Page 39 of The Silent Mate

17

MALIK

Icame. In my pants.

I came in my pants.

I might not have been experienced when it came to physical relationships, but I knew enough. Prematurely spilling into your jeans wasn’t something to take pride in.Thatwasn’t what made me flee, though.

After those first bolts of pleasure shot through the base of my spine, my body didn’t…calm.

It happened in tandem with my release. There was absolute, blinding ecstasy as my cock rubbed mercilessly against Aria’s center through our clothing, but the blood pumping through my erection did not ease. It gathered at the base, swelling, swelling, swelling…

It was a feat of anatomy I’d never experienced before when I chased relief with my own fist. A strange bulb at the base of my penis that throbbed and pulsed for nearly half an hour before it began to recede. In that time, I stood in the shower, hunched over with cold water blasting my back, and any contact with mypainfully erect cock caused more white seed to shoot from my tip.

It was calledknotting,I knew. I’d heard stories—legends, really—about the natural phenomenon.

It occurred only in alphas who were coupling with their fated mates. A gland at the base of their penis would swell with blood seconds before release, and, at the same time, the female’s internal walls were supposed to clamp down. Theoretically, the anatomical changes would lock the couple in position for near-on thirty minutes, drastically improving chances of impregnation.

As my knot retreated and I regained control over my body, humiliation washed over me. It’d happened after rubbing against Aria, fully-clothed, for less than five minutes…

By the time I returned to the bedroom, she’d dressed in one of my t-shirts and pulled the sheets up to her neck, her body still. I couldn’t tell from her breathing whether she was truly sleeping, so I merely crawled into bed beside her and willed the darkness to take me.

Now, days later, I’d scarcely had time to see Aria, let alone sit down with her long enough to explain on a pad of paper why I fled.

Roman kept me busy, preparing for next quarter’s patrol through the territory. It was a tedious, long journey that ensured every subset of theIntonat NoctePack paid their taxes and remained loyal to Roman. My brother sentmebecause my appearance tended to dissuade any dissonance.

All of my preparations, however, came to a halt on the night of the full moon.

Even if I’dwantedto continue working, the moon’s pull wreaked havoc on my body and mind, rendering me angry and hot and dangerously distracted. Most full moons, Estelle offeredme a tonic to ease the edge and I’d shut myself away. It was safer for everyone—myself included.

Tonight, I returned to the center of our territory from a guard shift as dusk broke, fully intent on returning to my cottage before the night’s festivities were underway. Aria, I knew, planned on spending the evening with Estelle in the clinic, helping to patch up the injured and delivering tonics that would protect unmated pairings from conceiving.

As I emerged from the dense forest, it became apparent that the celebration began early this year.

Shifters—male and female, beast and human—congregated in the expansive clearing at the front of the pack house. Many ate and drank, laughing and conversing with one another over picnic blankets. Others had already abandoned all attempts at civility, their massive wolves rutting and skirmishing with no care for their surroundings.

I huffed, water vapor puffing from my wolf’s snout, and turned my gaze to the rising moon. The hair on the scruff of my neck bristled, and my blood warmed in an instant. I shuddered, opting to shift back into my human form before the moon’s influence dug its claws into me.

My bones popped, fur morphing into skin. Soon, I stood on my feet, naked and painfully aware of my semi-erect cock jutting out from my groin—an unfortunate consequence of the full moon, at least until I got Estelle’s tonic in my veins.

I started toward the outbuilding where I’d left my clothing in a stall, but a familiar voice stopped me in my tracks.

“Brother!” Roman shouted, his voice filled with an unnatural dose of joy.

My eyes snapped up, landing on my brother across the clearing. Unsurprisingly, he lounged naked on a crimson rug that must’ve been a few centuries old. A female, I recognized her asone of the caretakers of the pack’s pups, sat atop his hips, equally bare.

She rocked back and forth on his groin, taking him deep and rubbing herself against his pubic bone, sweat dripping down her glowing dark skin. Her head tilted back, eyes cast toward the moon. Her breasts bounced with her movements, and my mind automatically conjured memories of Aria beneath me, her rosy, swollen nipples in my mouth…

Blood rushed to my cock.

While the woman worked, Roman’s eyes remained on me. He propped himself up on an elbow, and a genuine smile played on his lips. He must’ve been drunk.

“Come here, brother!” he called, his voice a strange mix of a request and an order. “I need to speak to you.”

I frowned. Speaking to Roman while he fucked a woman was among the last things I wanted to do, especially when alcohol and nature alike warped his mind. Even so, I ground my teeth and approached the pair like a compliant servant.

The female—Callie, if I remembered correctly—watched me with half-lidded eyes, her lips parted as she gasped for breath. She never ceased riding Roman’s cock, though her gaze drank me in, and I made a conscious effort to avoid meeting it.

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