Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
She should have been right, but she couldn’t be. I couldn’t let her carry my failures.
Leaning down, I brushed my lips over the mark I’d left on her neck, making her shiver as if the heat of Vorrashan didn’t beat on us.
“I am the alpha.”
Her little growl was lost in a gasp when I dragged my tongue along the glowing markings left by my teeth. She was tart with sweat, but her natural sweetness lingered beneath it, and my mouth watered for more.
“That’s not fair.”
Her protest was breathy, gasped into the air with her head tipped back as I sealed my mouth over my mark. My fingers tightened on her hips, trying to pull her closer than our clothing allowed.
Growling, I ripped my mouth from her skin and spun her to face where she’d been perched. My belt hit the sand the same moment her hands hit the stone, and my fingers were curling over the top of the loose pants she wore before she could protest.
“Fairness is irrelevant.”
I pulled her pants down to her knees as I leaned over her back, brushing her ear with my lips. I kept my voice pitched low, my words for her, not the audience behind me.
“You want fair? Let me feel it all.”
Her breathing stuttered as my arm slipped around her hip and I slid my fingers within the thin cloth covering her core, tearing through it with my claws.
“Rhydek!”
I didn’t let her deny me. Dipping a finger between her lower lips to press on her nub, I freed myself with my other hand and placed my tip at her opening. A single thrust had her taking the first part, and another had me halfway seated.
The bond filled with every suppressed instinct. Every ounce of tension and desire I had been holding back since the moment I chose her.
Her reaction was immediate.
A tremor ran through her body as she cried out, her slick running down my shaft to ease my invasion. Pleasure twisted with guilt poured into me, reluctant but undeniable, and I shoved my worry and satisfaction back to her.
I wanted to feel her. Her pleasure, and her pain. Her happiness and frustration. It was all mine, and she needed to understand what it meant to deny me any of it.
To deny us.
My tail wrapped around her waist as I picked up my pace, slamming the rest of myself into her. My knot was already threatening to swell, but I wasn’t ready to let it lock us together.
Taking hold of her hair with the fingers not swirling around her nub, I turned her head to the side so I could see her face.
“This is what you tried to silence. You cannot deny what ties us. You will not take it away.”
Her eyes fluttered open, her lips parted around her gasps.
“I didn’t—mean—”
She couldn’t finish the sentence as I kept slamming into her. My knot dragged at her lower lips each time I withdrew, making it harder to push back in each time.
But the intensity spurring me on eased, the tightness in my chest loosening.
That was the problem. She didn’t understand the implications, or what it did to me, but she would.
Slowly, I eased my thrusts, guiding my motions into something steadier. Something more controlled and focused on her pleasure. Her breathing remained uneven, her body pushing back into me, but the sharp edge of the moment dulled enough for clarity to return.
A quick glance around showed the warriors had turned away and continued their exercise.
Not out of disinterest, even a bonded omega’s slick called to an alpha, but out of caution.
Until the bond settled an alpha could be volatile, and with my prior reputation, it wasn’t something they wanted to risk.
My focus returned to Taryn and the feel of her wrapped around me. I wanted to knot her, to tie her to me physically as a reminder of the other ways we were tied, but it wasn’t the place.
Leaning over her back, I pressed my lips to my mark once more.
Pushing my knot against her entrance until I felt her lips stretching to take it, I moved my fingers faster.
When I felt that she was on the verge but needed a little more, I sealed my mouth over my mark and sucked, barely pressing my teeth into her flesh.
I whipped my hand forward to cover her mouth when she cried out as her orgasm crashed through her. Those cries were mine, like everything else, and I didn’t want anyone else to hear them.
I couldn’t help following her over the edge, my shaft jerking as I spilled my seed in her channel, and I had to move my grip to my knot to keep from forcing it into her.
Panting against her back, I strangled it as we both came back down, Taryn trembling beneath me as my tail held her up when her knees went weak.
It took a moment to catch my breath and straighten, and another before I pulled out of her.
My tail remained around her waist for support, my body blocking anyone else from seeing her vulnerability as I ripped through the rest of her underthings and then pulled her pants back into place before righting my own.
“Now you can spend the day with my release smeared on your thighs.”
She shivered and I felt the fresh pulse of desire my words ignited, but this wasn’t the time or place to indulge it. Helping her upright, I turned her and brushed the hair that had come loose away from her sweaty face before retrieving her thavren and wrapping it around her once more.
She watched me in silence, still catching her breath, an odd look on her face and a confusing tangle of emotions flowing within the bond. Staring into those blue eyes, I tried to calm the turmoil inside me.
“Don’t block me out again, Taryn. For any reason.”
There was a moment when I wasn’t sure she’d agree, then she nodded. It wasn’t submission, I didn’t want that from her, but it was acceptance.
Perhaps understanding.
Releasing her slowly, my hands lingered at her waist a moment longer than necessary before I stepped back. Something felt different between us, but I couldn’t name what it was.
I forced a breath into my lungs, then did what I should have done sooner.
“I am sorry for blaming you for my distraction. It was not your fault. I have to learn to deal with it.”
I didn’t know how, but I couldn’t blame her for my faults.
I heard her inhale as if to respond, but I didn’t give her the chance to say anything. Taking her hand, I tugged her towards the gates.
“Come.”
I didn’t bother to give the warriors directions. They knew what to do when I wasn’t there, I just liked to oversee their training.
That was something I was going to have to think about when I could focus.
I led Taryn away from the training grounds without looking back, my mind already shifting. The kennels were the one place she seemed engaged.
Happy.
The thought still made me uneasy, but I found myself moving toward it anyway. If it was what she wanted and kept her from trying to sever the bond again, then I had no choice but to allow it. She had proven herself capable, and I needed to give her the trust I gave other warriors.
Even if it meant confronting dangers I wanted to keep her from, and risking something I wasn’t ready to name.
She fell into step beside me, quiet, but the bond between us remained open, and as we neared the varkuun and the risks they brought, I told myself this was about ensuring she was satisfied enough with her life here to deal with the unattractive parts.
It wasn’t about the fact that her happiness had already begun to matter more than it should.
Or about the way the emptiness of her absence had unsettled me more than any battlefield ever had.
I just needed to let her find something to occupy her, so she wasn’t a distraction.
That was all.