Alpha Nocturne's Contracted Mate

354 I Will Never Be Easy To Live With

When he finally softened, he collapsed across her, his breath ragged with his cock still nestled inside of her. She curled into his arms, and he wrapped her up like she was the most valuable treasure in the word, both possessive and tender at the same time.

He trailed his lips down the necklace of teeth marks on her throat, pressing a tender kiss against eacht mark of brutality.

"Tell me if I went too far." he murmured

She tilted her head back, lips curved in bliss.

"If you had," she murmured, her eyes still dark with need, "I wouldn't have allowed more."

He exhaled, pressing his hand against her swollen belly.

"Our pups," he breathed, awe and ownership raw in his tone.

"Yours," she teased, voice warm and ruthless. "Mine. Ours."

He laughed lowly then planted a soft kiss at her belly-button-

"I keep seeing you dead in gardens you know," he confessed suddenly, his voice breaking slightly, "I should have been there but instead he stepped in to fill that fucking void that I so carelessly left. I don't know what I would do without you Ann…if I lost you and the pups…I…"

He trailed off and pressed his cheek against her belly, and Ann's heart lurched for him. She wrapped her hands across the back of his head, stroking his hair soothingly as silence settled over them.

"You can stop that as well, Adam," Ann chided gently, "No one can be everywhere at once."

"I should have sent someone else in my place..I should have been at your side constantly, especially with your pregnancy. You don't sleep enough, eat enough…I should…"

"Adam," Ann said a little firmer, lifting his head to look up at her, "We can't live on what if's and I should have's, I fear the same thing. You going off to this stupid war that the Lycan King has his heart set on and my pups never knowing how amazingly wonderful that their father is."

"I'm not going anywhere," he said, then corrected himself with a crooked, painful kind of smile. "Not tonight at least."

"And not tomorrow either," she said, like a command.

"Not tomorrow either," he echoed obediently, the instantaneous agreement startling her enough to make her laugh out loud..

They lay that way until the sweat cooled and the fires had burned low.

He got up without letting go of her for too long and found a cloth, a basin of water, and a blanket, moving around the room carefully.

Despite her protests, he cleaned her with gentle hands and a mouth that worshipped her gently this time.

"Let me do this Ann. Just in case…if things don't go to plan when you finally announce the war…I want us both to at least have this memory…I wanted to do it for you after the pups were here so that all you had to think about was.."

"Adam…" Ann protested, her voice breaking as she felt the sting of tears well up behind her eyes.

"Shh. I love you so much Ann. I want both you and your pups to know that and feel it in every memory that you have of me."

For once, Ann was left speechless and she allowed him to continue, as the comfortable silence draped itself over them. Once he was done, he carefully wrapped the blanket around her before wrapping himself around her as well, as if he didn't trust the blanket to keep her warm enough.

When he finally spoke again, it was into her hair.

"I will never be easy to live with, I'm sorry, I want you to know that I am trying though.I will support you in everything but I guess I hadn't quite imagined that the royal court was such a venomous place." he said, apology threaded through it.

"I don't think I agreed to 'easy' when I accepted the contract to marry you," Ann chuckled, "And when it turned out we were fated, the only thing I ordered was Adam, and all of his perfect imperfections are part of that package."

His chest shook with a quiet sound that might have been a laugh and might have been relief. His fingers traced circles low on her back, possessive even half-asleep.

"Tomorrow," he said, voice going soft with the edge worn off at last, "We have to tell them. We can't dance around it anymore, we call it what it is."

"War," Ann said, her voice barely above a whisper a sAdam pulled her closer to him.

"War," he agreed. "And then I swear it in front of every snake in silk: who you belong to, who they answer to, and what happens if anyone tries to take either of them from me."

"Very subtle," she said dryly.

"I'll try subtle after all of this is over, I promise" he said although he had no intention of ever changing and Ann knew that.

"We'll see." she smiled into his throat as she felt the haze of sleep drift over them.

"There we go," Maeve purred in satisfaction, "Finally got him to stop pacing by letting the big bad Alpha get his leg over. Perhaps you should try actually sleeping before the palace catches fire and you have to deal with that too."

"A little bossy, aren't you?" Ann snorted. amused and exhausted.

"Of course I am. I am also the Queen in case you hadn't noticed."

Sleep didn't come quickly, but it did come eventually and when dawn pressed through the curtains, the marks he'd left all over her stood proudly and unapologetically across her throat and shoulders.

Ann's mouth curved upwards, pleased with the image that she hoped the nobles would choke on. Let the whispers try to tear us apart when his claim lays on my skin so openly.

Adam woke to find her watching him. For a moment, panic flickered in his face...the old fear that he'd gone too far, that she'd look at him and see a monster but she reached forward and stroked his face gently, before the thought could settle.

"Mine," she said first this time, voice low and sure. "Remember?"

His eyes went dark and bright at once.

"Always."

"Good," she said, and kissed him like a promise that she would always choose him wherever they were.

The palace would hear what it needed to hear before noon. The war would get its name. The snakes would show their fangs. The camps would hold their breath.

For now, for the next few moments at least, she let him keep he as Ann and Adam, not as Queen and Consort.

When he looked at her like she was his whole world and that he would die before he would let anything happen to her, she let herself believe, just for a moment, that would be enough to carry them into the fire.