Page 12 of A Mate for the King
What should have been elation at her first run as a wolf had dissolved into a pure nightmare because the Moonwater elders had been watching and waiting.
How they had discovered her existence she never knew, and no one had shared the details with her over the decade-plus years she had been with them. That night when she had shifted back, trembling with excitement and confusion, the Moonwater elders had used the promise of an all-out war to rip her the only family she had known, her long-dead mother’s coven, and dropped into the hard life of an omega of the Moonwater Clan.
The coven leaders had promised to find her. To bring her home. But it had been so long that Cora had given up all hope of them finding her. She supposed her life as an omega could have been better; after all, omegas were the rarest shifter designation. A union between omega and alpha was the only way to continue producing alphas.
Alphas were important, no matter which clan one hailed from, and that should have been enough reason to give omegas some measure of comfort.
Too bad the Moonwater Clan was of a different opinion, and the clan never missed an opportunity to remind Cora that she was alone and that she would remain so with her half-blood parentage.
The arrangement suited her just as fine as she had no inclination to trust any of the eligible alphas. The betas were alright, but it was the omegas who gave her support. They understood how difficult life could be under the rule of alphas who made themselves bigger by holding others down. It didn’t matter that shifter society was founded on the cornerstone of honoring omegas, a decree issued as the All-Mother had been an omega herself, and from her all shifter life had sprung.
Omegas needed alphas to love, protect, and honor them, and their very biology existed for the continuation of the shifter population. Yet that didn’t mean that all clans honored the decree, and there were some places where omega life was difficult, the Moonwater Clan being one such place.
Thank god the Fireheart Clan was of a different opinion.
All shifters knew of their continued reverence for the All-Mother, of their honoring the old ways, and how the strength showed in their blood.
All Fireheart Clan alphas were made from a different mold. They shaped the shifter world, anchored it with their presence, and moved through life with a gravitas lacking in the other clans.
Now, their soon-to-be king, the most powerful shifter she had ever encountered, was standing in the same room as her, his eyes hot on her. She was in his bed in the early stages of her heat, and all she had to offer him was a weak “hey.”
Life could be strange, and this was one such instance. Perhaps the All-Mother was having a joke at her expense. It wouldn't be the first time the omega had felt slighted by her fate. She didn't belong here, and the longer the stayed, the more she wanted to burrow down into the soft blankets and pillows of Zehr's bed.
That was a dangerous want. Almost even more dangerous than her wish for her mother's people to find her.
Cora's eyes followed Zehr as he gave her a slight nod of acknowledgment and continued moving forward. She barely had time to register that his hands were full before he was depositing food and drink at the foot of the bed. Pushing herself up, she backed away and leaned into the pillows at her back as Zehr dropped a large bag stuffed with pillows and extra bedding at her feet.
Cora bit her lip at the gesture and swallowed hard.
It was then Cora learned erotic a thing it could be to witness an alpha returning with supplies—heat supplies. She was lucky she didn't pitch right over into the heat haze that was beckoning to her ever more enticingly with each moment that passed.
All-Mother help her.
Watching an alpha as powerful as Zehr was doing an untold number of things for Cora's current state of arousal and need. She lowered her eyes from the tantalizing view of the big blond alpha, who was all flexing muscles as he continued to unpack the additional pillows and blankets that would help her nest.
“How are you?” he asked, not looking up from the bag.
Cora peeked up at him and cleared her throat. “I’m, ah, okay.” Her voice sounded thin, even to her own ears, so she opened her mouth to remedy the situation, but Zehr was already speaking again.
“You don’t smell fine.” He paused in his work and considered her. “What else can I do for you?”
Give me your teeth and your cock, Cora thought and then blushed, shaking her head jerkily, the flush in her cheeks deepening at having such a thought while she stared Zehr in the eye.
She didn’t even want to think about how long it was going to be before she wasn't just thinking such things, but also actively giving voice to them. Would she beg him? Ask him for his knot while lost in her heat? Cora shivered at the idea.
All-Mother, she hoped she did.
“Nothing. You’ve already done so much already. I should... I should go back to my clan and—”
“You aren’t leaving this bed.”
“I—what?”
Zehr dropped the now empty bag on the floor beside the bed and began to arrange the sports drinks and bars that Cora recognized as heat bars, bricks of sugar sweetness calorically dense enough to sustain an omega in heat, on the bedside table.
“You aren’t going any damn place. You’re staying where I can see you.”
“But my clan w—”
