Alphas for the Holidays

by Mandy M. Roth

  He grabbed her hand.

  She blinked and looked up at him. And there he was, the male she loved. That long mane of black hair fell down around his shoulders, and his green eyes still looked at her as though she was everything.

  “I am still me, Luminesa.”

  Nodding, she gulped and tried to be brave. In no way did Alador look or act like Josiah. There were no similarities between them at all.

  “What are we going to do, horse?”

  He smiled, causing his face to light up and practically glow with pure, effervescent joy.

  “Even when I appear as a man, you insist on calling me a horse.”

  “Yes, but you’re my horse.” She giggled.

  He didn’t return the laughter. Instead, he tugged her into him and very seriously said, “And that is all I’ll ever want to be.”

  Chapter 12

  Alador

  Haxion would not approve of the step Alador was about to take, but she was a million miles away from his thoughts at the moment.

  Being outcast, denied his herd, his people…none of it mattered so long as he had Luminesa.

  The soul in him recognized the soul in hers. That he should have a mate was a gift, but that he had one as powerful, majestic, and lovely as her humbled him to his very core.

  Her big, beautiful blue eyes gazed widely upon him. She trembled and fidgeted, and he had no doubt that it wasn’t merely his nearness or his legs causing her such strain but the fact that he was completely nude.

  She’d briefly glanced down after the transformation, and a bright tint of mauve had touched her pale cheeks.

  Goddess, she was lovely.

  Alador finally understood why Chester had followed his heart. For so long, he’d tried to make sense of his cousin’s willing abdication, and finally, at that moment, he understood. Because there’d never been a choice to begin with.

  “What do we do, Alador?”

  Sliding his hand along hers, he wrapped his fingers around her slender wrist and then nodded. “Now you wrap yours around mine as best you can.”

  She tried, but her fingers were so tiny and barely made it halfway across. She giggled. “You’re so big.”

  “In more ways than one,” he snorted, bumping her with his hip.

  That gorgeous blush stole across her cheeks again when she felt the heavy press of him.

  “Oh, god...dess,” she stuttered, her eyes flitting down between them.

  She was curious, and that made his chest swell with pride. He wanted her to like what she saw. All of him, not just in centaur form, but in his other form too. Because it was all him, just different sides of him.

  Bending his head, he continued the binding ceremony. Odd that his people, known for their free-love mentality, should have a binding ceremony, but they did.

  All of which let him know that though it was rare, maybe once upon a time, long ago, things had been different. Maybe pair bonding had been more the norm back then.

  Grabbing the ends of his hair, he wrapped it once around their wrists. She inhaled sharply.

  “Now you do the same to me,” he instructed.

  Her fingers shook a little as she took the long length of her silvery-white hair and wrapped it twice around their wrists, so that it appeared as though they wore matching bracelets of glossy hair, half black and half white.

  She looked back up at him. “And now?”

  “Repeat these vows after me. We swear by peace and love to stand—”

  “We swear by peace and love to stand—” She smiled.

  “Heart to heart and hand to hand,” he said, rubbing his thumb along her soft skin.

  “Heart to heart and hand to hand—”

  A gentle breeze swirled through the inside of the room.

  “Mark, o spirit, and hear us now,” he said.

  “—mark, o spirit, and hear us now—”

  The flame in the hearth spiked high and glowed brighter.

  “Confirming this our sacred vow,” he said deeply as a powerful emotion he’d never known before rippled through every inch of his body.

  “—confirming this our sacred vow,” she whispered back, and suddenly, a heavy fall of snowflakes rained down upon them.

  Snow bees buzzed merrily around her head, and Luminesa gleamed like a frozen lake of arctic-blue ice.

  Bringing her to him, he took her lips and claimed his bride. When they finally pulled away from the kiss, the snowfall had ceased, the winds had quieted, and the fire banked.

  Deep rows of snow surrounded him, but Alador didn’t feel the cold. Not the way he once would have.

  All he felt was warmth, and he knew why at the moment he felt the pulsing wave of her ice magic flow from her palm into his, causing the snowflake pattern on it to glow a pale blue.

  “You’re mine,” she whispered in hushed awe.

  “And you’re mine,” he said with a nod. “But we have one final act left before we’re truly consecrated. Can you create a blade of ice?”

  He’d barely asked the question before she held her palm up to him with a gleaming sliver of sharpened ice.

  He took it and set it upon the hair they’d wrapped around their wrists and, cutting just a few inches high, sliced through it, shortening their hair by at least four inches.

  She touched the tip of a shorn curl that then fell to her waist instead of to her thigh.

  Handing her back the blade, he took their hair in hand and quickly braided them together. As he did, their individual hairs began to glow with the final bit of binding magic. With a few deft flicks of his fingers, he created two bracelets from the hair. “Bind them together,” he said, holding the bracelets out to her.

  Touching her finger to the edges, she bound them in ice.

  Then smiling gently, he slid hers on.

  She gasped as he did so, staring down at the bracelet in wonder. “It is warm and cool to the touch.”

  “That is your soul and mine bound inexorably together. Slide mine on.”

  He held out the thicker, larger bracelet to her. She took it and quickly slid it on him. And just as she’d felt the cold and hot, he did too. There was a flash of ice burn and then fire, before finally the gentle tingle of their mating bond settled into his bones.

  Wanting to roar with satisfaction, he then wrapped his arm around her waist and yanked her into him. “My woman in every way now,” he murmured.

  Then glancing over his shoulder, he peeked at the images of the sleeping children.

  “They can’t see us,” she said.

  He chuckled. “I’m not worried about that. Among my kind, what we do now is only natural. I simply wanted to make certain they were okay.”

  She touched the corner of his jaw with her little hand.

  The woman was built of magic, but she was slight, fragile, and felt so breakable compared to the hardy strength of his kind. But it was Luminesa who could break him now. He’d taken an unforgiveable action among his people, but he couldn’t find it in him to regret what they’d done.

  Then he let his fingers do what he’d wanted them to do from the moment he’d seen her. He unbuckled her cloak, letting it drop in a puddle to her feet.

  She wore a thin shift of pure ice that sparkled and danced from the light of her strange flame. Untying the thin thread that held the garment together on her front, he pushed it down her shoulders and took his first full look at her naked form, drinking her in.

  Her body was lush and curvy, her hips slightly wide, her breasts tempting globes that could easily fit into his palms. Her stomach was flat, her neck swan-like…but it was her nipples that caused his mouth to water.

  They weren’t quite as blue as he’d imagined they would be, but they held a tint of the color just as her lips did.

  Between her thighs, she was completely bare, exposing the slick pink folds of her most private place.

  “Step back,” she said in a voice that was surprisingly strong.

  “Anything, my goddess,” he whispered, moving back
on knees that shook tremulously.

  Her eyes raked him, starting first at his feet, then moving slowly up his powerful legs, until she came to his cockstand. He could no longer hide from her.

  He was hard, firm, and painfully desperate to sink himself into her body. To join with her as his one true mate.

  “Gods, you’re big,” she breathed, shaking her head before moving into him and reaching out a hand.

  Was she going to touch him? Just the thought of it had his heart racing, but then she did touch him, and he couldn’t stop from groaning as his essence leaked from the very tip of him. That one slight touch of her fingers had his head dizzy and his body ready to combust. It was all he could do to keep his hands by his sides and let her look her fill.

  “Oh, Alador,” she whimpered as she curled her fingers around him, fisting him tightly and slowly dragging her hands up and down his hard length.

  His legs buckled then, and he almost fell, dragging her down with him, as he’d wrapped an arm around her waist to hold him up.

  Surprised, she moved her hands, planting her palms on his chest and laughing with delight.

  “Woman, you make me crazed,” he growled. “Take this snow away. I wish to pleasure my goddess at my leisure.”

  Luminesa’s eyes sparked with challenge and fire, and to Alador, it was almost like seeing her for the first time all over again. The way her entire body flushed that becoming shade of palest mauve, how the tips of her silvery hair were suddenly a blue so deep they reminded him of an arctic ice tunnel untouched by human hands. How her eyes blazed like dazzling sapphires…the woman before him wasn’t cold, or passionless.

  She was the first kiss of frost on a cold winter’s morning, pure and radiant and all his.

  With a flick of her wrist, the mounds of snow vanished, and in its place were thick piles of soft fur rugs.

  Lifting her arms toward him, she beckoned him to her. And Alador was helpless to resist. With a groan of longing, he moved into her body, delighted at the feel of her smooth, icy legs pressed against his hard, muscular ones.

  She shivered, wiggling a little and then sighing longingly when his hard length settled between the vee of her thighs.

  But he wasn’t ready to go there yet. Not by a mile.

  “Look at me, woman.”

  Her eyes were clouded by a fog of lust as she turned to him, and his chest beat forcefully with the knowledge that he’d done that to her.

  Taking his time, he slowly leaned in. She rose up on tiptoe, as though to attack him, claim him. He smirked, running his hands down her arms, trembling as her skin pebbled beneath his touch.

  Running his nose down the length of her neck, he came to the sweet hollow of her throat and pressed a wet kiss to it first. She shuddered. Tiny fingernails scraped into his back as she dragged them across, making him ache and tremble with need.

  He circled his tongue along the sweet dip of her flesh. She tasted of frost and smelled of spun sugar. “Do you like this?” he asked between heated nips.

  Her only response was a guttural moan.

  Alador had always liked to believe himself somewhat of an expert when it came to pleasuring a mare—mostly because his analytical mind found the challenge of pleasing a woman entertaining. Not only physically stimulating to him but also intellectually stimulating.

  Each woman was different, each woman a puzzle in her own right. Some enjoyed a small jet of warm breath puffed into their ears or along the nape of their neck. Others preferred to have their breasts fondled, their nipples teased to tight buds.

  Always, he’d performed the acts with interest, enjoying the sounds of their soft mewls when he’d hear the rapid rise in their breaths when he’d struck gold. But even though he’d enjoyed it, there’d also been a side of him set apart from the goings on. As though he were a dispassionate spectator watching with a clinical eye toward knowledge but not one hundred percent fully committed.

  So when he slipped Luminesa’s hair across one shoulder so that he could feast and suck on her tender collar at his leisure, he did not expect the overwhelming wave of lust and tension that shoved like a hot spear through his bones when she began to nip and nibble on him.

  She wasn’t even sampling him in a spot he’d thought all that sensitive. Because of his position, her lips were closest to his bicep, which was where her tiny teeth had latched.

  But the textured feel of her tongue playing along his skin that burned like hottest fire had his knees shaking and his cock even more painfully erect.

  “Gods,” he groaned, dizzy with lust and need.

  Feeling her lips curl up into a momentary smile on him, she giggled. That sound, so carefree and spirited, it did something to him. To his insides, to his heart…and with a shock, he realized, he’d stopped tending to her needs, so lost in the excitement of his own.

  The analytical side of his brain couldn’t understand, couldn’t fathom not being in control. Alador was always in control.

  But when she flattened her palms on his chest and proceeded to lower him to his knees with just a soft shove against him, he didn’t fight it.

  Because he wanted. Wanted more than anything he’d ever wanted in his life.

  He was not outside of himself watching with clinical detachment when she dropped to her knees beside him and began to pepper his chest with soft, sweet kisses that had his own nipples budding up.

  No, he was panting, sweating from the effort it took not to grab her and toss her down, spread her legs wide and feast between her thighs until he’d taken his fill.

  Squeezing his eyes shut, he lost himself to the sensation of fire and ice. Lost himself to the sounds of her mewls of delight, to the sounds of his own.

  And somehow, before he knew it, he was lying on his back, and she had tossed her leg around his waist, sitting on him so that her hot, wet center pressed against his navel and his thick hardness pressed against her delectable rear.

  She wiggled, causing him to groan long and low when she rubbed her lower half against his painful erection.

  “Luminesa,” he moaned, digging his fingers into her hips and gently guiding her movements so that she continued to rub up against him in slow, undulating movements.

  “Horse,” she whimpered as her tiny fists dug into his chest while she continued to move up and down, rubbing herself on him.

  Doing to him as she’d done that morning when she’d ridden his back.

  The room began to smell of sugared berries, and swirls of snow suddenly materialized from nowhere. Big fat flakes of it fell between them.

  She began to move faster, rub harder.

  He growled, fingers digging in deeper as he rolled her back end more forcefully against him. Bolts of pleasure radiated from deep inside him, letting him know he was close.

  That wasn’t how he’d meant for it to happen. He was supposed to guide her in the art of lovemaking as he had with every other partner. Treat her gently and reverently. Instead, he was pawing at her like a stallion in heat and unable to stop.

  Gasping for breath, and taking a hard swallow, he forced his eyes to open. Sensing she was close to her own release, he wanted to watch her, wanted to see her look when she finally came for him.

  What he saw tipped him over the edge.

  Her eyes were tightly screwed up, her bottom lip pulled firmly between her teeth, and her swan-like neck tipped backward as the tips of her hair danced along his chest.

  “Alador!” she cried as her entire body seized up, her thighs trembling mightily as she jerked and spasmed with her release.

  With a grunt he could no longer contain, Alador fell headlong over the cliff, pumping out a release so powerful he feared it might never end. His eyes slammed shut as he lost himself to the oblivion of carnal ecstasy.

  Her giggles of delight finally caused him to open his eyes, and it was with wonder that he realized he’d been one hundred percent fully present in the act.

  The dawning awareness of that hit him like a tsunami squarely in his ches
t. He’d lost control with her. Lost himself to her completely.

  Laughter sparkled through the depths of her blue eyes as she glanced down at his chest.

  “Horse, I think I may have raked you black and blue,” she admitted shyly, tracing a length of skin that, since he’d become aware of it, ached just a little.

  Glancing down, he was shocked to note that she had indeed clawed him most severely. A thin ribbon of blood appeared in some places. He touched the spot next to his heart in astonishment.

  She could not understand what it was he was feeling because the truth was he barely understood it himself.

  Awe. Surprise. Amazement. All that and more.

  Completely unaware of the life-altering emotions playing through him, she framed his face between her cool hands and kissed him soundly upon the lips.

  “Thank you, horse. That was wonderful.”

  Only once she made to roll off him did he finally find his tongue. Banding his arm tightly around her, he shook his head.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Her eyes widened prettily. Her frost-tipped lashes fanned along her cheeks…prettily.

  Gods above, there wasn’t anything not pretty about her.

  Everything. She was everything to him.

  Nibbling on the corner of her lip, she glanced down between them. “We finished, no?”

  The last word came out a confused question.

  Chuckling, he asked, “My queen, when you say you’d been with a man before, how exactly were you with him?”

  A pretty blush rose in her cheeks. “Well, I…um…he penetrated me.”

  Alador lifted a brow. She was so bloody adorable right then. Gods, he’d fallen completely mad for his enchantress.

  “And did you enjoy it?”

  She pursed her lips. “Not particularly, no. It felt like he’d stuck a stick up inside me and wiggled it. This was much more fun.”

  His nostrils flared with suppressed mirth. “Indeed. But what if I told you it doesn’t always feel like a stick being jammed up inside of you?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “No?”

  He shook his head. “No. If a man knows what he’s doing, no, it does not.”