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Chapter Twenty-Five

ETHAN

I gently trail my fingers down Ayo’s arm as I read Raj’s email.

It’s an update on the work the team are doing regarding charging the people arrested last night, informing the victims’ families of the outcome of our investigation, and arresting a couple of others, including Lola.

A small part of me feels guilty for not being out there with my pack, but as Ayo’s breath puffs against my chest, the much larger part of me knows I’m exactly where I need to be.

I put my phone back on the bedside table and hold Ayo tighter as the late afternoon sun filters through our bedroom window.

It was almost dawn by the time we got home, what with all the people who wanted to hug Ayo and the sheer number of arrests to process, as well as needing to deal with the bodies of a few of Nyoka’s minions who didn’t survive.

The mayor herself actually came out to confirm we’d won the contract and make sure we had all the logistical support we needed.

I haven’t been able to sleep much, though. Every time I did manage a few minutes, I woke up panicking that Ayo had been taken from me again. Holding him in my arms is the only thing keeping my wolf calm and my heart rate vaguely near normal.

Ayo stirs, his breathing changing as he stretches before opening his eyes with a groan. He blinks up at me, then returns his arm to my waist and snuggles in again. “Tell me it was just a horrible nightmare.”

My heart aches for him. “I wish I could.”

Ayo and I talked last night about how not only was Nyoka after Ayo’s inheritance to pay off the coven’s debts, but he was also conducting experiments on the murder victims before they died. Ayo also told me what he’d found out about how his parents really died.

I hold Ayo tighter, needing the reassurance that he’s here and whole. Thank goodness Doc P is an amazing healer and Ayo isn’t in any physical or magical pain, the new scars on his chest almost entirely faded.

Ayo’s scent sours. “I just can’t wrap my head around how Nyoka’s been lying to me all these years.”

I scent his neck then rub his back gently. I wish there was some way I could make him feel better. To take away the betrayal he’s feeling.

Ayo’s voice thickens. “The whole time you were ordering everyone around last night while Zaiden sat with me, I couldn’t stop thinking about Nyoka having part of my mum’s core in one of his rings.”

My stomach clenches. “What he did was sick.”

“Murdering his own people after stealing their magic is beyond twisted. And I’m probably being paranoid, but I can’t help wondering if he’s been using that ring to sabotage me somehow.”

I frown down at the top of his head. “In what way?”

“This might sound crazy…”

“Ayo.”

“Right. So, I trained really hard for my enforcer tests. I’m more powerful than anyone else, and yes, I know I came on leaps and bounds when Cal started training me, but I wasn’t completely useless before that.

Yet during both tests, all my spells went awry.

It’s the sort of thing that happened so many times over the years.

I’d train on my own or with Zaiden and be confident in my magic, but whenever I tried to show Nyoka, something would go wrong. Even small things.”

“It only happened around him?” I ask.

Ayo huffs. “Yeah. I didn’t make the connection until last night because it wouldn’t have been possible with a mage’s level of magic. But ever since I started working for you, the only time I’ve had my magic fail is when I was confronting the Nagual and when a cat shifter punched through my shield.”

Fuck, that absolute bastard. “He could have loaned the cat shifter the ring. Would it work if a shifter wore it?”

“A normal mage-ring wouldn’t, but a self-contained magical core in a ring? Yeah, in theory anyone could use it.”

As I mull over his theory, the answer becomes obvious. “Sounds like he didn’t want you becoming too confident as you grew up.”

Ayo moves back enough that he can look at me, pain in his chocolate eyes. “But why?”

“So you didn’t take his position as coven leader. It’s standard that the strongest leads, right?” It certainly was in my father’s coven, which he left in order to marry my mother because his older brother was more powerful.

Ayo’s eyes fill with tears. “But I didn’t even want it! Goddess, Ethan, I’m not even twenty-one for three more days. I’ve never wanted to be in charge. Not until I’m a lot older, anyway. The long hours, the responsibility? Yeesh.”

I have no doubt Ayo would make an excellent coven leader if that’s what he wanted. But just because he’d excel at it doesn’t mean he has to do it. “No one’s going to force you now, you know?”

Ayo swipes angrily at his eyes. “I know. I have a pack now. Your pack.”

I don’t blame Ayo for being too preoccupied to tiptoe around my feelings this time. Fortunately, there’s no need to. “I’m going to file the official pack paperwork in the next few days.”

Ayo stops drying his tears and stares at me. “Really?”

I nod. “It’s time I stopped being selfish. It’s the last thing we need to do before the mayor can officially award us the contract, and the team deserve the legal and health benefits that come from being part of a registered pack.”

It’s not something I’d really thought through in too much detail until I was confronted with the reality of what would change for the others beyond becoming the new task force.

Registered packs, covens, clans, prowls, or any other group are entitled to guaranteed supe-specific healthcare and education, and are subject to more favourable laws that allow the group to partially govern themselves.

It also changes the taxes paid and makes it easier to get planning permission for changes to housing intended to facilitate the group living together.

Not relevant in the SAS, but it could change their quality of life now.

Ayo tugs me until we’re lying face-to-face. “Are you absolutely sure? Forget me using the word ‘pack,’ or how the others feel, or external benefits, okay? Because I get it now. How you must have felt when your dad betrayed you and you were forced to leave.”

I hate the pain and anger in his scent. I rub my hand over his arm, unable to stop touching him, soothing him. “I’m sure.”

Ayo manages a smile, although it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Then I look forward to being an official member of the Lupo Pack.”

I wish there was some way I could take away his anguish. The only solution is time, and he’ll likely never fully heal inside, but perhaps I can alleviate it a little.

“Be my alpha-mate?”

Ayo blinks, then sits up, his scent taking on a hint of hope. “Really?”

I prop myself up against the headboard and take his hand, pleased this is proving a temporary distraction.

“Of course. The others adore you as much as I do, and you don’t have to do any of the leadership stuff.

The traditional job of an alpha-mate is to look after the pack’s emotional well-being, but you can make the role anything you want. ”

Ayo crawls into my lap, straddling me. “You think that highly of me?”

I cup his face with one hand, the other resting on his hip.

“Ayo, I think the world of you. You just took down a serial killer while wearing a hospital gown. Half the supes in the city turned up to search for you because you mean so much to so many people. You’re the most incredible person I’ve ever met.

I’m honoured to be the one fate chose for you. ”

Ayo blinks back tears as he presses his lips to mine, happiness sparking in his scent, dulling the pain from before. He pulls back sooner than I’d like. “Bond with me?”

I search his eyes, wanting so badly to say yes but not wanting to take advantage of him when he’s still reeling from yesterday.

At my hesitation, he narrows his eyes. “I decided I was ready to bond with you when we were sneaking through the manor. I realised you’re more of a home to me than Nyoka and the coven have been in a decade. So don’t you dare say no just because last night was a shit-fest of epic proportions.”

A slow grin spreads across my face. My mate is adorable when he’s assertive, and he’s definitely alleviated my concern. “I would love to.”

Ayo gives me a decisive nod. “Good. I already learnt the spell. I want you to be mine in every way.”

There’s a possessiveness and confidence to his tone that I haven’t noticed before today. It’s seriously hot.

I toy with the waistband of his blue briefs, smirking. “Better get naked then.”

We divest ourselves of our underwear until all that’s left between us is Ayo’s focus, glinting in a shaft of low sunlight.

Since Ayo is in an assertive mood I let him grab the lube from the bedside table before climbing back into my lap.

When I hold out my hand, he squirts lube onto my fingers before putting some on his own palm.

He spreads his knees in a way that gives me easier access as I reach around him and circle his pucker with a fingertip. He takes my mouth in a searing kiss as he wraps a slick hand around my cock, not hesitating to use a firm grip to stroke me.

I groan into his mouth and slip one finger into his hole up to the first knuckle. He gasps against my mouth and immediately pushes back on my finger until I’m all the way inside him. “ Ung , that’s it. Get me ready for you.”

Ayo is always chatty and in a hurry when we have sex, but there seems to be an increased urgency to the way he starts riding my finger.

It’s an urgency I’m not immune to. There’s so much lust in his scent that it’s masking his pain, and there’s a deep love shining in his eyes that makes me desperate to give him everything he wants. As I withdraw my finger so I can insert two, he leaves me in no doubt of what that is.

“Yes, Ethan. More. Stretch me. Get me ready for that fat cock. Goddess, I love you.”

I grip the back of his neck and slam my mouth down on his, stretching him as requested and taking control of the kiss. He tastes like the future I didn’t know I could have.

He seems to have forgotten what he was doing with my cock, his hand just resting on my shaft as he moans into my mouth, his own cock leaking. I insert a third finger, stretching him fully, then crook them.

He breaks away from my mouth with a yell.

I rake my gaze over him, all sweat-slick skin and hungry eyes. “I can’t wait to be inside you.”

“Do it, do it, do it,” he chants, lifting off my fingers with a whimper. “Fuck, hurry up.”

“I love you,” I tell him as I position him over my shaft, trying to inject some romance into the proceedings.

He sinks down onto me with a long, low moan. “I know.”

His warm channel is gripping me so tightly that I let him get away with his sass. “Ayo, I’ll love you forever.”

His eyes flash with challenge. “Prove it.”

I almost laugh as I give up on any romance right now. Truthfully, I never could resist a challenge. I grip his hips so I can lift him almost off my cock, then I slam him back down as I simultaneously thrust up into him.

He frantically grabs at my shoulders as his eyes roll back in his head. “Yes! Ethan. Fuck me. Fuck me so good.”

This definitely isn’t the slow lovemaking I assumed our bonding would be, but it’s so much better because Ayo has a confidence to him he didn’t have before. It’s seriously sexy that he’s demanding I give him what he wants.

As I continue to thrust up into his tight heat, I realise I’m going to struggle to say no to him ever again. I love this sorcerer with every fibre of my being. I belong to him just as surely as he belongs to me.

His cock bounces with every thrust, the swollen head bumping his stomach. “I’m close, Ethan. I’m close.”

I’m not that far off myself. “Ready to bond, sweet thing?”

He nods frantically, his eyes locked with mine. I can smell his magic, letting me know he’s performing the bonding spell and I need to get ready to bite him. That’s when a sort of blue fog swirls around us, filling our bedroom.

I startle a little but keep up the pace, managing not to falter for more than a second. My teeth lengthen, my canines growing sharper. “Stroke yourself.”

Ayo obeys, shuttling his hand up and down his cock. “Now, Ethan! Do it now.”

Heat sweeps through my body as I bury my face at the juncture of his neck and shoulder. “Come for me.”

Then I bite. Ayo yells and spills between us, getting us both sticky as I shoot inside him, orgasming so hard I see stars. Between us, an invisible tether forms.

As soon as my brain comes back online, I carefully withdraw my teeth and lick over the wound. It’ll scar, but my saliva should take away any pain.

Holy hell, I can feel him. Deep inside. Joy, love, and satisfaction that drown out the tiny remaining undercurrent of anger.

“Ayo…” I say in wonder.

Ayo is slumped on me, breathing hard. “Don’t make me move yet.”

I stroke his hair. “I need to clean us up, sweet thing.”

“In a minute.”

I gently lift his head from my shoulder. “Can you feel it?”

He smiles softly, love shining in his eyes. “Yeah. You love me so much.”

I kiss him tenderly. “I do.”

He deepens the kiss, languid strokes of his tongue dancing with mine as his fingers tangle in my hair. We kiss lazily for a while, losing track of time and basking in the glow of our new bond.

There’s a tiny part of me still in a state of disbelief that this man is mine. That I’ve actually bonded with my mate. The rest of me is simply riding the high of love and elation coming through the bond.

Eventually we separate to clean up, then return to bed where I pull Ayo into my arms.

I stroke his back softly. “I didn’t expect the blue fog.”

Ayo stills. “You saw it?”

I frown. “Was I not supposed to?”

He tips his head so he can meet my gaze. “Mum’s grimoire said only a fated mate will see a sorcerer’s binding spell. I already knew, but having it confirmed? Best bonding present ever.”

I relax and kiss him softly, wordlessly agreeing. My wolf is delighted we’ve claimed our mate at last. “Welcome to the Lupo Pack, Alpha-mate.”