Tales of Desire

The Alpha's Forbidden Affair 4

Talim’s POV

The council chamber smelled of old blood and older lies.

Seven elders sat in a semicircle on stone benches carved centuries ago. Their eyes were milky with age, but the power rolling off them could still crush a man’s spine. Torches hissed in iron sconces. The floor beneath my bare feet was stained black from every alpha who had stood here before me and bled for the truth.

Alpha Damon stood to my right, arms folded, a smug twist to his mouth. He had waited years for this moment. I could taste his satisfaction like rot.

The High Elder, a woman named Morven whose voice could flay skin, lifted the silver bowl. Inside, the Ritual of Truth swirled: water from the Moonwell, nightshade, and my own blood drawn at dawn. One sip and every lie would sear my throat like molten iron. One lie and I would choke on my own heart before I hit the ground.

“Alpha Talim of Whiterod,” Morven intoned, “you are accused of defiling sacred law. Of taking an omega to your bed while bound to a Luna. Of betraying the goddess herself. Step forward and drink.”

The chamber was silent except for the crackle of torches. Every elder watched me. Damon watched me. Somewhere beyond these walls, Vanessa was probably smiling into her wine.

I thought of Reka.

Of her tears four nights ago. Of the way she had begged me to let her go. Of the taste of her cunt still haunting my tongue every time I closed my eyes.

If I lied, I died.

If I told the truth, everything died.

I stepped forward.

The bowl was cold against my lips. I drank.

The liquid slid down like fire and ice at once. I waited for the burn, for my lungs to seize, for the goddess to strike me down for every time I had buried myself inside Reka and called her mine.

Nothing happened.

The elders shifted. Murmurs rippled through them like wind through dead leaves.

Morven’s eyes narrowed. “Speak the accusation, Alpha Damon.”

Damon’s voice rang clear. “Talim has been f*****g his omega maid for months. I have witnesses. I have scent-proof. He has broken the oldest law: no alpha may claim an omega while mated to a Luna.”

Morven turned to me. “Answer.”

I met her gaze. My heart was strangely calm.

“I have been in Reka’s room,” I said. My voice did not shake. “Many times.”

Gasps echoed off stone. Damon’s smirk faltered.

“I have touched her. I have tasted her. I have c*m inside her until she could not walk straight the next day.” The words poured out, raw and filthy and true. “I have broken every law you hold sacred.”

Still, no fire. No pain. My throat stayed open. My heart kept beating.

The elders erupted. Morven slammed her staff against stone, demanding silence.

“You should be dead,” she hissed. “The ritual does not spare liars.”

“Then maybe,” I said, voice low and deadly, “the goddess disagrees with you.”

Damon lunged forward. “This is impossible! He’s mocking the sacred—”

“Silence!” Morven snapped. She stared at me like I was a puzzle written in a language she no longer spoke. “There is only one reason the Moonwell would spare a man who speaks such truths.”

Before she could finish, the doors burst open.

A young omega healer stumbled in, face pale, eyes wide with terror and wonder. She dropped to her knees the moment she saw me.

“My Alpha,” she gasped, “it’s Reka. She’s shifting. Right now. In the omega quarters. It’s, it’s the Luna shift.”

The world tilted.

The Luna shift.

I had seen it once, when my mother carried me. A ripple of pure silver light under the skin, bones singing, power flooding the air like moonlight made liquid. It only happened when a true Luna conceived. Never an omega. Never.

I didn’t wait for permission. I ran.

The palace blurred past me: corridors, stairs, startled guards. My boots pounded stone until my lungs burned. The omega quarters were deep in the servants’ wing, a place I had only ever entered in secret.

I smelled her before I saw her.

The scent hit me like a fist: wild night-blooming flowers, ozone, and something ancient. Power. Raw, unfiltered Luna power rolling down the hallway in waves that brought every wolf within a hundred yards to their knees.

I shoved through the crowd of omegas clustered outside her door. They parted without a word, eyes huge.

Reka was on the floor in the center of the small room, naked, bathed in silver light. Her body arched, spine bowed, head thrown back as the shift tore through her. But it wasn’t a wolf breaking free; it was something bigger. Her skin glowed like moonlight on water. Her hair floated as if underwater. Every breath she took pulled power into the room until the air crackled.

I dropped beside her, hands hovering, afraid to touch.

“Reka,” I rasped.

Her eyes snapped open. They were no longer soft brown; they were molten silver.

“Talim,” she breathed, and the sound of my name in that voice, f**k, it nearly undid me.

Another wave hit her. She cried out, fingers clawing at the floorboards. Her body was changing, not into fur and claw, but into something regal, something the pack had not seen in generations. The curve of her waist sharpened, her breasts fuller, hips wider, every line of her screaming Luna. True Luna.

I gathered her against my chest, ignoring the burn of power against my skin. She was shaking, sweat-slick, tears cutting tracks through the silver glow on her cheeks.

“It hurts,” she whimpered. “Make it stop.”

I kissed her hard, pouring everything into it: apology, possession, worship. She moaned into my mouth, nails digging into my shoulders, legs parting instinctively. The scent of her arousal slammed into me, richer now, headier, laced with the wild edge of true mate.

I was hard in an instant, aching, desperate. I didn’t care that half the omega quarters could hear us. I didn’t care that the elders were probably sprinting here right now.

I laid her back on the floor and covered her body with mine.

“Tell me to stop,” I growled against her lips, already freeing myself. “Tell me no.”

She answered by reaching between us, wrapping her fingers around my c**k, and guiding me to her entrance. She was drenched, swollen, ready.

“f**k me,” she begged, voice broken and beautiful. “Make me yours. All the way this time.”

I thrust in to the hilt.

We both shouted. She was tighter, hotter, her body gripping me like it had been remade for this exact moment. I pulled back and slammed home again, setting a brutal rhythm, hips snapping, her legs locked around my waist.

The power pouring off her surged with every stroke, wrapping around us, binding us. I felt it in my bones: the true bond snapping into place, fierce and unbreakable.

“Mine,” I snarled, teeth scraping the curve of her neck. “My Luna. My mate. My everything.”

“Yes,” she sobbed, meeting every thrust, nails raking my back. “Breed me, Talim. Put your pup in me again. Make it real.”

I lost myself in her. In the slap of skin, the wet sounds of her p***y taking me, the way her body arched and shuddered through one orgasm after another. I f****d her until the floor was slick beneath us, until her voice was hoarse from screaming my name.

When I came, it was with her silver eyes locked on mine, her body milking me dry, the bond flaring so bright it lit the room like daylight. I spilled inside her for what felt like forever, marking her from the inside out, claiming what had always been mine.

When it faded, the silver light dimmed. She lay trembling beneath me, skin flushed, lips swollen, more beautiful than any goddess.

I pressed my forehead to hers, panting.

“You’re Luna,” I whispered, awe cracking my voice. “True Luna. The ritual spared me because the goddess never bound me to Vanessa. She bound me to you.”

Reka’s fingers threaded through my hair, pulling me down into a slow, deep kiss that tasted like salvation.

Outside, I heard boots in the corridor. The elders were coming.

Let them come.

I had my mate in my arms, my pup in her belly, and a kingdom that would bow or burn.

I was done hiding.