Page 11 of Protector (Alpha Ties)

ELEVEN

AX2

There is a festering wound in his chest cavity.

Grunting, AX2 brings a hand up to test the flesh covering his ribs, finding the skin unbroken.

The woman beneath him draws in a sharp breath at the movement, the squeeze of her slick muscles around his cock a blissful counterpoint to the pain throbbing through his chest.

"Shh," he mumbles, instinctually nuzzling her neck to soothe her discomfort at being knotted. Then realization dawns.

His mate. She's… his mate.

He isn't prepared for the flood of emotion rushing through his veins, nor the sharpened edges of reality when the full memory of what he's done sets in.

She is his mate.

Nausea follows the sickening pain behind his ribs. No. No, no, no.

He grunts and lifts halfway off the woman, the urge to put as much distance between them as possible making him pull roughly at their tie.

She lets out a broken sob underneath him, and her ass follows the jerk of his hips as her pussy keeps a merciless hold on his knot.

The agony in his chest flares in response, forcing him to still and press against the painful spot again. Shit , that hurts!

Even his cursed chip hasn't been able to inflict pain like this. It's deep and wet and intimate— like someone hooking a thumb into a wound. And it stems from her.

AX2 doesn't remember learning about mate bonds, but he recognizes it on a level more primal than breath. Deep in that festering wound, iron hooks dig in, anchoring a direct connection from his heart to hers.

Up until this moment, he didn't know she had one.

"Fuck," he croaks and tumbles down on top of her again, easing the pull on her battered depths. The sharp pain softens to a dull throbbing that makes his teeth smart. His brain still screams for a distance both his new bond and his knot refuse, but at least he can breathe again.

She doesn't move. Doesn’t speak. Just lies beneath him, the tremble of her muscles and the rapid beating of her heart highlighting the agony flooding through their bond, making his nerves fire with urgency to fix it.

AX2 swallows a growl at the idiotic impulse—there’s no fixing this , there’s no making it better. And yet newly awakened instincts snap and snarl in his brain, insisting that he do so.

His mate needs him.

Curse it all to goddamn hell!

He doesn't manage to hold back his rumble of frustration this time, ignoring how she tenses at the sound, and reaches around her hip to brush through the thatch of matted hair covering her pubic bone.

Now she's the one jerking to separate their joined bodies. "N-No."

Her pleading rasp is so soft, so broken, he can barely recognize the woman who has controlled his existence with an iron fist for as long as he can remember.

"It'll help with the pain," he murmurs, voice softened by the dark despair flirting with the edges of his conscience.

He doesn't wait for approval he knows won't come. Using his weight, he rolls them to the side and secures her body with an arm around her waist and a leg across her ankles. Before she can do more than draw in a breath, he lets his fingers slip through her pubic hair to her swollen flesh.

Her clit throbs under his fingertips, the small button fully exposed from their coupling, and his light touch makes her jerk hard and whimper a wordless protest.

"Shh." He dips lower, brushing against their joining to gather some of the fluids that escaped before his knot plugged her opening. She is tight as a bowstring when he returns to her clit, and the barbs of agony in their bond nearly make him relent—but his newly awakened instincts know that this is the only thing that will settle her.

He is gentle when he strokes his thumb over her nub of nerves, but she still jerks in his grasp, sucking in a sharp breath. An echo of pleasure runs up their bond, quickly drowned out by revulsion and despair.

He strokes her again, letting the pad of his thumb settle more firmly on her clit. And again—tight circles that drag his callused skin over her tender spot.

Slowly, her breaths turn deeper and her pussy grips him more deliberately, its slick muscles fluttering on his knot with every pass of his thumb.

“That’s it,” he grunts, unable to fight a groan as her body coaxes another spurt of semen from his. “Let it happen.”

She lets out another breath, almost a moan, and he squeezes his eyes shut and buries his nose in her tangled hair, inhaling her.

Fuck, she feels so good. Her skin is soft, her body warm from their mating despite the bunker’s chill, and when she slowly softens in his arms and the burn of pleasure begins to consume her trepidation, his relief is as powerful as a climax.

He moans against her neck and rubs her faster, the warm urgency of working her toward release curling in his abdomen as powerfully as if he were chasing his own. Nothing has ever felt like this, like her. Nothing. And right now, while her fingers dig into his arm and her pussy massages him in maddeningly tight spasms, while she is soft and compliant and submitting, he can’t bring himself to remember why he should loathe every second of this.

“Oh! Fuck! Fuck! Oooh!” Her cry of completion rings through the room and sinks deep into his marrow, and he groans at the endorphin-addled flood of pleasure swarming their bond, blind to anything but her.

“Good girl. That’s it. Good girl.” He pants the mindless praise against her ear, gentling his circles on her trembling clit until she is spent, boneless in his arms.

For several long moments, there is nothing but the pleasant buzz of afterglow humming through their connection. His sweat soaks her skin, drowning out the other alpha’s scent, and for those blissful minutes, her rapid heartbeats thump in tune with his own.

One. They are one.