Page 134 of Kaelen
The last year has changed me. On the day my dad brought me to Kaelen and tried to sell me to him, I snapped at him like a frightened animal.
The scent of coffee and whisky carried on the breeze, and mylips curved before I even turned around. I didn’t need to look. I knew that scent. The scent of my alpha.
A man who worked in a ruthless world, but with me, he remained tender and worshipful.
Two thick arms banded around my middle. My back collided with a wall of muscle. Kaelen rested his chin on my shoulder, his purr singing for me. I carded my nails through his scruff.
A massive, callused palm curled around my stomach. He drew slow, reassuring circles around my navel. A glow of black fur raced past my feet, Shadow sprinting happily around the pasture, chasing tufts of grass and yellow butterflies.
Despite being uncomfortable around most people, Cosmo was content with Shadow’s presence.
Kaelen’s lips brushed against my ear, his teeth grazing the lobe, making me wiggle in his hold. I had become increasingly needy the last few weeks, regularly yanking my husband into our bed or whatever secluded spot I could find, begging for my alpha’s knot.
Pregnancy hormones.
He didn’t seem to mind, though.
“How are my two favorite girls?” he murmured, his timbre a possessive staccato that did nothing to help the damp panty situation between my thighs.
I leaned my head back against his chest. His eyes twinkled as they gazed down at me, the hand not holding my stomach, moving higher and gently collaring my throat.
“We’re good. Your daughter is very active today. She likes Cosmo.”
“How could she not?”
As if he understood, Cosmo nickered, kicking at the loose dirt of the ground and prancing in a circle. Kaelen bent at the waist, his lips meeting mine in a long, languid kiss that was both a question and a promise.
A question of what I needed, and a promise to always give it to me.
When he finally pulled away, my lips were swollen and my heart was full. He dropped to one knee, the tilled grass leaving stains on his Armani trousers. He must have come straight from a meeting inthe city and didn’t have time to change.
Both hands cradled my stomach, his lips pressing sweetly over my navel.
“And how are you, little one?”
My fingers tangled in his hair, pulling it free like I had done so many times.
In that moment, with the sun setting, the grazing horses in the distance, Shadow chasing butterflies, and Kaelen on his knees in front of me, I knew what true happiness was.
It wasn’t the fragile, delicate thing I once believed. It was a fortress. Something forged in flames, blood, and battle. It was devotion and love. The kind of love that could move mountains and temper steel.
Kaelen was a demon, someone who couldn’t afford to show weakness. Yet he did just that, giving all of himself to me.
We were two sides of the same coin, and with him, I finally felt complete.
For so long, I had been a willow, bending in the wind, a lonely tree in a forgotten field. Then I found him, a tempest tearing through the woods. In his arms, I found my roots. My alpha showed me how strong I was. What I was capable of.
I loved my demon. My alpha. My Kaelen.
And I would spend the rest of my life telling him so.
