Chapter Fourteen

“WAKE UP, PRINCESS.”

The voice and the dip into the bed as someone jumped on top of it startled me awake. “What the…”

I rubbed my eyes and shook my head, trying to figure out what was going on.

“Good morning to you too.”

I stared at Cristian’s face, mouth gaping and eyes sluggish. “What.. How… You’re here!”

He smirked and crossed his arms over his chest. “Yup, flew here this morning. Thought you might want to break up with me to my face.”

I groaned and got up, heading straight for my bathroom. I slammed the door shut behind me and stepped into the shower. The cold bite of the water expelled whatever sleep was still lingering in my system. I brushed my teeth and towel-dried for longer than I needed, trying to calm down. Why was I angry? Just last night I’d been crushed by the thought of losing him. So why was I so upset about him being here?

I couldn’t hide in my bathroom for the rest of my life, so I wrapped a clean towel around my hips and stepped into my bedroom.

Before I could do anything, Cristian grabbed me, pushed me into the wall next to the bathroom door and kissed me stupid. By the time he released me, I was high on his taste and dripping with arousal.

“Still want to break up?” He bit my ear lobe and grabbed the edge of my towel.

“No,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around his neck and holding him close.

“Thought so.” He pulled the towel off and pressed into me.

He was fully dressed, jacket, boots, all the fixings. I shivered at the sensation and pulled him even closer. Cristian stopped teasing me and wrapped his arms around me, sighing deeply.

“First, I am going to fuck your brains out. Then we’re going to talk.”

***

Cristian was a liar as well. The good kind of liar. He said we’d talk after he fucked me. We fucked again after he fucked me the first time. We then did it again and again and it took me the rest of the day and the following night to calm down enough to go in search of food.

We piled up whatever we could find in the large fridges in our common dining hall and returned to my bedroom, taking our time to savor it all.

“So, are you done deciding what’s best for me?” Cristian asked as we were washing down our early breakfast.

I cringed at the question and put my cup on the night stand. “I don’t want you in more danger because of me. I can’t… I just can’t watch another person die on me.”

“Like your mate?” Cristian asked, the smiled sheepishly.

“Shiki has been a busy boy.” I rolled to my side and settled with my head on his chest. “That was soul crushing. But we were young, we hadn’t truly lived just yet. We were so swept up in each other, so in love with it being us against the world. At the end of the day, we didn’t know anything about life and love. Silly teenagers who had been lucky enough to find each other.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss.” Cristian pulled me closer and kissed my forehead. “But you can’t isolate yourself because you’re afraid.”

“I would never be able to forgive myself if you died because of me.”

Cristian cupped my cheek and lifted my face up to look at him. “I am a beta of a powerful tribe. You are going to be alpha of one. We will always be in danger. We can’t change that. We can just protect each other and see where we’re going.”

It was so easy to believe he was right when he held me like that. I wanted it to be true, I wanted to believe I could have this man I wanted with every cell in my body. If he hadn’t come all the way over here, I might have been able to stick to my decision. I knew his touch was my kryptonite and if I were honest, I refused to make him leave again.

“I don’t want to lose you. Not because of my stupidity. Not in an attack. I like you, I want to get to know you better. I’m just not sure that’s enough to overpower my fear of seeing you covered in blood again.”

Cristian pushed the covers again, revealing his naked body. He pointed to his right shoulder. “I had a gunshot wound here. Got it in the UK in all that madness with the French when Vicks became our alpha.”

There was no scar on his skin, of course. We were werewolves, anything but a cut body part or mortal brain damage would heal. The only scars that marred our bodies were those from bonding bite. I still had mine on the back of my shoulder.

“I had a spear go through here when I got between two wolves fighting over a girl.” Cristian points to the right side of his stomach. “I had most of my bones broken at some point or another. You certainly aren’t the only one leading a violent tribe. They all go through phases of conflict.”

“I know, I know. This hit so close to home, it rattled me to my core. It wasn’t a hypothetical scenario where someone I care about might get hurt.”

Cristian settled on the pillows and pulled me back into my arms. “I know, but we don’t live the most peaceful lives in the world. I am not ready to let that take more away from me than it already has. I didn’t choose this position in my tribe, neither did you. All my non-werewolf friends will never know who I truly am. I draw the line at this thing we’re playing at.”

“I was ready to give you up. I don’t think I can. It’s hard enough to stay away when you’re hundreds of kilometers away from me. When you’re within reach, I am too selfish to care anymore.”

Cristian grinned and rolled on top of me. “Then all I have to do is make sure I am as close to you as possible.”

***

It was hot, too hot. Enough that I woke up, confused about where I was. It was dark and the room felt as if it was burning. Behind me, Cristian groaned in his sleep and moved. His hard cock slid along my crack and I pressed into it. I was rock hard already and despite my feverish state, I wanted to get closer to him.

Cristian pressed his lips to the back of my neck, dry humping me. I wasn’t sure he was fully awake. I knew I wasn’t, my lids so heavy, I couldn’t keep my eyes open for more than a couple of beats.

“Lube,” he muttered, moving sluggishly.

I patted the nightstand, and found the tube. I squeezed some of it in my hand after missing a couple of times. I’d have to scrape it off the carpet in the morning. I laughed at the thought and it came out as a giggle. I should have been embarrassed, but Cristian’s cock was teasing my hole, so I had no time to feel anything but horny.

I reached back and sleeked his shaft. He growled impatiently and gripped my hip, pulling me closer. He sheathed himself and we both sighed. We moved together, not awake enough for it to be anything but slow. It was perfect all the same.

“Gonna come,” he whispered and I took myself in hand, stroking with purpose.

He climaxed seconds after me but didn’t let go. He kept me close as we both panted, sweaty and… not satiated. I was still horny. Which was crazy.

Realization hit me and I swore. I reached for my phone and checked the date. Full on spring, of course.

“What’s wrong,” he mumbled.

“I’ll be right back.”

I grabbed a pair of jeans I’d discarded the night before and stumbled to the kitchen. At first, I tried to keep the lights off, but couldn’t see anything. I groaned when the light hit my eyes, the sting so bad, I considered going back to fumbling in the dark for a moment, but knew it would just take longer than I had the energy for on too little sleep and too much sex.

I piled together all the snacks I could find and all the food that didn’t need to stay in the fridge. I also found a few large bottles of water and tried to fit it all in my arms. It took two trips up and down the stairs, but I got it all into the bedroom.

Once inside, I locked the door behind me. I took one of the bottles, uncapped it and drank my fill. I sat on the bed and shook Cristian’s shoulder.

“Let me sleep.”

“Drink some water and I will.”

He groaned but sat up and took the bottle for me. He drank slowly, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Why is staying hydrated so important that you wake me up?”

I chuckled and kissed his cheek. “You’ll figure it out soon enough.”

Cristian snorted and slid down the bed, settling on his pillow. I stretched next to him and we both moaned when our bodies touched.

“Oh, hell,” Cristian whispered. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

It hadn’t taken long. “Yup, we’re in heat.”

Cristian sighed, rolled to his side to face me and found my lips with his. “Seems like I came at the right time.”

I laughed, pushing one leg between his. “Yeah, you chose the perfect moment.”

***

I hated being in heat. First, it was annoying that we were all afflicted. With animals, you could control this by keeping males and females away from each other. Werewolves… it didn’t work. We were all horny as fuck and nothing happened for weeks. We were too busy having sex to get anything else done.

The reason I hated it was the lack of control it came with. I disliked feeling like I had no say in what I was doing. Of course, being single didn’t help, especially when I had particular preferences. When in heat, all you wanted was release after release. A neat trick of mother nature to make sure we didn’t die out. With pregnancies and live birth having always been abysmal, we should have been grateful for this small blessing.

It made me feel like an animal a lot more than running around in wolf form and eating raw rabbit I’d caught with my blade-sharp fangs. I wasn’t a genius, but I considered myself smart enough. I could use my brain when I had to. Being reduced to acting based on my blood rushing forward at the scent of any male, human or werewolf, was the opposite of who I thought I was.

I envied mated wolves because they only reacted to each other. They usually stayed away from other wolves, as they got possessive to the extreme and one wrong look would earn you an immediate fight to the death.

This time it was different because Cristian was here. I’d already given up on the idea of breaking off our relationship. I didn’t want it, deep down, and Cristian was stubborn enough to not let me. He’d made heat season bearable, but I still hated it. I couldn’t lock myself in a room with him, I still had to show my face here and there and talk to my father, or Dimitri, or some of the pack leaders.

The other blessing of heat season was the quiet that had descended on my tribe. It was impossible to run sabotage and attack ops when everyone spent their time having sex. It didn’t matter how driven you were, what plans you had, heat season swooped in and claimed your attention. All of it.

“Ganzorig,” Father said with a curt nod. “I see you are well.”

He always moved out of the house during mating season. He’d never gotten attached to anyone after my mother, not enough to get past friendship. He couldn’t fathom bringing someone else into my mother’s home, so he kept his sexual exploits far from our house and me. I sometimes suspected he hated this dreaded chunk of the year more than I did.

I smiled as I sat across from him at his desk. “Yeah, surviving it.”

Chinggis frowned, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his desk, fingers crossed. He peered at me, pressing his nose to his entwined hands. “Hmm, that is strange.”

“What’s strange?”

He took a deep breath and released it, eyes still trained on me. “I thought you’d feel better about it, now that young man is here with you.”

I blinked and snorted. “Why would I feel better? It still renders us useless, we are slaves to our mating instincts and haven’t one lick of control.”

Father shrugged, the gesture feeling strange on him. Chinggis never shrugged, or maybe he did it so rarely, I couldn’t remember a different instance where he had. Father always knew the right answer or what question to ask to get to that answer. He didn’t shrug and certainly never looked like he was searching for the right words to explain things to me.

“I don’t know, son. I used to get lost in your mother when heat season came. I was grateful for the respite from our complicated lives and enjoyed the uninterrupted days with her.”

I hummed and tilted my head, looking at him like I didn’t know him. This was my father, the man I had considered almost emotionless for so long. And here he was, waxing lyrical about being spirited away with my mom in their own little world.

An awkward laughter pulled me out of my thoughts and I focused on him. “You’re looking at me like I just sprouted a second head.”

I chuckled and shook my head. “Sorry. I’m not used to you being so open or talking about feelings.”

He winced and hung his head. “You are right, I haven’t done enough of that. I always feared you’d be shunted because how I acted. Being alpha required me to show strength, steadiness. I didn’t know how to turn it off. Your mother helped, but she was no longer there when it mattered for you.”

“I turned out all right, Father. You managed without her.”

His eye crinkled in a smile at my mumbled words. “No. I failed. That boy, Naran, he taught you how to love.”

I closed my eyes and tensed at the sound of his name. I never said it, it hurt too much. The wave of hurt did not wash over me and I gasped in surprise. I was so used to memories of him to be painful, like a punch to the gut, that I avoided them.

I sat there, in my father’s office, staring at him, as my mind scrambled to piece together what was going on. There was some grief left, an undertone in what I felt, but the overwhelming warmth yielded by his name, by his face flashing through my mind’s eye. Melancholy, joy at having met him, and this mind-boggling warmth, I was definitely not used to it.

“He did you good, for all the suffering you went through when he died,” Father said.

I found myself agreeing with him, a slow smile forming on my lips. “He was wonderful, wasn’t he?”

Father’s smile was as wide and genuine as mine. “That he was. You were too. And together… you were too much of a united front. You were so young, son! His parents and I tried so hard to prevent you from mating.”

I rolled my eyes to dispel some of the heaviness. “We were sixteen. I understand why you were so worried. But we were sure of our love, believed in our bond.”

He nodded and cleared his throat. “You have a wonderful man now. He might be a foreigner, but he’s strong, reliable, and he seems to care for you. Don’t screw it up.”

I nodded and stood to leave. I knew he’d dismissed me with that last uttered sentence. He might have shown me his softer side, but this is Chinggis, he can’t take feelings for too long.

Feeling like my soul had been cleansed by the conversation with my father, I rushed back home. It felt imperative to find Cristian and spend every second I got with him. Maybe it was high time I treated heat season as it deserved to be treated: a break from all the madness, a chance to be with the man I was in love with.

My steps faltered the moment that thought formed in my mind. Shit! But I was… I was in love with Cristian, no two ways about it. A few short months and here I was. I’d almost crushed this with my fear. I might fuck it up again if I let fear make my decision. Right now, I’d use my animal side to bring me closer to him, let the ties bind us together and hope it held when my foggy, sex-driven mind cleared and I tried to find a logical reason to push him away.

***

I was lying on my side, mouth full of Cristian’s cock. He pumped his hips lazily as I licked and sucked and moaned around his length. It felt perfect, giving and receiving, the taste of him on my tongue as good as what his mouth was doing to me.

He thrust harder, his fingers digging into my hips as he pulled me closer, sucking me to the root. I sucked harder, familiar by now with his sounds and moves when he was about to explode. Moments later, he filled my mouth with warm semen and I hurried to swallow it. I was still licking him clean when my climax carried me over the edge, his cock slipping out of my mouth.

“Fuck, you taste good,” Cristian murmured, his lips hovering over my hip bone.

“Don’t talk dirty to me. I am hoping my dick will stay put for a while.”

Cristian laughed and flopped on the bed next to me. “I hope we get a long enough break to get some food into us. I want enough energy to fuck you again.”

I slid closer to him, resting my head on his chest. “If you can still gather the energy to fuck me, I am giving you a medal for endurance.”

I was only half-joking. Every muscle in my body ached and he wasn’t any better. After the first week, we’d relied more and more on blowjobs to deal with the constant arousal and not pass out from exhaustion. By the third week, we’d already started to lose weight. Food was a luxury when a wolf was in heat. Fuck first, sleep if possible, eat whenever you could.

“It won’t be much longer,” Cristian said, kissing the top of my head.

I grunted and wrapped myself around him. “I don’t know how I feel about that.”

“I thought you’d welcome the respite.”

I lifted myself up enough to prop my crossed arms on his chest and look into his eyes. “I miss not feeling hungry and not being in pain.” I winced as I wiggled on the bed to get a better position and my muscles protested. “But I’ve gotten used to waking up with you. I love spending days on end with you. I’m going to miss that.”

Cristian smiled, a mischievous spark in his eyes. “Then my mission is complete. You won’t ignore me when I’m gone.”

I slapped his shoulder and glared. “Are you ever going to stop making fun of me for that?”

He tapped his chin with a finger, his eyes fixed on a spot on the ceiling. “A few more times. You hurt me, you know? I don’t like to admit to it, but it’s true. It felt like I mattered so little, you couldn’t be bothered to break up with me in person.”

I bent forward and pecked his lips. “I’m sorry. If it makes you feel better, I did it because I cared, misguided as it might have been.”

He smiled, eyes still looking somewhere beyond me. “Don’t do it again. I won’t give you any more passes.”

The words were harsh, but his voice wasn’t. It sounded more like a plea than anything. I nodded and kissed him again, then cuddled close. I was going to show him just how much he meant to me from now on. I was too afraid to put it in words, but Cristian is a smart man, he’ll figure it out from my actions.