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LIVIA

“Don’t say a fucking word,” Alpha Caelan growled into my ear, his huge hand pressed over my mouth to muffle my moans. Streaks of silver moonlight glimmered across the stone in the courtyard, just outside his office window. He pushed himself into me. “Not a word.”

I whimpered and peered up at him, brows furrowed together.

Lycos, he is so big!

His muscles swelled underneath the light, his jaw chiseled. With everyone else, his eyes were usually dull, dreary, and heavy with the weight of our entire pack. But with me, late at night when everyone else was supposed to be asleep, they were a blazing gold.

Everything about this was so wrong.

He was twice my age, my dad’s best friend, and the alpha of my pack…

“Caelan,” I murmured against his hand.

After thrusting me against the window, he growled into my ear, “I said, ‘Not a word.’”

My pussy tightened around him. He continued pumping in and out of me, his thrusts quickening. I curled my fingers around the windowsill and squeezed my eyes closed, the pressure building higher and higher inside me.

Not a soul in our pack suspected that I had begun sneaking into his office to see him, not like this. No, I made sure that everyone thought I hated him—because I did. For the most part. Until he touched me like he was made for me.

“You’ve been avoiding me all week,” he snarled into my ear, pumping faster.

“My dad?—”

Before I could say another word, his other hand was on my clit. He smacked it, then rubbed the sensitive little bud before slapping it again as a punishment for going directly against his orders.

“Your father can never know about us,” Alpha Caelan murmured against my bare neck, his lips trailing ever so slightly against my skin. “Do you understand me?”

I pressed my back flat against the wood, heart racing so loudly that I could hear it in my ears, and nodded, lost in the pleasure that surged through my body. Dad’s most trusted friend was inside me.

Pumping in and out. Telling me to keep quiet. Using me.

Lycos, what a rush!

My pussy tightened around him, and I dug my fingernails into his muscular shoulders. The flickering light from the torches in his office danced over our skin, casting wavering shadows on the walls. I really shouldn’t be here; Dad was in the next room.

“This fucking pussy…” he growled into my ear, my legs now resting in the crooks of his elbows. He pushed himself into me again, so agonizingly slowly, gliding his canines up the column of my neck. “…Fuck, you’re always so tight.”

The scent of bone broth drifted through my nose from the packhouse kitchen, just a few doors down. Caelan’s cooks were preparing meals for our travel to the Capital tomorrow, and here I was being absolutely ruined by him.

My head lolled back, and I moaned softly into his hand.

I should’ve kept quiet. I really should’ve. But I couldn’t.

Hell, being here was reckless, especially the night before we left for the Capital and the royal wedding. I hadn’t packed yet, I had to be up in three hours, and I’d promised Dad that I’d be on my best behavior for the event.

But I couldn’t stop myself.

Not when Caelan asked me to come to his office tonight. He never asked!

His canines brushed against my neck, and for the first time since I met him several months ago, I thought my mate was finally going to claim me. It had been over seven full moons without a mark, going into heat and locking myself in my room so no other wolf would take me.

Pure fucking torture, and he had somehow stayed sane throughout it all.

“Please,” I whispered, clamping down around him. “Please, I need it.”

No matter how much I pleaded with him, I knew that he wouldn’t mark me. Life was too complicated with Dad being Caelan’s beta, with the looming war with the Whispering Pines Pack, with rogues attacking those closest to Caelan to hurt him.

He didn’t want me in the middle of it. At least, that’s what he told me.

“I need a fucking taste of you,” he murmured.

Caelan walked with me in his strong arms all the way across the room and deposited me on his desk. After placing my legs on his shoulders, he dropped to his knees and tugged my ass to the edge of the table, peppering wet kisses up my inner thighs.

I inhaled sharply and tried to pull my legs together, but he wasn’t having it. He forced them apart and placed his mouth on my pussy, sliding his tongue up my slit to my clit. My fingers curled around the edge of the desk.

He lapped at my clit, eating it a little more possessively than usual tonight.

“What’ve you been doing with Chase?” he asked.

My eyes widened. Chase? Where had he seen me with him?

“You belong to me,” he growled, staring up at me from his knees. “ Me .”

Was Alpha Caelan jealous? My lips curled into a smirk. Good.

From the moment Mom died and Dad brought me back to his pack, Caelan and I had hated each other. It had been a constant push and pull, a constant back and forth, a constant love-hate relationship.

And I was done with it.

He’d either mark me or I would have to force him to. And if I had to use Chase or any other wolf to do that, then I would.

“A strong alpha would mark his mate,” I taunted. “He’d mark her with no regrets.”

A ferocious snarl left his mouth, the mere sound vibrating my clit. I dragged my knees closer to my chest, my toes curling on his shoulders. I stared down at him, meeting the intensity in his eyes.

“Don’t be a little bra?—”

“Don’t pretend you’re the only one with something to lose,” I said. “Mark me.”

Though he had scars from battles older than me, Caelan was… between my legs with his canines on my skin and his restraint so fragile. And me? I would do anything to break him. The longer we let this go on, the thinner and thinner his restraint became.

“You’re mine,” he growled. “Don’t let me see you with Chase again.” He buried his face between my legs, eating and eating and eating until my entire body was tingling. “You’re mine. All mine.”

His? Is that what he thinks?

“Say it,” he ordered. “Say you’re mine.”

Caelan wanted obedience, something he knew I’d never give him willingly. That’s what everyone in our pack did, especially if he used his alpha command on them. They couldn’t resist, but I could.

That command had never worked on me, and he loathed it.

“If there’s no mark on my neck,” I said, curling my fingers into his hair and pulling his mouth back down on my clit, “then I’m not yours.”

“Don’t be a fucking brat.”

“Anyone can take me, claim me,” I moaned softly. “I’m not yours.”

“Livia.”

“ Alpha .”

Before I knew it, his hand snapped around my neck and his mouth was on my throat, his teeth grazing my skin. “You’re going to get me killed.”

Was that all I had to do? Tell him that I’d find someone else? That–

Just before he could sink his canines into my neck, just before he lost complete control, just before he finally forged the mate bond, someone knocked at the door. Then Dad’s voice broke through the tense silence.

“Caelan, you still up? We need to talk.”