Fated to the Grumpy Beta

Chapter Two:

༺ ELARA ༻

It was only then that I realized what was happening to him: he was in heat.

My breath stuttered even as a warm feeling pooled in my belly.

But before I could even think, his mouth slammed on mine. A breathless whimper tore from my throat, but it was swallowed completely by his growl as his tongue slid past my lips. My hands instinctively flew up to tangle into his damp hair, holding him closer.

His hand dragged up my thigh, gathering the thick wool of my skirts and yanking them up to my waist.

The cold wind bit sharply at my bare skin, but the cold vanished the second his calloused palm slapped flat against my inner thigh, forcing my legs wide. In one move, he tore off my underwear.

I gasped as his fingers found the damp center of my heat.

"Look at you," Darren growled against my ear, his hot breath branding my sensitive skin as his fingers stroked over me with a rough friction that made my knees buckle. "f*****g wet already."

"Darren—" I whimpered, my hands scrambling up his broad chest to clutch his shoulders for leverage.

My brain was firing off warning flares, but my traitorous body was arching into his touch. I was melting under the possessive, intoxicating rhythm of his hands as he roughly yanked down the tops of my dress and captured my nip.ple in his mouth.

I cried out, my head flying back in ecstasy. I was making strange sounds… whimpering noises and moans as he sucked deeply, his teeth grazing my nip.ple.

He turned his attention to my other breast. Same exquisite torture. My body was on fire. Any final thread of good sense I had fled into the void. Darren grunted deep in his throat like he was being tortured by my reactions.

"Mine tonight," he growled, releasing my n****e with a wet pop. "You stepped into the dark, Elara. Now you take what comes with it."

Gods help me, I wanted it. I wanted all of it.

I had spent months dreaming about this man, craving his attention. And now, this was happening.

He hauled me up by my hips, elevating me against the pillar. My legs instinctively wrapped around his waist. I barely had the time to process the feeling of something hot and heavy pressing against me when in one swift thrust, he buried himself to the hilt inside me.

I let out a breathless scream as pain flared in my core. It was like being ripped in half. My vision went white, tears springing to my eyes as my body recoiled, stretching impossibly wide around the length and thickness of him. Darren kissed me, capturing my scream.

"Hush," he grit out through his teeth, his body locking up as he went rigid. His fingers dug into my waist to pin me still. A low, animalistic growl hummed deep in his chest—the sound of a male fighting his wildest instincts to keep from tearing me apart. "Breathe, damn it. Don't fight me, Birdie.”

I swallowed hard, dragging cold air into my lungs. Soon, the unbearable bite of pain slowly dissolved into heat. I dragged in another ragged breath, pressing my forehead against his neck.

"That's it," Darren growled, his voice dropping into a dark, possessive rumble against my ear. "Good girl."

My body reacted instantly to his praise. He pulled back and drove back in, hard and deep.

What followed was a blur of explicit, feral endurance. A wolf's rut didn't end in minutes. For what felt like an hour, Darren owned every inch of my body. The beast in him seemed to take over completely.

He suspended me against the pillar with effortless strength, his hips thrusting between my thighs with a wet cadence that sounded obscenely loud in the deserted courtyard.

Every time I thought he was finished, his rut surged again, making him drive his length deep into my heat until I was sobbing breathlessly. I was babbling, making incoherent noises. Darren’s hand clamped against my mouth.

“Shh. You’re being too loud, Birdie,” he whispered, his own voice sounding strangled and hoarse.

Heat coiled so tightly in my abdomen I thought I would shatter. I cried out in release over and over again until I lost count, my cries of pleasure muffled against his palm.

Just when I thought my knees would collapse and I would pass out, Darren groaned. His broad frame went taut, his muscles locking, before he thrusted wildly into me a few final times, spilling his searing heat deep inside me with a deep growl.

My own final climax tore through me right behind his, shattering every nerve ending in my body.

All that had ended just minutes ago.

Now Darren pulled his coat tight around his broad shoulders. The glowing red in his eyes had receded, replaced by that familiar, impenetrable wall of gray ice. He stood a few paces back, his jaw clamped so tight a muscle in his cheek ticked.

"f*****g hell," he cursed under his breath, the words low, harsh, and dripping with self-loathing.

He stared down at me, looking like a commander who had just survived an ambush rather than a man who had just taken a woman against a wall.

"This was…a temporary lapse, Lady Thompson,” he said in a clipped tone. “There was nothing more to it. I was in a rut—“

His words were like daggers piercing my heart.

Lady Thompson. We were back to that.

Bitterness pitched its tent in my heart. He hadn't wanted me. He had just needed an outlet for his heat, and I had been stupid enough, infatuated enough, to walk right into the fire.

What was worse, my traitorous body was still thrumming for his touch. And I hated myself for it.

“I understand, Beta Darren. I-I’m fine. I’ll go back inside later,” I whispered, my voice hoarse.

Tears and shame burned hot in the back of my throat, but my stupid brain, desperate to claw back any shred of control, scrambled for a defense mechanism.

A tight, breathy laugh forced its way out of my chest. It sounded hollow and pathetic.

"Besides... d-did you know?" I squeaked, my trembling hands blindly fumbling with the torn laces of my dress. "The grand scholars of the Western Citadel of Knowledge wrote that extreme bodily shock triggers a flood of... of natural pain-dulling vapors in the blood. So... scientifically speaking, I’m practically... I'm..."

My voice cracked. The useless trivia died in my throat.

Oh gods.

I squeezed my eyes shut in double mortification. A fresh wave of humiliation crashing over me so hard my knees nearly buckled. I was doing it again. Rambling. Pitching facts to a male who was already backing away from me, desperate to escape the mistake he’d just made.

I turned my back to him, hiding my burning face behind a curtain of disheveled hair, my wildly shaking fingers completely failing to mend my clothes.

"I'll... I'll fix my dress," I whispered to the wall, unable to look at him for another second.

For one breathtaking beat, I felt his presence linger behind me. My stupid heart lifted in naive hope that he might reach out, that he might wrap his arms around my shoulders.

Then came the sound of his heavy boots retreating.

And he was gone.

The silence in the courtyard was deafening, but beneath it, I could hear the distinct sound of my own heart breaking.

I stood alone against the pillar, pulling off my glasses as hot tears gushed down my cheeks, burning against my freezing skin. I pressed a hand over my mouth to muffle the violent sobs racking my body.

I’d never felt so small in my entire life.

How could I have been so stupid?