TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 58

Fifty-Eight

Cameron

I woke in the middle of the night in a hotel room drenched in sweat and painfully hard. My wolf snarled inside my head, pacing and demanding that I go to Lisa. Not Evangeline, not my mate waiting at home, but Lisa. The urge hit with such force it bordered on pain. I sat up in the dark gripping the sheets and forcing myself to breathe.

What the hell was wrong with me?

I had come to the regional Alpha meeting out of necessity. I needed their support against my cousin and needed to reinforce my position as the Oracle-chosen leader of Silver Creek. The meetings had gone well. Most of the Alphas claimed they preferred me over Matthias. They could have been lying. Politics rarely came without deception.

One of the northern Alphas had pulled me aside during dinner and told me I had nothing to fear.

“Anyone the Oracle chooses is the true Alpha,” he said. “The Moon Goddess does not make mistakes. Your enemies will fall away once you secure your bloodline.”

Secure your bloodline.

Get Lisa pregnant.

Now I lay awake in a hotel room while my body demanded that I return to her. The intensity made no rational sense. I forced myself to lie back down and close my eyes. Sleep never came. Every time I drifted close, the same need dragged me awake again.

Franklin called at seven in the morning.

I answered immediately. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Lisa,” Franklin said, tension clear in his voice. “She’s gone into heat.”

That explained everything.

The pull I felt during the night. The way my wolf demanded I go to her.

“When did it start?” I asked.

“Yesterday. Pre-heat. It’s active now. Full heat. Her fever is getting dangerous. She needs someone.”

“I’m coming home.” I was already packing. “Where is she?”

“Still at the main house. Nadia and I kept it quiet. We hired a heat worker, but—”

“Move her,” I said. “Take her to the house on Central Road. The private property. I don’t want Evangeline to I know.”

“Cameron-“}

“Just do it. I’ll be there in three hours.”

I ended the call and stared at my reflection in the hotel mirror. My canines had lengthened slightly and my skin felt overheated. Hunger gnawed at my stomach with a ferocity that surprised me.

I ordered room service and devoured three rare steaks with eggs and bacon. The food barely touched the hunger.

Increased appetite for protein. Impaired rational thought. An overwhelming need to reach a specific female.

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I recognized the symptoms.

I was going into rut.

Rut was the Alpha counterpart to heat, the biological drive to breed when a mate entered her cycle.

Except Lisa was not my mate.

I already had a mate. The woman chosen by the Moon Goddess.

So why was my body reacting to Lisa as if she belonged to me?

I tried to rationalize it. We had been sleeping together for weeks. My wolf had grown accustomed to her scent. Her heat pheromones had triggered a response.

That was all it was.

It had to be.

I checked out of the hotel and drove home far faster than I should have. My grip tightened around the steering wheel the entire way.

The house on Central Road was a small private property I kept for discreet meetings and moments when I needed distance from pack politics. Franklin’s car already sat in the driveway when I arrived.

I walked straight inside and followed the scent.

Lisa’s scent filled the air, sweet and overwhelming. It clawed straight into my instincts.

The bedroom door was closed. I heard the buzz of a device and Lisa’s strained breathing. I opened the door.

Lisa lay naked on the bed, drenched in sweat and writhing with need. The heat worker was kneeling between her legs, using a toy while working her fingers inside her.

Lisa’s eyes found mine immediately.

“Cameron.”

The sound of my name broke whatever restraint I had left.

“Out,” I told the heat worker.

She grabbed her bag and left without argument.

I locked the door and turned back to Lisa. She reached for me with trembling hands while tears ran down her face.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please help me.”

I crossed the room and pulled her against me. The heat in her skin burned through my control. My wolf surged forward and instinct took over.

What followed was rough and desperate. Lisa clung to me as if I were the only thing holding her together, her body responding instantly now that the one thing it wanted had arrived.

Her relief came in broken gasps. My wolf answered with equal intensity. The bond of heat and rut drove us both forward until my knot locked us together.

The satisfaction that followed was overwhelming.

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For my wolf it felt right.

Too right.

The session lasted nearly forty-five minutes before the knot finally released. Lisa collapsed against me, breathing hard while the heat slowly began building again.

“I know,” I murmured, pulling her close. “Rest a minute.”

There was an emergency button on the nightstand Franklin had installed earlier. I pointed to it.

“If things become too much, press that.”

Lisa glanced at the button and then back at me, her gaze hazy with fever.

“I don’t need it,” she said. “I want this.”

The words sent heat through my body again.

Franklin delivered food an hour later. He knocked once, left the trays outside the door, and disappeared, I brought the food inside. We ate protein-heavy meals in silence.

Lisa devoured hers with the appetite of someone burning through energy faster than she could replace it.

When she finished she looked at me again, the heat already building back into her eyes.

“More?”

I pulled her back to the bed.

A pattern formed.

Intense sessions followed by food, water, and short periods of rest before the heat surged again. Towels and sheets soaked through again and again. The scent of heat hung thick in the air.

Lísa lost all restraint during the cycle. She begged openly, driven by instinct and need. My wolf responded with equal intensity every time I filled her.

The satisfaction felt powerful.

It also terrified me.

Because the instinct insisted this was right.

More right than anything had ever felt with Evangeline.

That realization sat like a crack running through everything I believed about my life.

On the second day, during a rare quiet moment, Lisa looked at me with clearer eyes.

“Thank you for helping me.”

“You don’t need to thank me.”

“I do.” Her fingers brushed my face, “You have a mate. This shouldn’t be happening.”

“None of this is appropriate,” I said. “I wasn’t going to leave you alone with this.”

“I needed you,” she said softly.

214

The words lingered between us.

I did not answer. Instead I kissed her, and when the next surge of heat hit, instinct took over again.

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