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“Mylah, you’re in heat. You can’t make a real decision about this.”

“I can. I want you. I know what I want—being in heat doesn’t make me a different person, Augustus.”

“If it’s anything like being in a rut, then I know how it messes with your head. I can’t—”

“Just listen to me!” The words roar out of my body, and I’m aware, dimly, of how wild it is for me to be shouting at the man who could compel me, could break me in half with his two bare hands. Could cast me out of the packs to freeze to death on my own far outside the outer lands. “I’ve wanted you for years, Augustus. I am in my right mind, and I know what I’m saying. You saved my life. You…fucking annoy me when we’re playing chess. You keep coming to me, and making me like you! If it was any other man standing in your spot, any other alpha, I would turn him down. I would scream if he touched me. That means I want you. It means it’s always been you.”

He blinks, and I see his pupils blowing out, his hand loosening on the door. My entire body loosens. He might not be here yet, might not be in the bed, but I can tell that I’ve won.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” He says it in a low voice, rough and shaking. There’s a tremor in his face, the fear that he might do just that.

I could laugh at the thought.

“You won’t. You can’t, Augustus. I know you. I’m yours.”

Those two words are what do it. He closes the door, locks it, hands shaking the entire time. He crosses to the other side of the room, closes the curtains, though I’m not sure there’s anyone out to look in, anyway. Then he turns, faces me, walks in my direction slowly.

“I am going into a rut, Mylah,” he warns, voice low, turning his head to the side, like he can barely stand to look at me. “I might not be able to…stop. Once it starts.”

“If I wanted you to, you would.” I lean forward, place a hand on his chest, feeling the way his entire body stiffens, then relaxes into it. He leans forward too, like I’m a planet and he’s being pulled into my gravity. “I trust you, Augustus. And I’m not going to want you to stop.”

He swallows. I follow the path of his throat first with my eyes, then with my fingers, bringing my hands up to his neck and skimming my thumb over the skin there. So soft, so tender, dotted with the coarse stubble of his beard.

I am kneeling in a bed with my hands on the neck of the alpha king, and he is closing his eyes at the touch, his body swaying toward mine. Everything is warm, warm.

For the first time in my entire life, I feel safe. I feel whole. And the man hasn’t even put his hands on me yet. He keeps them resolutely at his sides, as though that might protect him from doing something wrong.

The fact of his care is so touching to me that I feel it in my throat, feel it behind my eyes. That an alpha could ever be so gentle and kind to me is astounding. That he would fear accidentally hurting me, when so many would grin at the chance to cause me pain.

Three words dance around my brain, completely insane but there, nonetheless.

I barely know this man.

Except I know him more than I’ve ever known anyone else. I’ve only been here for three weeks, but I’ve grown to know him in that time. Seen myself around him, willing to stand tall. To fight.

And I’ve known him from the moment I saw him in that club. When he kissed me against that wall. All these years, my body has known him, and now I am finally, finally getting to have him the way I want. To know him in other ways, too.

“Augustus,” I murmur, reaching down and taking his wrist in mine. His arm is so heavy, but he allows me to move it, allows me to lift it and place his palm over my breast.

His gaze flies to mine. His desire is plain on his face and also pressing into my hip.

I have never wanted anything more.

“Please,” I say, leaning in and placing a kiss on the corner of his mouth, “take me.”

Chapter 22 - Augustus

Mylah is everywhere around me.

I could smell her slick from the foyer of the building, pulling on my coat, fully intending to cast myself out into the blizzard to keep from going to her. To keep from taking advantage of her in such a fragile state.

And then, she was calling out to me.

Just like she’s called out to me so many times over the years. Pleading, desperate. Wanting me and only me. Needing me.

Maybe I’m weak. Maybe the moon goddesses simply designed fated mates to be unable to do such a thing—to leave my mate alone during her heat. To leave Mylah pleading when she is so close.

To drive myself outside when she was there, inside, waiting for me. Needing me. In pain without my presence. It felt impossible.