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He gripped her harder, hooked her legs under his arms and grabbed her ass, using the leverage to pound into her at an angle that made her entire body bounce against the tent wall, burying himself to the hilt each time.

The rush of ecstasy overwhelmed him, a mindless madness that seized his whole body.

Her channel fluttered around him, tight and pulsing.

It was too much. Too fucking good.

He reached between them, found her swollen clit, and rubbed.

She shattered immediately, a convulsing, clenching surrender.

She went limp in his hold, slick gushing around him in a hot flood.

But he didn’t stop. He held her there, pinned open, and kept thrusting—using her sweet little body to chase his own high.

She came again. Then again. Her cunt strangled his cock so tightly it felt like his whole body might break. Her slick ran down his thighs, sticky and perfect, and still, he didn’t slow.

When his orgasm finally hit, it tore through him violently.

He roared, driving in hard, erratic, lost to everything but the mindless need to claim her completely.

His knot surged, slamming into her with a final, punishing thrust. Her body resisted, stretched, then yielded, locking around him in a tight seal that made them one.

Growling against her throat, his hips ground as he emptied inside her in long, powerful spurts. His knot swelled fully, locking them together so deep there was nowhere else to go. Nowhere else he wanted to go.

He stayed there, breath ragged, body shuddering, knot pulsing inside her.

Then carefully, he gathered her into his arms and lay her down on his sleeping blankets, careful not to jostle her on his knot, fixing her in his arms. His Omega cuddled into him, her breathing deep and hoarse, her eyes closed, her scent heavy with satisfaction.

Akoro allowed himself to memorize every detail—the way she fit against him, the way they smelled, the occasional twitch of her cunt, and how her breathing finally settled into something peaceful.

The satisfied contentment in her scent made his purr erupt in his chest, and she pressed closer, humming and sighing.

But even in this moment of perfect completion, a fierce possessiveness burned through him, primitive and consuming.

This—her pliant body molded against his, the mingled scent of their joining, the way she unconsciously sought his warmth—this was what he’d been created for.

She completed him in ways that went beyond physical satisfaction, filled hollow spaces in his chest he hadn’t realized existed until she’d torn herself away from him.

He would never get enough. Not of her taste, not of her surrender, not of the way she responded to his dominance with such devastating perfection. A thousand lifetimes wouldn’t be sufficient to satisfy his hunger for her.

Relief flooded through him, that she’d even agreed to this.

That she would be his, at least for these precious days.

He wouldn’t ask for more than that right now.

She’d made it clear what she could give him, and he would take it like a desperate dying man.

It wasn’t as though he didn’t have his own things to contemplate.

He’d told himself he’d never become like his family under any circumstances, yet both his mate and brother had indicated that his single-minded pursuit of his people’s survival had somehow isolated him from the very people he sought to protect.

Oppo even agreed that there was nothing else Akoro could have done differently, yet his brother still chose to hide a key part of his identity and experience from him.

Maybe there were other ways to ensure safety—ways that didn’t require such fierce control over everything and everyone around him.

Akoro needed to reexamine what true protection meant, and reconnect with his brother.

He may have already lost Naya, and that would burn him for the rest of his days.

So he would enjoy what he had right now.

He would simply be her mate, her Alpha, nothing more complicated than the primal bond that called them to each other.

This was what their connection could be when stripped of conquest and possession and political maneuvering—just this primal need they shared, free from the violence and subjugation that had poisoned it from the beginning.

He could do that, for now. He could be that for her.

The knowledge that she would leave when this was over carved through his chest with vicious claws, but he pushed it aside.

He’d promised he wouldn’t stop her, and he’d meant it…

in the moment. If letting her go was what she truly needed, even if it destroyed him, could he do it?

Oppo had made that choice, leaving his mate and child to protect them from the dangers of his life.

Had his brother understood something about sacrifice that Akoro was only now beginning to grasp?

Whether he’d actually be able to honor that promise when the time came.

.. he’d face the torment of that moment later.

His knot pulsed inside her, still thick and binding them together, and already his body was stirring with renewed hunger.

When it finally subsided, he would have her again.

And again. He wouldn’t be sending her back to the Omegas until they’d both taken their fill of each other, until they were both sated and exhausted and utterly spent.

And that wouldn’t happen before lur ennen .

She stirred against him, a soft sound escaping her lips, and his purr deepened. Her fingers tightened in his tunic, and even in her drowsy state, her body responded to his, clenching around him in ways that made his vision blur.

The day was far from over.