Page 10 of Alpha’s Hated Mate (Shifters of Clarion)

I don’t even know how many books we’ve been through, but I’m getting tired of reading about the royal family history . . . especially when there’s nothing in it about this Natasha woman.

We’ve been here for hours looking up information about a coup from twenty years ago, and while I could probably do an entire dissertation about the Alpha King and maybe even the Luna Queen, there’s not a damned thing about this Natasha person other than that she was Raphael’s consort and involved in the coup.

The library is cleared out, and Aydan and I are still in a study room going through the latest stack of books. Aydan rolls up his sleeves and leans over one of the books. His golden hair is a little mussed and falling into his eyes as he reads, and there’s a bit of stubble along his strong jawline . . .

I have got to stop checking him out. Being cooped up with him all this time is starting to mess with my head. I stand up and stretch, diverting my attention briefly. He glances up at me, his green and blue eyes shining like gems in the soft light.

“I think we’ve hit a dead end,” he says.

“No kidding.” I look over the stack of books on the table in front of me, Aydan partially hidden among them. “How can so many things be written about one incident and almost nothing about one of the chief participants?”

“Well, because she wasn’t exactly a ‘chief’ participant. She was the girlfriend of the chief participant.”

“According to these books, sure.” I cross my arms in bitter defeat. “For all we know, she was the mastermind of the whole thing, and they just . . . erased her because she was a female.”

He chuckles, and the sound soothes something in me. “You’ve been hanging around your hybrid friend for too long,” he says. “Females are just as strong as the males.”

“And yet, we’ve been here for hours and Natasha of Hino remains a mystery to us. Coincidence? I think not.”

He leans back in his chair and stretches his arms behind his head. “All right. Let’s go over what we know about her.”

I start to pace. I’m tired of this. “She was Raphael’s girlfriend.”

“And before that, she was the presumptive consort to the Alpha King. What does that mean? They were betrothed?”

“Or maybe everyone presumed she was going to be his Luna?”

He smiles a little and says, “Which is pretty interesting in and of itself. He probably didn’t like Natasha and rejected her for Luna Queen Crystal?”

I shrug, dragging my feet across the floor in little arcs as I pace. “I’m sure Natasha would’ve been pissed. It would explain why she then sided with Raphael in the coup.”

We both fall silent with nothing but the sound of my shoes scraping the floor. He sighs and says, “Could you stop that, please?”

“Stop what?”

“Your shoes. The sound is annoying.”

I stop and stare at him as he looks back down at the book in front of him. He brushes a bit of his hair out of his face. Maybe it’s the late hour, but I suddenly don’t feel like following orders. Not that I ever really do .

I drag my toe in an arc across the floor, ignoring him. He looks up at me, sapphires and emeralds telegraphing a warning, then he sits up and stares at me, watching me move with slow deliberation. “Are you trying to irritate me?”

I do a quick twist and turn around. My skirt flies up slightly, flashing a little of my thigh. “You, Aydan Vaultmore, are not my Alpha. I don’t have to listen to you.”

He watches me, his eyes tracking my every movement. Suddenly, it feels like his hands are on me, slowly running over my skin. He smiles and closes the book in front of him.

“Are you sure about that? Maybe you need an Alpha to properly punish you.”

That makes me laugh out loud and flash a sly grin. “And you think you’re the one who can . . . properly punish me?”

He shakes his head. “You’re doing it again. Tempting me. Didn’t we learn our lesson last time?”

I stop and lean over the desk, giving him a glimpse of my cleavage. “And what lesson was that? That you easily cave under the pressure of my feminine wiles?”

“Pretty sure you were the one who came first.” He smirks.

I’ll give him that. “I guess you have been the only wolf who can tame me.”

He chuckles. “If I truly had that power, you’d have stopped dragging your feet when I asked you to.”

That makes me laugh, so I back off. “Don’t tease me if you aren’t ready to face the consequences.”

He rubs the space between his eyes again and says, “We’re in a library, Saffron. Even if I wanted to—”

“You’ve never done it in public? Ever? It’s not hard to do . . . especially at this hour. No one’s in here but us.”

And we’re staring at one another again. Oh, that rebel inside me wants to break whatever decorum he’s trying to hang onto. Poor little stuffy wolf . . .

I walk around the table to him, and I grab the arm of the chair and whirl him around to face me.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he says as I kneel down before him.

“Shh,” I say as I run my fingers up the line of his zipper. “This is a library, Aydan. You have to keep it down.”

He’s watching me as I unbuckle his pants, the light of excitement on his face. As I pull out his cock, he’s immediately rock hard. I stroke it slowly, watching his face change as I tease him.

“How long have you been holding back?” I whisper. “Poor thing.”

I run my tongue down the length of his shaft and around the head, flicking him with gentle motions. His breath starts to quicken above me, and as I take him fully in my mouth, a soft, wanting sound escapes him.

“Oh . . . fuck,” he whispers as I suck in long, slow motions. His hand grips the back of my head, encouraging me to slide him further down my throat. I comply, taking every inch of him as far down as I can until my lips are wrapped around his base.

“Slow down,” he commands softly. “That’s it.”

I suck him off slowly with nothing but the sounds of his breath and soft moans to guide me. As I start to move my hands under his shirt and over the hills of his abs, his hips move with me, pushing himself even farther.

I’m doing my best not to choke. He is massive . I speed up my pace, and he matches me, thrusting as he holds my head in place.

And then he slows down, sucking air between his teeth. I try to continue, but he pushes me away. “Take off your panties,” he says.

I stand up and reach under my skirt, slipping off my underwear and dropping them on the table. He throws me a mischievous smile. “Anyone could walk in and see that.”

“Let them,” I say.

He stands up and lifts my chin with his fingers, meeting my lips with gentle kisses. “You’re a naughty thing,” he says. “Bend over the table.”

I do, and his hands are on my bare ass, squeezing them as he moves behind me. A moment later, the head of his cock grazes slowly up and down between my folds. I bite my lip as he teases me gently.

“Now it’s your turn to keep it down,” he whispers as he takes hold of my hips. He enters me, and the sweet and glorious pleasure/pain sensation of him fills my body. Is it possible for it to feel even better than the first time? I bury my face in my arm and bite down, stifling an involuntary moan. He goes slow at first, taking his time with every stroke. My toes curl in my shoes as he pushes deeper . . . and deeper . . .

His pace quickens, and he takes one of my legs and hoists it up on the table. “You are soaking wet,” he whispers. “I could fuck you all night.”

I squeeze myself around his cock, and he gasps, clawing at my hips. A low growl comes out of him, and I know I just pushed his limits. He leans into me, and his hands move up my blouse and over my bra, squeezing my breasts.

“Harder,” I whisper, grinding my hips into him.

One good thrust, then another. I reach back and grab hold of his head as he buries his face into my neck. His fangs press against my skin.

And he slows again and whispers in my ear. “Tricky girl . . . you want me to claim you, don’t you?”

He leans back and slaps me on the ass. The quick sting and burn washes over me, and suddenly, I’m hurtling toward my climax. My skin starts to heat up, and a glowing red light illuminates the books around us. I start to think , What if last time was a fluke? What if this time . . . this time . . .

I pull away from him, pushing him off me and stepping to the side. He doesn’t let me get far. He grabs my waist and pulls me to him, kissing me gently. “Aydan,” I whisper. “I don’t want to hurt you. We should stop.”

He cradles my head in his hands as he kisses me, his lips like cool water against my warm mouth. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

This is so crazy. I feel out of control and half-mad when I’m with him. He leads me to one of the chairs and sits down, pulling me on top of him. I slide down on him, and he holds me, steadying me while I take control. I rock my hips as he undoes my shirt, water-cool kisses against my heated skin. He moves my bra out of the way.

“You are so beautiful,” he says before taking my nipples in his mouth.

My fingers tangle in his hair, and I’m falling into a sort of bliss I’ve only ever felt with him. My climax rises up within me as his hips move with mine.

I lower my mouth to his and we kiss . . . and then I implode. The heat inside me mixes with the cool of his touch, and I’m bathed in warm honey again. He moans my name, and as he comes right behind me, the world falls away from us. There’s no one in this room, in this world , but me and Aydan.

“I’ve never seen anyone with eyes like yours.”

We’re lying on the floor by the library table, naked and spent and living dangerously. But I don’t care. I’m in Aydan’s arms, and somehow, nothing else matters. I’m looking up into his multicolored eyes when I say that, and he blushes a little.

“My mother had heterochromia, too,” he says. “Pretty sure that’s the thing that got my dad’s attention. He had a thing for . . . anomalies, I guess. He liked it when a wolf had something out of the ordinary about them.” I raise an eyebrow, and he adds, “He had a love for science, my dad. Used to do little experiments in our basement.”

“Experiments? Like what?”

Aydan shrugs. “Nothing earth-shattering or anything. Mostly stuff that helped the pack. Figuring out the best type of soil for crops, that sort of thing. Used to read a lot about wolf anatomy.” He smiles. “He would have loved you, in fact.”

“I doubt that.”

Aydan looks me over and brushes a little of my hair out of my face. “We never had a Scarlet in our pack,” he says. “Not that I ever knew about, anyway. He was fascinated with them, though. Used to read all about them and talk about how criminal it was that we knew so little about a member of our own species.”

“That’s . . . surprising?” I say. “Especially given how your sister feels about my kind.”

“Yeah.” His voice darkens like a cloud has suddenly swept over him. “We used to argue about it all the time. I felt like a lot of wolves do about Scarlets, and he was always trying to get us to change our minds, I guess.”

I don’t really say anything to that, but I can picture it. A teenaged Aydan and Nadia making stupid jokes about Scarlets because they didn’t know any better. Most other wolves don’t know any better . . .

“I wonder sometimes,” he muses, “what he might’ve accomplished if . . .”

He stops himself and looks away, something unreadable in his eyes. “If what?” I prod.

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, then continues, “If he’d lived a little longer, I guess. He talked a lot about advocacy for Scarlets. I just wonder if he’d ever been given time to do anything about it, you know? Maybe if he could have gotten through to me before now . . .”

Aydan is looking down at his fingers, rubbing his forefinger and thumb in little circles. “I’m not like him, you know. I’ll never be as good as he was. Or as kind. Wolves like him don’t come around every day.”

I can relate . . . more than he knows. “Good wolves,” I say to him, “ really good ones are in short supply.” I take his hand and lace it up with mine. “All you can do is to be the best you can be. No one expects any more than that.”

He scoffs a little. “This is a very ironic conversation, don’t you think? We’re not exactly the perfect people.”

“No . . . but then, who says we have to be?”

He takes that in for a moment, then kisses me, sweet and slow. And for this moment, my heart is filled with him and only him.