I know what you need.
She wakes with a moan.
I feel it through the bond before I hear it—the sudden spike of need, the hollow ache that makes her whole body clench. Her eyes flutter open, glazed and unfocused, and her hand reaches for me before she’s fully conscious.
“Alpha.” The word comes out broken, desperate. “Please, I need—”
I roll her onto her back, and she spreads her legs without being told. Two days ago, I had to command her to show me her cunt. Now she opens for me automatically, her body trained to present itself for my pleasure.
She’s soaking wet. I can see her pussy glistening in the dim crystal light, swollen and flushed from everything I’ve done to her. My cum is still leaking out of her, mixing with the fresh slick her body is producing. She looks used. Claimed. Mine.
“Look at you,” I murmur, dragging a finger through her folds. She whimpers, her hips lifting toward my touch. “So wet for me. So ready to be fucked again.”
“Please—”
“Please what?” I circle her clit with one finger, barely touching, and she sobs with frustration. “Use your words, omega.”
“Please fuck me, Alpha.” No hesitation now. No shame. The heat has burned it all away. “Please, I need your cock. Need you to fill me up. I’m so empty—”
“Good girl.”
I notch myself at her entrance and watch her face as I push inside.
Watch her eyes roll back, her mouth fall open, her whole expression go slack with relief as I fill her.
Her cunt grips me like a fist—still impossibly tight despite how many times I’ve stretched her open—and I feel every flutter and clench as her body welcomes me home.
“Yes,” she breathes, her legs wrapping around my waist. “Yes, Alpha, please—”
I don’t make her wait.
I fuck her hard and deep, the way she needs it now, the way her heat-addled body craves. She comes within minutes—I feel her pussy spasm around my cock through the bond, feel the gush of wetness, hear the broken cry that tears from her throat. I don’t slow down.
“Again,” I command, and she shatters a second time.
I lose myself in her.
In the tight grip of her cunt, the desperate sounds she makes, the way she clings to me like I’m the only solid thing in her world.
I fuck her through orgasm after orgasm, feeling each one pulse through the bond, feeding on her pleasure like it’s sustenance.
Her nails rake down my back. Her heels dig into my ass, pulling me deeper.
She’s completely lost to it now—no resistance left, no pride, just raw desperate need.
When I feel my own release building, I wrap my hand around her throat.
The effect is instant. Her eyes fly open, meeting mine, and I feel everything in her go still and quiet.
That beautiful surrender—the tension draining from her body, her pussy softening around my cock even as it clenches in anticipation.
She trusts me to control her breath. Trusts me with her life, even as she hates me for making her need this.
“Come with me,” I growl, my grip tightening just enough to make her head swim. “Come on my cock while I fill you up.”
She shatters.
I feel it through the bond—her pleasure crashing through her in waves, her pussy clamping down on my cock in rhythmic pulses.
I bury myself deep and let go, my knot swelling as my seed floods into her already-full womb.
The pressure of the knot stretches her entrance, locking us together, and she cries out at the sensation—pleasure and fullness and the overwhelming intimacy of being tied to me.
“Good girl,” I groan against her ear, my cock still pulsing inside her. “Such a good omega. Taking my knot so perfectly.”
She makes a sound that might be agreement or might just be exhaustion. Through the bond, I feel both—the satisfaction of being filled, and the bone-deep weariness of a body pushed past its limits.
I hold her while we wait for the knot to release, my hand still resting loosely on her throat. Her pulse flutters against my palm—fast but steady, the heartbeat of a woman who’s learning what it means to be owned.
The heat breaks on the third day.
I feel it happen—the fever receding, the desperate edge fading from her need. She’s still aroused, still responding to my presence, but it’s manageable now. Human. The biological imperative that drove her to beg and plead and surrender has finally loosened its grip.
She lies in my arms, quiet and still, her body pressed against mine in a way that feels like habit now.
Through the bond, I feel her emotions—confusion and exhaustion and something that might be grief.
She’s mourning the woman she used to be.
The warrior who needed no one, who would have died before surrendering.
That woman is gone. In her place is something new—something that’s still taking shape, still fighting to understand what it’s become.
“It’s over,” she whispers. Her voice is hoarse from three days of screaming.
“The heat is over.” I stroke her hair, feeling her shiver at the touch. “But you’re still mine.”
She’s quiet for a long moment. I feel the war happening inside her—the part of her that wants to fight, to resist, to reclaim the independence she lost. And the part of her that remembers how good it felt to surrender. How peaceful. How right.
“I can still feel you,” she says finally. “In my head. In my… everywhere.”
“The bond.” I press a kiss to her temple. “It won’t fade. You’ll always be able to feel me now. My presence. My desire.” I let my hand slide down her spine, feeling her arch into the touch despite herself. “My pleasure when I’m inside you.”
“I don’t want—”
“You do.” I tilt her chin up, forcing her to meet my eyes. She looks wrecked—dark circles under her eyes, lips swollen from my kisses, marks from my hands and mouth scattered across her skin like a map of everything I’ve done to her. She looks like she’s been thoroughly claimed.
Because she has.
“Some part of you wanted this from the moment you saw me in that arena,” I tell her. “Some part of you was tired of fighting, tired of being strong, tired of carrying everyone else’s burdens while no one carried you. That part recognized what I could give you.”
“I didn’t—”
“You did.” I brush my thumb across her lower lip, feeling her breath catch.
Through the bond, I feel the spike of arousal she can’t hide—her body responding to my touch even now, even exhausted.
“And now that you’ve had it—now that you know what it feels like to surrender, to be held, to let someone else be strong—you won’t be able to forget. ”
Her eyes are wet. I feel the conflict through the bond—hate and want and something terrifyingly close to gratitude. She hates that I’m right. Hates that some part of her is relieved this happened, that the burden of being strong has finally been taken from her.
“I still hate you,” she whispers.
“I know.” I pull her closer, tucking her head under my chin.
She fits perfectly against me, her small body molding to mine like it was designed for this purpose.
“Hate me all you want. But you’re still going to come when I call you.
Still going to get wet when I touch you.
Still going to call me Alpha when I’m inside you. ”
She doesn’t deny it.
She can’t.
“Rest now,” I murmur against her hair. “The heat is over, but your body needs to recover. And we have things to discuss when you’re stronger.”
“What things?”
“Your place here. Your training. What comes next.” My hand slides down to rest on her belly, feeling the slight swell where my seed has been pooling for three days. “And whether I’ve put a child in you.”
I feel the shock pulse through the bond. The fear. And underneath it, buried so deep she might not even recognize it yet—
Hope.
She doesn’t say anything. But she doesn’t pull away either. Her hand comes to rest on top of mine, her fingers brushing against my knuckles in a touch so light I might have imagined it.
She’s not ready to admit what that means. Not yet.
But I can wait.
When she finally falls asleep in my arms, I feel the tension drain out of her body in a way it never has before. Her breathing slows. Her muscles unclench. Even through the bond, the constant hum of resistance fades to something quieter.
Like she’s finally stopped fighting.
Like some part of her—small, hidden, barely acknowledged—is exactly where it wants to be. Chapter 15: Hannah
I wake alone for the first time in three days.
The bed is still warm where Karax was lying, his scent saturating the furs, but he’s gone. I can feel him through the bond—a steady presence somewhere nearby, calm and focused on something that isn’t me—but the physical absence of his body against mine feels wrong in ways I don’t want to examine.
I sit up slowly, and everything hurts.
My thighs ache from being spread open for days.
My pussy is swollen and tender, still leaking his seed despite how many times I clenched around nothing in my sleep.
My breasts are covered in marks from his mouth—bites and bruises that throb when I move.
My throat is raw from screaming. My hips bear the imprint of his fingers, bruises in the shape of his grip.
I look like I’ve been fucked within an inch of my life.
Because I have.
I pull my knees to my chest and try to breathe through the wave of… something. Not quite shame. Not quite grief. Something more complicated than either—a tangle of emotions I can’t separate into neat categories anymore.
Three days ago, I was Hannah Mitchell. Warrior. Protector. A woman who needed no one, who carried her village’s safety on her shoulders, who would have died before surrendering to anyone.
Now I’m something else.