Chapter 18
Zenevieve
Stesha sits up, kneeling with my thighs around his hips so he can watch his cock gliding in and out of me.
Every surge and ebb is building a delicious ache inside of me.
I feel more of him inside me with every stroke.
He pauses for a moment, filling me to my limit, and I feel the swell of his knot against me.
“That’s my girl. You feel that?” Stesha grips my hips and grinds into me. “All the way to my knot. Good little Beta.”
I think I’m going to pass out hearing him talking to me like this.
His long white hair cascades around his shoulders, and his clean-shaven cheeks are flushed pink.
His icy eyes are dark and stormy. Stesha in his rut is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Holding his knot tight against me, he once again finds my clit with the pad of his thumb and strokes me in agonizingly tender circles.
“Please fuck me,” I beg him. I want to feel his knot slamming against me and watch his body move as he drives himself insane from pleasure.
But Stesha is stubborn and doesn’t move. “Come for me first. I want to see you.”
He watches me closely as he touches me, listening to my breathing and gasps of pleasure. Learning what feels good to me. He’s a fast learner, because it’s not long before my nails rake down his chest, my back arches, and I cry out as my climax takes me.
Stesha takes a ragged breath. “Gods, I can feel you clenching on my shaft. You’re incredible.”
Apparently he can’t wait any longer, and before my orgasm releases me, he’s thrusting into me, fast and deep.
The pleasure barely pauses before it’s building again.
He falls forward, bracing one hand beside my head and his other hand cradling the back of my head.
His face is close to mine, and we’re looking into each other’s eyes as he slams into me again and again.
I hold tight to his shoulders as the climax that barely faded rises again.
Stesha’s fist clenches in my hair, pulling it tight at my nape, the pain turning to pleasure.
His teeth find my shoulder and bite down, and he groans as I feel his own orgasm surge through his body.
My insides turn liquid as he floods my core with cum, his knot sealing it into me and making me feel like I’m going to burst from the pressure.
He rocks against me, groaning in relief, his strong arms around me, and his teeth still in my flesh.
I feel completely powerless in his arms. I surrender to him, reveling in him breaking over me like another, better kind of avalanche.
A moment later, he releases me and collapses onto his side, panting and holding me close against his chest.
As the pleasure fades, a great wave of exhaustion passes over me. I meet his eyes and snuggle closer. I was buried in an avalanche not long ago. This almost doesn’t feel real.
Stesha cups my face. “Was that all right? Did I hurt you?”
I shake my head. “I feel great. What about you?”
He strokes the teeth marks he left in my shoulder. “I can’t describe it. You’re a wonder.”
He must notice my eyes growing heavy, and his lips brush over mine. “Sleep. I’ll wake you when the storm is over.”
Stesha is cradling me against his body as I close my eyes.
My body feels like jelly, and my core aches sweetly.
My inner thighs are coated in my wetness and his seed.
I knew I was right all along, that we were meant to be together.
I could feel it in the way he looked at me.
Touched me. Kept all other males away from me, even though he wouldn’t admit it to himself.
The last two years have been painful, but maybe we needed to go through this so he could finally see me how I see him.
The long day searching for Mirelle’s body and the terror of being caught in an avalanche finally overwhelm me, and I fall into an exhausted sleep with my cheek on Stesha’s bare chest and his knot and cock, still hard, pressed against my belly.
I wake sometime later to the sound of Stesha breathing hard, his arms locked around me. I don’t think he’s slept at all. His rut must have kept him awake while I slumbered.
“How is the storm?” I ask, and he starts to answer me, but our lips find each other’s before we can pretend to care what the weather is doing.
His whole body is burning up. I am being liberally doused by his scent, and it’s making a hot, liquid feeling spread through my lower belly.
I’ve heard other Betas say that the rutting scent of an Alpha whom you like is the most powerful aphrodisiac, and I adore Stesha.
“You must be sore,” he tells me between kisses.
“I’m fine,” I insist because I don’t want him to stop.
“Wait, I know what to do.”
To my shock and delight, Stesha moves down my body and kisses me between my legs.
His warm, wet tongue caresses my sensitive flesh, and I cry out in pleasure.
He finds all the places I’m sore and aching, and many places I’m not.
My breathing grows faster and faster as he focuses on my clit, and soon I’m gasping his name as everything tightens up down there and he sends me flying.
As soon as my climax releases me, Stesha turns me over onto my belly, spreads my thighs with his knees, and spears into me with his cock.
It’s so primal, so Alpha. I bury my face into our balled-up clothes and scream in pleasure.
The sounds he’s making as he fucks me, his heavy breathing and groaning, are driving me wild.
As he reaches his climax, he covers me with his body, and his teeth seek my flesh.
I moan in delight as his dragines sink into my shoulder once more.
Not my nape, like a mate. Not hard enough to make me bleed, like a mate.
I feel a trickle of disappointment. Still, his bite is hard and deep and spiced with possession and pain, just as I’ve always imagined it would be.
The mark will show on my flesh for days.
I’ll wear my hair up and my clothing carelessly loose around my neck to “accidentally” show it off in the Great Hall, as I’ve seen other Betas do around the castle.
An Alpha’s bite is always displayed and gets the gossip flying.
I love the idea of people talking about the two of us.
Stesha and Zenevieve, did you hear? Stesha gave Zenevieve a bite. He’s taken her as his mate at last.
Slowly, he eases off me and reaches for his underbreeches. I watch in amusement as he battles to fit his still hard cock and swollen knot inside them, but he manages it eventually and ducks out from beneath Nilak’s wing.
A moment later he’s back and reaching for the rest of his clothes. “The snow has ceased, and the clouds are breaking up. We can return to Lenhale. We’d better go quickly while I can think straight.”
I guess he means his rut has retreated a little because he’s just climaxed.
“Oh,” I say quietly. I huddle beneath his cloak, wishing he was still as naked as I am.
“You must be hungry, and the Hratha’len should check you over since you were stuck in that avalanche.” He pushes a hand through his hair and gives me a worried look. “You are all right, aren’t you? Wyvern piss, I’ve been so selfish. Maybe you’ve got broken bones. Crushed organs.”
“I’m fine, Stesha. I promise. I would have noticed broken bones and grave injuries.”
“All right. I’ll check on Minta.” He stands up and disappears around Nilak.
Reluctantly, I reach for my clothes, get dressed, and bundle up the sex-sodden blanket that we’ve been lying on. I move around Nilak and embrace Minta, happy to see she’s well, though I already knew that.
Mate? She asks curiously, nudging my shoulder. My rider is mated?
I bury my face in her scales and smile, wondering what it’s been like for the two dragons to spend the last day listening to Stesha and me, feeling some of what we feel.
Stesha checks my jacket, my boots, and my gloves are all done up tightly against the cold, then he takes my hand. “Ride with me. I don’t want you falling from Minta.”
I’m more than happy for him to lift me up into his arms and carry me atop Nilak.
“I wish we didn’t have to go.” As amusing as it will be to hear people discussing us, I’ve enjoyed the privacy of this mountainside cave, and I know Stesha has as well.
His jaw is tight, and his eyes have grown dark. He casts a longing look back into the cave, and I realize he doesn’t want to leave this place any more than I do. I curl into his chest and close my eyes. At least we’re going home together.
It’s a short ride back to Lenhale, which is covered in a blanket of snow. The dragons are rustling flakes from their wings, and the fledglings are romping about.
Stesha carries me down from Nilak’s back. As soon as my feet touch the ground, I turn in his arms to face him with a breathless smile. “I haven’t been to any mating announcements before. How will we tell everyone? Or shall we just let everyone figure it out on their own?”
The stormy heat in Stesha’s eyes suddenly vanishes, and he’s silent for a beat too long. Even the flush of his rut fades from his cheeks. “Yes, of course I will mate you,” he says, as though taking me as a mate has only just occurred to him.
“It’s…it’s not what you want?”
“It is. Of course it is. It’s the right thing to do.”
Those six words slam into me like another avalanche. It’s the right thing to do.
My voice rises in hurt and anger. “What are you talking about, the right thing to do? We just spent your rut together. What has the right thing got to do with it?”
Stesha is supposed to say that he’s ready to give me his heart as freely as I’ve given him mine, because I know he would never make me his lavish.
He glances toward the mountains and back at me as though confused how we got here. I know Alphas can do stupid things during their ruts, but this is Stesha. He’s not thoughtless.