[Daphne’s POV]
The feast blurs together like a fever dream.
I sit beside Hector at the head table, his hand a brand on my thigh beneath the white tablecloth. Pack members approach in waves with questions about heirs and duties and the future that I answer on autopilot.
Hector's thumb traces circles on my inner thigh. Possessive. Claiming. Each one sends sparks straight to my core.
Across the hall, Connor and Talia sit together.
She keeps glancing at me, her perfect face twisted with something ugly. Jealousy, maybe. Or vindication—see how the rejected omega still ended up used, still ended up belonging to someone else.
Connor won't meet my eyes at all.
Hector leans close, his breath hot against my ear. "You're trembling."
"I'm fine," I whisper, the blush coloring my cheeks despite myself and squeezing my thighs together against the throbbing.
A sly smile appears on his full lips and his hand slides higher on my thigh, just shy of indecent. "Soon," he murmurs. "Be patient, little moon."
The promise in his voice makes me clench on nothing, and I have to bite my lip to keep from whimpering. God, what's wrong with me? This is nothing like my first heat—that was pain and desperation.
This is pure, molten need centered on the Alpha beside me.
Finally, mercifully, the feast ends. Hector rises, pulling me to my feet, and the crowd erupts in knowing cheers that make me burn hotter.
The walk to his chambers—our chambers now—feels endless. By the time the door closes behind us, I'm panting.
"Daphne." His voice has gone deeper, rougher. "Look at me."
I force my eyes to his face, and what I see there makes my knees weak.
Pure masculine hunger, barely leashed. He's removed his jacket, rolled his shirtsleeves up, and the sight of his forearms—corded with muscle, dusted with dark hair—shouldn't affect me this much.
"I won't hurt you," he says softly, his hands coming up to frame my face. His thumbs stroke along my cheekbones. "I'm not Connor. I would never treat you the way he did."
The kindness in his voice cracks something inside me. Tears prick my eyes before I can stop them.
"Hey..." He wipes them away with his thumbs, his expression genuinely concerned. "What's wrong?"
Everything. Nothing. I don't even know anymore.
"I'm scared," I admit, because it's the only truth I can speak right now.
"Of me?"
"Of this. Of..." I gesture helplessly between us. "I don't know how to be what you need."
"You already are." His smile is warm, reassuring. "You're stronger than you know. And you're going to be an incredible Luna."
Hector leans down, pressing a kiss to my forehead. "I'm going to take care of you."
Then his mouth finds mine—careful at first, testing, giving me space to pull away. But I don't. Can't. Tongue slides against mine with a skill that makes me moan into his mouth, my hands fisting in his shirt to stay upright.
He turns me around, fingers working the laces of my dress with steady patience that borders on torture. The bodice loosens, and cool air hits my heated skin as the dress pools at my feet.
I stand before him in nothing but thin undergarments, and I expect judgment. Criticism of my body the way Connor delivered it with just his eyes and facial expressions.
Instead, Hector's hands span my waist from behind.
"Fuck, you're beautiful," he murmured in my neck. "Absolutely beautiful."
His palms slide up to cup my breasts, thumbs brushing over peaks so sensitive I cry out. The heat has made everything hypersensitive—every touch feels like lightning, every caress like salvation.
"So responsive," he praises, pinching my nipples just hard enough to make my back arch. "Connor was a fool."
He walks me to the bed, laying me out like an offering. When he stands over me, slowly unbuttoning his shirt, I can't help but stare.
Forty-four years have only refined him—broad chest dusted with dark hair, abs still defined, and that V of muscle disappearing into his pants that makes my mouth water.
He rewards me by leaning down, his mouth blazing a trail from my throat to my breast.
"Tell me what you like," he murmurs against my stomach. "Tell me what feels good."
I can't answer. Don't know how. Connor never asked. Never cared. He just took what he wanted and complained when I didn't respond the way he expected.
Hector seems to understand my silence.
"I'll learn then." His hands finally removing my soaked panties. "I'll learn every sound you make, every way to touch you. Until I know your body better than my own."
Before I can process his words, his mouth is between my thighs, and the first swipe of his tongue makes me scream.
He eats me like he's been waiting years for this meal. His tongue circles with devastating precision while thick fingers slide inside me, curling to hit something that makes me see stars.
"Hector!" I sob, hands fisting in his hair. "Oh Goddess, please—"
"That's it," he growls against my pussy. "Let go for me."
He sucks my sweet spot between his lips while fingers pump faster, and I shatter completely. The orgasm seems to go on forever, wave after wave as he works me through it.
When he finally rises, his face glistening with me, the look in his eyes makes me clench all over again. Pure satisfaction. Like making me come is his greatest accomplishment.
He strips efficiently, and when his cock springs free, I understand why he needed to prepare me so thoroughly. He's huge—thick and long, the head already glistening with precum.
Fear and anticipation war in my chest.
"I'll go slow," he promises, positioning himself between my thighs. "Make it so good for you, little moon."
And he does. Goddess help me, he does.
The first push of his cock makes me gasp. When he's finally fully seated, we're both panting. I feel so full, stretched to my limit. But the heat transforms any discomfort into pleasure.
Then he starts to move, and I understand what I've been missing.
He took me with the same patience he kissed me. Long, deep strokes that hit places inside me I didn't know existed. He watches my face, adjusting his angle when I gasp, grinding against my clit when I whimper.
Within minutes, he has me climbing toward another peak.
I shatter with a scream, my core clenching around him so hard he curses. But he doesn't stop, fucking me through it, prolonging the pleasure until I'm sobbing.
"One more," he commands, flipping me onto my stomach and pulling my hips up. "Give me one more."
This position is even deeper, his cock hitting something devastating inside me with every thrust. His hands grip my hips hard enough to bruise as he pounds into me, all that earlier control finally snapping.
This is the Alpha unleashed—primal, dominant, taking what's his.
"Mine," he snarls, one hand fisting in my hair. "Say it."
"Yours!" I sob, already climbing toward another impossible peak. "Please, I can't—"
"You can." His hand snakes around to work my clit. "Come for your Alpha. Now."
I explode, screaming into the pillows as the most intense orgasm of my life tears through me. That's when his teeth sink into my neck, right where it meets my shoulder.
The sharp pain mixed with pleasure makes me convulse around him even harder.
Through the haze of sensation, instinct takes over. Something primal rises in me when I twist my head, finding the same spot on his neck, and bite down hard.
His blood floods my mouth, he roars his release, knot locking us together as he fills me with his seed. His hands gripping me so tight I'll wear his fingerprints for days.
The bond snaps into place like a lightning strike—but it's different than I expected. I can feel him now, his satisfaction, his possessive pleasure. And his genuine awe at my response, his pride that I marked him just as deep.
When it's over, when his knot finally softens and he can pull out, he gathers me against his chest with surprising tenderness.
"You were incredible," he murmurs, kissing my temple, my marked neck, my shoulder. "So responsive, so beautiful. We're going to be so good together, little moon. "
My body still trembles with aftershocks, still craves his touch despite being thoroughly satisfied. He made me feel things Connor never could, showed me pleasure I didn't know existed.
But as sleep claims me, wrapped in the arms of my new mate, one thought pierces through the satisfied haze and it isn't of the male holding me.
It's blue eyes watching me from the back of the hall. A predatory smile that promised something I didn't understand.
A voice rough with possession saying words that still echo in my chest:
You belong to me. And you always will.