The Alpha's Chosen Luna

Chapter 11

Olivia’s POV

The poison was still flowing into her body at first, sending a slow, burning ache threading through my veins like liquid fire, making every breath feel borrowed. But Benjamin’s mouth on mine, his body pinning me to the mattress again, chased it away stroke by stroke.

We hadn’t stopped.

After the first brutal claiming of him flipping me onto my stomach, feeling a tight knot swelling but never quite locking, filling me until I sobbed his name against my will...

He’d pulled out only long enough to turn me over, to look into my eyes like he was memorizing every flicker of surrender. Then he was back inside me, slower this time, deeper, like he was trying to crawl under my skin and stay there.

I arched beneath him, legs wrapped high around his waist, heels digging into the small of his back to pull him impossibly closer. His thrusts were long and deliberate now, dragging against every sensitive inch inside me until my toes curled and my nails scored red lines down his shoulders.

“Benjamin…” My voice cracked, barely more than a whimper. The poison made everything sharper—every slide of him, every brush of his thumb over my n****e, every low growl that vibrated from his chest into mine. But it was fading. I could feel it retreating, dissolving under the heat of him, under the invisible thread of the mate bond snapping taut between us.

He must have felt it too.

His rhythm faltered for half a second, eyes flashing molten gold. “You feel that?” he rasped, hips rolling in a slow, grinding circle that made stars burst behind my eyelids. “That’s us. Sealed. No more poison. No more running.”

I couldn’t speak. Only nod, frantic, as he hooked my knees over his elbows and folded me in half, driving so deep I felt him in my throat. The new angle hit something devastating inside me—something that made my whole body seize and flutter around him.

“f**k—Olivia—”

He lost the slow pretense then.

The bed groaned under the force of his thrusts, headboard slamming rhythmically against the wall. Sweat slicked our skin, sliding where our bodies met, making every movement obscene and perfect. His hand found my throat—not choking, just holding, thumb pressing lightly over my racing pulse like he needed to feel proof I was alive, here, his.

“Come again,” he ordered, voice wrecked. “I want to feel you shatter around me while the bond locks.”

I was already close—too close. The poison’s last embers flared one final time, a white-hot spike of sensation that turned every nerve electric. Then it broke.

I came screaming.

My back bowed off the mattress, walls clamping down so hard he snarled, hips stuttering as my orgasm dragged his own release from him. He buried himself to the hilt, knot swelling at last...thick, insistent, locking us together as he pulsed inside me, hot and endless. Wave after wave flooded me until I felt overfull, claimed, owned in a way that went beyond flesh.

The bond snapped fully into place.

It wasn’t gentle. It was a golden cord searing through my chest, wrapping around my heart, threading into my wolf, who stirred for the first time in months, weak but awake, brushing against his like two shadows finally touching. The poison vanished completely, leaving only heat, only him, only us.

He collapsed over me, careful not to crush me, forehead pressed to mine. Our breaths mingled, ragged and shared. His knot kept us locked, pulsing faintly with aftershocks, every tiny twitch sending fresh sparks through me.

Neither of us moved for long minutes.

When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse, almost reverent.

“You’re mine now. Truly.” His fingers traced the faint mark already blooming at the base of my throat, his teeth had grazed there earlier, not a full claiming bite yet, but close. “No more temporary. No more doubts.”

I swallowed, throat tight with too many things like relief, fear, want, anger at how easily he’d wrecked me and remade me in the same night.

“And you?” I whispered, voice trembling. “Are you mine, Alpha?”

His eyes darkened. He shifted his hips just enough to make me gasp as the knot tugged. “Always was,” he murmured against my lips. “Even when I was too f*****g stupid to admit it.”

He kissed me then slowly, deeper this time, nothing like the frantic claiming from before that tore my body apart. This was possession softened by something dangerously close to tenderness. His tongue stroked mine like he was tasting forever.

When he finally eased back, the knot had softened enough to slip free. A rush of warmth followed, his release leaking out of me, pooling on the sheets. He watched it with dark, possessive satisfaction, then gathered me against his chest, rolling so I lay draped over him.

“Sleep,” he ordered softly, one hand stroking down my spine. “You’re safe. The bond will heal the rest.”

I wanted to argue, I wanted to demand answers about Elara, about Sharon, about why he kept hurting me even as he saved me but exhaustion crashed over me like a tide. My wolf, newly awakened, curled contentedly inside me, sated by his scent, his touch, his seed still warm inside.

I pressed my face to the crook of his neck, breathing him in.

For the first time since I’d come back to Black Mist, I didn’t feel like a placeholder. I felt chosen. And terrifyingly, irrevocably his.

As sleep pulled me under, his arms tightened around me, a low rumble vibrating in his chest.

“Mine,” he whispered into my hair, like a vow.

**Benjamin’s POV**

Olivia’s breathing had evened out against my chest, soft and steady, the kind of deep sleep that only comes after your body’s been wrung out completely. Her lashes fanned dark against flushed cheeks, lips still swollen from my kisses, hair a wild tangle across the pillow.

The mate bond hummed between us now, warm, golden glow surrounding us, it felt so unbreakable ...like a second heartbeat echoing mine. For the first time in years, the hollow ache where Elara used to live felt… quieter. Not gone. Never gone. But quieter.

I should have closed my eyes. Should have let exhaustion pull me under with her.

Instead, my gaze drifted across the room.

The framed photograph hung crooked on the far wall ..always had, ever since the day I’d hammered the nail in too high and never bothered to fix it. Elara smiled down from the silver frame, mid-laugh, sunlight catching the gold in her hair the way it used to catch fire when she ran through the meadows. Her eyes bright hazel, full of mischief..stared straight at the camera like she was daring the world to keep up.

A sudden, sharp crack split the silence.

The frame slipped.

It didn’t fall dramatically. It just… let go. The nail gave way with a soft metallic ping, and the picture tilted, slid, then dropped straight to the hardwood floor. Glass shattered in a clean, glittering burst across the planks. The sound was small, almost polite, but it sliced through me like a blade.

Olivia didn’t stir. Her fingers stayed curled loosely against my ribs, trusting, peaceful.

I stared at the broken frame.

Elara’s face lay upside down now, half-obscured by jagged shards. One long crack bisected her smile, splitting it into something fractured and wrong.

My wolf snarled low in my chest, instinct, grief, guilt all twisting together. I felt the old pull, the one that used to drag me out of bed at 3 a.m. to stare at that same photo until dawn bled through the curtains. The urge to reach down, to gather the pieces, to cradle what was left of her like I could somehow glue the past back together.

My hand twitched toward the edge of the bed.

Don’t.

The word wasn’t mine. It came from somewhere deeper, from the new bond still settling into my bones. Olivia’s scent wrapped around me—jasmine and rain and the faint musk of our mating—reminding me she was here. Alive. Warm. Mine.

I clenched my fist. Forced my arm back to her waist. Pulled her closer until her heartbeat thumped against mine, steady and real.

The photo stayed on the floor.

I exhaled through my teeth, slow and deliberate.

Then the mindlink snapped open—sharp, urgent, uninvited.

"Alpha."

"Marcus." I linked back.

His voice rolled through my skull like gravel under boots. No preamble, Just the clipped edge of a warrior who knew he was crossing a line.

"What?" I shot back, keeping my mental tone flat. Cold. I didn’t want him in my head right now, not while Olivia’s naked body was draped over me, and while the shattered remnants of my past lay ten feet away.

"We’ve got movement on the eastern border. We suspect rogues, it doesn't seem like the usual stragglers. They’re more organized and possibly armed. The smells like Red Mist wolves among them."

My jaw tightened. Red Mist. Alpha Smith's pack...... Olivia’s pack. How dare they attempt to attack my pack?! Don't they learn their lesson ? that same pack had nearly killed her before she came back to me.

"Numbers?"

"At least twenty. Maybe more. They’re testing the perimeter, not crossing yet. But they’re bold, way too bold."

I glanced down at Olivia again. Her lashes fluttered once in sleep, lips parting on a soft sigh. The bond pulsed in protective and possessive. If Smith’s wolves were sniffing around my territory…

"Hold position," I ordered. "Do not engage unless they cross the line. I want eyes on every single one of them. Names, scents, markings. Report back at first light."

A long pause.

Then he asked the one question I avoided: "And the new Luna?"

The question landed like a slap. My grip on Olivia tightened instinctively.

"What about her?" I snapped, while trying to tame my anger.

"She’s from Red Mist. If they’re moving… maybe she knows something. Maybe she’s—" Marcus said, almost like he's waiting for an order.

"Careful, Marcus." My mental growl vibrated with warning. "Finish that sentence and you’ll be picking your teeth out of the dirt."

Silence stretched again. When he spoke, his tone was smoother, too smooth.

"Understood, Alpha. Just doing my job. Protecting the pack."

The link severed.

I stared at the ceiling, pulse hammering.

Protecting the pack.

The words tasted wrong coming from him. Marcus had always been loyal—brutally so—but loyalty like his came with teeth. And tonight, with the photo broken and the bond still fresh and raw, those teeth felt aimed somewhere dangerous.

I pressed my lips to Olivia’s temple, breathing her in until the knot in my chest loosened just enough to let me think.

The rogues could wait until dawn.

But Marcus…

I’d be watching him closer now.

And if he so much as looked at my mate the wrong way…

I’d tear his throat out myself.

For a long moment, the room was quiet except for Olivia’s soft breathing and the faint creak of the old house settling.

Then, slowly, I reached over the side of the bed.

My fingers closed around the broken frame.

I didn’t pick it up.

I just turned it face-down on the floorboards, glass crunching under my palm.

I rolled onto my side, curling around Olivia like a shield, one arm banded across her waist, the other tucked beneath her head.

She murmured something incoherent....my name, maybe and nestled closer.

I wore my jacket and stormed out, ready to protect my pack. Even if it means hurting Olivia's people.