Page 11 of A Mate for the King
Chapter Four
Cora stared at the cream canvas ceiling of the tent from her unexpected place in the bed of the most dominant alpha she had ever met. She swallowed hard and looked toward the tent’s entrance in anticipation of the Fireheart alpha’s return.
No, not the Fireheart alpha, not even her soon-to-be-king but...Zehr.
A shiver ran through Cora at the barest thought of the blond’s name. All she wanted was the alpha to return and to fill the space with his presence, with his alluring scent of cloves and coffee.
Before today there were several truths Cora knew beyond a doubt:First, never trust an alpha. Second, true mates were nonsense. Lastly, her biology could be overridden by sheer will.And until today, all three rules had held true, but then Zehr had happened, and from the first, Cora had wanted him.
Wanted him to be her alpha.
"Alpha..." she whispered, testing the word. A blush bloomed over her cheeks at the utterance, and she turned her face into the soft pillows beneath her with a muffled groan. All-Mother, how she was grateful no one had heard her.
"It's only natural," Cora said to herself, fingers clenching on the pillow she clutched. It was all a part of her heat.
Her first heat.
It was nature pushing her to want Zehr, her body operating as designed by biology. She winced, remembering how her blood had sung, her mouth practically watering, clit throbbing at the sudden appearance of the blond alpha. She had been using what magic she knew to hold her heat at bay, but Zehr had rendered her magic useless.
And now here she was, presently trying to navigate her very first heat in his bed. After so many years of waiting, of contempt and ridicule from the less understanding members of the Moonwater Clan, she had hoped to experience her heat in the company of other omegas she trusted. Who could show her the way and, with loving hands, gentle words, and sweet kisses, help her ride out of the entire ordeal. Without the assistance of an alpha, heats were...painful.
Extremely painful.
Cora grimaced as a fresh wave of achiness swept up her body. Already she was sweating profusely and battling the urge to strip herself of her jeans and plain tank top.
The choice of clothing had seemed sensible for a day spent on her feet as she helped set up the Moonwater tents. They had arrived late to the gathering, and as there was little chivalry among the clan alphas, the unmated omegas were given the least appealing work. Cora had been taking a much-needed break from the tiring work of setting up the tents when the first twinges of her heat had warmed her skin. Thinking she was just overheated from her work, Cora had paid it no mind, but that didn’t mean an alpha from her clan had done the same.
Her lips pursed at the memory of him following her, of how he had tried to force a bonding bite on her against her will. She all but snarled at the recollection, and she stopped herself before she uttered his name. His name wasn’t worth remembering, or worth repeating.
Cora twisted angrily on the bed, forcing all thoughts of her attacker from her mind. She had never allowed him to get her down during her time with the Moonwater Clan, not ever, not even when she had been under his thumb as an unmated omega, and Cora would be damned if she did it now, especially given her present place in Zehr’s bed.
So what if he was currently missing from the scene? He would return soon.Wouldn’t he?
No sooner had the thought formed in her mind than the tent’s flap pulled back to reveal Zehr. Cora swallowed past the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat and drank in the sight of the alpha. He was so big, his presence instantly charging the room with a physicality that had Cora wanting.
“Hi,” she croaked, and almost growled in annoyance at how feeble her voice sounded to her ears. She was an omega, yes, but she wasn’tthatomega. She’d always been bolder than expected, a little more wild than was acceptable, but that was the way the All-Mother made her.
Or so she told herself when her clan’s alphas sought to put her in her place, which had happened more than she liked to think about.
At least the other omegas in her clan had offered her a welcome respite. It was a small kindness to an orphaned omega. Her parents had been a love match gone wrong, a bruja and a shifter, an unthinkable pairing by their world’s standards.
Magic and shifters did not mix.Not ever.
The inflexible boundaries that divided their world into two halves, of magic and not, led to the discovery of their union. They had been taken before a Moonwater tribunal, which had found them guilty of desecration.
Their crime?
Love.
Her parents' punishment for such an offense?
Death.
Though Cora's parents had lost their lives, it hadn't been before the doomed couple had conceived a daughter and seen to her safety, hiding her away from her father's clan with her mother's people. Her parents' efforts to protect her had mostly worked with her mother's coven, a strong group of brujas from the south in possession of old magic, who saw to her upbringing.
Those had been happy years of learning magic, of singing life into the world around her. She had been free then and completely unaware of the particulars surrounding her birth. Her happy ignorance had been allowed by the coven’s older women, but all of that had crashed down around them when she had suddenly shifted on her thirteenth birthday.
Humans had no idea how right they were about the unlucky nature of thirteen. For Cora, it had been more than a bad omen—more like a horror with the chain of events that first shift had set into motion.
