Valens carried me with speed, but I couldn’t have told you where. A small part of my brain still clinging to social conventions wondered if we were about to spend my heat surrounded by our closest friends and pack mates in the family wing of the castle, with all the extra inhabitants able to hear every single whimper—incredibly awkward, Goddess bless. But I couldn’t seem to form the words as my body shook and shivered with need. He hadn’t let me remove my shirt, and intense cramps began to rack my stomach.
I’d read up. I knew what that meant. I’d cramp and hurt and suffer until he knotted me the first time.
Knotting was a little terrifying as a concept for anyone who’d never experienced it, but it was wolf biology, and all the resources said that when the time came, it not only wouldn’t hurt, it would feel incredible. At the moment? It sounded like heaven if it would take away the astronomical pain tearing at my insides.
“Brute, I need you,” I whispered brokenly against his skin, and he froze midstride.
“I know. Just a little bit longer. We’re almost there.”
I cringed. “Our room isn’t private. It’s—” I hissed again as fresh pain tore through me, tried to bury my groan against his shoulder so he couldn’t hear it.
“We’re not going to our room. I worked it out with Brielle as soon as we came back to stay for the gathering.”
I could have cried with relief. He’d thought of everything, while I’d been too preoccupied to consider any of it.
Or, well, in denial.
There was no denying anything, not now. But knowing that he’d stepped in to handle things when I hadn’t felt prepared to?Never in my life had I felt more cared for, more cherished. But that dulled in comparison to the need tearing through my body.
My heat was here, and it demanded satisfaction. Valens shifted to carry me one-handed so he could push through a door. Cool air-conditioning and soft lighting enveloped us as he shut it behind us.
“I’m going to take you to the shower with me. I got that guy’s blood all over me when I shifted back. But I won’t stop touching you, I promise.” He murmured the words softly against my temple, peppering soft kisses over my hair, holding me as he walked through an unfamiliar place.
I was too wound up to lift my head, too overwhelmed to look around or ask details about where he’d taken us.
Within minutes, he had a cool shower running in a dimly lit bathroom. He shut the door, and it was like my instincts knew we were safe, finally.
I opened one eye, peeking out to see dark teal walls, soothing and close. It felt to my wolf like a small den, and the first knot of tension loosened between my shoulder blades.
“Are you ready to get out of these clothes?” he asked gently, running one big hand over my back in a tender caress.
“So ready.”
He chuckled softly and told me to put my arms up. He sat me down on the toilet seat, then lifted off my T-shirt in a smooth motion before kneeling in front of me to see to the pants I’d thrown on to go save his sister.
Shit, his sister.
“Savannah?”
“Dakota and Olivia have her. She’s fine. You took care of her.”
“’Kay,” I murmured, letting my eyes dance with his as he stripped off the rest of my clothing with a reverence I’d never experienced before.
I’d been with men.
Hell, I’dnearlybeen with Valens a time or two. But his every motion was gentle, his care selfless in that moment of need. He didn’t rush; he didn’t scold; he didn’t expect me to handle it myself.
When I was naked, and he knelt before me in nothing but a pair of bloody sweats, he paused. “Elodie, I want you to know that I’m honored you chose to spend your heat with me. We can do whatever you’re comfortable with. Whatever you need from me, it’s yours. I won’t hold anything back. But I want you to know… you can still say no. We both know there might be consequences. I think it’s why neither one of us has pushed our physical relationship further before now.” He raked a hand through those gold-tinted locks, stared up at the ceiling as if asking the Goddess for strength.
“It would absolutely kill me to walk out the door right now, but if you’renot sure, I will go. You’re safe in the bonding cottage, and Olivia has a sedative that would help you sleep through the heat instead. I won’t ask more of you than you want to give me. Not ever. So, I need to know before it goes any further, is this still what you want? Or do you want me to go get Oli for you?”
I tangled my fingertips into his beard, dragging him forward by his jaw until his nose was brushing the tip of mine. “Yes. Valens, yes. I want you, I need you, please don’t make me ask a?—”
His lips fused with mine, all reservations gone now that he knew I was sure. And Goddess, was I sure. Pleasure rolled out from that kiss like no high I’d ever experienced before. He must have stripped off the sweats without breaking contact, because a moment later, when he lifted me back into his arms, my legs locked around his bare waist.
The first moment of full-body contact between us was so powerful that a full-body shudder racked my frame.
The uncomfortable heat drained out of me as if drawn out by tiny miniature siphons through all that glorious skin contact. He stepped backward into the spray of the water, tickling tendrils running over my skin a new, blissful sensation that made me break the kiss with a gasp.
