Chapter 171: Alpha Dreams Go BANG

The Alpha held the ice against her neck and said nothing. He might not have noticed. She wasn’t sure. She was being held hostage by an Alpha who enjoyed icing. It wasn’t hurting her.

It clearly made him feel better.

So she held still.

This was fine.

She let herself relax back against his chest.

His wolf started purring, low and steady. But the moment she noticed it, it cut out like a plug pulled from a wall.

???

She was back in Alpha Thunderfang’s room.

Except she was on her knees, straddling Derek’s face, thighs spread over his shoulders while his mouth worked her from below.

Maverick knelt in front of her, one hand on her waist to steady her, the other cupping her breast as he sucked her nipple into his mouth. Every time she rocked, he followed, tongue and teeth keeping steady pressure while Derek’s mouth stayed locked on her underneath.

"Stay on his mouth," Alpha Thunderfang said from behind her, palm landing hard enough to drive her forward. "Don’t run from it."

Derek’s hands tightened on her thighs. "I want it. Cum in my mouth, baby."

Then Alpha Thunderfang’s palm came down on her ass in three firm smacks in a row that drove her hips forward onto Derek’s tongue. The third smack landed as she started to shake.

"That’s it," Alpha Thunderfang growled. "Give it to all three of us."

"Alpha—" she gasped.

The pressure between her legs built until her hips started to lift on their own. Small, helpless rocks at first, then deeper, grinding down onto his mouth without her telling them to. Every time she tried to still them, another firm smack from the Alpha drove her forward again and the rhythm came right back.

His palm landed again, lower, the sting sharp. "Keep going."

Maverick’s mouth stayed locked on her breast, sucking hard enough that she felt it every time her hips rolled. Derek’s hands gripped her thighs and held her open, tongue working in time with the way she was moving.

The orgasm started low and sudden. Her thighs shook. She tried to lift off and couldn’t. Alpha Thunderfang bit down on her neck, venom flowing in the same instant.

???

BANG!

Nova yelped, high pitched, having not realized she had drifted until something clattered to the floor.

Every muscle locked at the same time, her chest heaving. She flinched into Alpha Thunderfang. His arm absorbed it, tightened, and angled her face into his neck. She could feel the growl building in his chest before she heard it, a vibration that started low and crawled through his ribs into hers.

Probably a bit of an overreaction on both of their ends, but considering their alarm clock this morning, they had an excuse.

She looked up and found Alpha Thunderfang with murder in his eyes, and followed the line of it to a male healer frozen in the doorway, a scatter of supplies at his feet.

"S-sorry, Alpha." The healer was already backing out. "I can come back—"

"No." Alpha Thunderfang’s voice was flat. "Give him his medicine."

He stood, setting Nova down into the chair with the same careful hands that had just arranged her, and she could tell from the shift in him that he had to leave. If she was honest, she was surprised he’d stayed as long as he had.

"Thank you for bringing me here, Alpha. I’ll sit with Derek. I’ll stay out of your way." Her voice was kind and she meant every word.

Something tightened behind his eyes that she couldn’t begin to name but understood he was not pleased with something.

"I’ll be right back, Alpha. I just—" The young man gestured helplessly at the dropped supplies. "I need to get more."

"Don’t leave this room," Alpha Thunderfang ordered. "I’ll come back for you."

"Of course."

He turned on his heel and left, pulling the door shut behind him. Through it, she caught the muffled low of his voice in the corridor, speaking to someone. Derek’s name surfaced once out of the murmur, clear, and the rest dissolved into sound she couldn’t shape into words.

Her hand found Derek’s again. Still wrapped. Still not fully healed. He was mending slower than he should have been, and she only knew that because she had a comparison now she hadn’t asked for. She had accidentally caught sight of Alpha Thunderfang’s torso in a towel. There hadn’t been a single burn on it or his hands. Completely healed.

Alphas healed quicker and she had seen Derek’s skin knit together when he helped remove her silver cuffs.

"Please wake up. I miss you," she whispered to Derek, touching his cheek. She did miss him a lot.

She looked at her hands then at Derek.

She had healed Sebastian. She had watched the grey recede from his skin under her palms and felt something leave her body that she couldn’t name and didn’t understand.

The thought sat in her chest like a coal she couldn’t put down.

If she could heal Derek like she had healed Sebastian she would have put her hands on his chest and given him every drop of it until there was nothing left.

But she didn’t know how. She didn’t know where it came from or what triggered it or why it had chosen that moment in the courtyard and not this one. Her hands were useless and the man in that bed needed them and the distance between those two facts was killing her quietly.

The door stayed shut, and she could tell by the shape of the shadows underneath it that Alpha Thunderfang had stationed guards outside the room before he left.

???

Alpha Thunderfang came back for her, and she’d fallen asleep in the chair with a blanket someone had draped over her at some point. He apparently saw nothing strange about scooping her up, blanket and all, and carrying her out of the hospital.

She woke mid-stride, blinking up at the ceiling moving past her.

"Alpha?"

He grunted. He did not put her down.

"I can walk. I must have fallen asleep."

His grip tightened around her, which was his answer.

It was dusk when they hit the street, the sky bruising purple over the City of Light, and people were staring.

When his thumb moved against her ribs through the blanket, she assumed it was a grip adjustment because he was carrying a her through a snowstorm. Thumbs do things when hands are occupied.

Fine. Her reputation in Thunderfang was a bonfire. Why the hell not pour more gasoline on it? She exhaled, settled, and accepted that this was happening the way weather happens. There was no version of this where he put her down.

Her walking privileges had been permanently revoked earlier.

The keep swallowed them. Corridors passed. Guards straightened as they walked by, eyes forward, faces professionally blank.

By the time they reached his chambers, she was dozing off again, maybe a bit more tired than she realized.

He gently set her on her boots inside the door. His hands stayed on her waist a moment longer than the landing required. Steadying her, probably. She had been asleep earlier after all.

A leather tote waited on his bed, which she assumed had been packed for her. And beside it, a box tied with ribbon.

"Dinner," he stated.

"Dinner?"

"Those are for you. For dinner. In an hour."

"For me?" Her brain rejected it outright, because this would make it two gifts in a single day from a man who communicated primarily in single syllables, and the premise simply would not load.

"Yes. I will come get you."

He turned before she could say anything else.