CHAPTER 2

EDAL

“You haven't fucked me in two weeks Rylan… Of course I'm wet, Bow shut up and fuck me .”

He pushed two fingers inside me without warning. I gasped. My nails dug into his shoulders.

“Is this what you need?” he asked, curling his fingers, hitting that spot that made my vision blur.

“I need you to shut up and fuck me.”

He pulled his fingers out. I whimpered at the loss. He rolled me onto my back, positioned himself between my thighs, the head of his cock pressing against my pussy. His grey eyes stared down at me .

“You're mine,” he said.

“I know.”

“Say it.”

“I'm yours. Now fucking move.”

He thrust inside me. Deep and Rough.

I wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled him closer. He buried his face in my neck, his breath hot on my skin.

“Fuck, Edal,” he groaned. “You feel … you're so tight …”

“Don't stop. Please don't fucking stop.”

He didn't. He fucked me harder, deeper, his hips slamming into mine, the headboard hitting the wall in a rhythm that matched my heartbeat. I clawed at his back. He bit my shoulder … hard enough to leave marks. I moaned. He growled.

This was the only time I felt safe. When he was inside me. When nothing else existed … not the Burning, not the wolf gene, not the dead mother whose teeth still haunted my dreams. Just him. Just us. Just this.

I came first. My back arched off the bed. My thighs shook. I cried out his name … not

He followed seconds later, burying his cock as deep as he could go, spilling inside me while he shuddered and groaned and whispered my name as he painted my pussy with cum.

Loud knocks settled on the door… sounding really urgent on cue.

“Alpha a Fissure opened in the eastern sector! Scavengers are trapped! We need you now!”

Rylan sighed Like the weight of the whole world was sitting on his chest.

“Stay inside,” he said, pulling on his pants. “I'll be back before dawn.”

“You always say that.” He paused at the door. Looked back at me … grey eyes soft for just a second.

“And I always come back.”

Then he was gone I lay there for a long time, staring at the ceiling, tracing the cracks in the plaster. The cold seeped in where his body used to be.

I couldn't sleep. I never could after he left. The room was too big and empty and I was lonely.

I got up wrapped a sheet around myself and wandered into the hallway.

His study was at the end. The room he told me never to enter. The room with the locked chest.

I pushed the door open.

Papers covered his desk. Maps. Manifests. Old letters. And one letter with an official seal … the High Council of Alphas.

My hands shook as I unfolded it.

“Approved. The human breeder Edal (ID #0427) will be released from her contract effective immediately. Alpha Rylan has selected his fated mate, Luna Vex, to stand by his side. The coronation will take place on the next full moon per pack traditions.”

Luna?. He was making someone else Luna.

After two years of holding me, fucking me, telling me I was his … he was throwing me away like garbage.

“No.” The word came out a whisper. Then louder. “No. No. No. No.”

I read it again. Same words. Same cold, official, fucking words. I didn't cry. I wouldn't give him that.

I threw the letter on the floor. I stormed out of the study. Down the hallway. Through the main hall. My bare feet slapped against the cold stone floor, each step echoing off the walls like gunshots.

He wasn't in the eastern sector. He wasn't fixing the fissure. He wasn't saving scavengers.

He was in the north courtyard, standing close to a woman I'd never seen before.

Tall with Dark hair. Sharp cheekbones. A smirk that made my blood boil.

Rylan's hand was on her waist. She was laughing at something he'd said …a musical, elegant laugh that belonged in ballrooms and expensive restaurants, not in this broken world of ash and blood.

“Rylan.”

My voice came out harder than I expected.

He turned. His eyes widened … just a flicker, just a second … before his face went blank. Empty. Like a stranger. Like I was no one.

The woman smiled. She looked me up and down … slowly, deliberately … like I was a piece of meat she was considering buying.

“You must be the breeder.”

“I asked who the fuck you are.”

She didn't answer. She looked at Rylan instead. Raised her perfectly shaped eyebrows. Waiting.

And Rylan … the man who saved me from that ditch, who held me after nightmares, who fucked me like I meant something, who said I was his …

Rylan took a breath. His eyes refusing to lock with mine

“This is Vex, My fated mate. My Luna to be.”