I rise over her and position myself at her entrance. She is slick and swollen and desperate, her hips lifting to meet me before I have even begun to push inside. I hold her gaze as I press forward, forcing myself to suppress the knot already threatening to swell at my base. Not yet. Not tonight. I watch her face as she takes the first inch of me.
Her eyes go wide. Her breath catches.
"More," she gasps. "I want all of you."
I give her what she asks for. I sink into her inch by inch, letting her feel every ridge, every vein, the full thick length of me stretching her open. She is tight and hot and perfect, her wallsgripping me like she never wants to let go. By the time I am fully seated inside her, we are both trembling.
"You feel—" She cannot finish the sentence. Her hands are fisted in the furs, her head thrown back, her chest heaving with desperate breaths.
"I know." I pull back slowly and drive into her again, harder this time, setting a punishing rhythm that has the headboard cracking against the stone wall. Deep and relentless, angling my hips to hit that spot inside her that makes her cry out every time, that makes her nails rake down my back and her thighs clench around my waist. "A thousand nights I've stroked myself raw thinking about this. About you. About what you'd feel like wrapped around my cock." I thrust deeper, grinding against her, and she keens beneath me. "The reality is so much better than any fantasy."
I fuck her the way I have wanted to since the moment I caught her scent all those years ago. Hard and deep and relentless, driving into her again and again while she claws at my back and wraps her legs around my waist and begs for more. I control her pleasure with the precision of an alpha who knows exactly what his omega needs. I bring her to the edge and hold her there, slowing my thrusts until she is sobbing with frustration, then slamming back into her until she screams my name.
Her orgasm crashes through her like a wave breaking, her entire body seizing beneath me. Her back bows off the bed, her nails scoring deep furrows down my back, her cunt clenching in rhythmic pulses that threaten to drag me over the edge with her. The pressure at the base of my cock builds, my knot swelling despite every effort to suppress it, the primal urge to lock inside her and flood her womb nearly overwhelming my control. I grit my teeth and force it back, sweat dripping down my spine, every muscle trembling with the effort of denial.
I pull out.
She makes a sound of protest, reaching for me, but I catch her wrists and pin them above her head.
"Not yet." My voice is rough, barely controlled. "When I knot you, I'm going to bite you. Convert you. Bond us forever." I grip the back of her neck, holding her still, breathing hard. "That happens after the battle, when we have time to do it right. When I can keep you in this bed for days while your body changes and the bond settles into your bones."
"What if you don't come back?"
I release her wrists and cup her face in my hands. "I'll come back. I have you now. That's reason enough to survive anything."
She pulls me down and kisses me, softer this time, vulnerability breaking through the desperation. I roll onto my back and pull her against my chest, stroking her hair while her heartbeat slows against my ribs.
"I never thought I would feel this way," she whispers. "I was raised to fight, not to feel. Helena never trained me for this."
"You're not fighting anymore. And I'm not Helena." I tilt her chin up so she has to look at me. "You're mine. That's never going to change. Tomorrow doesn't change it. Nothing does."
She doesn't answer. She doesn't need to. She just burrows closer, her body warm and soft against mine, and I hold her until sleep pulls her under.
I do not sleep. I lie in the darkness and listen to her breathe and think about all the ways tomorrow could go wrong. Korren is cunning. His wolves are hungry for victory. The canyon could become our graveyard as easily as his.
But I will not let that happen. I will not leave her alone in this world, surrounded by wolves who do not understand what she is worth. I will fight my way through Korren's entire army if I have to. I will tear out his throat with my teeth and mount his head ona pike as a warning to anyone else who thinks they can take what is mine.
She stirs against me, murmuring something in her sleep, and I press a kiss to her hair.
"I'm coming back," I whisper. "You have my word."
Dawn arrives cold and gray, the sky heavy with clouds that threaten snow.
The pack gathers in the courtyard, wolves in human form preparing weapons and supplies for the march ahead. The tension is palpable, the scent of fear and anticipation thick in the air. These are my people. I have led them for fifteen years, protected them, bled for them. Today I will ask them to bleed for me.
Iris stands on the battlements above, wrapped in furs against the cold, her breath forming small clouds in the frozen air. She did not ask to come down and say goodbye in front of the pack. She understands what it would mean for their alpha to show that kind of sentiment before battle. But her presence above us is enough. The pack knows she is watching. They know what Korren's victory would cost them.
I strip off my clothes and hand them to Torben. The transformation sweeps through me in a rush of silvery mist, my human shape dissolving into something older and more primal.
When the mist clears, I shake out my fur and turn to face my pack. I am the largest wolf among them, broad through the chest and shoulder, built for war. My eyes are the pale gray of winter ice, unchanged from my human form. The pack knows those eyes. They have followed them into battle before.
One by one, the others transform. Black wolves and gray, brown and white, sleek runners and heavy fighters. They arrange themselves behind me in formation, their breath steaming in the cold air, their eyes bright with the anticipation of violence.
Torben remains in human form. He will travel with the archers, coordinate the ambush from the high ground. He meets my eyes and nods once. No words are needed. We have done this before.
I turn toward the gates and begin to run.
The pack flows behind me like a river of shadows, dozens of wolves moving through the snow with silent, deadly grace. We pass through the outer defenses and into the forest beyond, weaving between ancient trees, climbing slopes that would exhaust a human in minutes. The cold air burns in my lungs, the snow crunching beneath my paws, the scent of pine and prey and the distant musk of enemy wolves filling my nose.
