Rise of the Dark Alpha

READER SHOUT OUT:  Thank you to Janell_apple, Geri_Blair, and Grace_Gilbert for your GENEROUS gifts, and thank you to EVERYONE who has shared those precious Golden Tickets with Zev! I can't believe he's in the Top 10 in his first month! That is INSANE. I'm planning an EIGHT CHAPTER Christmas Mass Release to say thank you! Please keep voting!

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~ ZEV ~

Zev could feel it in her—and scent it, too—the way she'd stopped holding herself back. Hope roared in his heart like a feast bonfire, crackling and dancing, screaming to anyone who was watching that she was there, and open, and fully his.

And then she took his face in her hands and pulled him down and she devoured him—her lips on his, her tongue searching, her breath breaking in near-sobs, half-cries as she sought and sought.

Her onslaught was so intense, so immediately, Zev was taken off guard. It took him a moment to register her fingers clawing into his scalp, her mouth open and warm, pulling him in.

But then he caught her scent, and that hot thread of desire woven between the exhaustion and confusion and tension—everything else falling away in the face of that heat as it rose.

She whimpered, and something within him snapped.

Leaning down to circle her back and pull her in tight, he tilted his head to take her mouth deeper, his breath thundering against her cheek.

Her hands scrabbled at his back, like she wanted to pull him into herself—and that thought brought an image of her on that one, glorious afternoon they'd shared… her flushed skin and hooded eyes, her hair mussed and falling over her face, her mouth open and calling his name.

With a growl, Zev pulled her up into his chest, off her feet, walking her backwards to the stones that made the wall behind her and sitting her on the edge of one boulder, positioning himself between her knees so she wouldn't slip—and she couldn't escape—with a groan he fisted her hair and pulled her head back, dropping his chin to kiss his way down her jaw, to her neck, nipping at her skin and tonguing the space behind her collarbone when she arched back and offered him her throat.

It was a picture, a gesture, so deeply intimate and trusting, Zev had to take a moment. To stop and take her in. He raised his head, his chest heaving, jaw slack and looked at her. Her eyes were closed and she was smiling, her arms extended because her fingers were laced behind his neck.

Unable to resist, he traced the line from the point of her chin, down her throat, the arch of her neck, to that hollow between her clavicles, and a low growl of approval puttered in his throat that shifted to a deep call—rough and rasping, a resonant cry of mate to mate, her name in the language of wolves. His heart's song.

Sasha's body twitched and she gasped, her eyes flying wide. "What was that?" she whispered, blinking like she'd been happily shocked, one hand on his neck, the other sliding down to palm his chest.

Zev shuddered. "That's what you sound like in my heart," he rasped. "Because I belong to you. That's the sound my heart makes when I think of you."

Her brows rose and she looked like she might cry again. But Zev wouldn't let her fall into grief over what they'd lost, or where they'd been. Desperate to be close, always closer, he pulled her face up and took her mouth.

He needed her. Needed to claim her. She was his. The idea of another male displaying for her, touching her, brushing her skin—

Zev snarled and his fingers on her back tightened.

She gasped again and her fingers clawed into his shoulders as he ground against her. "Zev! Dear Lord—"

"Please, Sasha, I can't have them scent you and touch you… you're mine," he groaned, then dove to suck on the spot her neck met her shoulder.

Her breath shuddered out of her and she clung to him again. "I thought you said… if we did it… they could… tell and… problems?" she stammered.

Zev smiled against her skin and sucked harder, growling again when goosebumps rose under his lips. It was warm in the small room and she'd taken her jacket off earlier, so he only had to pull at the neckline of her shirt to bare her shoulder completely—and the top swell of her breast where her skin was pale and so, so soft.

"They will," he rasped, taking her mouth, then speaking against her lips. "But I don't care. I have to… the other males… you can't…"

"Agreed," she blurted, then sighed when he moaned and grabbed her hips, pulling her hard against him as they rocked together. Her breath caught and one of her hands pinched on his bicep, her nails digging into his muscle as she fought the pull to be nearer.

Desire jangled in his veins and his body stood to attention at the sheer beauty of her. He couldn't stop stroking—her hair, her back, down her side, gripping her hip, clawing at her back—and everywhere he touched, she arched into it, like a cat.

That had to be the first time he'd thought that word with a groan of desire.

Then they found each other again with lips and tongue, and he was lost in the heat of her breath, and the tiny cries she made when his hands found the hem of her shirt and slid underneath it, her skin prickling and rippling under his touch as he slowly, slowly pulled it up, his hands sliding up her sides until she lifted her arms, then he stroked up those too, taking the soft woolen fabric up until he had to tug it past her chin and her hair was dragged off her face and up, to cascade down around her shoulders and breasts.

Her nipples stood up, hard and rosy, calling for his touch.

Holy shit. She wasn't wearing a bra.

He gaped down at her, struggling to take her in, to believe she was really there and offering herself, that they were going to do this here, with the entire Chimera just a hundred feet away and…

And that's when it hit him.

An entire village of males just one hundred feet away, and his mate half naked and stinking of desire.

His eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open. "Put your shirt back on!" he hissed, scrambling to unwind it from the fist he had in it, ready to toss it over his shoulder. "They're coming!"

"What?!" she whisper-screamed. "Who's coming?"

"Half the fucking village—Zev, what the hell were you thinking?!" Dunken growled, his head popping up from the hole over the trail.

Sasha shrieked and threw her arms around herself to hide her breasts, hissing at him to give her back the shirt.

But a deep, rolling snarl of protection and possession erupted from Zev and he whirled, putting himself between her and Dunken, one hand lashing out to grab his friend by the throat and pull him up until they were eye to eye.

Dunken's face was red and he coughed, but he didn't fight.

"Get. Out!" Zev roared in a guttural snarl, tossing him back down the hole and leaning over it, his teeth bared.

Dunken, coughing and his eyes red, glared back at him, but didn't back away.

"They can smell her, Zev, and they're coming.. Get your head in the game otherwise you're going to die."