97. Vulnerable 🍋

“Oh fuck.”
Selene’s arms were still pinned and Kiran was still pumping inside her, but he broke the kiss to stare at her with burning eyes—her…*request*…instantly clearing the haze over them.
“Do you mean that?” he demanded, not entirely harsh.
They were out of the direct stream of the shower, but drops were still pattering onto their skin. Kiran blinked them out of his dark gold eyelashes. He looked wolfish, honed in on his prey—or a threat—with hungry intent.
Selene swallowed hard. She was already struggling to breathe steadily; this wasn’t making it any easier. *Do I mean it*? Unlike his sharp focus, her head was still stuffy with bliss. This “something” was butting into their oblivion goal.
It was just the allure of his rut, their scents overriding rational sense. Just an outburst as a result of her innate wolf instinct to make.
*Keep telling yourself that, Selene*.
She hated Kiran. She hated that she was considering bearing his demon spawn. *If* she was even able to.
He was hilt-deep in her body and they were about to knot. It wasn’t the most comfortable position and damn her if she didn’t enjoy sex—even if it was with this bastard—to its fullest.
“Take me to the pool,” she said by way of answer.
Was that *hope* that was overridden by angry frustration? “Why are you so fucking difficult? Fine.”
Still joined, he carried her back out to the bathhouse. Selene’s legs tightened around his waist. Her sensitive spot was skimmed as he walked quickly and awkwardly to a set of steps into the water. She inhaled sharply, blinded by the euphoric pulse that radiated through her inner flesh.
His back knocking into the edge, Kiran’s knees sank to the pool floor, keeping her balanced on his hips with arms bracing her ass. Her own arms were wrapped around his shoulders as if he was her lifeline out of the depths of pleasure.
With wordless hums and grunts, they settled into a comfortable enough position. Selene felt her belly distend as his knot formed at the end of his cock. Her core was pounding so hard that her muscles threatened to go limp. The stifling air enhanced the heat of Kiran’s breath on her hair-plastered neck, and the warm water buoyed their bodies.
They were tied together for the next half hour. Whether she wanted to be impregnated or not, the act was being committed.
There was a multitude of topics they were avoiding. This was one they couldn’t put off.
“Kiran,” Selene murmured into his shoulder, “I…”
“It’s a yes or no question, Selene.” His voice was velvet over stone. “And it has to be a yes because I’m in the middle of trying.” As if she wasn’t aware, he twitched inside her.
*And damn does it feel good*, was her immediate thought, followed by a savage curse to *shut up*. “It was the throe of passion,” she said dismissively.
Kiran was holding her with possession, as if he didn’t want to release her if he had the option. His arms tightened and the strong bridge of his nose was resting against her jaw. His lips were already brushing her neck, sending gooseflesh shivering across her skin; he could kiss her, nibble her, without effort.
“Or deepest desire.”
Selene always got what she wanted; she always wanted what she could never have. *Possibly*, she kept telling herself. *Possibly never have. There is still a chance for nature to defy itself*.
“Just say yes.”
Her fingers curled in his hair. She didn’t want to let go either, even if she wanted to hurt him for making her feel mortal—vulnerable, cautious, as if she hadn’t survived war and loss for almost one hundred years.
Finally she whispered, “We don’t want a lonely forever.”
“Just say yes.”
Selene stifled the need to draw back and look at him to see the significance of the moment, but she faced a sudden reality: she was too cowardly to.
She whispered, “Yes.”
A breath shuddered out of Kiran, making him twitch again inside her. Another ripple of pain and pleasure dispersed through her tight walls. She almost didn’t realize his teeth were scraping the skin over her scent gland. *The Marking*—
“No,” she whispered.
The tease turned into a faint kiss. “And mix your foul scent with mine?” he said, mimicking her words from when they fucked in her Omega’s room. “You wish.”
“Don’t be so smug,” she muttered, suddenly feeling torn in a dozen different directions. “We still don’t know if I can catch.”
Kiran rumbled and was nuzzling her, fingers kneading her ass. “Then we keep trying until you do.”
Selene grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked his head back so it hit the edge of the pool. Instead of complaining, he purred. “Hurt me again, goddess.”
“You masochist,” she spat, rage dashing away any semblance of seriousness and ending whatever she was conflicted about. Just like that, Kiran could go back to his typical arrogant, infuriating self, because he got exactly what he wanted from her.
She pulled back to look at him finally, expecting a sly grin and half-lidded lids…but instead, he was a low simmer, capturing her with a gravitational gaze that both calmed her anger and made it flare higher.
“We’ve come a long way since last time, eh?”
“‘Last time’ was less than two days ago,” she remarked shortly, “and I doubt it changed us. One hundred years… We will always be the same.”
“Hmm,” was all he said as if he didn’t believe her.
“What?” she barked.
He was staring at her mouth as he said, “We gave up a bad habit of obsession.”
Her lips stretched into a savage grin, making him scowl. “What, is this your new obsession? Staring at me while you practice sudden pensiveness? We gave *in*.”
“I don’t know the fucking difference—”
“Yes you do.”
“—and I think your lips are dry. My *pensiveness* is a result of a mature realization that…” Kiran’s eyes flicked up to meet hers, and that gravity made her heart stutter. “I think I can finally let her go. Seff isn’t Zinnia.”
Selene held back the comment, *Did fucking me make you decide that*? Instead she sobered and sighed, “She isn’t Calla.” It was a hard fact to face, but Selene knew the second she saw Seff in the courtyard… There was no trace of her dead mate in the fervent burn of her eyes or the tightness of her jaw, ready to demand the final truth.
Seff had been right: they weren’t trying to love her; they were just in love with who they wanted to her be.
It was rare for Selene—Kiran even more so—to feel remorse, but she was suddenly seized by it.
“We are unforgivable,” she said quietly.
Kiran lifted one shoulder, his arms drifting upward around her torso, upsetting their settlement. Yet another shiver through her walls. A brief second was all it took for them to be overcome with arousal, but a few more to return to rational reason.
“We have been for decades,” he answered a bit hoarsely. “Who expects us to follow moral conduct now?”
Selene hummed, unable to tear her gaze away from his. *Fair point*. “Should we end our ‘contest,’ then?”
“I swore never to return to Magnolia territory.”
Her brows rose in surprise. “That is quite the promise for the price of paper.”
“*Invaluable* paper,” he said pointedly. “He said you swore something as well.”
Selene recalled the not-so-long-ago interrogation of Hyacinth. “I agreed to the end of seeking Potentials and the Choosing in return for his confession of murder and acceptance of whatever karma fucks him over, and keeping my own mouth shut about it.”
“Let me guess, you expect me to agree by association?”
When she said “Yes,” he scowled. She narrowed her eyes. “Your promise is parallel. If we are done with Seff, we are done with the Magnolia. Dealing with Hyacinth is not our fight anymore, Kiran. Magnolia ‘justice’ is too tame—I would much rather follow through on our desire to castrate him—but now we must let Seff handle her own fate.”
“Whatever,” he mumbled like a surly adolescent. “He doesn’t deserve her mercy.”
“Who said she would grant him mercy?”
His mouth quirked at the dark envisioning Seff’s outrage at seeing her pack leader after learning the truth of his crime beheld publicly at their “fair trial.” But it went as soon as it came. His fingers were stroking her ribs, a near-ticklish sensation that only made her tighten more. ”So what is your tally?”
“We need to choose a new prize.”
The only sounds outside of the thrum of their hearts and lungs were the delicate churn of water and the distant hissing of the shower they forgot as they were forced to consider something they may desire beyond their “bad havoc of obsession.” What did they want instead of the now-moot chance to find love again?
Selene then realized that she had been so consumed by seeking for what was dead and gone for so long that she left no space for anything else. She had nothing to live for.
No, that was half a lie.
She had her entire harem. She had Omegas and Betas and Alphas loyal to her, with who she shared some kind of relationship. She had children—and grandchildren, even great-great-grandchildren.
And she treated them with disconnect and apathy because she refused to let herself learn to love again.
Searching Kiran’s face, knowing he was thinking the same, decided her pride would not let her admit fault out loud.
“We can say ‘nothing,’” she suggested, but their mutual competitiveness would never allow their efforts—the years of fucking the same features and the same bodies—to go to waste.
Kiran bent his forehead to her shoulder, kissing it once more. “The only thing I want is—”