Chapter 9

Chapter 9

I could still feel the shape of him inside me.

Even after the knot had gone down and Riven had finally pulled out, my body refused to forget. Every time I shifted on the furs, a dull, deep ache reminded me exactly how long he had kept me locked against that door. His come was still leaking out of me in slow, humiliating trickles. The claim mark on my neck throbbed in time with my pulse, hot and tender.

I stared at the ceiling of the Alpha’s den and tried to remember how to hate him properly.

It shouldn’t have been this hard.

I had spent years carefully existing on the edges of the pack—quiet, forgettable, safe. I had taken suppressants until my hands shook. I had planned for a life where no one ever looked at me too long. And then Riven Blackthorn scented me, dragged me into the firelight, and rewrote everything with his teeth and his cock like my plans had never mattered.

The worst part was the choice.

I had stood in front of the entire pack and stepped toward him. I had said the words out loud. I choose it. Even now, the memory made my stomach twist with something that felt too much like shame and too much like want.

Riven moved around the den behind me. I heard water pouring, the soft sound of cloth, the low rumble of his voice as he spoke to someone at the door. He hadn’t left me alone for more than a few minutes since the public scene. Every time I thought he might give me space, his scent would wrap around me again and the bond would pull tight, like a leash I couldn’t see.

I closed my eyes.

You don’t get to take it back, Kai. Not after today. Not ever.

His words still sat under my skin.

The mattress dipped. I didn’t need to look to know it was him. The bond told me first—warm, heavy, satisfied. Then his scent hit me, pine and smoke and sex, and my traitorous body reacted before I could stop it. A slow pulse of slick gathered between my legs. I clenched my jaw and kept my eyes shut.

Riven’s hand settled on my bare hip. His thumb stroked once over the soft skin there, possessive even in the small movement.

“You’re thinking too loud,” he said.

“I’m thinking about how much I want to leave.”

“No, you’re not.” His hand slid up my side, slow, mapping the curve of my waist like he was reminding himself of what he owned. “You’re thinking about how it felt when you stepped toward me instead of away. And you’re trying to decide whether you hate yourself for it.”

I hated that he was right.

I rolled onto my side, putting my back to him. The movement pulled at the sore muscles in my thighs and lower back. Riven simply shifted with me, fitting his larger body against mine like he belonged there. His chest pressed to my spine. One heavy arm draped over my waist, hand splayed across my stomach.

“I said the words because you backed me into a corner,” I muttered. “In front of everyone. That wasn’t a real choice.”

“It was the only kind that matters.” His mouth brushed the claim mark, and a shiver ran straight down my spine. “You could have walked away. The pack would have let you. I would have let you… for a little while. You didn’t.”

“You’re impossible.”

“And you’re still wet.” His hand drifted lower, fingers slipping between my thighs. I bit down on a sound when he found the mess there—his come, my slick, the evidence of everything he had done to me. He made a low, approving noise and pressed two fingers inside me without asking. “Sore?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He curled his fingers, slow and deliberate, and my hips twitched against my will. “I want you to feel me every time you move today. I want the pack to smell me on you when I take you out there again. I want every wolf who looked at you this morning to know exactly what happens when my Omega tries to pretend he doesn’t belong to me.”

I grabbed his wrist, but I didn’t pull his hand away. My body had already softened around his fingers, opening for him like it had been trained to. The bond hummed between us, thick with his dark pleasure at my reaction.

“I still don’t want this,” I whispered.

Riven’s lips curved against the back of my neck.

“Keep saying that,” he murmured, pushing his fingers deeper. “I’ll enjoy proving you wrong for the rest of our lives.”

He didn’t fuck me again right away. Instead he worked me open with slow, thorough strokes of his fingers until I was shaking and biting the furs to stay quiet. Only when I was dripping and desperate did he finally pull his hand away, roll me onto my back, and settle between my thighs.

When he pushed inside, it was one long, relentless thrust that stole the air from my lungs.

I gasped. My hands flew up to his shoulders. Riven caught both wrists and pinned them above my head, holding me there while he fucked me in deep, claiming strokes. Every time he bottomed out, the bond flared—his satisfaction, his hunger, the absolute certainty that I was his.

“Look at me,” he ordered.

I did.

His eyes were dark, focused, almost hungry. Sweat already dampened his temples. He looked like a man who had won something important and intended to keep it.

“You chose,” he said, voice rough. “Now take what comes with it.”

He drove into me harder. The wet sounds of sex filled the den. I hated how good it felt. I hated the way my legs wrapped around his waist without permission. I hated the broken noises he pulled out of me with every thrust.

When his knot started to swell, I shook my head even as my body clenched around him.

“Too much—”

“You can take it.” He forced the thick base inside with a low growl and locked us together. The pressure made my vision blur. Hot come flooded me in heavy pulses while I came with a choked cry, hole spasming around the knot like it never wanted to let him go.

Riven collapsed forward, burying his face against my neck, breathing hard. His full weight pressed me into the furs. One hand still held my wrists. The other stroked down my side like he was soothing something wild.

I stared at the ceiling over his shoulder, chest heaving, and tried to hold on to the last pieces of resistance I had left.

They felt smaller than they had that morning.

And that scared me more than anything else.