze. A body is near mine, radiating steady warmth. It could be Shade, or Viper, or Blaze. I can’t tell.
"She can take it," Knox says, leaning back until his face swims above mine. "She loves it, don’t you, sweetheart?"
I try to answer. What comes out is a moan.
"Yes, yes, yes. I love it. I love you," I babble.
I love the weight of him over me and the bite of his fingers around my wrists and the way my body keeps dripping for him.
He seems to understand because his mouth returns to my mating gland and his bite he left there. He licks, sucks, and presses his teeth just short of pain against it.
His hand slides to my throat.
His palm curves around my neck, and his thumb strokes over my jumping pulse with slow, possessive attention. The touch is barely pressure, only control, just Knox reminding me that he could hold me exactly where he wants me and I would let him.
My inner walls flutter around him.
"Do it," I say, the words slurring together.
Knox hears me. His breath hitches against my mouth.
I want to give myself to him until there’s nothing left for me to manage. My breasts, my pussy, my heartbeat, my pleasure, my breath. I want every part of me under his command. I want to surrender so fully that all I have to do is feel, obey, and trust him to know where the line is.
His fingers flex once around my throat.
The pressure stays light, careful, and controlled.
Even so, my breath catches, and my thoughts soften at the edges. The room blurs above him, heat rolling through me as my body clenches around his cock.
Knox groans, then pulls his hand away from my throat like it's the hardest thing.
"No," he says, voice wrecked. "I want you to submit to me clear-headed, princess. I want you begging me for it when the heat isn’t making the choice for you."
A needy sound breaks out of me.
His hand returns to my neck, but only as a touch now, his thumb stroking my pulse while his mouth brushes mine.
"Filthy Omega," he whispers. "You want your Alpha to control every breath in your body."
"Yes," I whimper.
"I know." His hips roll deeper, and his voice drops into a rough promise. "Later, you can give me that properly. Right now, you give me your trust, your body, and every pretty sound I fuck out of you."
His hand stays at my throat after that, with no pressure, only weight and promise.
I lose myself in the rhythm of him again.
Time passes, but I can focus only on heat, skin, scent, and Knox’s voice, and when the pleasure builds, I feel it everywhere. It gathers low in my belly, spreads through my thighs, and pulls me toward release with steady, devastating pressure.
"Oh, I’m close," I gasp. "Alpha, I’m gonna—"
"Come, Omega," he orders.
My body obeys instantly.