The Alpha King And His Chosen Luna novel Chapter 182

No other choice

No other choice

(Isla)

I didn’t know why I was crying.

Not really. Nothing bad had happened. Nobody had hurt me. The night had been good, genuinely good, the kind of good I was still learning to trust when it arrived without something underneath is waiting to pull it back.

And yet here I was with tears on my face and Caius’s forehead against mine and no explanation fo any of it.

I laughed at myself a little. “I don’t even know why I’m crying.”

“You don’t have to know,” he said.

“It’s embarrassing,” I said. “In Ashcrest I learned not to cry where anyone could see it. Even when they whipped me in that yard I didn’t give them the satisfaction.” I looked away. “And now I’m sitting here on a mountain with a full stomach crying over nothing.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment.

“Maybe that’s why,” he said.

I looked at him.

“Because there’s finally room for it,” he said.

I didn’t have anything to say to that. I looked away instead and let the last of it pass and when it did I wiped my face and felt more like myself again.

I pulled back slightly and looked at him. He wasn’t flustered by it. He wasn’t trying to talk me out of

it or make it stop. He just sat there with his hand over mine and let it be what it was.

“Tell me something you’ve never told anyone,” I said.

He looked at me. “That’s a broad request.

“I know,” I said. “Pick something.”

He was quiet for a moment.

“I used to think the territory was enough,” he said. “The crown. The council. The work of it. I built everything around it because it was what I was made for and I was good at it and that seemed like enough of a reason.”

No other choice

I waited.

“But there was always something underneath it,” he said. “Not unhappiness. Just a version of m that wanted something that had nothing to do with any of it. Something ordinary. I didn’t know what that looked like. I couldn’t have told you what I was missing because I didn’t have a name it.”

“And now?” I said.

He looked at me.

“Now I know what it is,” he said. “It’s this. Mornings with you. Sitting outside on a mountain eating something I caught myself. None of it matters to the territory. None of it requires the crown.”

I didn’t say anything for a moment.

“It’s just ours,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “Just ours.”

I sat with that for a while. The sky above us was still full of stars and the mountain didn’t ask anything from either of us.

I leaned into him slightly and he adjusted without being asked, his arm coming around me the way it did now, automatic and easy.

“We should go inside,” I said. “It’s getting cold.”

“You said that earlier,” he said.

“I mean it this time,” I said.

He stood and pulled me up with him and we went back into the cabin and the warmth of it came

around us immediately.

I got into the bed and he got in on top of me. I raised my eyebrow, and he looked down at me like

he already knew what I was about to say.

“I thought we were coming in here to sleep.”

His mouth turned at one corner.

“You really thought that after all of that we would sleep.”

I laughed once. “I thought it was possible.”

“It was never possible.”

He kissed me before I could answer. One hand slid to my waist and held me in place while his

<No other choice

mouth moved over mine, deeper this time, with none of the care he used when he thought I mi break. I liked that he knew better now.

He kissed me before I could answer. One hand slid to my waist and held me in place while his mouth moved over mine, deeper this time, with none of the care he used when he thought I mig break. I liked that he knew better now.

I put my hands on him and kissed him back just as hard. The blanket was twisted under us by the time he lifted his head.

“Still cold?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“Good.”

He kissed my throat, then lower, and I let my head fall back and closed my eyes. My hands went into his hair. I could feel him smile against my skin before he moved down farther.

“Caius.”

A quiet sound from him, then his hand slid up my leg and parted my thighs. He looked at me once, and I knew what he was asking.

“Yes,” I said.

今

He touched me and I drew in a breath at once. The room was warm, the fire still going, the bed small under us. There was nowhere to go but into it, and I did. He took his time just enough to make me reach for him, then gave me more.

By the time he came back up, I was already pulling him to me.

He kissed me once, hard enough to make my breath catch, then settled between my legs and

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