Page 31 of Fated to Him

I press another soft kiss on her throat. Her body clamps around mine in response. I groan, picking up my pace as she grinds her body onto mine. We move from smooth, slow, and easy to frantic and hard.

“Mine,” I breathe against her skin, pounding into her now. “Mine.” I growl it, needing her to hear it. Then I roar it, wanting everyone to know it too.

I bite down, marking my mate’s throat, claiming her as I’ve claimed her body.

“Malakhi!” she screams as she explodes around me.

I hold her still, coming so hard that I black out for a second. Then, needing her closer, I haul her against me and lick the bite on her throat so it will heal faster. For now, this is enough. But soon, I’ll need her again.

I need to crawl inside her and live there.

11

DELILAH

Malakhi pulled out of me minutes before, though he’s given no indication that he intends to let me go anytime soon. I have my back to him as I stare off into the forest with his arm like a steel band around my waist. His body is tucked tight against me as he drops soft kisses on my throat that make me want him to bite me again.

He claimed me.

There’s no doubt in my mind what just happened. The way he pinned me to the ground, the way he drove his body into mine, sent me into an endless cascade of pleasure. There’s no way that wasn’t a claiming. Mind, body, and soul.

And the way he bit me…

My belly tightens at the possessiveness of that bite. Of him roaring ‘mine’ out into the world like that.

I screamed his name as if I didn’t care who heard me. And I didn’t. I wanted everyone to know I was his.

It’s why I’m lying with my back to him. My face is hot as my body ripples with the need to do it all again. Including the bite. I can’t look him in the face after I screamed like that.

Everything feels different. I feel different. Because of how we came together.

And because of that bite.

I’ve barely begun to process what I am now. Werewolf. Shifter.

One night and my whole life is different. Forever. Even if I could run from Malakhi, I don’t want to. A voice in my head tells me he’s mine as much as I’m his.

Ellis Wood doesn’t feel like home, but Malakhi Gabriel does.

“You’re quiet,” Malakhi rumbles in my ear, stirring the fine hairs on the back of my neck and making me shiver.

“I’m thinking,” I admit.

“About?” his question is an order. I don’t think he even realizes it is.

Because he’s Alpha. The leader. And because he is, it means my life has changed in another unexpected way.

I turn over, needing to read his face for a conversation we need to have.

His arm tightens around me as if he doesn’t want to let me go, even though all I’m doing is turning. Then reluctantly, his arm loosens, and we’re face to face in the middle of a forest in Ellis Wood, Ohio, with moonlight shining down on us.

“What now?” I ask him.

His fingers are gentle as he tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. His eyes are warmer than I thought he was capable of when I would notice him watching me in the Hellwood Brewery. I hadn’t believed he had any softness in him at all. But he does. “Now, you lead by my side.”

I was afraid you were going to say that.

My stomach clenches in response. Ferris called me a half-breed, implying others felt the same way right before he tried to kill me. Now Malakhi wants me to lead? I’m a woman who hasn’t even led a bar shift on her own. He wants me to lead a pack of werewolves?

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