Page 45 of The Forbidden Alpha

The sound undid him. He buried his face between my thighs, his tongue lathering and driving into me with feral desperation. He was relentless against my clit, hot and heady as he elicited wave after wave of agonizing pleasure from me.

His head bobbed as I cried out. Everything tightened as my feet dug into his back. “It feels…” I trailed off. My fingers loosened from the rail as I hurtled over the edge. I spasmed on the edge, and he growled against my sensitive flesh, “Hold on!”

The command made my thighs shake, but I gripped the rail again, trapped between the abyss behind me and the beast in front of me. But he didn’t stop. He worked his tongue in a punishing rhythm that had me writhing against him, desperate for more and escape as a second, sharper climax coiled in my gut before the first had even faded.

“Ethan!” I cried, but he was a predator claiming his prize. He pushed two fingers into me, stretching me, and I saw stars. I watched as they disappeared into me, his eyes locked on mine as his tongue lapped up my juices. I spasmed against his tongue as it dragged up my clit. Again and again.

“Oh, please,” I whimpered as that white-hot pressure built up inside me again.

“You’re mine,” he murmured against my skin, his face slick with me as his fingers sped up. The gold in his eyes locked on my face. “Cum on my tongue, Wildflower.”

He didn’t let me down. He kept the pressure constant, dragging me toward a third, soul-shattering release.

I screamed his name as I came undone yet again. I convulsed around his fingers, breathless and sobbing. His eyes never left mine, a look of territorial satisfaction on his face as he drank in my release.

Chapter 25

The car ride to the Grand Hall was a blur. Ethan had given me a new dress after the terrace. It was practical, dark, and form-fitting. I smoothed my hands down the front before the doors opened. The chamber held the pressure of a fist that had been clenched for a long time.

Last night, this place had been a cathedral of flickering torches and dancing shadows, a sea of roiling silk and muscle beneath the open moon. Now, the ceiling was sealed tight, and the sparkling lights doused.

Sweat beaded at the back of my neck as everyone came into view down on the lower floor. Instead of the guest entrance I’d used with Shane—where I was meant to be seen and not heard—I was now standing at the threshold of the private entrance Ethan used for his inner circle.

Ethan’s hand gripped my waist possessively as he stopped at the top of the grand staircase. All heads turned.

Twelve Alpha chairs. Twelve Alphas.

They sat at an onyx table, documents spread before them. The weight of their stares pressed against me, but my body remembered the last time I’d stood here, watching Ethan from the shadows of the crowd. Last night, I was just a woman trying to survive the weekend. Today, I was walking down into the mouth of the crowd as the woman who just had the Mad King on his knees.

They’d been waiting for us. Irritated looks from men who weren’t used to being kept had the hair on my arms standing.

Ethan didn’t say a word. He simply began the descent, forcing the most powerful men in the territory to track our movement as we walked down from the high ground into the center of their judgment.

Alpha Jaxon sat near the center of the Alphas. The moment his gaze traveled up to the stairs to us, his posture hardened. His nostrils flared, his chest expanding as he drew in the air around us, and realization slammed into him the second he caught the scent.

He wasn’t just looking—he was tasting the air, scenting me on Ethan’s jaw and the way my mate’s fingers sank into the soft give of my waist. They had already heard Ethan’s claim this morning; they had heard him demand I be treated as a Luna. But now, the air told a different story. It wasn’t just a declaration anymore.

The message Ethan was broadcasting was clear: he hadn’t forgotten the trial—he’d been too consumed by me to care.

The realization hit Jaxon visibly, rippling through the other Alphas as they caught the musk and the honeyed heat still clinging to both of us. Silence fell over the room as those nearby noticed it too.

They’d seen us dance and many had seen us leave, but this confirmed the depth of the obsession: I wasn’t just someone he was claiming. I was his in every way that mattered.

I’d been in rooms that wanted me gone before—every room at Half Moon, every desk at the Academy—but this was different. This room had teeth, and I was currently in the mouth of the beast.

As Ethan led me toward the table, my eyes scanned the perimeter—Shane wasn’t here. His thumb brushed my arm, not a caress, but a seal. A reminder that he was here. We passed one Alpha and mate after another, a gauntlet of judging eyes, until we reached the center. He placed me into the first of two empty chairs. It was a cold throne, and for the first time I wasn’t looking up to power, I was sitting in it.

There was only one chair between me and Alpha Jaxon. Ethan took his place at the head of the table, towering over the seat he’d just claimed for me. I was where I belonged: under his hand, within his reach, and woven into the very stone of his command. Luna Emilia sat beside Jaxon.

Before me were two smaller tables that sat in the dead space between us and the crowd of people here to watch the circus. The table to the left had a chair. Anyone called to the right was meant to stand, exposed with nothing but their word. It was a stage designed for confession, or for the truth to be revealed.

He remained standing, still and controlled. The iron spikes of his mask caught the low light, and I understood now why he wore it in rooms like this. It wasn’t just an armor. It was a sentence already passed.

“We are here to settle the matter of the Half Moon Kingdom’s transgression,” Ethan’s voice vibrated through the cold room. Whispers broke out as the onlookers huddled close. “Let the record show that the victim is my mate. This trial is no longer about a Giftless woman from their pack, but the Luna of the Desert Moon Kingdom.”

A ripple moved through the crowd at the word—Giftless.

I flinched as a hush fell over the crowd.