Althea's POV
I kinda semi-woke up earlier. I'm a light sleeper, which is weird because apparently the old me could sleep through a rock concert. My brain's just… wired for vigilance now, I guess. It's like my internal alarm clock is set to "Haven's presence." The click of the bedroom door, the soft pad of her bare feet on the carpet, the rustle of her throwing her suit jacket over the armchair it all filtered through my dream about trying to teach Rex the dinosaur how to file taxes. (He was terrible at it. Kept eating the receipts.)
Anyway, I was glad she was finally sleeping beside me. She'd arrived super late, and even half-asleep, I'd felt the dip of the mattress, the cool brush of her skin as she slid under the covers. I'd instinctively curled toward her, a sleepy little magnet to her Alpha north pole. I missed her. Today had been… fine. I'd read a book (or stared at the same page for an hour thinking about her cheekbones), introduced my plushie court to Prince Sushi (he was suspicious of Steve the flamingo, which, fair), and practiced a new song. But it was boring without her. The house felt like a gorgeous, empty museum.
Then, the scent hit me.
Whoa.
I was mostly awake now. Haven's Grape Old Wine scent was always there, a comforting, sophisticated background note. But right now? It wasn't wine. It was a whole vineyard getting stomped. It was fermenting, dark, brutal. It punched through my sleepy Vanilla Strawberry haze, intense and almost… spicy. It prickled in my nose, thick and heavy in the air.
My heart did a little nervous flip. Is Haven okay?
I shifted slowly, turning to face her in the dark. She was on her back, which was unusual. She's a side-sleeper, always curled protectively. Her breathing was… off. Sharp, shallow pants. Not the deep, even rhythm I was used to.
"Haven?" I whispered.
No response, just another one of those tight, panting breaths.
I reached out, my fingers brushing her arm over the sheets. She was hot. Like, radiating-heat-through-her-pajamas hot. A wave of concern washed over me, cold and immediate. Oh my god, is she sick? Does my big, strong, CEO Alpha have a fever?
A weird, traitorous little spark of excitement fizzed in my chest. Is it my time to take care of my sick, lovely wife? I could be nurturing! Domestic! The supportive Omega bringing soup and cool cloths! I could…
Wait. Why am I celebrating? I should be worried! Get it together, Althea. Your wife is potentially ill. This is a Code Pink. A Code Lavender. A Code… Very Concerning Grape Scent.
I didn't try to wake her. If she was fighting something off, sleep was the best medicine. But I could prep. I was a woman of action! (Or at least, a woman of frantic googling.)
I slithered out of bed with the grace of a ninja—or a very clumsy ferret—and grabbed my phone from the nightstand, padding out into the hallway. The screen's glow was blinding in the dark. I typed with furious thumbs: how to take care of a sick alpha.
The internet, that vast repository of both wisdom and utter nonsense, delivered. A lot of stuff scrolled by.
Ensure they are hydrated. Check. I could do water.
Monitor their temperature. I'd felt that. Definitely feverish.
Over-the-counter fever reducers can help. Medicine. Right.
Cool cloths applied to the forehead, neck, and chest can help transfer heat and provide comfort.
Cool cloths. A physical, tender thing I could do. My mission crystallized. I was going to nurse my Alpha back to health with the power of lukewarm water and aggressive pampering.
I skadaddled—there's no other word for it—to the kitchen. I found a small, fancy ceramic bowl (would a sick Alpha want a plastic tub? No. Ceramic. Classy.), filled it with lukewarm water (not too cold, shock is bad), and grabbed the softest hand towel I could find, a fluffy white thing that felt like a cloud. I rummaged in the medicine cabinet, my eyes scanning labels. Fever reducer. Yes. I grabbed the bottle and tiptoed back upstairs, a one-woman medical convoy.
Back in the room, Haven was still panting in her sleep, her brow furrowed. She looked… vulnerable. It did something to my insides, a complicated squeeze of affection and worry. She was always so together. Seeing her like this, defenses down, was strangely intimate.
"Okay, Mrs. Hartwell," I whispered to myself, setting my supplies on the nightstand. "Nurse Althea is on duty."
I sat on the edge of the bed, dipping the towel in the water, wringing it out. My hands were trembling a little. This felt… big. Taking care of her. I started with her forehead, gently dabbing the cool cloth over her skin. She made a small, unconscious sound, a sigh that wasn't quite relief. Her scent swirled, that brutal grape aroma spiking for a second.
Emboldened, I moved to her neck. The pajamas she wore were simple silk button-ups. My fingers went to the top button. "Consent is important," I mumbled to my sleeping wife, "but you're kinda out of it, and this is for your health, so… implied consent? Medical emergency consent?"
I unbuttoned the top two buttons, revealing the strong column of her throat and the sharp notch of her collarbones. My breath hitched. Even sick and asleep, she was breathtaking. The marks I'd left on her days before had faded to faint yellow smudges. I carefully laid the cool cloth over her heated skin, my fingers brushing against her as I smoothed it.
Her breathing hitched, then evened out slightly. The tense line of her shoulders relaxed a fraction. Progress! I rewet the cloth and did it again, moving it in slow, soothing strokes. I was so focused on my task, on the feel of her hot skin under the terrycloth, that I almost missed the moment her breathing changed.
It deepened. The panting eased. And then her hand came up, warm and heavy, covering mine where it rested against her neck.
I froze.
Her amber eyes opened, slits of gold in the dark. They were hazy, unfocused, but locked on me.
"Althea," her voice was a sleep-roughened rasp, deeper than usual. "What are you doing?"
I blinked, my nurse persona momentarily shattered. "Oh! Hi! You're awake! I'm, um. Taking care of you? I think you have a fever. You're really hot. I mean, temperature-wise! You're always hot, obviously, but like, thermally? So I got a cloth and I was… transferring the heat? Sorry, I should have woken you up for consent. My bad. Nurse Althea has poor bedside manners."
The corner of her mouth twitched. It might have been the start of a smile, or a wince. "No, silly. I appreciate it." Her hand squeezed mine gently before letting go. "But this… this is no ordinary fever, my love."
"It's not?" I asked, my medical confidence deflating. "Is it the flu? Something corporate and virulent? Alpha-specific plague?"
She let out a soft huff, a weak chuckle. "I'm on my heatsurge. My rut."
Oh.
Oh.
My brain, that scrambled, post-amnesiac mess, finally connected the dots. The intense, brutal scent. The feverish heat. The panting. It wasn't sickness. It was biology. Alpha biology. My cheeks flushed with a heat that rivaled hers. I'd just been giving a cool cloth sponge bath to my wife in rut.
"Oh," I said again, intelligently. "Right. That. I… should have guessed. The scent is kinda a giveaway."
"It's fine," she murmured, her eyes drifting closed again. "The suppressants should help. Can you get them for me? They're in my room. Bedside cabinet."
"On it!" I chirped, springing into action again, grateful for a clear, non-awkward task. "Back in a flash!"
I practically sprinted across my room a joining bedroom—her bedroom, the one she technically slept in before the amnesia, now more of a glorified closet and office. The room was dark, tidy, and smelled intensely of her. I went straight to the sleek, modern bedside cabinet.
As I pulled the drawer open, my eyes adjusted to the gloom. My hand found the small bottle of suppressants easily. But as I went to grab it, something else caught my eye. A tiny, pinprick of red light, glowing near the base of the wall where it met the ceiling, almost obscured by the drape of the heavy curtains.
A camera?
My breath stalled. Why would there be a camera in a bedroom? A weird, cold trickle ran down my spine. For security? Maybe. This was a big house. Haven was a powerful woman. It made sense… didn't it? But the placement felt… intrusive. Hidden.
Nono, don't think about that, Althea, I chastised myself, shaking my head. We are here to help your wife! Mission-critical! Get the meds!
I grabbed the bottle, but my gaze snagged on something else in the drawer, partly hidden under a silk sleep mask. Photographs. I shouldn't look. I really, really shouldn't.
I looked.
They were pictures of me. Old me. The Tyrant. Not the glossy, happy photos from my pinboard. These were different. Candid. Stolen.
One was of me in a cap and gown at my middleschool graduation, holding a diploma, my smile wide and genuine, my arms linked with an older couple my parents. A sharp, unfamiliar pang hit my chest. Mom. Dad.
Another was me on a stage, holding a music trophy, my face alight with a proud, fierce joy I didn't recognize in myself.
And another… me holding someone's hand. It was a woman. She had auburn hair and a cool, confident smile. It wasn't Haven. We were walking through what looked like a park, leaning into each other, easy and familiar. Janea Vance. The name from the restaurant ghosted through my mind.
What. Is. This?
A cold lump settled in my stomach, different from the earlier worry. This was a drawer of a past I didn't remember, watched over by a hidden camera. It felt… wrong. It felt like a collection.
Primary mission, I screamed at myself internally. Wife first! Investigating your own creepy past comes later! She's burning up!
With a force of will, I slammed the drawer shut, the suppressants clutched in my sweaty hand. I skedaddled back to my room, my heart pounding for a whole new set of reasons.
Haven was where I left her, eyes closed, but her breathing was more ragged again. "Here," I said, my voice thankfully steady. I shook out two tablets into her palm and handed her the glass of water from the nightstand.
She took them without opening her eyes, swallowing with a grimace. "Thank you, my love." She set the glass down and patted the space beside her. "Come here. Let me spoon you. I just want to cuddle you. Please? Just be with me."
The request, so soft and needy, obliterated my creeping unease. How could I deny her? She was suffering. I was her wife. I slid back into bed, turning to face away from her. Immediately, her body curled around mine, her front to my back. Her arm draped heavily over my waist, her face buried in my hair. She was a furnace at my back, but her breathing began to slow, deepen. The brutal edge of her scent softened, just a little, into something more like a dense, warm blanket.
"My naive, beautiful songbird," she murmured into my hair, the words so slurred with exhaustion I almost didn't catch them. Or maybe I imagined them.
Comforted by her closeness, soothed by the rhythm of her breathing, I eventually fell back asleep, the image of those stolen photographs and the red camera light blurring into the weird dreamscape.
I woke up with a start. The digital clock glowed 4:09 AM. The room was still dark, but something was different. Haven was still spooning me, but the heat coming off her was intense. Worse than before. And her scent… it was back to that brutal, almost overwhelming concentration. The suppressants weren't working. Or they weren't enough.
Carefully, I extracted myself from her hold. She whimpered in her sleep, a soft, distressed sound that made my heart clench. I grabbed my phone again. Time for more specific research.
How to ease alpha rut/heatsurge even with suppressants.
The search results were… illuminating. And blush-inducing.
Suppressants can manage symptoms but may not eliminate the primal drive.
Physical intimacy with a bonded or compatible Omega is the most effective release.
Mutual marking can provide profound relief and strengthen the bond.
I read it twice. My face felt like it was on fire. Okay. So. Biology. Right. We were married. This was a thing married people did. And she was clearly in distress.
An emboldened, determined grin spread across my face. I was going to help my wife. This was my duty. My privilege. And honestly? After the carnival, after the Ferris wheel kiss… I really, really wanted to.
I turned and gently shook her shoulder. "Haven. Haven, wake up."
Her eyes opened, glassy with fever and sleep. "Althea?"
"You're still really hot. Are you okay? Like, really okay?"
"I'm… managing," she said, but her voice was tight, strained.
"Are you sure?" I pressed, sitting up. "Because I… I researched. About Alpha biology. Since you said you were in rut, I looked it up. And it says here that to ease it, you need to, you know… ease it." I waved my phone vaguely. "And since I'm your wife, I will help you! It's my wifely duty! And also I want to!"
She stared at me for a long moment, her amber eyes dark and unreadable in the dim light. A slow, pained smile touched her lips. "Hmm. Are you sure? I don't want to force anything on you. That's why I only wanted cuddles earlier. This is enough for me, Althea." But even as she said it, her hand on my waist tightened, a possessive spasm.
"I don't think it is enough," I said, my voice firming with conviction. "Just please, Haven, let me help you. You said you'd let me love you, remember? And I want to do this because I love you. And I don't want to see you struggling." I leaned down, brushing my lips against her fever-hot forehead. "Let me take care of you."
She let out a long, shuddering breath. The fight, the pretense of control, seemed to leave her all at once. "Alright. Fine. My tyrant." The old nickname, usually said with a teasing lilt, now sounded like a surrender. "So what do you want to do? Don't tell me you have plans in mind?" A weak chuckle escaped her. "You pervert."
I gasped, mock-offended. "Hmph! I'm your pervert. And yes, I have a plan. The 69."
Her eyebrows shot up. "The what now?"
"You heard me! The 69!! I know you heard me, you just want me to repeat it!" I could feel my face burning, but I powered through. "Hmph! No 69 for you then! Suffer, Haven!" I made a show of turning away.
Her hand shot out, grabbing my wrist. Her grip was hot and firm. "I'm sorry, my love. I just love teasing you and your… bright, searching ideas." Her thumb stroked my pulse point. "Alright. We will do the 69. But let me warn you… I'm better."
A competitive spark ignited in me. "Let's see about that! You're sick! I have the advantage! Bleh!" I stuck my tongue out at her.
The tension broke into something playful, charged. We both started moving, a silent agreement passing between us. I pulled my sleep shirt over my head. Haven, with less grace but more urgency, wrestled out of her silk pajamas. In the faint light, her body was a landscape of sleek muscle and pale skin, sheened with a fine sweat. She was magnificent. And she was mine to touch.
I kissed her then, deep and claiming, pouring all my determination and affection into it. She kissed back, her mouth hot and eager, but I could feel the tremble in her lips, the vibration of her controlled need. I broke the kiss, breathless. "Okay. Positions."
We maneuvered in the tangle of sheets. Me on top, facing south. Her on the bottom, facing north. The 69. It felt ridiculously intimate, vulnerable, and hilariously logistically challenging with our height difference.
"You good down there?" I called, my voice muffled.
A grunt was my answer. Then I felt her hands on my thighs, pulling me closer until my core was directly over her mouth. At the same time, I lowered my head between her legs.
Her scent was concentrated here, musky, dark, and utterly intoxicating. She was already wet, slick heat greeting me. I didn't hesitate. I wanted to win this unspoken competition, to drive her so crazy she forgot her own name.
I began by licking a broad stripe through her folds, tasting her. She gasped beneath me, her own mouth finding me and doing the same, making me jolt. Okay, game on.
I focused. I used every bit of my "research" and natural curiosity. I licked, I sucked, I traced patterns with my tongue. I found her swollen clit and gave it my full attention, alternating between soft, fluttering kisses and firmer, sucking pressure. I felt her whole body tense, heard her moan vibrate against me. She paused her ministrations for a second, her thighs clamping around my head.
Score one for Althea.
Emboldened, I slid two fingers inside her, curling them just the way she'd liked before, remembering her reactions from our kitchen bonding. I paired it with a relentless, focused attack on her clit with my tongue.
"Althea… fuck…" she groaned, her voice ragged.
I switched tactics, diving deeper, my tongue plunging into her as my fingers worked. Then back to her clit, my hand now massaging in tight circles. A cycle. Lick, penetrate, massage. Over and over.
Her breathing became frantic pants. Her hands gripped my thighs hard enough to bruise. "I'm… I'm cumming…"
That was all the encouragement I needed. I redoubled my efforts, and a second later, her body arched violently under me, a choked cry tearing from her throat as she came. The sensation, the taste, the sound—it tipped me over the edge too, my own climax crashing through me as her mouth found its rhythm again and carried me there. We fell apart together, trembling, a mess of shared release.
I collapsed to the side, panting, then clumsily shifted so we were face-to-face. She looked wrecked, beautiful, her lips glistening. I leaned in and kissed her, deep and slow, letting her taste herself on my mouth.
"That's yourself on my mouth, Haven," I whispered against her lips, smug and satisfied.
I felt her chuckle more than heard it. And then I felt something else. Against my thigh, a firm, hot pressure. Her shaft. It had materialized, thick and demanding.
My hand slid between us, wrapping around her length. She jolted, a sharp moan escaping into our kiss.
"I won, Haven," I murmured, stroking her slowly, feeling the velvety skin over iron-hard flesh.
She broke the kiss, her eyes blazing with a fever that had nothing to do with sickness. "You did," she conceded, her voice a dark rasp. "Now… impale yourself on me, my love. I want you. Now."
I didn't need to be told twice. I moved, straddling her hips, guiding her to my entrance. I was wet, ready, aching. I sank down onto her in one slow, breathtaking slide.
"Oh, god, Haven…" I gasped, my head falling back as she filled me completely. "I can feel you… throbbing inside me."
Haven's POV
I had been awake the whole time.
From the moment her scent shifted from sleepy Vanilla Strawberry to concerned Vanilla Strawberry, I was tracking her. I heard her whispered "Haven?" felt her tentative touch. My feverish, rut-addled brain, usually a precision instrument, was a storm of primal need and obsessive calculation. I played asleep. I wanted to see what she would do.
My naive, beautiful songbird, I thought, as she launched into her frantic, silent mission. The click of her phone. The pad of her feet to the next room. She was so loud in her care. It was enchanting.
I felt the cool cloth on my forehead and had to suppress a shiver. Not from the temperature. From the tenderness. No one had tended to me since I was a child. It was a vulnerability I would never allow, yet from her, I craved it. When her fingers went to my buttons, a dark, possessive thrill shot through me. Yes. Touch me. Care for me. Believe you are the one in control.
I let her "nurse" me for a few delicious minutes, basking in her focused attention, before I "woke." Her flustered explanation was the most adorable thing I'd ever witnessed. Nurse Althea has poor bedside manners. I could have devoured her right then.
Sending her to my room was a risk, but the suppressants were there, and the need was becoming a sharp, physical agony. I calculated the odds of her seeing the something there, the drawer. Like a camera was well-hidden. The drawer… a 50/50 chance. I was gambling with my secrets, but the rut was stripping away my usual caution, leaving only raw want.
I listened to her footsteps pause. The slight hitch in her breathing when she came back into the room. She'd seen something. The photographs. I knew it. A sliver of ice cut through the heat. Would she ask? Would the Tyrant stir?
But then she was handing me pills, her voice steady, her focus on me. The relief was a drug stronger than any suppressant. She chose me over the mystery. My beautiful, molded songbird. Her priorities were exactly where I had engineered them to be.
I pulled her into me, spooning her slight body, inhaling her scent to try and calm the storm inside. The suppressants took the razor's edge off, but the deep, aching need remained, a low-grade burn in my blood and bones. I drifted in a hazy, painful half-sleep, hyper-aware of every shift of her body against mine.
When she woke again and immediately reached for her phone, I watched through slitted eyes. The glow illuminated her determined, curious face. She was researching. How to ease alpha rut. My heart hammered against my ribs. She was going to offer. My sweet, goofy, generous Omega was going to offer herself as a remedy.
I let her wake me. I gave her the out—I don't want to force anything—because the game, the illusion of her choice, was part of the pleasure. Her insistence, her declaration of love and duty… it was everything. When she said "The 69," with such bold, blushy determination, I almost lost my composure entirely. The dichotomy of her—innocent researcher and bold vixen—was utterly devastating.
As we undressed, my gaze was a physical caress. In the dim light, she was a vision. All smooth skin, soft curves, and that defiant, loving glint in her eye. My possession. My salvation.
The positioning was awkward, hilarious, and unbearably erotic. When her mouth finally found me, a strangled groan escaped my lips. Her technique was… enthusiastic. Unpracticed but fiercely attentive. She was trying so hard to "win," to "take care of me," and it was the most potent aphrodisiac I'd ever known.
I gave as good as I got, losing myself in her taste, her sounds, but my focus was split. I was cataloging her every reaction, every gasp and shiver, while being driven to the brink by her relentless, creative assault. When she curled her fingers inside me just so, mimicking my own preference with shocking accuracy, my control shattered. I came apart under her mouth, the climax wrenching through me with painful intensity, my cries muffled against her skin.
As we lay panting, face-to-face, and she kissed me with a smug, "That's yourself on my mouth, Haven," I felt a wave of such absolute, terrifying ownership I could barely breathe. She was marked by me, in the most intimate way.
And my body, unsatisfied, responded. My knot swelled at the base of my shaft, an insistent, primal demand.
Her hand on me was a lightning strike. "I won, Haven," she whispered, and the possessiveness in her voice, mirroring my own, made my vision haze.
"You did," I growled. "Now… impale yourself on me, my love. I want you. Now."
Watching her rise above me, her silhouette against the faint window light, and then sink down, taking me into her warmth, was a religious experience. Her gasp, her head falling back—it was a supplication. My name on her lips was a prayer I had written myself.
"I can feel you… throbbing inside me," she moaned, beginning to move.
Fuck. She's so warm. So tight. So perfectly mine. The thought was a broken record in my fevered mind. Every roll of her hips, every clench around me, was a direct attack on my sanity. I gripped her waist, guiding her, setting a deeper, more punishing rhythm.
"That's it, my tyrant," I rasped, my hands sliding up to cup her breasts, thumbs circling her nipples. "Ride me. Take what you need. Take what's yours."
She moaned, her movements growing more confident, her inner walls fluttering around me. "You feel… so good, Haven. You fill me up… everywhere."
I surged up, capturing her mouth in a searing kiss, swallowing her cries. Fuck. She's so clumsy at kissing and so good at the same time. The memory of Emara's practiced, calculating kisses flashed, ugly and unwelcome. Emara could never. This—Althea's eager, untutored, overwhelmingly genuine passion—obliterated every ghost. My kisses were reclaiming. Every sweep of my tongue was erasing another man's memory, another woman's touch, until only my taste, my claim, remained.
I flipped us suddenly, pressing her into the mattress, never breaking our connection. I needed more. Deeper. I drove into her, my thrusts losing finesse, driven by rut and a desperate need to brand her from the inside out.
"Haven… oh, god…" she chanted, her legs wrapping high around my back, her heels digging into my flesh.
"Who do you belong to, Althea?" I demanded, my voice guttural, my pace relentless.
"You!" she cried out, her nails scoring down my back. "You, Haven! Only you!"
The words punched through me, a truth serum and a narcotic. My knot was swelling further, catching at her entrance with every thrust. We were both sweating, breathless, a tangle of limbs and desperate sounds.
"I'm gonna knot you," I warned, my forehead dropping to hers. "I'm gonna lock us together and fill you up. Is that what you want?"
"Yes! Please, Haven, yes! Knot me, claim me, please!"
Her begging was my undoing. With a final, powerful thrust, my knot seated fully inside her, expanding, locking us together irrevocably. Her walls clamped down in a vice-like pulse, milking me, and I came with a roar, my release pumping into her in hot, endless waves. She followed me over, her body convulsing around mine, a silent scream on her lips as her own climax tore through her.
We were fused. One entity. Panting, sweating, utterly joined.
It should have been enough. The rut should have been sated. But as the intense pulses subsided and we lay locked together, the fever in my blood merely banked, not extinguished. The possessiveness was now a live wire. I needed more. Different angles. More marks.
After a few minutes, when my knot had subsided enough to slip free, I pulled out, ignoring her soft whimper. I turned her onto her hands and knees.
"Again," I whispered into her ear, my body covering hers from behind. "I need you again."
She was pliant, eager. "Yes. Anything."
I entered her from behind, this angle even deeper, more primal. I wrapped one arm around her waist, pulling her back against each thrust, my other hand fisting in her hair, gently tilting her head to expose the long, elegant line of her neck. My teeth ached with the need to bite, to mark, but I held back. This was about possession, not just biology.
We found a brutal, perfect rhythm. The room filled with the sound of skin on skin, ragged breaths, and my low growls.
"Haven," she panted, pushing back against me. "Haven… mark me."
I stilled, my heart slamming against my ribs. "What?"
"Claim me. Bite me. Right here." She tilted her head further, offering her nape, the most vulnerable, sacred spot for an Omega. "So whenever… whenever my amnesia is gone… my body will remember that I am yours. That I belong to you. And I will come back to you."
The words were a detonation in my soul. They were everything I feared and everything I prayed for wrapped in one devastating package. She was offering me a permanent claim, a biological tether, as an insurance policy against her own returning memories. The trust, the sheer, terrifying depth of her commitment to me, to this version of us, shattered the last of my control.
A low, possessive growl ripped from my throat. "Mine," I snarled, my canines elongating, the primal urge surging past all reason.
"Yours," she gasped. "Always."
I struck.
My teeth sank into the sweet, tender flesh of her bonding gland at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. The taste of her blood, rich and coppery and Althea, flooded my mouth. At the same instant, my knot swelled and locked inside her once more, a double claim, inside and out.
A blinding, white-hot connection seared through us, more than physical. It was a fusion of souls, a flash of profound understanding, a dizzying rush of rightness. I felt her pleasure, her surrender, her love as if it were my own. She cried out, not in pain, but in ecstatic release, her body clamping around me in rhythmic waves that dragged a second, even more powerful climax from my depths.
We collapsed together onto the messy sheets, still locked, my mouth lapping gently at the mark I'd left, the metallic tang of her blood and my own release a heady perfume. The rut, finally, truly, subsided. The brutal heat receded, leaving a bone-deep satisfaction and a clinging, obsessive warmth.
Mine. Now. Forever. By her choice and my teeth. The thought was a tranquil, dark ocean. She was marked. Bonded. Even if her mind forgot, her body would scream for me. Her biology would recognize me as her Alpha. It was the ultimate security.
After a long while, when we could move again, I carefully disentangled us. I scooped her limp, sated body into my arms and carried her to the en-suite bathroom. I drew a warm bath, easing us both into the water. I washed her with a tenderness that felt alien to my hands, cleaning the sweat and evidence of our lovemaking from her skin. I was meticulous, worshipful.
I patted her dry, then retrieved a special ointment from the cabinet—a blend to promote healing and reduce scarring, but not enough to erase the mark entirely. I wanted it to fade to a silvery shadow, a permanent testament.
I applied it to the vivid bite on her nape. In the bright bathroom light, it was a brutal, beautiful brand. Two perfect punctures from my canines, surrounded by a bruise that would blossom into a spectacular purple. I leaned down and pressed a reverent kiss to it.
"My beautiful songbird," I whispered. "My wife."
She hummed, leaning back against me, completely trusting, completely spent.
I carried her back to the clean side of the bed, tucking her in. I slid in beside her, pulling her into my arms, her back to my front, my nose buried in her hair, right next to my new, permanent mark.
Her breathing evened out into sleep almost instantly.
I lay awake in the dark, the obsessive thoughts swirling, but now they were serene, satiated.
She is mine. All mine. Her blood is in my veins. My claim is in her skin. My seed is in her womb. The ghosts are gone. The past is erased. There is only this. Only us.
And I will burn the world before I let anything take this from me again.
Outside, the first hints of dawn tinged the sky. Inside, in our bed, my songbird slept, marked and claimed, utterly possessed. And I, Haven Hartwell, her monster, her architect, her devoted wife, held her and watched the light grow, perfectly, obsessively content.