Catch Me, Alpha (God of War Book 2) Read online

  After shoving the door open, Ruffles and I hurried after Charolette. “Wait up!”

  “Please don’t try to convince me, Aurora. I’ve made up my mind. I just need someone to support my decision,” she said, refusing to turn around.

  Once I caught up to her, Ruffles looked at her and meowed.

  “Stop it, Ruffles,” I said down to her. I grabbed Charolette’s hand. “Why are you against it? I talked to Elijah and his doctor. They’re willing to do it to help you get better.”

  Charolette stared at me with a blank face. “Why don’t you use the stone to shift more easily? I don’t need it. It won’t even help me,” she said as if she already knew the outcome. “Ares looked for that thing for years when I told him not to. I don’t want it.”

  “It might help you,” I said, desperate for her to consider using the stone. If Ares lost his sister after losing his mother, he might just break. And I honestly wanted Charolette to be able to live a worry-free life. “You might be able to grow older with Marcel and have pups and—”

  She gagged and scrunched her nose. “Marcel? Are you serious? I would never date him. He’s a man-whore; he fucks anything with a freaking pulse.” She looked at her socks, stained with dirt from practice, and clenched her jaw. “It’s not like he wants me anyway.”

  “Oh, come on. I know you two are mates.”

  A breeze blew slightly, making the first withering leaves of autumn break off the trees and fall to the ground. Ruffles ran ahead to swat at the brown leaves with her paw and then jumped on them, listening to the crunch.

  Charolette snapped her head toward me. “Did he tell you that? He’s such a—”

  “No,” I assured. “He didn’t tell me anything. I can just tell.”

  Suddenly, she fell quiet and looked down at her feet, shoulders slumping forward. “We’re never going to be together, so it doesn’t even matter.” She waved it off as if it were nothing, even though I could feel the desperation in every one of her words.

  She wanted there to be more, and I knew there could be if she took the stone.

  After another moment of silence, she grabbed my hand and intertwined our fingers. “Soooo, the Luna Ceremony is soon!” she said, changing the subject and squealing. “Are you excited to officially become our luna? I cannot wait for it! We have to go dress shopping! I’ve had this day planned for Ares’s mate since I was seven.”

  The Luna Ceremony—the night I would officially be announced and recognized as Luna of the Ironmane Pack to others in Sanguine Wilds—was in less than two weeks. And neither Ares nor I had time to even prepare for a party, especially not amidst a war with divine intervention.

  “I don’t think you should get too excited,” I said, tucking some hair behind my ear. “We might not be able to have it. We spotted hounds today—too many hounds to take much of a break.”

  Charolette grasped my hands and held them to her chest. “We’ll have it, no matter what. Don’t you worry. Ares is going to want to properly introduce you as his luna. Mom always dreamed of it. He won’t let her dream die with her.”

  After Charolette had easily weaseled her way out of using the stone, I bought some chips from Mad Moon Grocery for Ruffles. She had been eating more than usual lately, and I thought she had even hooked Ares on them.

  I readjusted her blue hat and swung the pink plastic bag by my side as we walked back toward the pack house. Preoccupied with thoughts about how we could defeat a growing number of hounds, I almost missed when Ruffles came to a sudden stop at the head of an alleyway.

  A Siamese cat popped his head out of an empty Pringles can and glanced over at Ruffles. They looked at each other for a few moments, until he finally walked over and sniffed her butt. Ruffles glanced back at him. After allowing it for mere moments, she batted him across the face with her paw and then walked away, swaying her ass from side to side, like she did with Ares.

  The Siamese cat meowed at her. She looked back at him, gave him her signature don’t fuck with me stare, and continued walking back home. I smiled at the cat, watching him return to the Pringles bottle before I continued the walk home with Ruffles.

  “So, Ruffles,” I said, shutting the pack house doors behind us. “Did you finally find your own man?”

  Instead of answering me like she normally did, she sprinted up the stairs to her bedroom, like a teenager would after being confronted about dating someone for the first time. I smirked at the empty wooden stairs and crossed my arms over my chest, smelling Ares’s sweet aroma drifting through the house.

  Ares wrapped his arms around me from behind and stuck his nose into my hair. “Are you jealous of our cat?” he asked, his voice all rough and edgy. It made me warm in all those sinful places.

  “No.”

  Maybe.

  Wrapping his hand around the front of my neck, he pushed me against the wall. “I’m all yours, Kitten.” Ares sucked on my mark between his lips and drew his tongue over the small scars from his canines, making me shiver in delight. “Especially after this morning.”

  “After this morning?” I asked, digging my claws into the wall until the white paint chipped.

  “You don’t know how turned on I was when you took out this little dagger of yours”—he pulled my silver knife from my back pocket and tossed it onto the side table—“and killed those hounds with me.” He pressed his hardness into my backside, slipped his hand into my pants, and gently teased my clit. “It made me want to take you right then and there.”

  Heat gathered in my core. I pushed him away and walked backward up the stairs. “What happened to you, Alpha? The Ares I met at the lake would’ve taken me right then and there. He wouldn’t have waited.”

  Ares growled lowly and stalked up the stairs toward me with darkening brown eyes. “Kitten, don’t taunt me.”

  Wanting to tease him just a bit today, I shrugged my shoulders and tried to suppress a giggle. “I guess that man is gone,” I said, and immediately sprinted up the rest of the stairs, knowing that Ares would catch me and make me his.

  Before I could make it into the hallway, Ares caught my wrist, twirled me around, wrapped his hand around my throat, and pushed me down the hallway. I stumbled backward and stared up into his glowing golden eyes as his hand tightened around my throat.

  He let out a guttural growl from deep within him and roughly brushed his thumb over my jaw. “Keep talking, and you’ll end up on your knees.”

  I’d take kneeling in front of Ares as punishment any day.

  I seized his wrist, my cheeks flushing, and said, “So … weak.”

  After shoving me onto my knees in the middle of our hallway, Ares clutched my chin and forced me to look up at him. He stepped closer to me, so his bulge in his gray sweatpants was inches from my mouth. “I don’t have to tell you what to do, do I?”

  Deciding to play with him, I innocently stared up at my alpha through my lashes, my core clenching in anticipation. All I wanted was for him to take me savagely, like he had the morning he marked me in the prison.

  After a few moments of my defiance, Ares grabbed me by the throat again, pulled out his hard cock, and rubbed it against my lips, coating them in his pre-cum. “Open your mouth and suck it,” he demanded. And when I didn’t, he slapped his dick against my swollen lips. “Open.”

  Needing it now, I parted my lips and stuck out my tongue. He slapped his cock against it over and over as the heat built in my core.

  He grasped my jaw to hold my mouth open, pushed his head into me, and then pulled it out. “You’re going to have to beg for it now.”

  “Please.”

  He gifted me with another inch and pulled himself out again. “Beg.”

  “Please, Ares.”

  Another inch. “Louder.”

  “Goddess, Ares, please give it to—”

  He shoved his cock all the way down my throat until his balls pressed against my lips. And even then, he forced more of himself into me until they were in my mouth. I stared up at him through big, t
eary eyes, gagging and slobbering on his cock, just like how he wanted me to.

  Ares lightly smacked the back of my head with his hand, ramming his cock even further down my throat. After pushing deeper into me, he wrapped his hand around the front of my neck and jerked himself off inside of it.

  I placed my hands on his thighs to push him away, but he held me tighter against him.

  “Let me see your pretty eyes, Kitten,” he purred.

  I glanced up at him through my lashes, my cheeks flushing.

  “You look so damn sexy with my cock down your throat.”

  Goddess, I love this so fucking much.

  “Tell me you love it, Aurora.”

  When I parted my lips to get out those words, I could only manage a few throaty gargles as Ares decided to start pounding into my throat. He wrapped his hands in my hair, pulling me toward him with every thrust.

  “What was that, Kitten?” he asked, taunting me like I had done with him.

  I closed my eyes, trying to form coherent words this time.

  He pulled himself all the way out of my throat and slapped his cock against my lips. “Eyes on me.”

  I collapsed onto my hands and looked up at him through glossy eyes. He bent down, roughly snaked his hand around my throat, and pulled me to my feet. After pinning me to the wall, he rubbed my spit and drool off my chin and then stuck his fingers into my mouth.

  “Touch yourself,” he ordered, “While I watch.”

  Not having to be told twice, I slipped my hand into my underwear and rubbed my fingers against my clit. My legs trembled slightly, and I curled my toes, the pressure rising in my core. He stared down at me with those hungry golden eyes and held himself back.

  “Faster, Aurora.”

  My fingers moved faster and harder against my clit. The pure intensity of an orgasm was about to rip its way through me. I closed my eyes but reopened them when he tightened his grip on my neck.

  “Please,” I whispered, my cheeks flushing.

  “Harder.”

  All I needed was him inside of me. Thrusting into me. Taking me. Making me his. I imagined his cock sliding into my pussy until all of him disappeared, his cum leaking out and running down my thighs.

  Just as I was about to tip over the edge, Ares growled, “Stop.”

  I furrowed my brows. “Stop?” I asked in a breathy whisper.

  “Touch your pussy but don’t come, or there will be fucking consequences for you this time.”

  I rubbed my clit again, almost immediately returning to the brink of an orgasm. Ares brushed his fingers against my breast and trailed it over my nipple through my shirt, teasing me. A wave of pleasure rolled through me, yet I held myself back from unraveling. When he pinched my nipple, I moaned out loud and clenched hard.

  “You’re not coming, are you?”

  “No, Alpha.”

  He growled under his breath. “Good. Now, stop.”

  After forcing myself to pull my hand away so I didn’t come without his permission, I took a shaky breath. I stood there, shifting from foot to foot, trying hard to ease the ache between my legs. “Ares, please, give it to me.”

  I begged for him. Straight-up begged.

  He stepped away and smirked at me. “Is my little Kitten begging for me now?”

  “Ares …” I whimpered.

  “I’m not fucking you again until the Luna Ceremony.”

  My eyes widened. “The Luna Ceremony? That’s almost two weeks away.”

  He slapped my ass and winked. “Better control yourself, Kitten.”

  But he was the one who would have to control himself because I couldn’t wait two weeks for him to fuck me again. I would get under his skin, break his will, make him desperate to fuck my pussy again.

  I stood on my tiptoes and placed a hot, lingering kiss on his mouth. “Better control yourself, Alpha.”

  Chapter 3

  Mars

  Lying in bed beside Aurora, I smiled at her sleeping figure. She shifted in my arms and curled into my chest, resting her head in the crook of my shoulder and mumbling something about Ruffles in her sleep.

  I rubbed circles with my thumb across her bare forearm and inhaled deeply. Mixed with the scent of salt from pretzels we’d had earlier, she smelled like lemons on Sunday mornings when Mom used to bring Charolette and me to Buckleberry Farm to pick fruit.

  After sinking into the sheets, I turned onto my side and laid one arm around her waist to pull her closer to me before I slept. The Luna Ceremony was over a week away, and this woman made me want her more and more every single damn moment.

  I didn’t think I’d be able to resist her. I’d barely gotten through tonight.

  Either way, she’d be ours, and she would forever be ours. In just over a week, we’d announce her to Sanguine Wilds as the new Luna to the Ironmane Pack. And she’d finally get the respect that she deserved.

  My only wish was that Mom could be here to meet her. I wanted to make her proud.

  Chapter 4

  Aurora

  Orange sunlight glared through our bedroom window, bouncing off the mirror on the other side of the room, and reflecting right into my eyes. After stretching out in our bed, fit for gods and goddesses, and mumbling that it was too early, I rolled over to wrap my arms around Ares but instead got a face full of pillow.

  I curled into the pillow anyway because I loved how Ares’s scent seemed to linger on everything he touched. The unmarked side of my neck burned slightly, forcing me to groan. Goddess, this Luna Ceremony couldn’t come sooner. I had been craving Mars’s bite, his mark, his claim on me for so long now. But my Mars had way more self-control and restraint than the rash god of war Ares.

  Mars would try to hold out until the Luna Ceremony. Try.

  “Kitten,” Ares said from the doorway, white V-neck thrown over his shoulder, body covered in a layer of thick sweat, pronounced veins in his arms teasing all the dirty parts of me.

  Pushing myself to a seated position, I gazed down my mate’s body and clenched my jaw, so I wouldn’t jump him. By the looks of it, he was trying to get me riled up for him. And he was too damn good at it.

  It drove me insane.

  “Looking for me?” he asked with playful gold eyes.

  After I hopped out of bed and stripped my shirt, I walked to the closet to scavenge for one of his oversize shirts. “As if …” I tugged on one that read The Flaming Chariot across the chest and ended just below my ass. Then, I tossed him my shorts and my panties, and walked to the kitchen.

  I wanted payback for last night.

  Drenched in a layer of maple syrup, two heaping stacks of pancakes waited for me on the granite kitchen tabletop. I pulled one plate closer to me and stuck my fork into one pancake, bit down, and closed my eyes in bliss.

  Ares followed me in, stuffing my lacy panties into his jean pocket, and hopped onto the counter. He opened the chocolate-colored cabinet and pulled something out, lips set into a small smirk. “I bought you something while I was out.”

  “You did?”

  He tossed me a white plastic bag. I placed my fork down, hesitantly peered inside, and fished out the item.

  “Are you serious?” I asked, a giggle escaping my throat as I stared at the human-sized blue cap that matched Ruffles’s hat to a T.

  “Put it on.”

  “Ares! No!”

  After snatching the blue hat, he slapped it on my head and flicked the bill with his index finger. “Thought I’d get you one,” he started, and for a moment, he sounded like Mars. He gazed at me with the brightest eyes, and my heart felt warm. “You know, since you’ve been jealous of Ruffles.”

  My lips curled into a smile I couldn’t stop. Though Ares was violent, arrogant, and so rude sometimes, he always tried to make me smile. He was mine, and along with Mars, he made me feel things I’d never before thought I’d experience.

  “Hey, Ruffles!” Ares grabbed his plate of pancakes and dunked a piece into the pool of syrup. He leaned against the counter and ga
ve me a lopsided smile as he looked between the door and my hat. “Get your ass in here and bring your hat!”

  Usually, Ruffles came sprinting down the hallway faster than a damn wolf when Ares called her, but she didn’t.

  After waiting another moment, I furrowed my brows, leaned back in my chair until the front legs hovered off the ground, and peered into the hallway. “Ruffles?”

  No response.

  “Ruffles!” Ares shouted in his alpha tone.

  Still nothing.

  With the hounds fresh on my mind, I leaped up and sucked in a gasp of air. Then, I shook my head, knowing that Ruffles wouldn’t get herself into any real trouble without warning me first. Every time she used to take off in the woods when we lived with Mom, she would always meow at me while staring at the woods, as if to say, I’m leaving.

  Either she was taking a really good catnap or she had eaten one too many chips this morning and was nursing the best hangover of her entire life.

  Nonetheless, I hurried down the hall to her open bedroom door and peered inside, just to make sure. But Ruffles wasn’t lying on the bed, hiding in the closet, or lounging under the bed frame. She was nowhere to be found.

  What if Ruffles had gotten out, hadn’t warned me, and was now battling a hound deep in the forest? Though she had always been careful, Ares had brought out her wild side. Ever since we’d met him, she’d been acting more adventurous.

  “You open the window for her?” Ares, who stood behind me with his plate and a huge doofus-like smile, said.

  Last night, I’d cracked the glass open just a few inches because she kept meowing at me, but now, it was at least open six inches, and the screen was pushed out just enough for Ruffles to squeeze her fluffy gray body through.

  I muttered under my breath and hurried to the window, gazing down at the two-story jump that Ruffles could have definitely made. After sighing under my breath, I threw a hand over my face. “She’s been getting wild ever since she met you.”