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Chapter Thirty-Eight

M y body shut down. However, I can hear everything going on around me clearly. Everything! Damian’s frantic screams for help are loud, but my body feels foreign to me, numb. I can no longer feel the cool breeze or the hands grabbing and moving me. All feeling is completely gone. Although my mind is alert. I only know I am being moved because I can hear what is happening around me. It is like my body suddenly died, and I am just a conscious mind living inside an empty shell.

“Fuck! He’s burning up!” I hear Liam gasp somewhere off the side of me.

“I will get the doctor,” Clarice says somewhere off in the distance.

“No! Just open the doors. He needs Azalea. It’s her heat!” Damian says.

“Liam, grab the other side of him,” Damian orders.

I can hear them climbing the stairs, their feet moving on the corridor floors, and the creak and groan of the doors being ripped open .

“Dustin already brought Azalea up here?” Damian asks someone before I hear Trey’s voice.

“Yes. Gannon just escorted him back to his room,” Trey answers.

“Open the door,” Damian tells him. I can smell Azalea’s scent. It’s odd… I have a sense of her, yet not my own body.

“Out, Trey; you aren’t needed in here now.”

“Yes, Beta,” Trey answers, and I hear the door click shut.

“Help me get him on the bed and strip him down,” Damian says to Liam.

“Now what?” Liam asks.

I feel nothing and can only listen as they try to figure out what to do.

“Um, ah, he is gonna kill me! I need to strip her down, too, but if she wakes, I know she will look for Abbie,” Damian curses.

“I have some Justin’s handcuffs,” Liam says.

“Some… what?” Damian asks, and I am wondering the same thing.

“Justin’s handcuffs. Just in case you need ‘em. Here, I keep a pair on me at all times, you know, just in case I need to handcuff someone.”

“I don’t even want to know what you get up to.”

“Indeed, you don’t, Beta. Now, I am a team player. If needed, I will perform,” Liam says.

“Perform what? Give me those handcuffs,” Damian says.

“I can swing both ways. If it saves the king, I can close my eyes and stick one in him,” Liam says.

If I could move, I would have strangled him for saying that. I’ll have to remember.

“That won’t be necessary, Liam. Go see Clarice.”

“Yeah, rightio, Beta. The offer still stands. If it’s just a good fuck he needs, I don’t mind breaking him in.”

“Out, Liam!” Damian.

“I’m going. No need to get your panties in a wad. Wanna check on the boys, anyway.”

“Huh? What boys?”

“Some stowaways. All good, Uncle Liam is on kiddie duty until Clarice gets off.”

Fuck! Why did I let him on as my personal guard? The man can fall in a barrel of titties and come out sucking his thumb, that is for sure.

I hear Liam leave before hearing Damian move around to the other side of the bed, followed by the clink of metal. Vaguely, I feel him place the handcuff on my wrist before hearing him attach it to Azalea’s.

“Shit! I should have told Dustin to stay,” I hear Damian mutter to himself.

“Azalea?” Damian says, and I can hear him trying to rouse her awake. “Shit! Azalea, I am going to undress you, okay?”

My growl echoes in my head but doesn’t appear to be heard by anyone but me. I can’t help it; I don’t want anyone to see her in a state of undress, especially while vulnerable during her heat, not that Damian would ever do anything to harm her or upset her. I can trust him to be a gentleman.

“My King, if you can hear me, you will have to get over it. I will try to undress her with my eyes closed,” he mutters before I hear him tearing her clothes off. Talking through each step as if he’s asking for permission that neither of us can give him.

Yet, it puts me at ease, and the first spark of feeling I get is when he drapes her on my chest. Her skin helps slightly, but I am still paralyzed and unable to move or feel anything else. The sound of sheets moving around us signals that he’s covering her nudity.

I hear a knock at the door, followed by Trey’s voice.

“I don’t mind watching over them if you want to get some rest, Beta,” he says, earning a growl from Damian.

“I am not going anywhere while they are vulnerable. You aren’t needed here. I will call you back when you are, so get out!” Damian tells him.

Silence fills the room, and Damian doesn’t seem to leave. I can hear him turning pages in the book he’s reading. After what feels like hours later, I slowly get feeling back, yet I cannot move, not even open my eyes, no matter how much I try. After a while longer, Azalea stirs, and I listen to Damian berate her and me, in a sense. Although he is talking to her, I listen, knowing he is right, and I feel terrible that she is on the receiving end of his anger over our stupidity, mostly mine. I should have listened to her, and now I have to make it up to her.

When Damian leaves the room, I listen to her talk to herself. Her voice brings me comfort, her touch puts me at ease, and then she marks me. It smashes through every barrier and grips my soul. Her fear for me slams into me as the bond is forged, and I have never felt such immense relief when she does. She is officially mine, and I am hers. Our bond is now forged for life. Or so I hope.

Azalea doesn’t move from me. She occasionally whispers to me and bites me as her heat drives her to the edge of her sanity, and instinct comes over her. I lose count of the number of times she asks me to wake up. I listen to her sing her kingdom’s anthem and listen to her harsh breathing as she struggles with her heat.

I want to comfort her and let her know I am okay. Want to ease her suffering, not that I am sure she will let me. Time seems to slow, and painfully so. She is in agony as she squirms above me, her claws raking down my skin as she rubs her face against my chest.

I can hear the sheets tearing as she fights the urge to mate me. She doesn’t want me unconscious, yet pain ravages her, and my heart breaks, knowing I can do nothing to help her right now. Her tears wet my chest as she writhes in pain. It is torturous, pure agony, as I listen to her beg me to wake up. She wants my calling and keeps pressing her ear to the center of my chest like she can somehow hear it and let it calm her if she listens hard enough.

Her claws rake down my sides, her teeth biting me wherever she can. Nesting and trying to ease her pain, anything to distract herself from the pain of her heat. Still, as my temperature dissipates, hers rises dramatically when eventually feeling returns in my fingertips, my movement slowly returning. Azalea is crying in pain, and out of reflex, I go to touch her to calm her, and my fingers are suddenly tangled in her hair. She freezes, and I blink up at the ceiling, my surroundings coming back to me to find her face all red and blotchy from her crying and her heat as she peers down at me.

“Shh,” I whisper, turning my head to kiss her forehead. She rocks her hips against me, dropping her head back to my chest, her ear flat against the center. My calling slips out, she bathes and soaks in it, her body calming instantly as I run my fingers through her hair. Her breathing evens out when she suddenly starts purring, gently rocking her hips against me and coating my hardened cock in her arousal.

I groan, closing my eyes at the feel of her wet pussy sliding up and down my shaft. I want to bury my cock inside her and feel her walls spasm around me while she moans. My cock twitches at the thought, and she moans softly. Gripping her hips, I forget about the handcuff, but she doesn’t complain as I grip her awkwardly and pull her higher.

“I am not touching you until you say it, love,” I murmur into her hair.

“Please! Make it stop!” she groans, trying to move lower. Her teeth sink into my chest, and her claws scratch my shoulders, so I roll, flipping her onto her back and kissing her. Azalea responds instantly, kissing me hungrily and wrapping her legs around my waist.