Claimed by My Bestie's Alpha Daddy novel Chapter 184

Amelia

I couldn’t open my eyes, but I could feel the tension in the room. Even unconscious, my body registered the hum of something too sterile, too sharp. The infirmary, again.

Somewhere in the distance, someone whispered my name. A low, gravel-soft murmur, familiar in a way that made my fingers twitch involuntarily. Richard. My body, traitorous and exhausted, tried to rise toward the sound, but nothing moved. The muscles were too heavy, like was swimming through oil.

1 drifted in and out of awareness, clinging to fragments.

The warmth of a hand against my temple. The scent of peppered mint and clean wool. The sound of someone pacing, stopping, and pacing again. There were other voices, less kind, older and sharper. They echoed from somewhere else in the building, behind walls or outside doors, but I heard them anyway.

“This was always the risk.”

“She should have been contained the moment her blood shifted.”

“She’s not a wolf, not really, not anymore.”

“Or she’s exactly what we need. The bridge. The balance.”

I wanted to scream at them, but I couldn’t even swallow.Whatever they thought I was, I hadn’t agreed to become it:

I hadn’t chosen to let my body betray me or asked to be filled with someone else’s memories and the taste of blood on my tongue.

The last time I was fully conscious, l’d been ready to destroy the man I loved. Then I’d tasted him. And my wolf had come back like she’d never left.

The next time I stirred, the room was dim, and I could hear the soft sound of breathing that wasn’t mine. Richard was seated beside the bed, elbows on his knees, hands clasped in front of his mouth.

No crown, just him. Without all the ceremony, he looked almost breakable, not weak, just real.

“You’re not allowed to leave me,” he said, voice hoarse, like he’d been saying that for hours. “I don’t care what they call you. Contamination, miracle, mistake. I don’t care. You’re mine.”

I tried to open my eyes, just enough to catch a shadow of him. My throat ached from disuse.

He leaned closer and asked, “Amelia?”

I pushed out a breath that barely carried the word. “Hi.”

That single word cracked something open in him. He touched my cheek, kissed my forehead, then the side of my face, lower and slower each time. His hand slipped under the blanket and rested at my hip, then slid downwith a kind of reverence that made me ache.

“You’re not supposed to be in bed with me,” I whispered.

“I’m not. I’m just right here.”

His fingers brushed between my legs, just enough to make my hips twitch. Then again, firmer this time. He didn’t ask. My body arched toward him like it remembered the language before I did. He groaned softly when he felt how wet I was, and kissed just below my ear, voice low and ruined.

“Fuck, baby. Look at you.”

whimpered as he pushed the blanket aside and slid his

– hand beneath the thin hospital gown. I was still weak, sore in places I hadn’t noticed until now, but the way he touched me made all of it go quiet. He dragged two fingers through my folds, slow and deliberate, then circled my clit in tight, practiced strokes.

“Is this okay?” he asked, voice trembling slightly. “Tell me if it’s not.”

“Don’t stop,” I said, breath catching.

His fingers slipped inside, careful but insistent. I gasped and clenched around him, and he pressed his mouth to my neck with a low, filthy sound.

” Imissed this. Missed you. You always take me so well.”

I was trembling uncontrollably. Every nerve felt exposed.He kissed down the line of my throat and across my collarbone as he thrust deeper, curling his fingers inside me while his thumb kept a steady rhythm above. The pressure kept building, slow but consuming.

“You feel that? That’s all you, honey. You’re doing so good for me.”

I managed to open my eyes enough to see his face. He was watching me like I was the only thing he had ever wanted.

I reached up and touched his jaw with a hand that still shook.

“I thought I lost you,” I whispered.

He kissed me, soft and deep. “You didn’t. You never will.”

His pace picked up, just enough to make me whine into his mouth. My body was starting to convulse, thighs trembling under the tension, and my hands grabbed at the sheet beneath me. He pulled back enough to see my face again.

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