Chapter 131: Morning Wood Misunderstanding

The difference between a romantic gesture and a felony is consent. Semantics. Celeste Starborne was choosing not to engage with the legal framework at this time.

Guard rotation hit at dawn. She had timed it from the alcove after watching the slave stroll out of the Alpha’s chambers freshly showered and looking like she had just gotten the best dick of her life and still had places to be.

Four minutes between the old shift fucking off and the new one rounding the corner. Four minutes was generous. She could burn a monarchy down in three.

She waited until the last pair of boots faded down the stairwell, then moved. Silk robe. Matching slippers. Hair still magazine-ready.

The Alpha’s door opened on the first try.

She stopped. Blinked at the handle. She was prepared to pick the lock. But Landon had left it unlocked for her to come in which was very sweet of him. If this wasn’t a thumbs up from the Moon Goddess then she did not know what was.

She slipped inside and closed the door without a sound.

The room was dark. Grey morning light filtered through the balcony glass.

She sniffed.

Sniffed again. Deeper this time.

"That tramp hotboxed this room like an animal. The nerve."

The words came out louder than intended. Across the room, Alpha Thunderfang stirred in his chair. A low grunt came from somewhere deep in his chest.

Celeste’s hand clapped over her own mouth.

She froze. Five. Ten. His breathing settled. No encore. She let the air out through her fingers and pretended her heart was not trying to climb out of her throat.

He was in the chair. The bed was empty.

The arithmetic was obvious. The slave had been in the bed. The Alpha had been in the chair. Like a goddamn gentleman. While his future Luna had been banished to a hover ambulance and then a hospital and then back to her own quarters where nobody had checked on her and nobody had offered her ice packs and nobody had given up their chair so she could sleep in a bed that smelled like a mountain and authority.

"Selfish cunt," Celeste hissed. "We would share the bed, Landon. I would insist we cuddle the entire night. That is what partners do."

Alpha Thunderfang stirred again. His head rolled to the other side. One hand slid off the armrest and dangled.

Celeste froze so completely that her molecules may have stopped moving. She would mannequin in the center of the room for as long as it took.

He settled. His breathing deepened. The dangling hand twitched once and stayed.

That’s when she noticed there was a low vibration coming from him. Constant and smooth, the kind of sound a motor makes when it’s idling at a frequency designed to soothe rather than announce. She wasn’t sure what it was.

That was odd. She wasn’t going to lie. Oh well. Hopefully their son didn’t inherit that from his father.

She removed her robe. The silk pooled at her feet. Underneath was red lace. A different flavor than the first set she tried on Landon.

Blanket off of Landon.

Thank you.

Then she sniffed again and her nostrils flared hard enough to be visible in the dark. The chair. It smelled like the slave. The armrests. The cushion. The headrest where his skull was currently resting. All of it. Which meant the slave hadn’t been in the bed.

The ho had snuck onto his lap.

She processed this. Re-processed it. Filed it. Burned the file. Re-filed it.

The bed had been a decoy. A red herring made of linen.

"Oh, just wait until her precious mate finds out about this." Celeste’s jaw tightened in the dark. "Fine."

She lowered herself onto his lap. Blanket on top of them.

The vibration stopped.

Immediately. One second it was there. The next, silence so total it had texture. Whatever that noise was, his body had detected a change in the room and shut it down with the reflexive speed of a system that knew it wasn’t supposed to be running in front of strangers.

Celeste chose to interpret the silence as progress.

Alpha Thunderfang’s lap was constructed from the same material as the mountain his keep was built into. She shifted left. His thigh was a boulder. She shifted right. The other thigh was also a boulder. She tried the gap between them where a normal human lap would offer some cushion and the gap was a valley between two geological formations that had zero interest in hospitality.

She shifted again. Her elbow caught the armrest. The blanket bunched. The lace was riding somewhere it had no business being and the relocation was involuntary. She tried leaning back against his chest, which put her head at an angle that would produce a neck cramp within three minutes. She tried leaning forward, which made her look like a woman bracing for turbulence and finding it.

This was uncomfortable. Deeply, structurally, architecturally uncomfortable. She could feel every muscle in his legs through the fabric of his pants and not one of those muscles was soft and not one of them was cooperating with her definition of comfortable and she was starting to understand why the slave had eventually left because surviving on this lap required either supernatural patience or an ass made of titanium.

Celeste’s ass was many things. Sculpted. Maintained. Presented in premium lace. Titanium was not among its properties and the lap was making this aggressively clear.

Then she felt it.

"Oh." Her eyebrows climbed. A smile bloomed across her face, slow and victorious, the kind of smile she saved for moments of genuine triumph. "Someone is excited this morning. You want me, Alpha."

She shifted her weight. Deliberately. Pressing down against the evidence with the satisfaction of a woman who had found leverage and intended to use it.

Alpha Thunderfang muttered something under his breath. Half-asleep. The word was soft and fuzzy around the edges.

"Nova."