#Chapter 49 Doused

Olivia’s POV

“Gabriel,” I breathe, his voice sweet on my lips.

“Fuck, my dear,” he groans, clenching my backside as he lifts me off the bed to continue his flapped hip movements, filling me and growing me with more and more ecstasy. He kisses my throat. “I love you, Luna.”

I tilt my head back, feeling us both fall apart in perfect orgasm.

My heads falls onto his shoulder, his hips trembling in aftermath, but the sight of Alpha Herold in the hallway is what sucks me back into reality. He stands down the hall, just far enough away to not notice his scent during our throw of passion but close enough for me to lock eyes with through the crease in the door.

It’s clear now more than ever before—Alpha Herold is absolutely broken.

I use the blanket on the bed to cover up, feeling my cheeks heat red at the realization that Herold not only saw this interaction, but is hurt by it. He has wet, saddened eyes, though Gabriel couldn’t be happier, collapsing on his back in bed beside me, his meaty palm gripping my thigh in some odd form of sovereignty.

“Uncover, my dear,” he breathes into my ear, his voice steady and unwavering even as I think he flickers a look toward Herold in the hall before the Alpha turns and leaves the foyer all together. “Let him see that you are mine.”

I sit up at his words, at his possessive claim and scoff. “Gabriel,” I gasp. “That is a horrible thing to say, even toward Alpha Herold. I have never kissed him, Gabriel, that’s what this is about.”

The King Alpha rolls his eyes, his aura still pressing hard against my heart. “I will not stand for another wolf to think my Luna, my Queen, is available to swoop in and steal. You belong to me and only me. It’s time he learned that.”

Gabriel stands at once, his words so harsh that I can’t do much else but scoff in disgust. He gets dressed in a moderately quick manner, buttoning up his shirt enticingly slow, his eyes still dripping down the sight of me tangled in the blankets of our bed.

As his wolf calms down, he seems to steady back into a level of contentment with his previous behavior, if not filling with a hint of regret. I throw the blanket off my body, ready to stop to my closet and get dressed in something after he tore my clothes to tattered rips, but his hand grabs for mine, spinning me back into his embrace.

His arms settle around my back. He kisses my temple gently. “That wasn’t right of me to say, my dear,” he groans, groveling low in tone and volume. “I’m sorry for being so possessive.”

“Was that what this was all about?” I gasp, semi-horrified. “You want to claim me in front of the other guys? Is that what this all is about?” I yank myself free from his grasp, shaking from head to toe in angst. “Every time you’ve touched me, comforted me, was it all to make them jealous? To lay claim over me?”

His gentle frown turns into a furious grimace. “You are my mate, my wife, and I have every right to hold you when I please but I have been sympathetic to our circumstances and let you be. I only did what we just did because you asked for it.”

My heart lurches out of my chest. “That’s the only reason, huh?”

He hesitates, his cold eyes going icy. “Well, no. I guess it wasn’t the only reason.” He pulls for me, bringing me back before him, his hands resting firm on my shoulders. “I love you, my dear. I love your charismatic sympathy for others and your determination in work and—” he looks aside, something fluttering in the air between us.

“Say it, Gabriel.”

He swallows hard. “I love how you’ve changed, my Queen.”

I wince, feeling the small portion of the Queen Luna’s wolf that still resides in this body feel a pang of pain at his words. I can understand it, too. It would make me upset to hear that the Alpha I have always loved, the man I have only wanted support from in life, loves me now because my body has been gifted a different soul.

“You’re so selfless now and you want to make the pack a better place to be,” he hums. “I used to get chewed out for working late and putting the pack’s needs ahead of yours and now that I see you in my office at two, three in the morning, I feel a sense of—I don’t know—” he shakes his head, adding in heavy whisper, “neutrality.”

I’m taken aback by his choice of word. “What do you mean?”

“You and I have more in common than ever before,” he gusts. “We have neutral ground in our mating bond now. We both care for the pack so much and we want to do anything to help our people, even the ones who have no one else to rely on.”

I sulk at the feelings erupting in my soul.

“You haven’t looked at my phone records once or accused me of cheating on you with another she-wolf, or even for not being by your side for your every beck and call,” he says.

He falls to his knees before me, his hands pressing both of mine into his palms as he stares at me. He looks like a worshiper, a heavy believer of an idol that I don’t think that I am. I settle in before him though, too stuck in his cold eyes to move an inch away from them.

“I never want to experience you trying to kill yourself again,” he breathes, “but the day you came back to me—it changed everything and I cannot lose that. I love who you are, my dear, and that is why we did, what is only natural for us to do, as a mated couple.”

I choke on his words.

Why now do I get a mate so overwhelmingly in love with me, when it’s all I thought I deserved in the last life? And why now, of all moments, do I feel absolutely against the idea of letting this love pull me in?

Truthfully, I’m not taking this second chance as an opportunity to find love.

I’m not going to start that now, either.

I pull from his grip without word, slip into a loose-fitting outfit and walk past him without a second glance. He stays on the floor for as long as I can tell, while I sprint through the hall and find the familiar door downstairs as I knock on it endlessly.

Celine opens the door, her eyes wide in heavy concern.

I choke on a cry, feeling so terribly lost, and she lets me in without protest. I fall into her arms, needing a friend for the first time in my life. She is perfect for that role, too. She takes me into her hold and calms me down, breathing senseless topics in the meantime to distract me. The weather, the night at the club, anything to pull my focus.

It works, too.

“… a girl’s weekend, maybe to somewhere tropical,” she rambles. “I love a good beachside hut and a bonfire on the sand. My wolf is dying for an ocean swim and—”

“Yeah,” I gust. “That would be awesome.”

“It’s only Wednesday, though,” she grumbles. “We will have to wait for the weekend.”

“No, let’s not wait.”

She goes stiff in my arms. “Really?”

“Reese is awake and well, Eugene is looking after him and Alpha Herold is already halfway home, I’m sure.” I settle at last, my body releasing tension like a million simultaneous pin pricks in an overfilled balloon. “Gabriel probably won’t mind the time apart, either.”

Her tone lightens with my words. “We should probably get to packing, then.”