by P. Jameson
She pressed her lips together, nodding as she blinked away more tears. “But now we’ve found each other again. Does that mean we can? Finally have what we want?”
“There’s no more wall,” I murmured. “We can close the gap. What do you want, Little Omega?”
Her eyes roamed my face, softening until they shone with emotion. She took a definite step forward this time, coming so close the heat of her body threatened to burn through my clothes. “I want my necklace back,” she said.
Then her lips crashed against mine in a completely different kind of promise.
Chapter Sixteen
Rielle
On my darkest days, the dream of my prince was the only thing that gave me the will to keep going. A tiny spark of light in an endless tunnel.
So many times, I questioned if he was real, or if he was a figment of my imagination like the games I used to play with my little painted rocks in their rusty can house. I was a battle-hardened omega with the audacity to dream. It made me good at my job, because I knew alphas had the capacity for compassion, even if it was deep down in their rotten hearts. Zelene wasn’t the first omega queen. Someday, my prince would have decided his love for me was so strong he’d knock down the walls between us to come back for me.
Me and only me.
And now finally we could have each other. I was never letting him go.
Heat soared through my body. I needed him now. Hooking my hands around his neck, I kissed him. His hands were on my back, and the necklace tapped against my bare skin as we met in a hot kiss.
Our tongues tangled, and I was hungry, so hungry. Shifting always cured what ailed us, and the muscles weakness, the brain fog that had been ever-present since I woke up in Evander’s clinic—I hadn’t even realized how bad I felt until now—had all been replaced by this insatiable hunger.
In the Badlands, an unmated omega’s heat was something to fear. Even now, I was terrified. Not because Evander would hurt me, but because whatever happened next would change everything.
He pulled me against his hard, ready body, kissing me so urgently I thought I’d die without his touch. Even though I’d never stopped dreaming of my prince, I never dared to think a heat could be… fun.
An all too familiar feeling surged through me. It wasn’t heat. No, it was a craving for something much more sinister.
Juice. No. It was like my body was fighting with itself, between pleasure and pain and this horrible chasm in between.
I pulled away from the kiss. Evander’s eyes were wild, glowing with need. He tightened his grip on my body. His animal was responding to all the signals I was sending it.
“Evander.” I could barely get the word out. “Have any of the omegas that came back from the Keep gone through a heat yet?”
He shook his head slowly. “You’re the first.”
I couldn’t even take a full breath. The heat always took over everything—function, reason, humanity—but this craving...if Evander wasn’t holding me I’d be on my knees. This wasn’t good, and I was so angry at those omegas, the ones who’d been my friends and still fed me that horrible drink, and the humans who thought my body was their own personal playground.
No. I wouldn’t let them take this from me. I’d waited my whole fucking life for my prince and I sure as hell wasn’t too damaged to have him.
“I want…” I didn’t want to say it. I shook my head, but nothing would take the craving away.
He tipped my chin with his fingers so I met his molten gaze.
“Keep looking at me like that,” I rasped. He had the power to make the craving go away.
“Little Omega, tell me what’s wrong.” Through the flames, there was sadness. And something that broke my heart-stricken, juice-addled heart. Defeat. Oh gods, he thought I didn’t want him. That I didn’t need him. That I hadn’t wished on every shooting star in the desert that he’d come back to me.
“I want…” Pressing my lips together, I had to take control. “I want you, but I want juice too.”
“No.” He kissed me again, and the intensity ignited my heat. I gave myself to him, to let his love heal me, to make me whole again. Maybe for the very first time.
He took a few careful steps, leading me to the bed. When the backs of my thighs hit the mattress, I crawled onto it, never taking my eyes off him.
Evander unbuttoned his jacket slowly, revealing a little more of himself to me with each notch. The jacket fell to the floor. His chest was solid muscle, with a dusting of dark hair that intensified below his belly button. I let out a whine of appreciation when he loosened his belt and unzipped his fly. His massive cock had been hard against my belly, and my muscles ached in anticipation of it knotting inside me.
He was naked now, and his shaft was just as glorious as I’d imagined.
The mattress shifted under his weight as he crawled onto the bed. His lips curled into a smile when I let out an appreciative whine. It felt so good to actually let myself be in heat. To know I was safe.
Evander pushed a damp strand of hair away from my cheek. I tipped my chin back, willing him to kiss me again. I wanted this man to fucking consume me and there was no way I could express it in words.
But instead, my prince slipped the worn leather cord over my head, and smoothed the necklace as it fell to my skin. How I’d missed the familiar, forbidden weight of it. The button settled between my breasts and he couldn’t tear his eyes away from it.
“Beautiful,” he whispered.
My new dream would be of him looking at me just like he was, with pure adoration and scorching desire, but that awful feeling, the one I still couldn’t control, was digging its claws into me.
I never thought he’d have to save me from an attack from my own kind.
“Evander,” I whined. “I need.. I need…”
“Shhh.” He ghosted his lips over my skin, and his beard tickled my cheek. His fingers were on the button, and I writhed below him, needing his touch.
He circled my nipple with the rough pad of his thumb, and my body rose from the bed to meet his touch. Whether he intended to or not, he was going to bring me to the brink of utter insanity. I’d fallen into step with his rhythm, and then he pinched it hard.
I let out a cry, and he nodded as he straddled me. “You’re so beautiful when you’re wild.”
“Please.”
“You were always beautiful. Even when I could only see this much of you.” He wiped his fingers over my cheekbone, and I gasped when they came away wet. I had no idea I was crying. For once, they were happy tears. His gaze swept over me, and he had one hand on that massive cock. I wriggled, trying to angle myself so I could take him.
Evander knew what I needed. We could do soft and sweet another time. Right now, I needed him to own me. To chase the bad shit away. Grasping my hips, he opened me up wide. Those hands that had been so gentle just moments before pushed my thighs up.
He growled as he lowered his face to my pussy. The sound reverberated through my body as he swept his tongue along the seam of my nether lips, and his lips found my clit. He sucked long and hard, and pressure built low in my belly.
His tongue swirled, finding the most sensitive spots and teasing them to the edge of madness. It was like he knew the waves were building inside me, and he didn’t want me to crack. Not yet.
His hand slipped under me, lifting me higher. He dragged his fingers the length of my slit, teasing my ass but not committing to it. Instead he slipped two fingers inside my pussy and pumped.
“Evander!” I cried as I tangled my fingers in his short hair. It was so much, but it wasn’t enough. I needed his cock inside me. I tried to tell him, but things weren’t making sense anymore.
Pulling his hair, he looked up at me. In that moment, he looked more wolf than human, and my own animal reacted by instinct. He rose up on his knees. That glorious cock shone with a drop of moisture on its tip. He pumped it, and I whined.
He lined himself up with my opening and let himself inside. There wa
s no need to go slow. Like either of us had any control left. He thrust hard and fast and so so deep.
I cried out, sometimes the words made sense and the rest of it I didn’t care. I did everything I could to drink him in. The way he held himself over me. The drops of delicious sweat that dripped from his skin as he rutted. The way his muscles tensed and his body stuttered to a stop before his shaft swelled inside me. His hot seed sprayed inside me, and he groaned, kissing me as he came.
This was the moment I’d dreamed of in all those dark nights. When my prince claimed me.
And now I belonged to him forever.
Chapter Seventeen
Evander
I roared as my release hit me like thunder, shattering the binding that kept my animal at bay. My knot swelled, locking me and Rielle together while her orgasm pulsed along my length.
We were forever bound.
The gap completely closed.
No wall would ever come between us again.
The feeling of freeing my animal yet binding my heart with a mate should have been a conflict of emotions, but instead, it was a perfect combination. I was in sync for the first time in my life.
With one hand on her jaw, I found her eyes. She blinked, looking relieved and even shocked. “What have we done?”
“What we should have done so many years ago, if life hadn’t been so cruel. We’ve bonded, mate.”
She smiled, and it was the same one I remembered from when she was a girl. A true one, that came from her soul. Here, in my bed, it wasn’t even tinged with the hard past she’d endured. It was just… happy. And I felt it in my veins replacing all the regret that diluted my blood.
“Mate,” she whispered, and I kissed the word from her lips before pulling back to stare at her.
My strong and beautiful omega. Mine. Always.
I wanted to tell her, and hear it from her own mouth. A promise like the one we made as kids, but this time, better.
“You will be mine, and I will be yours. Say it, Little Omega.”
“You will be mine, and I’ll be yours, my alpha.”
“For always.”
“For always,” she agreed.
The pressure of my knot in her channel loosened and I slipped from her body to wait for the next wave of heat to overtake us. Curling against my chest, she sighed a sound of complete contentment and I felt my own smile slip into place. We were each like a piece of the other, not quite perfect until we were united. If anyone had tried to explain this to me before this very moment, I would have called them crazy. Adalai, Dagger, Cassian. None of them could have convinced me, because I wasn’t looking for something to fill my heart. I’d left my heart in a small gap in the wall years ago.
I just never imagined I’d find it again.
“What are you thinking about?” Rielle asked. She looked up at me from where her head rested on my chest, and I couldn’t have named a prettier sight.
I smoothed her hair back so I could lose myself in the depths of her eyes. “I think they call it fate,” I said. “I never believed in it until now.”
“Fate. Neither have I.”
“When something lost comes back to you. When you think there’s no hope, but it rides in on the last minute. Fate.”
“You believe in it now?
“How can I not?” I whispered. “You’re here.”
Rielle dropped a soft kiss to my chest before her brow furled in a frown.
“What is it?” I asked.
She shook her head, lifting up to rest on her elbow. “I don’t know. Something’s… different. My heat is… more controlled?”
It was true of what I knew about omega heats. She wasn’t out of her mind with lust. She wasn’t writhing in pain over desire that needed sating. But before I brought her to the bed, she’d mentioned the juice.
“You were craving the drug before,” I reminded. “How do you feel now?”
Rielle shrugged. “I feel no draw to it. Do you think it will return with my cravings for…” She looked away as she said, “you.”
“I don’t know.” The idea of her desire for me being linked with juice withdrawals left me unsettled. “But I need you to tell me if it does.”
She nodded. “Maybe the connection means something,” she murmured, almost to herself. “The way the juice affects the animal and the way our bond seems to affect the symptoms. Could that… I don’t know, could that mean something?”
I considered it. The withdrawal had intensified with her heat cycle, but she was able to resist it. And mating had taken away the cravings altogether. No doubt, this meant something. Hell if I knew what yet.
“More research is needed,” I answered, and Rielle smirked.
“Did you just make a sex joke?”
“I told you, I used to joke all the time.”
Her gaze went soft. “Yes, I remember.”
She rested her head back on my chest. I could feel her skin growing hotter. Soon she would be pulsing with need again.
“So you’ll help me then?” I asked. “With my research?”
“Are you implying more sex or a lab partner?”
“Both, technically.” I brushed my thumb over her full lower lip, already tasting the kiss I would give her. “We can do both now, Rielle. Love each other and help the omegas find a way to control this addiction.”
“No more wall,” she murmured.
“It’s fucking gone.”
Her leg slid against mine, her body already growing slick with heat. “Then yes. I want both. Love and revolution.”
“Done,” I declared, lifting up to consume her once again.
Chapter Eighteen
Rielle
Waking up next to my prince...my mate...my alpha was almost too good to be true. We’d spent most of the night in a haze of lust, and as the telltale signs of heat left my body, I feared I’d imagined the whole thing. I patted my chest and snuggled deeper against Evander when I discovered the pendant was indeed there.
His eyes fluttered open, and his body vibrated. It was then I realized he woke up very ready for the day.
And I was more than willing to make sure he had an amazing start.
“Rielle.” His voice was gravelly. “I need to shift.”
“Then you should shift.” We were already naked, so that made things a lot easier. Then I remembered something very important. “Have you ever been in your wolf form before?”
He shook his head. Beads of sweat had formed on his forehead.
I peeled back the covers, and taking another look at his beautiful, battle-hardened body. All those hours I’d stood on the other side of the wall, watching him train, I never realized what he would become. And I finally got to reap the rewards of his hard work and my patience.
There was no way I could prepare him for this experience. I didn’t know what it was like to be without my animal. But I wanted to help him.
“Trust your instincts. Your wolf knows what to do.”
He reached for me, pulling me on top of his body. Heat seared my skin as he claimed my lips in a hot and hungry kiss. If I didn’t know he was minutes away from going furry, I would have slid onto his hard cock and rode him until he knotted me once again.
“Can’t you shift at will?” he asked, lifting me to the edge of the bed, and then rising from it himself. His hair was a mess from our night together. It seemed absurd to think he was adorable, considering all the things he’d done to my body, and that he was about to turn into a wolf, but my heart swelled with that thought.
I considered his question. “I’ve never wanted to shift. I’ve only done it because it was either that or die as a human.”
His mouth dropped. “Ever since I was a little boy, I dreamed of two things. Somehow finding you again… and shifting into my wolf form. Why wouldn’t you embrace your animal?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “You know, alpha. Because shifting was associated with being feral and lesser than our neighbors in Luxoria.”
“No.” He was
already off the bed, heading for the door. “Shifting is power. Promise me you’ll never deny your animal again.”
My heart broke, that omegas had access to that power all along and yet we’d been punished for it.
“I promise.”
I followed him through the house, leaving my necklace on the bedside table. I hated taking it off, but it was a piece of me, a symbol that love could truly conquer all.
He fell to his knees as soon as he reached the courtyard. Kathryn came running out when she saw us out there, but fur had blossomed through his skin before she had a chance to protest. She glared at me. I was still human, still naked, and still feeling judged for having this awesome ability. And I was aware that doing this in front of a beta could backfire. Even for an alpha.
Evander’s shift was quick, which was good, because it hurt when it took too long. He rose to his paws, tipped his head back, and howled.
Heat rose in my body, but it wasn’t the kind that signaled danger. My animal was coming willingly, savoring the chance to run with my mate. I’d never done this without panic, without fear, without having someone too close to hurting me.
I never realized my animal could be such a beautiful thing.
“My alpha.” I nudged his snout. “Where should we run to?”
“The castle,” he said. “We’ll be safe there.”
“General Evander!” Kathryn cried. “You can’t go out in the city like that.”
He growled, and she backed away, in awe or fear or whatever, and punched in the codes to set us free.
Evander sprinted through the streets of Luxoria. The battle had subsided through the night, but after what I saw yesterday, I knew the war was far from over. We needed to make Luxoria a safe place for everyone to thrive—alpha, beta, and omega. I didn’t have any problem keeping up with him. The guards that protected the royal gate cocked their guns until they realized who approached, and then they fell to one knee.
Even for me. They let me pass because I belonged here, in the castle, with Evander.
He led me to a part of the castle I’d never been in before, not even as a human member of the queen’s court. It wasn’t as fancy as the living quarters or the places that the royals invited their visitors. This was far more utilitarian.
