River’s warm hand cupped my breast, rolling my nipple between his fingers while his rock hard shaft sat poised at my opening, teasing me but not proceeding any further. He was fucking killing me, and the bastard knew it too.

If it were any of the other guys, I’d be bucking my hips and thrashing, demanding they give me more.

But this was River. Alpha. Sir.

Any attempts to control this situation would not pan out well for me, and I was well and truly turned on enough to let him do whatever he wanted, so long as he did it soon.

I bit my lip—hard—just to try and keep my pleas silent. He’d told me not to speak, and I wasn’t in the mood for any more drawn-out foreplay. I’d had enough of that in the hot tub and just now while I’d waited for him. Just lying there on his bed, naked and exposed, had gotten me so aroused I was an aching ball of need when he finally joined me.

Now, after having him tie my wrists and blindfold me, I thought I might go insane from wanting him. It took everything in me not to press him faster, but I was so well rewarded for my composure.

Hot lips closed over my nipple, sucking for a second before his teeth bit down, making me gasp and jump. At the same moment, he thrust his cock up into me, and I fell to fucking pieces. My orgasm hit so hard I probably woke the entire house up with my scream, but he was only just getting started.

“You like that, Kitten?” he asked, but I could hear the tension in his voice betraying his own tenuous hold on composure.

Good. I love when I push him to the edge.

“Shit,” I swore. “Yes, sir,” I added, remembering my role. I can honestly say I’d never thought I’d be into this style of relationship, but something about River brought it out in me. He clearly had so much more he wanted to do, and I couldn’t wait for the day we were no longer on the run and he could unleash the beast... so to speak.

He growled a wild sound, and I felt him shift on top of me. He was losing control, and I loved it.

My wrists bound and my sight obscured, I found myself hyperaware of my body. Every touch, every breath, every long, hard thrust of River’s cock inside me had me gasping and moaning.

Oh yeah, we’re doing this one again for sure.

I found myself trying to guess where his hands were going next or where is lips would land and couldn’t help but wonder what this would be like with more than one set of hands...

“Fuck!” I exclaimed, when he pinched my nipple just a fraction sharper than I’d anticipated, and he groaned as my walls tightened around him.

“You spoke out of turn, Kitten,” he panted, and a spike of both anticipation and dread shot through me.

Please do not tell me he’s going to do something insane like deny me another orgasm. That was only in shitty BDSM movies... wasn’t it?

“Fuck it,” he growled. “I’ll punish you tomorrow.”

Grabbing one of my legs under the thigh, he lifted it up until my ankle rested on his shoulder. The new angle had him hitting me deeper, and I moaned my approval as he began to move, pounding into me with a punishing rhythm. His fingers rubbed at my tender, well-worked clit while he fucked me, and within moments we came together. Hard.

“Holy shit, River,” I panted when the stars stopped exploding in my brain from my third insane orgasm of the evening. It really did pay to be a supernatural creature sometimes...

River chuckled a low laugh, tugging the scarf from my eyes and releasing my wrists before he collapsed beside me. The way he was post-sex, he was like a totally different person.

Relaxed and content.

Alpha was sexy as hell, but this River was who I was in love with.

“Holy shit is about right,” he replied with a lazy smile, kissing along my collarbone as I draped my jelly-like arms around his neck. “I think watching you three in the hot tub got me a bit more worked up than I really cared to admit.”

“Awesome,” I breathed. “I’ll be sure to put on a show like that more often then.”

“I don’t even know if that’s a good thing or not. Kitten, I swear, you’re like a drug that I just can’t seem to get enough of.” He lifted his head to look at me with serious, golden eyes. “Words can’t express how in love with you I am.”

I smiled at him a bit sadly because I understood what he was saying. But if he would let me change him, he wouldn’t need to hear it from me; he’d feel it.

“Why wouldn’t you let me heal you?” I blurted out rather than the reciprocal “me too” I had been intending to reply with. River’s body went rigid against me, and I could feel him pulling away from me again. “Never mind, I didn’t mean to ask that. Forget it.”

“Kit...” he sighed, pushing himself to sitting and rubbing at his forehead. The lack of nickname made my heart clench painfully, and I desperately wished I could take my words back. As much as I wished the guys would be open with me, as I had been with them, I never wanted to force the issue.

“Don’t worry, it’s fine. You’ll tell me when you want to. Just... forget I said anything? Please?” I tugged on his wrist, trying to get him to come back to me. To maybe leave his walls down for just a little while longer while it was just us.

“I can’t, Kitten,” he replied, looking down at me for a long moment before standing up and pulling the covers down, indicating for me to wiggle underneath them. “You deserve full disclosure, same as I require of you.”

A little stunned, and not wanting to change his mind again, I kept my trap shut as he slid back into the bed with me and pulled me into his warm embrace.

“I don’t know anything for sure, but I’ll tell you my concerns. If that will help?” His voice was a little hesitant, and I simply nodded against his chest where my cheek was pressed to his ink. “Right, then. It’s to do with this... thing. This beast I keep caged in my mind...”

River proceeded to tell me of his struggles to keep this thing inside him caged, and suddenly his controlling nature began making a lot more sense. As did his reluctance to let me change him, and I couldn’t blame him. If I had lived with what he had for so many years, I’d be afraid of what might happen too.

“Do you think less of me?” he asked in a husky voice when he finished, and I pushed myself up to look at him in the eye.

“Totally the opposite,” I whispered, my throat tight with emotion as I considered all he’d learned to cope with as a child neglected by his parents. “I love you, River. Knowing you better only serves to make me love you more. But... you know it will happen eventually, right?”

To say I was nervous about what his reaction might be to this was an understatement. None of the other guys had really had any choice in being changed. It was either change or die for all of them. River wasn’t in that position, so what I really meant by this was that if he was to be my dianoch, then it would need to happen. Because to bond, he couldn’t remain human.

My fear, though, was that he was afraid enough of the beast inside him that he might walk away from this. From me.

“I know.” He gave me a small, sad smile. “And I know that when that time comes, you and the boys will be strong enough to handle whatever comes out. Fair?”

Relief rushed over me in a dizzying wave.

“Absolutely.” I kissed him then, trying to convey all my crazy, overwhelming, and conflicting feelings. Whether he understood them all, I had no idea, but he kissed me back just as hard.

The next morning I was tired and cranky again, but for the best possible reason. It didn’t take me long to cheer up when first Cole cornered me in the hallway to chastise me for keeping him up half the night—oops—and then let me apologise with a quick makeout against the wall. My mood only improved further when I found fresh coffee already prepared for me when I came into the kitchen for breakfast.

Sadly, my mood plummeted again when Austin stomped in with a face like a thundercloud.

“Lesson was due to start ten minutes ago, Christina,” he snapped in a caustic sort of voice. “If you fuck around any more, I’ll have to consider it sabotage on our bet, and you’ll forfeit.”

“Like hell,” I muttered, topping up my cup again quickly and hurrying to catch up with him as he stalked through to the den, which had become our magic center for the past week. “Teach me, sensei; I am ready to learn.”

Austin simply leveled a glare at me, and I felt nothing but anger and irritation from him. Tyson huffed a big kitty laugh though, and I rewarded him with a scratch behind the ears. At least someone thought I was funny.

“Sit down, Christina. We have a lot to get through today.” Austin’s voice was scornful and thick with... disgust?

“Hold the fuck up.” I frowned at him. “What the hell is going on? Have I done something to offend you in the past twelve hours? Because if so, I’d love to know what it was so I can rub it in your face. When I piss you off, I prefer it to be deliberate.”

His sexy green eyes just narrowed at me, and his lip curled in a slight sneer.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Princess. I just didn’t sleep well.” He turned away quickly, but not before I caught the hints of jealousy radiating from him.

Oh, he was good. We still hadn’t worked out how to block each other’s feelings, so he was literally smothering his true emotions in what I expected to feel from him.

But I’d seen it. Austin was jealous.

Suppose that explains why he didn’t sleep well then.

For once in my life, I made the mature decision and didn’t rub it in. Instead, I sat my tired ass down in my seat and set up the ink and paper as Austin had shown me the day before.

“Let’s do this then,” I announced. “Day seven.”

For the next ten hours solid, Austin drilled information into me at a punishing pace, but come dinnertime, even he had to concede defeat. I was actually a little surprised that he didn’t try to cut any corners and pretend we were done, but Austin was as meticulous with magical training as he had been with target practice. Maybe even more so.

“Say it again,” I teased as he flopped backward onto the couch with his hands over his face.

“No,” he growled back, and I poked him in the leg with my marker pen.

“Do it! Say it again,” I ordered. “Once more and I’ll leave it alone. For now.”

He glared at me from between his fingers before muttering in a sullen voice, “You win, Princess.”

“Hell yeah, I do,” I nodded, grinning at him and doing a little victory dance in my seat.

Austin muttered something under his breath, then pushed up off the couch once more. “Whatever, you gracious winner. You can’t tattoo me until after you finish magic training and then I teach you how to use the equipment properly. Maybe in the meantime you should Google some pictures you can trace to make it easier.”

I snorted. “Not necessary, but thanks for the tip.”

I already knew exactly what I was going to tattoo on him and where. Oh, revenge definitely was a dish best served cold after all.

We both headed back out to join the rest of the guys, me with a grin plastered to my face that left no room for doubt as to who had won our bet.

“Oh, bro,” Caleb laughed when he saw us. “She beat you at your own game. Shit...”

“Shut the fuck up, Cal,” Austin muttered, but it lacked any real heat. My link to his emotions told me he was ticked off at best, but really not too concerned. Maybe because he already had so many tatts that he figured mine would just be lost? Silly man. Always underestimating me.

“Vali,” I greeted the dark and dangerous Romanian as I slid into my seat at the table opposite him. “I feel like I haven’t seen you all week. How is dragoning going?”

His granite eyes flicked to Cole and then settled back on me before he smiled.

“Very well, Regina mea,” he dipped his head with a small smirk. “Cole and I have come a long way, I think.”

Surprised, I glanced at Cole, who just gave a small shrug and turned back to his food.

“That’s really great to hear,” I said carefully, not totally sure if Vali meant that he and Cole had come a long way or if their dragon magic had. Maybe I’d need to get one of them alone later to ask.

“Actually, we wanted to discuss something with you after dinner, if that would be okay?” Vali continued, polite as ever, and I narrowed my eyes at him. Despite his insistence that he couldn’t read my mind, his intuition hit dangerously close to mind reading sometimes.

“Sure thing,” I replied, spearing Cole with another suspicious look, but he just avoided my gaze and cut into his steak. Rare, of course. God forbid a dragon be a vegan or something.

“Will you be finished with Kit’s magic instruction tomorrow, Austin?” River asked, and my surly magic teacher nodded sharply.

“Tomorrow or the day after,” he agreed.

“Good. Wesley and I have made some progress with our research into Omega and Director Pierre, so we’ll have more concrete info to share in a couple of days. Then we can look at forming a plan of where to go from here.” River delivered this as a statement, but there was a small question in his eyes as he met my gaze down the table, like he was making sure I was on board with this. I supposed I did have a small history of going a bit rogue, so I gave him a small nod of acceptance, and the tension around his eyes seemed to ease.

“Shit,” Caleb swore, glancing at his watch. “I need to go, or I’ll be late.” He shoveled the last of his food into his mouth and hurried to drop his dirty dishes into the kitchen. “I’ll catch you later, Kitty Kat,” he whispered, kissing me quickly, then disappearing inside a rune circle a few feet away from the dinner table.

“He is getting really good at that,” Wesley commented as we all watched the runes glittering on the floor before fading to nothing.

“Good,” Austin snapped. “Maybe he can stop seeing this mystery teacher who demands so much secrecy from him.”

For once, I agreed with him.

“Any luck on breaking the spell?” River asked Austin, who shook his head.

“Nothing that is worth trying, yet. I’ll work it out though.” His mouth was set with stubborn confidence, and I one hundred percent believed him. If anyone could help Caleb break this magical NDA, it was his twin.