Sarah
After the Ball
Alpha Sydney of Shadowcrest pauses during the long trek down the stairs leading out of the temple of the Moon Goddess. He extends a hand to me, and I take it, finding his hands warm but slightly clammy.
I meet his eyes. Goddess, he has radiant eyes. The kind of blue even the best artists can’t capture in a painting. Dark blue, like the deepest ocean, and so expressive I can see every thought behind them.
He’s nervous. I am too, which is silly. We’ve been dancing for an hour, singing along to a lesser known local band we both love. He helped me finish the cocktail I didn’t end up liking, and somehow we ended up doing… this. Escaping the party together without telling a soul.
He wanted to see my flowers, and I wanted to show him more than anything.
This man is not only an Alpha but the heir to the throne of Alpha King.
He’s the highest ranking and most powerful Alpha in our lands, other than his father. And right now, he’s nervous to be around me.
I stoop to take off my heels. “I’m going to break my neck if I fall down these stairs.”
He holds me steady as I fumble with the thin straps, my tight pink dress hampering my progress. “I’ll carry them for you,” he says, taking each shoe and holding them by the straps. His suit jacket is draped over his arm, and his tie is loose. His dark brown hair is ruffled, and he has a twinkle in his eye when I straighten up, run my fingers through my hair, and smile at him.
He looks so at ease right now, nothing like the official portrait in the temple or pictures in the newspaper I’ve seen. I can’t imagine him looking stern.
Not when his smile is the most magnificent thing I’ve ever seen.
I’m in so much trouble.
“Better?” he asks, his own smile widening.
“So much better,” I laugh, and we’re off again.
Barefoot, I walk beside him through the summer festival, down cramped alleys where tents and stalls with vendors selling all kinds of food, drinks, and gifts that border on romantically inclined clog the normally busy thoroughfare on the shore of the lake.
I shuffle to keep up with him, cursing myself for being persuaded to wear this dress tonight. It hugs every curve all the way down to my ankles and is impossible to walk in, but I’m doing my best.
“Are you hungry?”
“I could eat,” I reply. “Something small, maybe.”
“Fries?”
I nod, beaming at him as we stop at a stall and wait in line. Within minutes, we’re sitting on a bench overlooking the water where couples and groups have spread out blankets on the grassy lake shore to have midnight picnics and watch the stars bloom to life overhead.
We munch on fries while I point out the floral streamers strung from light pole to light pole and the huge baskets of blooms lining the walking trails down to the water.
“You did all of that?”
“I was on a team, technically, but yeah. I did.” I lean into him to snatch another fry. “What do you do?”
“Me?”
“Yeah.” I catch his gaze, softening the smile that’s been firmly planted on my face since the moment I saw him tonight. He’d been talking in a small group with his brother, Alpha Ryan, the other prince of Crescent Falls, and an unfamiliar woman I believe might have been the Royal Princess of Eastonia. It’s rumored she’s here for the festival. Everyone has been talking about it.
I spotted him and did a double take, and the moment we locked eyes, I swear time stopped.
But my friends ushered me to the dance floor, and I told myself he’s not here for me. I’m definitely not here for him. I’m a nobody. I have no rank and no pack.
But he’s sitting so close to me now that our thighs touch as he responds to my earlier question. “I’m an Alpha.”
“No way! I had no idea,” I laugh, rolling my eyes.
He smirks. “I’m also an engineer. Civil, technically. I like to think I do a little of everything. I help my dad on some of his committees when it comes to kingdom infrastructure. My firm is in Shadowcrest.”
“That’s pretty far away, isn’t it?”
“It is. I kind of like it that way. It keeps me out of the city, and it’s quiet there.”
He offers me another fry. I take it, popping it into my mouth and rubbing the salt between my fingers. “You’re good at math then, huh? That’s good because I’m not.”
“Well, I’m not very artistic, admittedly. It’s a good thing I found you.”
“Why?” I laugh, beaming up at him as my heart rate spikes.
He shrugs, looking down at me with affection behind his eyes. It’s not a look I’m used to. “You seem like the kind of person that can touch something and make it beautiful. I tend to touch things with the ability to break them apart.”
I’m not sure what to say, but I feel myself leaning in, chasing more of his touch.
When he asked if I wanted to leave the temple and the sweaty, chaotic ball taking place there, I was all over it. We’d been dancing, touching each other, standing so close I could run my hands up his chest and feel every well-defined muscle beneath.
But that bubble of intimacy burst the second we stepped out into the fresh night air. I expected this feeling of want to simmer, but now it’s a quiet feeling. Comfortable, and natural, but the desire for him I felt earlier is there all the same.
He places a hand on my thigh as he points across the lake, clearing his throat. He begins to tell me about his territory tucked in the mountains in the distance while I watch his mouth move. I love the way he talks when he’s excited. I love that he seems to talk a lot when he’s nervous, especially after flirting with me and realizing what he’d done.
Despite the summer heat, there’s a bit of a bite in the air as we walk through the festival together. Maybe it’s my own nerves reminding me that these feelings can’t be more than excitement and lust. It’s better that way. I’m entitled to some freedom, aren’t I? This craving to be touched and held has been brewing for a long time.
But it’s dangerous. I know better than this.
Right now, I just don’t care.
Music thrums to the rhythm of my ever beating heart, and as we maneuver through a particularly crowded street, his hand finds mine again. He guides me through the crowd with his fingers knitted in mine; our hands are a perfect fit.
By the time we reach the edge of the festival and the NZ looms, I start to feel it. That nagging sense that this is going to be over soon.
It’s selfish. Selfish of me to think I could spend a night with an Alpha. Goddess, I’ve never even been with anyone before. I’ve never been kissed.
“Are you okay?” he asks, coming to a stop on the sidewalk in front of a sleepy storefront shuttered against the dwindling crowd.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I shrug, looking down at my bare toes.
He swings my shoes as he scans the crowd moving through the glowing tents and then turns back to me, edging closer–just a step.
I look up as he says, “You probably want to get home now. I could… I could take you back to the temple, if you want–”
“No, it’s all right.”
He flexes his jaw like unsaid words are on the tip of his tongue. He runs his fingers through his hair. “Look, I… it’s late. I realize how long we’ve been out here and really don’t want you walking back to your place alone. I don’t even know where you live–”
“I’ll be okay,” I assure him, but inside I’m dying. “Do you want–”
“I don’t really want tonight to end,” he says hurriedly, his cheeks going ruddy.
My mouth pops open slightly, and a warmth spreads through my chest that I can’t explain. It’s new. It’s beautiful. It’s my undoing if I do anything rash.
“I’m not good at this,” he admits, taking another step in my direction and effectively closing the distance between us. “But when I saw you in the crowd I…. You cast some kind of spell on me.”
“A spell?” I laugh, a real, almost choking laugh. “You’re right, Alpha Sydney. You caught me. It was a love spell.”
“Oh,” he rasps, taking another step. “I knew it. Every second I’ve spent with you tonight, I’ve felt like I’m dying. Like the idea of saying goodbye is going to tear me apart.”
“We don’t have to say goodbye just yet.”
“How long does this spell last?”
I smile like an idiot, thinking back on those silly books I used to read as a kid. “Until daybreak. Until the first rays of sun touch the ground. You’re mine until then.”
“We have a few hours then, don’t we?”
My heart races as he closes in on me. I take a step back, tripping over my hem for the hundredth time tonight.
He stoops, crouching, and starts ripping the fabric.
“I loved this dress,” I tell him.
“I love it too, but if you’re going to come home with me tonight, I’m going to need you to walk, otherwise I’m carrying you over my shoulder.”
Another rip and my legs are free. He tosses the fabric to the side and slowly looks up at me. He’s so much taller than I am. He towers over me at his full height, but he rises slowly, and we’re so close I can smell him–smell that woodsy, early autumn scent that does something to my brain I can’t make sense of.
It happens slowly, like time is at a crawl. He cages me in against the brick exterior of the store front, his body shielding mine from a passing group of festival goers. I lay my hand on his chest, over his heart, and feel that it’s beating as fast as my own.
We’re on dangerous ground. One word, and this doesn’t have to happen. I’m smarter than this. I know better. But I’ve sheltered myself for years now, hiding away, pretending to be someone I’m not to make the world a little safer for me.
But I want this feeling I get from him. This strange connection that locked into place when he introduced himself. I want to live in the moment he put his hand on my waist while we danced in the temple and I felt all tingly and good.
If I can’t have this forever, I can have it for a night.
Right?
His mouth brushes mine. I close my eyes, my lips parting as he kisses me. It’s slow and tender at first, but he deepens the kiss, his tongue sliding over mine.
It's a rush I’ve never experienced. The kiss is perfect, too perfect, and before I know it we’re passing through the gates to his brother’s territory in the cloak of night. He picks me up to help me over the boulders that line the slope of his brother’s large log home in Silverhide. We’re kissing again in the narrow hallway lined with bedrooms on the second floor, my back pressed to the wall and his hands traveling down the slope of my hips while I unbutton his shirt.
I should tell him I’ve never done this, but I don’t want to stop. I don’t want him to stop and reconsider.
He opens a door and carries me inside, laying me in the center of the mattress.
I shimmy out of my dress. He pulls it down off my hips, ripping the fabric off rather than unzipping it.
“Sydney–” I breathe his name, closing my eyes as his hands touch my bare skin. A chill wraps itself around my body as his mouth presses kisses up my left thigh while he crawls onto the bed.
I run my fingers through his thick, soft hair, and he groans with satisfaction.
“Take these off. I can’t take it anymore,” he rasps against my skin, against my hip bone.
I reach down and start shoving the lacy white thong I’m wearing down, and he helps, sliding it over my knees and down to my ankles.
I kick it off completely, laughing a bit because his stubble is tickling my skin, but then his mouth is…
“Oh, my Goddess,” I cry out to the ceiling.
He forces my legs up onto his shoulders and licks me from base to clit, and I melt into his touch, turning molten and heavy. His teeth graze my most sensitive area as he tongue laps at my center until I’m dizzy with need. Need for more. For all of him.
It doesn’t take long for the aching desperation blooming to life between my thighs to turn to something bright and white-hot. My nails rake through his hair as I arch my hips, riding his tongue as I come wholly and utterly unglued. My vision fills with stars and my entire body spasms with pleasure, but he’s not stopping.
I’m coming down from a high like no other when his mouth is suddenly on mine again, and he’s nudging my knees apart.
I didn’t even see him take his pants off.
I claw at his dress shirt, which is already hanging off his broad, muscled shoulders, while his cock nudges my entrance. The head slips in, and I lose my breath.
“Look at me,” he whispers tenderly, so I do.
He holds my gaze as he thrusts home, past the pain, past the barrier in his way, and I’m…his.
There’s a word for this dizzying feeling. Some call it love. Some call it destiny.
It’s true. All of that is true.
He feels it too. He's just as shocked as I am as he thrusts deeper, his cock dragging in and out of me until we’re both panting and clutching each other for dear life, neither willing to let go. His hips grind into mine as another orgasm builds, but my head is spinning.
Those fine, golden threads start weaving through my heart, tugging tight, binding me to him.
My mate. My mate. My mate.