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“I lost myself there for a moment, but your bite… I understand now how omegas become simply vessels, animals during the heat, no humanity left.”
“That wasn’t heat,” he assured me. “That was our mate bond keeping us together until I marked you, made you mine.”
“It was amazing,”
His chuckle ended in smug rumble.
“You’re very pleased with yourself.”
“My newly marked mate said I was amazing, what should I be but smug?”
I ignored him. “And now I’m yours, and you’re mine, and I’m a claimed omega.”
“Yes, you are,” he rumbled.
The tears came fast. “I always wanted to belong to you.”
“And now you do, without question.” He bent forward to lick over the bite he’d given me.
“What made you… not wait?”
He took a breath. “Before, when we were apart, I couldn’t feel the bond. I mean, make no mistake, I wanted you, every day. But I couldn’t feel the pull like I did when we were together.”
“Yes.”
“But then you weren’t angry anymore, you weren’t telling yourself you didn’t care anymore, and I could feel this tightening that’s been growing since yesterday and––”
“I know what’s been growing since yesterday.” I waggled my eyebrows at him.
Instant scowl. “I am trying to tell you something deep, from my heart, and you’re––”
“Stop. I’m playing with you, my alpha,” I soothed him. “I feel the bond too, and earlier, it was like I was burning up.”
He nodded. “As people, we can wait, but we’re both wolves too, and the closeness, the building, how easy everything seems—we had to be mated. There was no other choice.”
I stared up into his eyes. “I was so jealous, and I didn’t know why.”
“Because I’m yours, but I hadn’t given you my mark. You longed to be claimed, so that primitive, untamed part of you took over, called for me, and I had to answer. I wasn’t powerless to say no, I could have, I’m stronger than that.. I just didn’t want to. You had to have me, and Graeme was right, there’s nothing more important than claiming your most precious mate.”
“You swear?”
“I can feel it now, locked in place. Can’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Also,” he murmured, pushing up and slowly, carefully, easing from my still clenching hole, “you didn’t want to let me go.”
“No.” I sighed deeply as he lay down beside me, tugging me into his arms, one hand on the small of my back, pushing my sweaty hair out of my eyes with the other. “Thank you for making the first time special for me.”
He groaned.
“What? It was.”
“Between us, yes, that was amazing. But I swear to you, it will be even better in a bed that—what even is this?”
“Hey.”
He was scowling and wouldn’t look at me.
