Page 63 of The Forbidden Alpha

“Again,” we growled, the word vibrating through our fur-covered chest and into her skin.

We flipped her over, seating her on us as we gripped her thighs and spread them. She was shaking, her breath coming out in needy pants. She reached back, her fingers curling into the fur of our thighs—a silent plea.

We lifted her and entered her again, our grip marking her skin, claws piercing her flesh. She slumped against our chest as we thrust into her.

“Whose are you, Mate?” we barked.

“Yours,” she whined, her hands coming up behind her and gripping our neck. “Take it back. Don’t leave any trace of him.”

We weren’t gentle. We didn’t do it the way we thought we’d take our mate. We bit into her flesh and she cried out again. Her head dipping to the side, giving us better access as we pushed her down until she took our knot again. She squeezed us, begging for our seed. We fucked her, bouncing her on our cock, sliding our knot in and out of her. The metallic tang of her blood filled our mouth as our knot swelled again. We released her, dragging our tongue up the fresh wound, the skin beneath our heat beginning to glow with our union. The brand that called her ours.

White flared behind our eyes. We stilled, one moment suspended in time, an impossible second where even the voices quieted, where everything fell away and there was only her. The bond didn’t just snap; it fused to her. The storm lifted—a gold chain locking our soul to hers. We felt the glow of the mark against our tongue—a searing heat that screamed we’d been blessed. We’d incinerated his touch. She was ours, bound by blood, her approval given, the Lycan line accepted.

We thrust into her, stilling as we came again. The knot expanded, locking her as a hot flood gushed from our length. We held her there, our chest against her spine, our sweat and scent mingling.

We released her thighs. Her limbs fell limp, and our arms wrapped around her to hold her upright. Our knot kept her from moving. Her head lolled back against our shoulder. She turned, her head dropping back, brown eyes on our face. We saw her exhaustion; the toll. Her pupils dilated.

“This is who we are,” we said, our voice dropping low. “This is your mate—the monster who will never let you go.”

She was heavy with us, and we were satisfied. The knot kept us locked longer, and her eyes rolled back, her body falling lax as she fell into oblivion. The voices were quiet now. The ancestors satisfied. But the man—the part of us that remained human—wept.

We’d failed. Again.

We didn’t care about the blood. We didn’t care about the ruin. We only cared that she was ours.

“Sleep, Wildflower,” we whispered into her hair. “You’re safe now.”

Chapter 34

Adea

The world came back in pieces. It leaked through the seams of my eyelids, a slow, toxic drip of reality. The scent of copper and burnt pine. The suffocating heat against my spine. The blinding throb in my neck and shoulder, and the curve of my breast where canines had repeatedly torn into my flesh, pulsing in melody with a second heartbeat inside my head.

I opened my eyes as sunlight cut through the drapes. The bedroom was the silent carcass of a war zone. Glass from the shattered vanity littered the floor like fallen diamonds, and the heavy mahogany bedposts were gouged with deep, splintered claw marks where the wood had failed to withstand Ethan’s rage. Yet now, in slumber, he looked like a fallen angel. He’d returned to his human form, his tousled dark hair shadowing his forehead, his lips entirely too innocent—as if they hadn’t just parted hours ago to give way to the massive canines that had repeatedly punctured my skin.

I was pinned to the mattress by the crushing weight of a man who looked like he had died and dragged himself from the depths of hell.

I tried to inch out from beneath him, and a low rumble vibrated its warning through his chest. Heavy thighs locked tighter over my hips without gracing me with his eyes—and I wondered if they would be stormy green or gold when they finally opened. Every muscle in my lower half screamed, inside and out; a deep, bruising ache radiated from the center of my pelvis where his knot had ruthlessly claimed me until my consciousness fractured.

The memory of Shane’s trickery was a film of grease on my skin, but Ethan’s merciless reclamation was the anvil that crushed me into the mattress. The shame pulsing through me was a living thing, eating its way through my soul. My skin felt too tight, too dirty. The urge to simply curl up and bed rot for the rest of my life weighed heavily on my chest.

I’d refused to back down, but the events of the last twenty-four hours threatened to break me. Barbed wire wrapped around my throat in a cold vice; my lungs refused to suck in air, and Ethan’s mark was the only thing stopping me from shattering entirely. I couldn’t erase what happened, and I couldn’t trust myself to deal with it now. It had to be buried beneath the weight of what came after.

With slow, trembling fingers, I found the raw, unhealed craters on my neck, then my shoulders and chest. He hadn’t licked these; they were open, burning wounds. The flesh was tender beneath my touch, humming with a roaring, molten echo of him beneath my skin. The true mate bond was a live wire. Through it, his subconscious bled into mine—a bottomless depth of possessiveness that lay sleeping yet hostile behind his mental walls, a dark current that left me entirely breathless.

Ethan stirred, and I cracked an exhale as green eyes met mine. They weren’t gentle; they were the eyes of a King who had looked into the abyss and watched it smile back.

“Adea,” he whispered, his voice hoarse and scratchy, like he’d swallowed a mouthful of glass and it had torn through his throat.

His jaw was clenched so tightly I worried it would crack. His cheek twitched as he reached up, his large hand hovering over my cheek, hesitant. “Are you…” he trailed off, inhaling deep. “Are you okay?” His gaze drifted down my body, taking in the bruises, the marks, the dried blood where Erebus had cut me.

I looked at him, seeing my mate for what he was—a mad king, permanently split between man and beast. I’d come too late. Would things be different had I come earlier? I think they would, but it wasn’t possible. The Moon Goddess had written my story and dropped me into this den of monsters with no alternative, and I had to accept that the only way out of the ashes was to survive them. I had to learn how to stand beside a monster without letting his darkness consume me completely.

“I have wanted you for years,” he murmured, his voice cracking. “You were my answer to everything, but when I came home and found you like that—I lost control. I… I didn’t mean to force that part of me on you. I’m sorry. It will never happen again. I swear to you on my life.” Even as he said it, I wondered if it was a promise a man like him could keep.

I felt his truth through the bond. The shame that burned in me was reflected in him, but beneath his, there was a harder, colder resolve that regretted nothing. I had summoned that monster—needed him to wash Shane’s touch away.

“It’s okay,” I said, my voice steady, leaving no room for doubt. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I wanted it, Ethan. I wanted your beast.”