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It was impossible.

I couldn’t walk out the door.

My father would be disappointed. He would call me weak, say I didn’t deserve to take the throne if I couldn’t control my own body. My own needs. That if the will of the goddesses is enough to break me, I was never the right choice to lead.

It’s a good thing he’s dead.

I threw off my coat and turned, the guards closing the door behind me as I walked up the stairs, pulling up my cuffs and thinking.

I told myself that I would simply check on her. Make sure she was okay. Intimidate the three betas outside the door, the ones tasked with protecting her. I couldn’t risk letting an alpha anywhere near her. I ordered that my quarters were to be completely and totally off-limits to everyone except female omega and beta staff members, and the few beta guards.

Somehow, I thought that would be enough. Thought it would really put me at ease. That I could convince myself she was okay, safe, as long as those measures were in place.

But I knew, deep down, that I would never truly think she was safe unless she was with me.

In my arms.

Now, Mylah is on her knees in the bed, in the nightgown the staff changed her into when I brought her home. When we first got back, Mylah seemed lucid. A female doctor on my staff checked her, assured her that the man hadn’t even managed to fully cut away her underwear, let alone get his tools anywhere near her body.

For all the pain and fear that moment had caused, he wasn’t able to actually injure her.

Thank the goddesses.

After the doctor was finished, I couldn’t let anyone else touch Mylah. Not even the nurses. And I couldn’t bear the thought of taking Mylah back to the guest quarters. To what has become her room.

No. It had to be my bed.

So, I carried her in here and set her down, tucking her in as she sweated and whimpered and reached for me. Her hands were desperate, her skin tacky, her entire body radiating heat. Then I walked downstairs, thinking I would have more time before she woke up.

Thinking I would actually be able to leave her.

And now, I stand in front of her as she kneels on the bed, her hands on my throat, on my chest. Her guiding my palm to her breast.

“Please,” she says, placing a kiss on the corner of my mouth. “Take me.”

If I stood any chance of resisting her, it is now completely and totally gone.

My arms circle around her waist.

I pull her body against mine, a growl escaping me when I feel all her soft curves pressed against me. Her breasts against my chest. My hands slide over her hips. My body knowing hers for the first real time.

When I push forward, Mylah moves back, shoulders hitting the pillows, her legs falling open. Without much thinking—without conscious thought at all—I dip down, palms bracing on the insides of her thighs, mouth lowering toward her hot, slick center.

“Augustus—” she gasps, her hand coming to the back of my head, her fingers lacing through my hair—a little longer than I normally let it get—and tugging. “You don’t—you don’t—”

“Shh,” I murmur against the inside of her thigh, hands shaking as I hold myself back from going right for what I want. “Is this your first—?”

There’s a beat, then I hear her say, “Yes.”

Fuck.

If this is her first time with an alpha—with anyone—I need to take it slow. Ease her in. If I did what I wanted, it would be flipping her over, driving inside her, and fucking her against the bed until we couldn’t breathe.

But that’s not what I want for her first time with me.

That thought implies that there will be another time for us, together. Right now, I can’t possibly entertain the idea that there won’t be. We’ve just started—I haven’t even gotten to lick up the length of her yet—and I’m already thinking of everything I want to do with her.

I imagine all those things as I place a kiss on her thigh. As I turn my head and drag my tongue through her slick. Sweet. Hot. All mine.