Page 12 of The Alpha's Pregnant Mate

Despite all her anger, she flinched away at his interjection, eyes widening in surprise. She’d never heard Laurent’s voice that loud, never seen his face express so much feeling. He’d lowered his sword, but she was still unnerved by the way he stepped towards her across the room. Suddenly, she was acutely aware of him—of his physical presence, his height advantage, the latent strength in his body, the intensity burning in those silver eyes. But it wasn’t fear she felt running down her spine and pooling in her belly.

“How dare you tell me I tore this pack apart,” he was saying, clearly oblivious to the shift in dynamic she’d sensed between them. “How dare you blame me for your decision. It was you who put an end to the discussions, you who gave up on a path to unity. It was the wrong decision, but I accepted it, followed along with it out of respect for your father’s wishes, and now you throw it back in my face? You blame me for the divide? As if I wanted to lose twenty members of my family. As if I wanted—”

She’d never heard so much passion in Laurent’s voice. Nor had she heard his voice break like that in the middle of a sentence. He seemed as shocked as she was, now, in the ringing silence that rushed in to claim the space. His sword hung in the slackening grip of his right hand, and he looked strangely unsteady on his feet, off-balance, as if about to fall. In that strange, suspended atmosphere, Rhietta realized that, far from shrinking away from the force of Laurent’s onslaught, she’d moved in closer to him. Curious. It wasn’t as though she’d had any trouble hearing him. Had they ever been this close to each other before, physically? Had she ever been near enough to him to feel the warmth of his skin radiating against hers? To look up into those sharp silver eyes of his and see, for perhaps the first time, how thin that veneer of composure really was?

And before she knew what was even happening, she realized that her lips were on his.

She heard a distant clatter, which only much later would she realize was the sound of Laurent’s sword dropping from his hand, freeing it for a much more important purpose…she felt fingers slide up the nape of her neck, sending a shiver down her spine as that hand warmed her skin and tilted her head irresistibly upwards, the better to deepen that kiss. His lips were always so tense when she saw them, pursed in disapproval, or seeming to bite back on every word he spoke as if in rebuke. But there was nothing rigid or controlled about the way he was kissing her. He may as well have been a stranger, kissing her with such a ferocity, such a hunger for her—but she could feel his chest beneath her hands through the fabric of his shirt, and when she breathed in the scent of him there was no mistaking who it was that she was pressing her body against. It made absolutely no sense, of course, but Rhietta wasn’t especially interested in any of this making rational sense. Not when her whole body seemed to be burning with a delicious heat she’d only ever felt in snatches, here and there…a sensation she’d heard described a hundred times, but never imagined could really feel this good.

Every wolf dreamed of what it would be like when they finally met their soulmate. Rhietta hadn’t given the matter much thought in the last little while, but right now she almost burst into giddy laughter. She could never have imagined in a thousand years that her romantic destiny lay in the tense, remote figure of her father’s closest advisor, a man who’d spent much of her life actively avoiding her presence. And judging by the look of naked shock in his eyes when they both broke from the kiss to gasp for breath, neither had Laurent. She felt that wild laughter bubbling up in her again, her arousal coursing through her body…the anger that had burned so thickly in her a minute ago was a pale shadow by comparison. Trust Laurent to repress himself so fiercely, to hide so much of his true self from the world, that he’d even managed to hide from his own soulmate.

In those keen silver eyes of his, she could already see his thoughts racing, see that mind of his struggling to regain control of the situation. But before he could open his mouth to speak, she reached up and pulled him down into another kiss, deeper and more demanding than the first. She’d always trusted her instincts, and right now her instincts were telling her that talking was the last thing either of them needed. They’d been at loggerheads for almost a year, matching wits, each trying to overcome the other through sheer force of will. Their bodies had more than a little bit of catching up to do. And she knew he could feel it too when she felt his arms close around her, drawing her against him.

What was it about him that made him seem thinner than he really was, frailer? He’d always given her the impression that a strong gust of wind might knock him off balance, but as she felt him pressing against her she realized how inaccurate that was. There was hard, powerful muscle beneath her hands wherever they roamed, the thin fabric of his ever-present black shirt concealing it from view, maybe, but not from touch. And when she pulled hard enough on the lapels to tear half the fastenings, he barely reacted, only shrugging the shirt off, clearly more interested in kissing her than he was in preserving his clothing.

Silea had been right, she thought faintly, pulling back just enough to admire his surprisingly powerful frame. Alpha Laurent had been keeping the secret of his body for a long, long time. Typical, she thought, feeling another rush of laughter bubbling up in her—laughter which he quickly silenced with another kiss, and the low growl of warning he uttered sent another rush of arousal through her. But she wasn’t the only one who was getting curious about what lay beneath their clothing. Laurent’s hands had been making short work of the buttons on her dress, and she was surprised when he slipped it from her shoulders and tossed it across the room without a second thought. Gone was the reserved man she’d come to know, the remote figure who seemed constantly even further away than the far corners of the room…now, Laurent was right on top of her, all over her, his hands drinking in every inch of her skin like he’d been starving for her.

Even as a child, Rhietta had always liked her plump, stocky body - its softness, its solidness, its strength. And as she’d moved through adolescence into adulthood, she’d only been more delighted by the changes puberty brought, by the way her hips flared and her chest expanded, by the round, soft hourglass her body became. She’d known that one day, she’d meet someone who loved her body every bit as much as she did, who’d dedicate himself to knowing every curve and indentation as intimately as she herself did. She’d just never expected that person to be Laurent. She was shocked by the tenderness of his hands as he caressed her skin, his hands alternating between deliciously firm pressure and faint, teasing brushes that made gooseflesh erupt across her body. Before she knew it, he was drawing her down onto his neatly made bed, pressing her back against the pillows with one hand as the other traced the curve of her hip, his lips lighting fires along the sensitive flesh at the base of her throat. Impatient as she was to touch him in turn, she contented herself with caressing the muscles of his shoulders and back, not quite willing to discourage him from what he was doing with his lips and hands…

Still, there was an impatience growing in her, a dark, wild need that seemed to emanate from a much deeper place than her mind or even her heart, where she usually imagined her feelings and desires had their origin. But she’d never wanted something like this before, had she? All of this, the heat between their bodies, the way her wolf seemed wide awake beneath her skin as though on the verge of shifting forms—she’d known about it in theory only. What a joke that seemed now, as their bodies moved together like one organism, the noise of their breathing almost loud enough to drown out the ever-present buzz of the jungle beyond their little room. She hadn’t known a thing about how this would feel, not truly. And neither had Laurent, judging by the wild look in his eye each time he returned to claim her lips in a kiss that grew deeper, more desperate, more urgent. Perhaps he’d dallied with other women—it wasn’t unheard of for wolves to engage in casual relations, especially those who took a while to find their soulmates—but even if he had, she couldn’t bring herself to care, to feel even a flicker of jealousy. She knew in her bones that nothing that either of them experienced before this could possibly compare.

By the time his hands had finally found their way to the heat between her thighs, she was almost inarticulate with need, her body damp with sweat as she writhed beneath his touch. There was nothing careful or hesitant about the way he was touching her; there was a delicious roughness in his hands, a possessive, hungry quality in his open-mouthed kisses, the occasional scrape of his teeth sending delicious shivers down her spine. But she still wanted more. She wanted every last scrap of his self-control gone, wanted him wild and howling, wanted them both to devour one another…a complex, inexpressible tangle of images flickered past her mind’s eye, and all she could do was growl her wordless desire against his ear, feeling the hard line of his manhood tense and throb in response where it was pressed against her thigh.

He uttered a low, hoarse laugh as she writhed impatiently beneath him, but she couldn’t bring herself to mind—not when she could feel him at last moving to where she wanted him so desperately, the head of his cock sliding through the moisture that had gathered on the folds of her sex. He slid into her, and she threw back her head, hardly hearing the cry of delight that loosed itself from her throat as her body drew him in, enveloped him, the sensation of that exquisite pressure echoing in every nerve ending of her body. He was moaning against her throat, too, every shift of his hips bringing fresh, delicious friction, and with her whole body trembling she urged on each thrust of his hips. More, her body demanded, even as she felt the whole bed shaking beneath them. More, her wolf howled beneath her skin. More…and as a white-hot oblivion approached at a dizzying speed, she felt his fingers curl through hers and knew that he was right there with her, closer than even their sweat-slick bodies as climax took them both and dragged them under.

Breathing hard, whole body tingling with a bone-deep satisfaction more intense than anything she could remember feeling, Rhietta collapsed into the exhausted embrace of the man she’d come here to give a piece of her mind. Well, she thought, just before sleep rose up to claim her—they’d both gotten a little more than they’d bargained for, hadn’t they?

Chapter 8 - Laurent

Laurent rarely dreamed. He had a little when he was younger, he supposed, especially when the stress of his lorekeeper studies had been exerting its pressure on his sleeping mind…but even then, his dreams had been fragmentary, rudimentary things, more a collection of impressions and images than the kind of detailed, if nonsensical, narratives his fellow students would often share over breakfast.

So it was strange, when he began to emerge from deep sleep that morning, to realize that the night had brought him the most vivid dream he could recall. It had been about Rhietta, he realized, a twinge of embarrassment accompanying that foggy realization. He’d dreamed that she’d broken into his house, stormed into his room to scream at him, and then…he felt a pang of shame, a sudden and illogical terror that someone, somehow, might find out exactly what he’d dreamed about in such vivid detail. It was impossibly inappropriate, he reflected with rising panic. Where the devil had his mind even come up with such a thing? Even now, he felt haunted by the impossible vividness of that dream. The feeling of her soft, yielding flesh beneath his hands…how it had felt to hold that ample, curvaceous body in his arms, to explore the deepest and most intimate parts of her, to see his every touch cause a thrill of pleasure to run through her beautiful body—

Laurent sat bolt upright in bed as the images threatened to overwhelm him. And as his bleary eyes were struck hard by the too-bright early sunlight that was spilling through the east-facing window in his room, he realized with a profound sense of disorientation that he’d been wrong. His sleep, as always, had been completely untroubled by dreams.

Because Alpha Rhietta’s naked body was curled up beside him, her steady breathing the only thing that disturbed the tangle of auburn curls that obscured her face. His bed, always so fastidiously neat, was a disastrous tangle of sheets. He took in the sight of his own body, shocked to see that he, too, had slept naked; again, that strange paranoia shot through him, as if the entire pack would somehow gather outside the second-story window to peer in at him in this vulnerable state.

What had he done? How the hell had he gotten here? And what was he going to do when Rhietta woke up? Blind panic was threatening to set in. He needed to think—he needed time, needed space, needed about a week of complete solitude and silence before he was going to be able to disentangle this. How could he have been so utterly blindsided? How could he have failed to have seen something like this coming? He hardly knew the man he could remember becoming last night. One moment, he’d been in control, staring down the furious woman outlined in his doorway, some part of him almost glad that she’d lost control of her temper so completely. He’d been working out exactly how he was going to use the altercation to his advantage, how he’d tell his pack that Rhietta was unstable and the only safe course of action was to ask her to leave.

And then—and then—his heart was thudding so hard against his chest that he was shocked she hadn’t been woken by it. And then, some kind of crack had appeared in reality, and he’d fallen through it and woken in—well, it wasn’t a dream, was it? As tempting as that thought was, he knew better. There was too much detail here—the marks on his body where her kisses had grown rough and possessive, the faint, almost pleasant ache in the muscles that had worked so hard to bring the two of them to the exquisite peak of their pleasure…Laurent bit his lip hard enough to taste blood, trying without success to push that memory away.

His mind, his faculties, they were compromised. Beyond compromised. He might as well not have had a mind at all, with the way he’d behaved last night. And as that utter shock resonated through him again and again, he became aware that Rhietta was stirring in her sleep, that mane of deliciously soft auburn ringlets falling away from her face as she sat sleepily up in bed. As she did so, he felt the warmth of her skin brush against his, sending another wave of utterly alien sensation rushing through him. Save for occasional contact in sparring matches, Laurent rarely touched anyone. It was too much. All of this was far too much.

“You’re awake already?” Her voice was a little blurry with sleep, but full of warmth. Laurent kept his eyes fixed on the opposite wall, heart still thudding against his ribcage. Even out of the corner of his eye, he could see that she was smiling, and he knew that if he let himself look at her properly, he’d be utterly lost.

Was it a few seconds that passed, or a few decades? Rhietta yawned and stretched, combed her fingers through her hair and made a soft sound of dismay at each new nest of tangles she encountered. He felt her eyes alight on him again when she spoke with that irrepressible, impossible confidence of hers.

“Well, this explains a lot, don’t you think?”

He couldn’t bring himself to answer. It felt as though her voice was coming from a great distance away, even though she was right beside him, closer than anyone had been in years. She was still talking. He tried not to let the words in, but it was difficult when so many of them felt like being struck by lightning. She was saying that the tension between them had puzzled her at first, but now she understood where it had been coming from. She was saying that they were soulmates. She was teasing him now, for keeping such a tight lid on his feelings. She said she almost admired the strength it must have taken, to put up such strong defenses that neither of them had realized what was happening until last night. He knew he had to speak, had to put a stop to this until he could figure out how the hell he was going to recover.

“You have to go.”

He was relieved when his voice finally tore itself free of his mouth, raspy and strange as it sounded—he’d been beginning to worry he might have lost the power of speech altogether. It certainly served its intended purpose, too. Rhietta fell instantly silent, and he could feel her eyes on his face, suddenly watchful, suddenly on high alert.

“What do you mean?”

“You have to go,” he repeated, his voice a little stronger now as he clung to his argument. “You and your pack. Today. You have to go.”

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