My Family Stole My Alpha, I Married Someone Stronger novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Blessing

Her mother begs; Tilda says she will decide at moonrise. Alone with Corwin she finally lets go, and Alaric howls under their window.

I found my mother in the kitchen after the pudding, scrubbing a clean pot.

She jumped when I shut the door.

"Matilda. I was going to tell you tomorrow."

"Tell me what, Mom?"

"It's only words." Her wet hands twisted in the dishcloth.

"You stand in the circle at moonrise and say them once. 'I release him.' That's all."

"Why me?"

"The old law needs the first claimant to say it. Otherwise the line stays open."

"Open for what?"

"For trouble. For him." She wouldn't look at me.

"Alaric has been unwell. The council thinks it will settle his wolf if you let go in front of the pack."

"A blessing," she said again. "On all of us."

"Please." Her voice cracked. "Ten years I've waited for you to come home. I'm asking you on my knees."

She began to bend them.

I caught her by the elbows before she could, because I am her daughter and I couldn't watch it.

"Don't," I said. "Stand up."

She cried into my sleeve.

It was the same crying she'd done on the phone. It sounded real, and that was the worst of it.

"I'll decide at moonrise," I said. "Not before."

"And I came for one thing, Mom. Tell me what happened that week. All of it."

"That was so long ago."

"It was my whole life."

She wiped her face and put the cardigan back to rights.

"After Christmas," she said. "I promise. After the Release, I'll tell you anything you want."

It was a smooth answer. It was too smooth.

I let her have it, and I went upstairs.

They had given us my old bedroom.

The twin bed was gone, replaced by a big pine one with a quilt on it.

The window still looked over the yard and the black line of the trees.

Corwin was standing at that window with his shirt half unbuttoned.

He turned when I shut the door, and I saw him take in my face.

"Come here," he said.

I crossed the room and stopped in front of him.

"I'm fine."

"I know you are."

"I moved the cards, and I wasn't scared, and I'm fine."

"You were magnificent." His thumb touched the corner of my mouth. "And your hands are shaking."

I looked down. They were.

He took them both and brought them up, and kissed one knuckle and then the next.

"They can hear us," I said. "Everyone in this building has wolf hearing. My mother is two doors down."

"Then we'll be quiet."

"You've never once been quiet."

"I've never once had a reason to."

I laughed, and then I stopped, because he had bent his head and put his mouth against my throat.

It was slow. He was always slow with me at first.

He undid my sweater a button at a time and pushed it off my shoulders.

The cold in the room made my skin tighten everywhere.

"Cold?" he murmured.

"Not for long."

I pulled his shirt open the rest of the way and put my palms flat on his chest.

He was so warm. He was always so warm, and the hair on his chest was rough and the muscle underneath it was steady.

He walked me back to the bed and I went down onto the quilt.

He came down over me with his weight held on his forearms.

He kissed me until my head swam.

He kissed down my neck and over my collarbone, and his hand slid under my bra and closed around my breast.

I arched into it.

"Quiet," he whispered against my skin.

"I'm trying."

"Try harder."

He drew the nipple into his mouth and I bit my own lip to keep the sound in.

His other hand went lower. He opened my jeans and pushed his fingers inside and found me already wet.

"Corwin."

"Shh."

He stroked slowly, and every pass lifted my hips off the mattress.

I got my hand into his hair and held on.

When I was close and shaking he pulled his hand away, and I almost cried.

"Not yet," he said, and his voice was rough. "I want you with me."

He stripped the jeans off me and shoved his own down.

Then he was inside me in one long hard stroke, and I gasped.

I covered my mouth with my wrist.

He caught the wrist and pinned it to the pillow, and he pushed deeper.

"Look at me," he said.

I looked.

His eyes were gold at the edges, steady and full of me, and that was what undid me.

He moved, and I met him, and the old bed began to knock softly against the wall.

We didn't stop.

I came with my face in his neck.

He followed with my name in his teeth, low enough that no one could hear it but me.

Afterward he lay with his forehead against mine.

We were breathing in the same rhythm, quiet and tangled together under the quilt.

Then a howl came up from the yard.

It was long and cracked and aching, and it hung over the black trees.

I knew that voice.

Corwin's arm tightened around me.

And somewhere deep behind my ribs, where I hadn't felt anything in ten years, my own wolf lifted her head and answered.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend