Page 17 of Dark Auctioned Mate

She was in heat. “No, no,” she said more forcefully, shaking her head. “This is not happening.”

But her body didn’t care what she believed. It kept going. The warmness crept up her spine, and under her ribs, and circled her breasts. Her skin prickled. Every inch of it. The fabric of her shirt seemed to be trapping heat against her skin rather than protecting her against it.

She took one end of it and pulled it up, over her head. Cool air blasted her skin for about two seconds before she suddenly felt everything too intensely.

She heard everything: the hum of electricity in the walls, the movement downstairs, footsteps, and the low murmur of voices. She heard the creak of the wood, too.

Wood, metal, sweat, detergent—it all came rushing in at once until something invaded her nostrils.

Her breath caught. Rael’s scent cut through them all.

She felt the heat in her body rising in response, and her hand clenched on the dresser. “Stop. Stop it,” she muttered, although she did not know who she was speaking to anymore. Herself, her body, or the bond. It did not matter anyway because they did not listen.

Her thighs pressed together, and the pressure did little or nothing to take off the edge. It lasted about five seconds before it re-emerged even worse, drawing out a guttural moan from her throat. With shaky feet, Alanis stood, ran her hand through her hair, pacing the room. Each movement of the muscles, each contact of skin to skin, exaggerated everything she was struggling not to notice. Her control was waning. This is what frightened her. How her thoughts kept going back and back to one thing—Rael.

Her jaw tightened. “No, no,” she said, more decisively now, as she was stating a principle. “We’re not doing that.” But the problem was that this was not merely physical.

If it had been just physical, she could have handled it. She’d handled worse. Pain, withdrawal, fear. This would have been an additional thing to overcome. But this...this was instinct.

Alanis ran to the window, pushing it open. The chilled evening breeze swept in, caressing her hot body. She leaned into it, resting on the windowsill and closing her eyes. It helped till she smelt him again, and it was stronger.

Her eyes snapped opened. He was right outside her door. Her body reacted instantly. A second wave struck her, eliciting a low moan from her. Alanis curled her fingers against the windowsill. This was bad. This was much more than bad. She inhaled and exhaled deeply, trying to hold on to some semblance of control.

“This changes nothing,” she said to herself, even though her body was pulled towards him, murmuring the same word in her ear: Go to him.

Her stomach twisted. She clenched her hand, and for the first time since she woke up, she felt scared of what she might do if it kept building like this.

Avoiding him wasn’t going to make this easier. It was just going to make it worse.

Chapter 9 - Rael

Rael had always prided himself on his control.

It was what set him aside from Javi, who acted on instinct and anger, and what made him useful to Silas, who had to have someone to rely on when the shit hit the fan. It was control that kept him alive in the field, it is what made him good at his job, and it is what enabled him to compartmentalize and operate when everything around him was chaos.

But there were limits to his control, and Alanis was trying each and every one. He’d been irritable for three days now. He would snap at his pack members when training and lost his temper in a meeting with Silas and Javi.

He knew why he was like that. It was a simple problem: Rael wanted Alanis around all the time. She had only spent a couple of weeks in his house, and he was already addicted to her presence. Now that she was either with Sara and Elle, or evading him somewhere else in the house, or shut up in her room, he seemed to feel that something fundamental was lacking.

It was annoying. It was distracting. And it was getting worse.

Last night had been hell. He knew she was in heat. He could smell it the instant her scent changed from peaches to something warmer, sweeter, stronger. It hit him with such intensity that his wolf surged up within him with a kind of possessiveness that bordered on violence in its intensity.

“Ours. Go to her; she needs us.”

He tried to brush it off, remain in his room, and concentrate on the papers that were lying on his desk. He tried to do anything but what each of his instincts was shouting at him to do.

However, at about three in the morning, he found himself standing outside her door.

It was not his intention to visit. One moment, he sat at his desk, with a clenched jaw and hands fisted on the armrests of his chair. The next moment, he was in the hallway, in front of her door, his hand lifted to knock, and his wolf howling in his head.

Her scent was overwhelming. It seeped out of the crack of her door and filled the hallway, making his cock stiffen till it hurt. He heard her pacing the room—anxious, nervous. He heard her fast, shallow breathing, and underneath it all, he could smell her arousal, thick and intoxicating.

It took everything in him not to open that door and fuck her.

She was not ready, and neither did she fully trust him, although they were bonded. She had one foot in and one foot out the door. Coming into her room at night during that state would spoil the few good things they had done.

He just stood there leaning his forehead on the doorframe, breathing heavily, his body aching with impatience. He had his hand wrapped around the doorknob. All he needed to do was turn it.