Page 78 of Storms of His Wrath

She called for the physician’s instruments and healing supplies, then set to work with the same focused attention she’d applied to magical theory. Akoro remained perfectly still as she cleaned the wound, his jaw clenched against pain but his eyes never leaving her face. The intimacy of the moment—tending to her Alpha’s injury, ensuring his recovery with her own careful touch—sent satisfaction humming through her bones.

“The bolt missed the major vessels,” she reported as she began the delicate work of stitching torn muscle back together. “You were fortunate.”

“Not fortunate,” he corrected, his voice strained but certain. “Protected. By you.”

“I didn’t protect you from getting shot.”

“You kept me conscious during the ride. Stopped the bleeding. Forced me to rest when I would have pushed too hard.” His free hand lifted to cup her cheek, thumb brushing across her skin with reverent gentleness. “You saved my life,tmot zia.”

The endearment in his native tongue sent heat spiraling through her core, though she still didn’t understand its meaning. Now the word fell from his lips like a caress, intimate and claiming in ways that made her inner Omega keen with pleasure.

“Hold still,” she murmured, though her own hands had begun to tremble at his proximity. “Almost finished.”

When she finally tied off the last stitch and bandaged the wound with clean cloth, exhaustion crashed over both of them like a tide. Akoro’s eyes had grown heavy with fatigue and the aftereffects of blood loss, while Naya felt drained from the careful concentration required for the delicate work.

“Rest,” she said, helping him settle back against the pillows. “Sleep.”

“Stay.” It was a command wrapped in need.

“Of course,” she said without hesitation.

She meant to sit in the chair beside his bed, to keep watch while maintaining appropriate distance. But when he reached for her with his uninjured arm, pulling her down beside him with gentle insistence, she didn’t resist. Her body curved against his uninjured side with devastating rightness, her head finding the hollow of his shoulder where his scent was strongest.

“Naya,” he murmured against her hair, his arm tightening around her with careful possession.

“Shh,” she whispered. “Sleep.”

But neither of them slept immediately. Instead, they lay together in the golden afternoon light, both acutely aware that this might be one of their last quiet moments before reality intruded. The storm was gone. Her duty to her empire waited. Their agreement hung between them like a blade, sharp with the promise of separation.

Yet for now, in the sanctuary of his chambers with her Alpha’s heartbeat steady beneath her palm, Naya allowed herself to simply exist in the moment. To breathe him in, to catalog the way their bodies fit together, to memorize the profound sense of rightness that settled over her whenever she was in his arms.

When sleep finally claimed them both, they were wrapped around each other like missing pieces of the same whole—Alpha and Omega, king and princess, mates in everything but acknowledgment.

Three days passed in careful domesticity that felt both natural and heartbreaking. Naya moved through Akoro’s chambers as though she belonged there, tending to his wound with gentle efficiency, ensuring he ate despite his poor appetite, monitoring his recovery with the devotion of a mate caring for her injured Alpha.

She ordered his meals, supervised the changing of his bandages, and slept curled against his uninjured side each night as though it were the most natural thing in the world. The palace staff didn’t treat her any differently than before, and the guards that used to keep her in the room ignored her now.

“The stitches can come out tomorrow,” she announced on the third evening, examining her handiwork by lamplight. “The healing is progressing well.”

“Thanks to your skilled hands,” Akoro said, his voice rougher than usual as he watched her work. Even this clinical touch sent heat radiating from his skin, his scent deepening with the controlled arousal that had been building between them for days.

They’d been careful with each other since returning to the palace—intimate without being sexual, tender without crossing lines that might complicate the emotional tangle they were both trying to navigate. But the careful distance was becoming harder to maintain with each passing hour. His body had healed enough to respond to her proximity with devastating intensity, while her inner Omega—no,she—grew increasingly restless at being so close to her Alpha without claiming the connection they both craved.

“There,” she said, securing the fresh bandage. “That should?—”

Her words died as his uninjured hand cupped the back of her neck, fingers threading through her copper hair with gentle possession. The simple touch sent electricity arcing betweenthem, and she found herself leaning into his warmth despite her intentions to maintain control.

“Naya,” he said, her name a low rumble in his chest.

“We shouldn’t,” she whispered, but even as the words left her lips, she was moving closer to him on the bed. “You’re still healing.”

“I’m fine,” he said, and the hunger in his dark eyes made her breath catch. “More than fine.”

His thumb traced the racing pulse at her throat, feeling how her body responded to his proximity despite her attempts at restraint. Her scent had shifted to something richer, sweeter, broadcasting her arousal with instinctual honesty that made his own control fray at the edges.

“The wound—” she tried again.

“Will be fine,” he finished, his voice dropping to that Alpha tone that made her inner Omega purr with submission. “I need you,tmot zia.It’s been too long.”

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