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"Do it, do it! Claim me!" she cried out, and Jake growled again, deeper, huskier, and somehow even more tortured.
His teeth flashed open, and he dove for her chest, his mouth a moist furnace against her skin, but he stopped there, his whole body seizing in a violent, shuddering finish. His knot throbbed against her entrance, and she wiggled down on it, her orgasm abating at last as his surged beneath her hips, and this time he didn't stop. Flexing upward, he slipped his fingers from her hole only to pull her cheeks apart and slam her body down on his expanding knot.
He cried out, the word smothered against her breast, and Zorah held her breath, trembling under the knot's pressurized invasions, bracing herself for the final pinch and tear of the claiming bite.
But it never came.
He didn't claim her, for the second time, but she tried to throttle her disappointment, listening to the bond and feeling for his emotions on the other side. Muddled and bleary, they didn't come through as one clear signal, maybe obscured by the receding climax or the headiness of the sex. But she felt it; she felthim, and the connection glimmered with new life. Her lungs began to work, expanding with the fresh, clean, rain-scented breeze, and for a few hallowed minutes, everything composed a tableau of utter perfection.
After a minute, Jake lifted his head. The lines of his face eased, the deep etchings of pain lessened from his usual scowl, and Zorah passed a thumb along his cheekbone, her body still warm and happy from the connection reaffirmed and reforged.
He inhaled and exhaled a long, deliberate breath. "I'll talk to Hunter," he said in that soft, gravelly voice that made her belly flip flop. Zorah opened her mouth to ask when and how and if she could help or be there when he did it, but Jake lifted a finger. "Just give me a day to get cleaned up and get my thoughts organized. I want to be prepared for what I'm going to say to him. Can you do that for me?"
"Yes." Zorah dipped her chin in a definitive bob, a smile spreading over her face.
Things were going to work out; she could feel it.
CHAPTER 33
Zorah
Zorah retraced her steps back to the Heat Hut, half walking and half floating on an invisible cloud. Jake didn't reject her; he'd been scared and overwhelmed by the mating bite. She could understand. Her entire life, she'd known she was an Omega, known that one day she'd mate an Alpha and exchange mating bites. But it was all new for Jake. Granted, he'd been an Alpha for over a century, but much of that he'd spent in a traumatic and drug-induced nightmare. In some ways, she felt older and wiser than him. How could she fault him for being nervous about what he'd stumbled into with her? It was all okay, it would be fine.
Triumphant, she tiptoed through the woods to the back door of the Heat Hut, realizing too late she wasn't alone. Her heart skipped a run of beats, and she froze like a startled bunny.
Her mother's prim, harsh face contorted in barely contained horror at the picture of a bedraggled Zorah emerging from the trees. All her euphoria from seeing Jake withered and the instinct to spin on her heel and run back into the protective shelter of the trees slammed into her hard. With a steadying breath, she forced herself to cross the barrier and step onto the path.
Ida spiked an eyebrow and commenced a deliberate perusal from her sex-messy hair, over her wrinkled and seasonally-inappropriate scanty clothes, to her muddy and scraped-up bare feet.
Zorah pasted a smile onto her face and leaned in for a hug. "Hi, Mama," she murmured, quickly embracing her mother's stiff body.
A choked sound tore from her mother's throat as Zorah pulled back. Nostrils flaring, her mother's eyes flashed to Zorah's face, cold, nasty accusation streaming out of them.
She'd been caught. The only thing worse would've been if her mother had walked in on her with Jake buried knot-deep in her body. Not that it made much of a difference at this point, with Jake's seed dribbling onto her upper thighs, she had no illusion her mother failed to miss the scent. With a single sniff, Ida knew exactly what she'd been doing.
At Ida's elbow, a concerned-looking Grace ping-ponged her attention between the two of them and asked with forced brightness, "I take it your Heat is over?"
Twisting her fingers together, Zorah focused on Grace. "It broke this morning. I was just stretching my legs."
Her mother's spine snapped so hard Zorah wondered why she couldn't hear the bones cracking. Yes, she was lying, and yes, they all knew it. But what else was she supposed to do?
"Your father and I just arrived, along with Nelson. They're both anxious to see you." She emphasized the wordboth.
Zorah's stomach curdled. Suspecting competition, Nelson had come to stake his claim, with her parents' consent, in front of the Morris Hill Pack, to show them who she belonged to and who she'd be leaving with. This was a mess, even without her mating claim on Jake.
"Zorah will want to clean up before she sees anyone," Grace said, hurriedly adding, "from her Heat. Clean up from her Heat." Color tinged Grace's cheeks, and she turned toward Zorah's still-seething mother. "Ida, why don't you stay here and catch up. I'll have Lars bring a tub and some hot water and get you a snack to tide you over. I'm sure you're both famished."
A tight nod was the only response her mother gave before punching the door open with the heel of her hand and striding into the Heat Hut.
With a worried glance and a squeeze of her arm, Grace whispered, "I'll be back soon. You gonna be okay?"
Zorah stared at the half-open door, dread sucking up her ability to speak. "I'll be fine," she croaked and went to face her mother.
CHAPTER 34
Zorah
"How could you?" Ida seethed, her face a stony mask of fury.
