Page 49 of Alpha Charmed

“Practical.” But he’s smiling—that rare expression that transforms his face into something almost soft. “We’ll need to leave soon. Tomorrow, ideally. Before she has time to position her agents.”

I let the word settle between us. “That doesn’t leave much time.”

“No.” His other hand comes up, cupping my face with gentle fingers. “It doesn’t.”

The air between us shifts. Charges. The claiming marks on both our bodies pulse with answering heat.

“Tonight,” I hear myself say, “isn’t for planning.”

“No?”

“Tonight is for us.” I step closer, pressing against him with intention I’ve stopped trying to hide. “Before everything gets complicated again. Before dragons and conspiracies and political crises. Just… us.”

His eyes darken. The restraint I’ve watched him maintain visibly cracks.

“Anouk.” My name is a rasp in his throat. “If you’re sure⁠—”

“I want you.”

He kisses me.

It’s not like the kisses before—tender explorations, careful promises, restrained wanting. This is fire. This is hunger. Years of denial given permission to burn.

His hands are everywhere—my back, my hips, threading through my hair to send pins scattering across the floor. I match his urgency with my own, yanking his shirt free, mapping the planes of his chest, learning the texture of his skin.

I don’t care about anything except the feel of him, the taste of him, the way he groans against my mouth when I find a sensitive spot beneath his jaw.

We make it to the small sofa—barely. He lifts me like I weigh nothing, like carrying me is as natural as breathing, and then I’m on my back with his weight pressing me into the cushions and his mouth trailing fire down my throat.

“The claiming mark.” His voice is rough, wrecked. “Can I⁠—”

“Yes.”

His lips find the spiral pattern on my shoulder. The sensation is⁠—

I can’t describe it. Electric and intimate and claiming in ways that go beyond the physical. My back arches. My magic surges. The entire apothecary hums with power that doesn’t know how to contain itself.

His answering mark pulses against my palm when I press my hand to his chest. Two halves of the same pattern, responding to each other, binding us in ways I’m only beginning to understand.

“More.” The word tears out of me. “Caius⁠—”

He gives me more.

We don’t talk about tomorrow. Don’t discuss dragons or elders or centuries-old conspiracies. The world outside my apothecary can wait—will have to wait—because right now there’s only this.

His hands. His mouth. The way he says my name like it’s a prayer.

The way I say his like it’s an answer.

Inside, the herbs have arranged themselves into shapes that would make Zeph’s pamphlets blush.

We stay tangled on that sofa until the candles burn low, learning each other’s rhythms, pulling apart and reuniting, refusing to let the night end.

FOURTEEN

CAIUS

The forest changes the deeper we go.