Page 140 of Ruled By The Alpha

His hand slips down over the curve of my torso. With a swipe of his claws, the wet silk parts and slips down my legs.

“You were right,” he growls. “I could not have spent the night with this bounty in my arms and not feasted.”

“I—”

“Feed me, Omega.” His hands close around my thighs, claws prickling into the swells of my buttocks. He drags me over his body as he sinks back into the cushions. He turns his head, his shaggy mane sweeping over the cushions, and licks a hot, wet path up my inner thigh. When he reaches the apex of my legs, he lifts me, his huge hands spanning my buttocks, and traces my swollen, slick-drenched lips with the tip of his tongue.

My thighs tremble.

I reach down and sink my hand in that thick, dark hair. It’s silkier than it looks, cool strands slipping through my fingers. “My Alpha—”

His purr, so deep it makes my core clench, rumbles through the garden, drowning the patter of rain and buzzing insects. Slick seals our skin together. He laps up each drop like nectar. He nudges my V with his chin, rolls his new-moon sky eyes up to meet mine. “Say it again.”

“My Alpha.”

“From this night forward, I will always be your Alpha.”

I rub my hand through his hair. “Even if my oath to the Mother dooms us?”

He presses his lips to my thigh. I sigh at the sensation, then yelp as he nips, his fangs pinching. “Even then.”

I squeeze a handful of soft hair, and his head between my thighs. “You don’t seem concerned.”

Another pinch. “I’m not.”

Another squeeze. “You’re sure I’ll break my oath.”

He takes a long, slow taste, his tongue sweeping up and down my seam. He suckles greedily, scoring me lightly with his fangs, before nudging me up again. “I’m sure of nothing. But for the first time since I Revealed and knew without any doubt who my mate was, I have hope of something other than a lifetime of duty and loneliness. I choose not to abandon hope just yet.”

How can I answer that?

He doesn’t give me any opportunity to ponder. He pulls me back down. His tongue slips deep, curling, then withdrawing, before returning to open me again. The heat and motion make me shiver all the way down to my curling toes.

I bend over him, rubbing my claws along his scalp, stroking his cheek with my other hand. His claws dig into the backs of my thighs but he never pauses in his work, lapping deep, sliding back to flick around my opening and tease my nub, before plunging in again. The sweet, burning tide rises. I tug at his hair, needing some anchor point as his tongue pushes me higher and higher into the Mother’s starry sky. My legs shake and he grips my thighs to hold me in position. The prickle of his claws, the bruising strength of his fingers, shoot me upward in a bright blaze. Shuddering in pleasure, I call to him. He answers with a deep growl. That resonant rumble sends me over the edge. Keening, calling, I crush down onto his sucking mouth. He reaches a hand up and flattens it against my jerking stomach, holding me in position while he swallows mouthful after mouthful of my slick.

When he finally lets me collapse onto the cushions, I curl there, panting. He grins hugely at me, his mouth and cheeks glistening, before he strips off his tunic and undershirt and uses his linen to wipe his face. Only when he undresses do I realize that he was still fully clothed, but for his boots that he removed when we entered the bower, while he had me naked and writhing on his face.

“For a virtuous man,” I say. “You have a great deal of skill.”

He slides down onto his elbow and props his head on his hand. “More than a thousand nights I’ve laid alone, dreaming of what I would do with you. I had elaborate plans to seduce you once I’d finished my service to the King, even though I believed you an Alpha and was sure you’d have Omega mates by then.”

I would have, starting this very night.

“But Alphas aren’t compatible,” I point out, as I stretch out onto my back, sated and lazy.

A female Alpha’s lock is excruciating for a male Alpha. Surely he would not have contemplated such torture.

He smiles and traces my lips with his claw. “I wouldn’t have been able to rut you and knot you, but that? That I could do hour upon hour, day upon day. I thought about it to the point of obsession.”

I trail the backs of my fingers over his arm, his muscled chest, which already bears the scars of our mutual profession, to the band of his leather trousers. They’re so tented, the constriction must pain him. “Your obsession served you well. You charmed me straight out of my clothes. Can’t I charm you out of yours?”

He flushes through his neck, his cheeks, even the pointed tips of his ears. “Here’s where imagination fails me. I haven’t been naked in front of a woman since I left the nursery.”

Saying it’s nothing I haven’t seen before will not set him at ease. Instead, I tease him gently, “No sweet maids attend the captain’s bath?”

He shakes his head, that bounty of hair slipping over his shoulders. “Too much like torture. I’ve kept a soldier’s ways, bathing in the barracks bathhouse.”

“Are there no female Alphas in the King’s garrison?”

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