Page 83 of Alpha’s Divine Claim

Faster. Harder. My heels dig into the mattress. “Oh my god, I’m so fucking close, Ana. Fuck.”

She takes me deeper. Her hand keeps time with her mouth. Her eyes never leave my face.

It gathers at the base of my spine and pulls tight in my balls. Suddenly it lets go. Her name tears out of my throat. She takes every pulse, swallows all of it, doesn’t let up until I stop shaking. I’m still hard. Whatever’s in my blood keeps me that way. By the time she’s kissed her way back up my chest I’m ready for her again. I lie back and pull her up over me by the hips. She works out what I want before I say it. She comes up on her knees and settles above my face with one hand braced on the headboard. I take hold of her thighs and bring her down onto my mouth. She says something I don’t catch.

I work her with my tongue. Slow circles. Long and broad. Back to the circles. I stay on whatever makes her hips move. She’s slick under my mouth and getting slicker. The light is coming off her now, bright enough to put color on my ceiling. I’m looking straight up at it while it happens. Her thighs close against the sides of my head and shake there. Her hand comes off the headboard and fists in my hair. She grinds down onto my face. I keep my tongue on her clit and hold it there. She comes loud. My name is in it somewhere. Her pussy pulses against my tongue and she rides it out on my mouth, curled forward over me with both hands in my hair.

I lap her up while she does it. She’s soaking my mouth and my chin. I stay under her for all of it. I take her by the hips, slide her back down my body, and roll her under me. Then I settle between her thighs and stop there. Foreheads together, both of us breathing the same air. I hold myself up on my forearms.

“No rush,” she says.

I’m not in one. We stay like that a while. Her hand comes up against my chest and rests over my heart. Neither of us does anything else at all. She keeps her eyes on my face, I push into her. One slow slide until I’m buried in her. Her pussy stretches around my cock and takes every inch. She’s tight and slick around all of it. I bottom out and stop. Neither of us moves, her palm stays on my chest. My forehead comes down onto her shoulder.

Then I start to move. Slow and deep. All the way out, all the way back, no faster than that. I keep it there. She clenches around my cock every time I come back in, I hold the pace and look at her. Her hair is loose and pale across my sheets, mouth is open and soft, eyes on my face and they stay there. Underneath me her breathing turns ragged. I keep the pace. Her hands come up my back and her nails go in. She starts pushing up to meet me on every stroke. Her pussy tightens around me and keeps tightening.

Then she breaks. Her whole body curls up into mine. Her pussy clenches down the length of me and holds there. She says my name into my shoulder and doesn’t stop saying it. The gold comes up along her collarbone. It glows there low and steady. It stays lit. I stay with her through all of it. I stay in her. My arm slides under her and turns us both onto our sides. Her leg comes up over my hip and settles. I get my arm under her head.

Face to face. We move together like that. Small movements. Nothing driving. Her pussy tight and slick around my cock. Her breath moves across my mouth. My hand stays on her back between her wings. Her hand comes up against my cheek and stays there, eyes holding mine from four inches away. She doesn’t stop moving with me.

“Ana.”

“Say it again.”

“Ana.”

Her hand slides off my cheek and down onto my chest. It settles over my heart and turns hot against my skin. Gold burns up under her palm. I feel it go into me. I put my hand over her heart and hold it there. Silver comes up out of her under my hand. I keep moving in her the whole time. The same slow strokes, all the way out and all the way back, with my hand never leaving her heart. She starts tightening around my cock again. I’ve got nothing left to hold back with.

“Look at me, my love,” she says.

I do. She breaks and takes me with her. Her pussy clenches down the length of me. I come inside her with my hand still over her heart and hers over mine. When she takes her hand away the print of it is on my skin. Mine is on hers. They beat in time with our hearts. Afterward she settles against my chest. The arm I had under her head comes around her back and stays there. Her wings are still out. One of them comes down across my legs. I run my hand along the edge of it. Her hand moves down my back. She finds the first ridge and stops there. She’s done that twice before. Both times she left it alone.

“Ask me,” I say.

“How old were you?”

“Thirteen the first time. It ran until I left.”

Her hand doesn’t move.

“They did it because I wouldn’t shift. A pack corrects what it can’t use, and it’s done in front of everybody so nobody has to wonder about it after. The one that wraps around my ribs got that way because I moved.”

“You couldn’t shift.”

“I didn’t know that then.”

She puts her mouth on the ridge under her hand. The room is quiet.

“I’m not waiting for the catch anymore.”

I say it into her hair, quiet. She says nothing at all, just kisses the mark she made on me.

Epilogue

Nyxiana

It’s been a month since the fight. Nothing has happened since.

The crack is still there, out past the north end of the compound, well back from anything anybody uses. Rafe warded and posted it the week the fight ended. Lyanna reads it twice a week. Stakes, a line of cord, a plain wooden sign. Half the reason to mark anything is so somebody who wasn’t there for the reason still knows to stay off it. That ward hasn’t flickered once.