Alpha Bully (Omega University Book 4) Read online

  “Yes,” Jonah said. “She’ll be joining our pack too.” He kissed her forehead. “You saved her life today. No one will forget that. It’s a remarkable way to become part of a new pack.”

  She leaned against him quietly, clearly at a loss for words.

  He took her hand. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  He led her through the woods on a meandering route down to the river where they had first met. As they made their way toward it, Jonah became aware of the sounds of other new couples in the woods around them, becoming familiar with one another. Getting to know one another’s bodies and needs for the first time.

  They took their time. Jonah didn’t want to arrive at the river until Grace had stopped shaking. Eventually, her nerves seemed to steady, and she leaned into him less and less, taking her own weight.

  “You’re not hurt?” he asked her, needing to make sure.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Nobody slashed my back.”

  “It’s already healing.”

  “I want to look at it when we stop,” she said. “If I’m not satisfied, I’m going to want to go back to campus.”

  “The mating ceremony—”

  “I don’t care, Jonah,” she said earnestly. “Can’t you see why this is so much more important for everyone else than it is for you and me? They’re all together for the very first time today. But we’ve done this before. This isn’t new. We had our mating ceremony weeks ago.”

  He nodded. “I know that,” he said. “But today still matters. It’s still the day we officially belong to each other. It’s the day everyone knows about.”

  They broke through a final line of trees to the bank of the river. Jonah was relieved to see that it was unoccupied. He had been a little worried that another couple would have found this place in the time he had spent fighting off Ian. But then again, it was a very big forest.

  “Come on,” he said to Grace. “Let’s go to the far bank today.”

  She hesitated. “The river is the border of Omega U’s property,” she said. “If we cross it, we’ll be off-campus.”

  “Is that a problem?” he asked her.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Omegas aren’t really supposed to leave campus without supervision. That’s why all the socials are on our campus instead of yours.”

  “But you have supervision now,” he pointed out. “You have me.”

  She grinned. “You’re my supervisor?”

  “I’m your alpha,” he said seriously. “That makes me your guardian and your leader. So in a sense, yes. I’m responsible for you.”

  She looked up, meeting his gaze. “You want me to cross that river?”

  “I’m ordering you to cross that river.” His voice was gentle, but he leaned into it, putting the strength of his power as an alpha behind his words.

  And she didn’t hesitate. She turned and walked straight into the water.

  He followed close behind her, keeping his hand inches from her back in case the current proved to be too strong, but it wasn’t. It was mild. The two of them easily crossed the river and pulled themselves up on the far bank.

  He undressed her slowly, hanging her lavender dress over a tree branch to dry as he did so. He had imagined taking her quickly, turning her around and thrusting into her with the dress still on her body, but now that they were here in the moment, he wanted to take his time. He wanted to see her in her natural state, as close to animal as they could be.

  She was perfectly relaxed as she stood before him, fully naked and exposed. He remembered the way she had once wrapped her arms around herself, concealing her body, protecting herself from his gaze. All that discomfort was gone now.

  He stripped out of his own clothes and hung them up, then pulled her close against his body. He felt for a moment as if they were one person. Alpha and omega. A perfectly mated pair.

  “Let me see your back,” she murmured, running her fingers gently up and down the length of his torso.

  It didn’t hurt at all anymore, but he saw no reason not to indulge her. Better that she not be worried or fearful. He turned and closed his eyes, enjoying the sensation as she trailed soft fingertips down the length of his spine.

  “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be,” she murmured.

  He nodded. “I heal quickly. Most alphas do.”

  He knelt before her and pulled her down so that she was straddling his lap. Gently, carefully, he ran his hands over her body, tracing her neck with his thumb, brushing his fingers between her breasts.

  “I’m so glad it’s you,” he said quietly.

  “Are you?”

  “I wouldn’t have wanted anybody else,” he said. “I’m so glad I was lucky enough to imprint on you in time to really appreciate the person you are. No one else would have been so right for me.”

  She sighed happily and leaned her head against his shoulder, rocking her hips slowly, grinding against him.

  He felt himself growing hard beneath her. He wanted her so badly, and yet at the same time, he wanted to make this last. He pressed his lips to the curve where her neck met her shoulder and breathed in the scent of her, forcing himself to take his time. To wait.

  “I want you,” she said, her voice as soft as falling leaves. “Jonah, I want you so badly. Please.”

  “Soon,” he said. “Soon. We only get this once.”

  He couldn’t have said why it mattered so much to him—why this instance of being with her felt so much more intense and important than any of the times they’d been together before. Maybe it was just the fact that it was no longer an illicit thing. For the first time since the day they’d met, they were supposed to be together.

  Maybe it was the fact that when he took her today, he would be truly claiming her, making her his in every sense of the word. After today, nothing could ever take her away from him again.

  He lifted her hips and slowly guided her down onto him, holding her firmly, refusing to allow even the slightest movement on her part. She was patient for a few moments, her cheeks flushed, her breathing just slightly accelerated, but then her legs began to tremble and he felt her body tense around him.

  “Jonah,” she said, her voice hardly above a whimper.

  He nodded, his face still pressed against her shoulder. “I know,” he said. “I know.”

  “I can’t take it. I need more.”

  “You can take it,” he told her. He traced the fat curve of her hip with his thumb. “Close your eyes.”

  It was an order. Immediately, her eyes closed. She inhaled with a shudder.

  He throbbed within her. “You feel that?” he murmured.

  She nodded. She was trembling.

  “Tell me,” he said. “Say it. I want to hear you.”

  “I feel you. Oh, God, fuck, I can feel you—”

  “You feel how bad I want you?”

  “Yes.”

  “If I can go slowly, then you can go slowly, right?”

  “I don’t know...”

  He pushed her back slightly, then pulled her close again. She whined with desire at just that little bit of friction.

  “We’re going to do this for hours,” he told her, his voice rough with want. “I’m going to fuck you for hours, Grace. After what we’ve been through to get here, don’t you think we deserve it? Don’t you think we deserve to stay in this moment for a good long time?”

  “Yes,” she groaned. “But I don’t know if I can do it.”

  He moved a hand between them, the pad of his thumb coming to rest right between her legs. Not moving. Not stroking. Just resting.

  He could feel her straining against his grip, trying to get some pressure. He held her back.

  “Not yet,” he said. “Not yet.” He rubbed his thumb upward once, slowly, as if he was coaxing a chord from a guitar.

  She sobbed.

  “I’ve got you,” he said, stilling his hand again. “Do you trust me?”

  “You know I do.”

  “I’ll get yo
u there,” he said. “You just enjoy the ride.”

  They stayed in the woods for hours. Over and over, Jonah brought Grace to the brink of orgasm, only to back off and force her body to unwind. She thrashed in his arms, bucking against him, wild for it, but still he waited. It was all he could do to hold out, to control himself, but he knew it would all be worth it in the end.

  Finally, as the sun disappeared over the horizon and the stars began to come out, he rolled her onto her stomach and began to fuck her furiously. He let go of his restraint and gave her everything he had ached to give her for the past several hours, and it was only a matter of moments until they were coming in each other’s arms, screaming one another’s names, and finally collapsing side by side, wild and free and at home.

  Chapter Nineteen

  GRACE

  Grace Foster graduated from Omega University that spring in the top third of her class.

  She could have done even better, she thought, if there had been more time. Unfortunately, she couldn’t fully make up for three years of underperforming at the home stretch. Still, she was proud of the progress she’d made.

  Aubrey Price had fallen out of the top spot to graduate sixth. There was certainly no shame in that, of course—the bigger scandal among the students at Omega U was that she hadn’t yet conceived. She was one of the few omegas to graduate while not carrying a litter.

  As Grace crossed the stage to accept her diploma, she couldn’t help feeling pleased by all the eyes on her ripe, swollen body. She knew she was bigger than any of the other omegas in her class, and she knew that there had already been talk about how big her litter must be to have caused her to grow so much so quickly.

  Of course, what her classmates couldn’t have known was that Grace was further along in her pregnancy than any of them realized.

  When the graduation ceremony was over, she hugged Skye goodbye on the lawn of the school. “I’m sure we’ll see each other soon,” Skye said. “My sister’s in your pack, after all.”

  Grace nodded and rested a hand on her friend’s belly. While smaller than her own, Skye was still carrying heavily, and Grace was eager to meet her new family when they came along. “Our children will be friends,” she promised. “You can count on that. We’ll always be in each other’s lives.”

  She hurried down to the road, where Jonah was waiting with Alex and Heather. Jonah had scraped together some money to buy a secondhand truck that would take them up north into Newfoundland, where the new pack planned to start their life together.

  Grace got into the passenger seat of the truck, which the others had saved for her because of her condition. She leaned on the rim of the open window and looked out at Omega University. “It’s strange, isn’t it?” she said. “To be saying goodbye?”

  “Are you going to miss it?” Heather asked. She was riding in the bed of the truck with Alex, and she leaned forward to talk to Grace through the truck’s back window.

  “I don’t know,” Grace admitted. “I have mixed feelings. I wasn’t always happy there, but it was my home for a long time. I’m excited about what’s coming next, but...change is always hard.”

  Jonah revved the engine. “Let’s get going,” he suggested. “I think you’ll feel better when you see our new home.”

  Jonah had been making trips up north for several weeks, finalizing the details, making preparations to move the pack into the place that would serve as their home now that they were leaving school. He had flatly refused to tell Grace anything about the place, insisting that he wanted it to be a surprise gift to her and that she would find out all about it when the time came.

  Grace slept for most of the trip. Her pregnancy had sapped her of much of her energy, leaving her feeling as if she had just run a marathon for several hours of the day. It had worried her at first, but the others assured her it was perfectly normal. After all, she was supporting several lives in addition to her own.

  She awoke to someone shaking her shoulder gently and looked up to see that it was Jonah. “We’re here,” he said quietly. “Want to see the place?”

  Grace wiped the sleep from her eyes and tried to shake herself awake. “We’re here already?”

  “Already, she says.” He laughed. “We’ve been driving for hours. You’ve been out like a light. Did you sleep well?”

  “Surprisingly well,” she admitted. It was hard to find a comfortable sleeping position, being as heavily pregnant as she was, but the car ride had been perfect.

  Jonah helped her out of the car. “The cabin’s about half a mile through the trees,” he said, pointing. “This is as close as we can get in the truck, so we have to walk the rest of the way. But we’ll take as many breaks as you need, okay?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t need any breaks.”

  He frowned. “Don’t push yourself.”

  “I’m not. This is the most refreshed I’ve felt in days, honestly,” she said. “It’s like I’ve got this burst of extra energy.”

  “I guess that nap really was good for you,” he said.

  She nodded. “It really was. Where did Alex and Heather go?”

  “Exploring,” Jonah said. “The land around here is really nice, and they wanted to see it for themselves.”

  “I wish I could go,” Grace said wistfully.

  “You will eventually,” he said. “But don’t even think about it today. You’re going straight to bed.”

  She groaned. “You’re going to keep me on bed rest until I deliver, aren’t you?”

  “You can’t even stand up without leaning on me.”

  “I could,” she objected. “I just like leaning on you.”

  He grinned. “You’re going to give birth literally any day now,” he pointed out. “Those babies are moments away from being born. Spending a few days in bed isn’t going to do you any harm. Let us take care of you.”

  She nodded, conceding the point. “I’m just glad we got away from school before I gave birth,” she said.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because it’s too early,” she said. “If you and I had actually mated for the first time the day of the mating ceremony, the way we let everyone believe we did, our babies wouldn’t be due for a few months yet.”

  “So?” Jonah asked.

  She looked at him. “You don’t think anyone would have cared?”

  “I don’t think I would have cared,” he corrected her. “What could they have done about it at that point? We were already mated. The schools couldn’t stop us from being together.”

  “They could expel us,” she pointed out. “We weren’t allowed to mate before the ceremony. It would prove we had broken a really serious rule.”

  “I don’t think they would have kicked us out,” Jonah said. “That rule exists to stop alphas from getting young omegas pregnant before they have a chance to mate. It’s not to protect mated couples from being together a few weeks before their mating is sanctioned by the school.” He made a dismissive noise to show what he thought of that idea.

  “They still could have kicked us out,” Grace said. “Some people probably would have pushed for it. Aubrey would have.”

  “Well, that wouldn’t have been the end of the world,” Jonah said. “Think about it. We’d have already had four years of education. We’re mated. We have our pack. The only thing we’d be missing out on would be the diploma.”

  “You didn’t want the diploma?”

  “It wouldn’t kill me not to have it,” Jonah said.

  Grace thought about it. On one hand, he was right. Jonah had helped her see that she had spent her life far too worried about what other people thought of her. If people had known she’d been pregnant before the mating ceremony, they would have judged her, but Grace could see now how little that mattered.

  People will always think whatever they want to about me. It doesn’t change who I am.

  But at the same time, she didn’t agree with Jonah that the diploma she’d earned didn’t matter. Having been the joke of Om
ega University for as long as she had, she’d been thrilled to graduate, and to be ranked solidly in the middle of her class.

  Her diploma represented her freedom from the life she had had with her father, from the fear she’d experienced every time she had shifted without understanding why. It represented the way she had used her meeting with Jonah to improve herself, becoming someone she could be proud of, someone people like Aubrey couldn’t belittle.

  It might have been just a piece of paper, but it told the story of everything Grace had overcome. She was looking forward to hanging it on the wall of her new home.

  She leaned back against Jonah’s arm as they ascended the stairs up to the porch, laughing as she did so. “At least I won’t have to go up all the stairs to my dorm room anymore!” she said.

  “You’re not going to have to deal with stairs anymore until your pregnancy is over,” Jonah said firmly. “Say goodbye to the outside.”

  “Jonah—”

  “Don’t worry,” he said, a little more gently. “I think you’re going to like this.”

  The inside of the cabin was dominated by a single large room. One end, clearly a living space, had seating surrounding a fireplace. The other end was a simple farm kitchen. Four doors hinted at rooms leading off the main space, and Jonah led Grace to one of them.

  “This is ours,” he said, opening the door.

  The wood floor was covered with a thick cream carpet. Grace left Jonah’s arms and crossed it to sit on the bed that was positioned against the wall. “So many pillows,” she noticed, picking one up.

  Jonah joined her on the bed after closing the door behind him. “I want you to be comfortable here,” he said. “This is our home now.”

  “I love it,” she said quietly, turning to look out the window. The forest was only a few feet away, and it was easy enough, from here, to imagine that they were living inside the trees themselves.

  Jonah reached past her and carefully opened the window. A cool spring breeze blew in and ruffled Grace’s hair. She smiled. “I’ll definitely be comfortable here,” she told him.

  “Then I made a good choice?” he asked.

  “Better than I could have imagined.” She had been picturing a hut in the woods, a place with no electricity and no running water. She had imagined that Jonah would want them to live like wolves. But it seemed that he was happy to live a life that balanced their two natures. He was happy to spend days running and hunting in the woods and to come home at night to a human residence.