“So good,” she managed, though her tongue was having trouble shaping words. This hurt, but she needed it so badly. She’d forgotten the way the pain could split her open from the inside with every pounding touch. This pain was a vent for her disappointments and fears. Phee wanted her alpha to push her through to the other side, the same way she needed his cock to breach her cervix.
“Yes, Phee. So good,” he agreed.
“Don’t stop. Please, alpha, don’t stop.”
Hips rocking, he answered with the determined slapping of his body into hers. The contact was noisy, every movement punctuated with crude smacking. And she only wanted more.
He broke her. She felt her heart crack. The crash of it boomed in her ears. Something bright and liquid poured out of her—an arch of fire—and into him.
Yes. This was right. This was supposed to happen. Her claim and her heart. She wanted him to have that.
The mysterious frenzy of their connection smashed together, reshaping them into one. Every squeeze of her passage around his manhood was a pulse of pleasure, even as the mushroom shaped head seared the sensitive ring at the opening to her womb. She crackled with the duality of sensation as her cervix bloomed and took him in, uniting them.
He received her breeders' blessing in the vortex of their union, and she received his strength, his possession, and his passion.
“Mine. Mine. Mine.” He said it over and over like a chant.
The alpha was fully seated inside her now. His thrusts had lost all control, short and sharp. Pressure built in her core and at the base of their connection, where he pumped in and out until his knot forced his thumb out of her other hole so he could fill up all her empty. Lodged deep, the swelling at the base of his cock grew and tied them together as one. His cock filled her up so tight he could do no more than strain his muscles against her.
Finally he collapsed over the top of her, his weight just off to the side so that she could breathe. His knot inside of her, there was only the pulse between them and the flow of his seed, spurting directly into her womb.
Phee had done the unthinkable. She chose a mate—bonded—and had loved every minute of it.
#
Phee’s estrus lasted two days. The headache that hovered whenever her alpha wasn’t touching her, the feverish discomfort, and the aching in her joints that made her feel old—all of that dissipated. The need became less urgent, lessI have to have you inside of me or I can’t breathe. But surprisingly to Phee, her desire for his knot and his touch remained.
He’d knotted her that first time, and they’d both done everything they could to keep his knot inside of her, to bind them tighter and to stay connected.
When someone knocked at the door, he went to answer it and brought back food. Three times, he’d returned with buckets of water and clean bedding. He’d asked, and someone had delivered. Phee had thought she’d heard Menollie’s voice.
He’d used the buckets for washing, cleaning them both, creating a mess of bedding and towels. When he’d separated the damp things for washing, Phee took some back. Those blankets from their first night smelled better than all the rest. She didn’t want to lose that scent.
She rebuilt her nest for both of them, a safe, comfortable place that made room for him. His legs were so long she worried his feet would get cold. Her instinct for this was subpar, but she couldn’t stop her need to get all the blankets just right. Nothing she’d bought at market felt right against her skin or smelled right to her nose. Her instincts drove her to want a safe, soft place, but her thoughts invaded with all kinds of doubts.
Why did she even need a nest? She knew she couldn’t catch with child.
They’d had one conversation about that—just one—during which Alreck took her by the shoulders and made her look at him.
“That’s enough. You will not speak of this again or say you have a ‘dead womb,’ or call yourself broken. You are not broken, Phee. You are mine. My heaven. A gift. Child or no child, I have you, and that is all I want.”
His face had turned so stormy she didn’t dare argue. Then he’d pulled her into his arms, put her head against his chest, and wrapped himself around her while she cried.
His purr was the most beautiful sound she had ever known. He fit with her in every way she’d never dared dream of—her true alpha.
Her alpha bond-mate was Sevrron Alreck. But in her head, she called him alpha. Her alpha.
He was third to Nothonal Darre. A man named Nixon was second. After Darre’s meeting with the king concluded, they would go back to his sector. Alreck told her, “Been dreaming of you for months. You have no idea. Got you now, heaven. What do you think of that? What are you going to do with me?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, and she didn’t. Everything felt different now. She didn’t know what she was going to do with herself. She hadn’t lost herself as Mother had warned her about; instead she’d gained everything. She had no idea what might happen next.
They lay in the nest, close, knotted again. The sex between them hurt more when her heat dissipated. Phee’s body felt ravaged, but she couldn’t stop, didn’t want to take a break even if he offered, because the pain meant she was alive.
Lying behind her, he had one hand cupped over her breast. She traced the back of it with her fingers, counting his bones.
“Darre’s mate was going to bring things from here back to the tower. You’ll want to do that too. Take everything you want. I have pit winnings, but clothing, comforts—those are in short supply.”
Phee enjoyed Alreck’s voice so much that it took her a moment to absorb what he was saying. “Short supply?”
