6. Our Alpha

6

Our Alpha

ANNALISE

“ S o, you and Ida know each other very well, it seems,” Rebin said as we sat on the plush woven rug in front of the small, crackling fireplace. He was wrapped in a white sheet, and nothing else. He looked like a picture I’d once seen in a book about the ancient Greek gods, only he was more handsome. Almost painfully so.

I had a sheet on as well, but I was wrapped like a mummy, hoping to hide my body. My flaws. I ducked my head, knowing he would feel my emotions in our bond, but unable to stop mentally cataloging all the ways I fell short.

Picking up the wide-toothed comb Ida had packed, I started working through my damp, tangled curls carefully, rueful at the number of grass burrs and leaves that were caught in the mess. I hadn’t bothered to oil my curls in… a decade, maybe?

After we’d reached the cabin she’d sent us to—one of the ones reserved for newly mated couples—and eaten the food, we’d talked for an hour, sharing our lives. We did have a lot in common; we both preferred quiet to noise, the wilderness to human-style cities or towns, and the light of the moon to the daylight.

“I, ah, have a job I do for the pack,” I explained. “I carve things for the new pups. Ida is the only one in the pack I’ve spoken to in many years. She trades me the things that make life bearable for a female on her own in the woods, in exchange for my trinkets.”

“I’d like to see your art,” he said quietly. “I have a feeling it’s as beautiful as you.”

My head jerked up, and the comb pulled a tangle so hard, tears sprung to my eyes. “Don’t.”

His brow furrowed. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t call me beautiful. You don’t need to do that.” I swallowed hard. “I won’t reject you, and you obviously won’t reject me, even if you have every reason to. But let’s at least be honest with one another. I know I’m ugly.”

His eyes blazed with blue fire, and a wave of something I was not prepared for washed over me. It was a rush of power that flowed from his wolf, almost like Alpha dominance, but with a soft, gentle insistence rather than the harsh edge of command. It had me flattening my body to the rug, whining softly, begging for his touch.

He set his hand on my head, and I bared my neck to him in submission. “You are no such thing. Your soul shines like a firework in a dark night sky. If it takes our whole lives for me to help you see it, then that’s a task I’m more than willing to undertake. But you will not say such a thing ever again. Understood?”

A deep, unquenchable urge to submit to him filled me, and I found myself agreeing, murmuring, “Yes, yes, yes,” until he shushed me, and began that low, growling purr that seemed to resonate in my soul.

I couldn’t believe it. I was a powerful wolf; I’d had trouble submitting to my own Alpha more than once. I’d fought in the war against the Russians and faced down entire packs of powerful enemies and Enforcers, some wielding magic, and had never felt the need to bow down like I did to this gentle tsunami of… “Love?”

His laugh filled the small cabin. “Yes, please call me your love.”

I understood then that he had no idea how strong he was. But perhaps no one did.

His wolf gazed out of those bright eyes with so much compassion, I felt awe. “All right, love. I won’t say that again. I may not deserve you”—he growled, and I rushed on—“but the moon’s gifts are not to be taken for granted.”

“So, let us enjoy those gifts,” he said, letting his sheet fall. I stood when he did, and let mine go as well, shocked at how quickly his cock sprang from a half-hard state to fully erect.

He did think I was beautiful. There was no way to pretend that he saw me as anything but desirable. I licked my suddenly dry lips, and his cock bobbed, as if it wanted me to taste it. I almost fell to my knees, but he had already cradled my face in his hands and was pressing a gentle, insistent kiss to my lips. I parted them, and he kissed more deeply, his tongue exploring my mouth.

Neither of us was an expert at kissing, that much was clear. I’d only kissed a few other shifters during my travels, long ago. But he mapped my mouth, then my neck and shoulders, as if he was memorizing every place that made me quiver or moan, and then returned to those to show he had paid attention. My nipples, by the time he reached them, were hard as diamonds, and for a moment, I wondered if he was trying to kill me with anticipation as he spent endless minutes tracing every inch of them, sucking and nipping at them.

My core was molten, slickness gathering and wetting my inner thighs when he finally dropped to his knees. He looked as if he were praying; I even heard a short one to the moon before he nuzzled my tight curls and began to explore me with his tongue, searching.

And finding.

I cried out as he found my clit and circled it twice. “There!” He gripped my thighs more firmly, widening my stance. I threaded my fingers through his soft hair, clutching handfuls of it as he began to explore my most intimate places.

He lapped and nibbled at me, tentatively at first, then more intentionally, until I was shaking, my legs almost too weak to stand. He carried me to the bed, spreading me wide and attacking my core with his tongue and mouth, making all the sounds of a starving man at a feast as he drove me up and over my first crest.

“Again,” he demanded, that wave of gentle dominance infusing his voice. “Come again.” He set his thumb to my clit, circling firmly and reigniting the sparks from the last peak, then pressed one finger just inside me.Almost instantly, I came once more, a rush of fluid wetting his hand. “Fuck yes, perfect mate of mine,” he muttered before diving down and licking up my release, like he didn’t want to waste a drop.

His hands moved over my warm skin feverishly, as if he was afraid the feast might be taken from him. His lips and tongue didn’t stop at my core, exploring every intimate inch of my body.

By the time he’d made me come three more times, he was soaked—his face wet and shining, even his hair damp from my juices.

I laughed hysterically, as he batted those long dark lashes at me. “Think you can come again?”

“I want to taste you first,” I insisted, wrapping my legs around him and rolling him over on the wide mattress. “Hold the bed posts.” Mischief lighting his gaze, he obeyed, and I kissed his nose. “Now, don’t let go. I may not be able to command an orgasm out of you, so this might take a while?—”

It was his turn to laugh. “My silver girl, I promise it will not. I’m so close to my— ah! ” The wood on the bedposts cracked as he gripped them hard.

I slid down his body as he spoke, and had the tip of his cock in my mouth before he could finish his sentence. His cock was smooth and hot, thick, but not so much that I couldn’t fit him in my mouth. I teased him with my tongue, learning his textures, memorizing each ridge and vein, curious at the desperate whimpers he made when I dropped slightly lower, tonguing the area between his sac and his ass.

I was fascinated with his cock, though, and returned to it, tasting the salty tip and reveling in the way the muscles on his abdomen strained as I teased him. He broadened as I took more of him in my mouth, and I felt quite accomplished when he shuddered with bliss, panting out wordless praise. I hummed as I slid my tongue over him, wondering if I could fit all of him inside.

There was only one way to find out.

“Yes!” he shouted as I took him almost into my throat with the next thrust, though I gagged a little on the last inch.

His balls tightened, his back arching away from the bed as he roared in pleasure, and I swallowed, relishing the way he shuddered as he came.

“Woman!” he teased when it was over, and I had my head on his belly, licking my lips clean and toying with his still-hard cock. “We’ll die virgins if you don’t get up here.”

“Well, we can’t have that,” I murmured as I crawled up his body. It was his turn to flip me over onto my back, and he did, his length already hardening fully as he stared down into my eyes.

“Are you ready?” He set the tip of his cock to my opening. I nodded, the passion in his expression robbing me of speech. He thrust forward gently, his girth stretching me in the most delicious way, his eyes never leaving mine as he used small motions to gently ease inside me until he was seated to the hilt, his thick base putting an almost painful pressure on me.

“You can move,” I managed to say when he hesitated.

“You feel exquisite, but let me make it better for you,” he whispered, his voice strained. “All I want is to give you all the pleasure you can stand.” He reached between us and circled my clit again, transforming the small bite of pain into sheer bliss. He moved forward slowly, carefully at first, then more confidently as I cried out my pleasure.

I’d never imagined anything could feel like this. So good, so right.

The empty, yawning void, the loneliness, was gone, and I knew it was gone forever. It was ridiculous how tightly this male had wrapped himself around my soul.

I let my feelings flow through our bond, marveling at the way he responded. His eyes brightened with sparks of silver in the blue, as if his soul had been illuminated. He opened his own soul to mine, and I felt that strange, powerful presence again. I knew absolutely I was safe with this male, but if anyone tried to harm me, they would not be able to say the same. The sheer force inside him was astounding.

My wolf spoke into my thoughts, her voice hazed with our shared pleasure. Alpha, she whispered. He is our Alpha.

Our Alpha? A thought flickered through my mind. A warning. Would Alpha Samuel sense this power and set himself against my mate, even drive him from the territory?

My wolf yipped a laugh that was echoed by a deep, vast rumble of amusement from my mate’s beast. Not the Alpha. Not their Alpha. Our Alpha.

I didn’t pretend to understand what our wolves were saying, but I let it go. A tear had gathered at the corner of my mate’s eye as he moved gently inside me, and he spoke softly. “You are everything I could have ever wanted, Annalise. You’re every dream I’ve ever had come true. I’ll love you from now until the end of time.”

There was something in how he said it that had my heart skipping a beat.

Not until the end of our lives. Until the end of time.

“Rebin, love,” I whispered, reaching for the tear. But he turned his head and kissed my hand, and that’s when I recognized it.

His profile. The line of his brow, nose, and jaw—it was as familiar to me as my own. I’d seen it a thousand times in my memories over the years. Since I was eighteen, at the Southern Conclave that had been my first. I’d seen him, across the field the third night of the Conclave, at the beginning of the Enforcer Games.

In my memory, I was there again.

“Come closer, Annalise,” my best friend shouted, running through the crowd, not waiting for me.

I sighed, looking down at my biggest Conclave mistake. Why had I worn a white dress, and an expensive one, at that? It had seemed perfect when my mother showed it to me. “I have a feeling you’ll meet your mate at this Conclave, Anna,” she’d said before she sent me off with the contingent from our pack to the Southern packlands. She’d been hesitant; there was a lot of talk about uprisings and witches. Our Alpha hadn’t seemed worried, but our pack had sent a huge number of seasoned warriors, just in case.

I’d be safe, and I might meet my mate. I hadn’t shifted yet, but my wolf had started clawing to get out. The Alpha had even mentioned the day before that I might have to go through the ritual early, just to keep my wolf from pestering him, whatever that meant.

I climbed a small hill so I could see the clearing where the Enforcers were starting the exhibition fights. It was some pack’s Alpha Heir going up against a burly shifter from Southern, and I was glad I was far away.

Until I saw him, illuminated by the torches placed only feet away from him. A pair of bright blue eyes were set in a face “too attractive to be practical,” as my mother liked to say whenever I moaned about not being pretty like my friends. He was scanning the area, as if he was looking for something. Someone?

I raised a hand to wave, though I knew he wouldn’t see me, standing in the darkness. But somehow, as his face turned toward me, those eyes widened.

Had he seen me? His head turned as if he’d heard something, and I took in his profile. A strong jaw, a sharp, straight nose, a smooth brow. He looked regal, like an Alpha or a king from a fairytale. I mouthed one word, even though I knew it couldn’t be true.

Mine.

And then the screaming began. Shouts of “Silver!” and “Coward!” filled the night. The scent of blood. The howls and cries of dying wolves.

Horrified, I watched as the shifter I’d only glimpsed threw himself into the battle. I never saw him again.