Chapter 12

• Raven's POV:
• Tears burned unchecked down my cheeks as I crumpled forward against Azrael's solid frame. My hands fisted in the expensive fabric of his suit jacket, clinging to him in a paradoxical gesture - seeking comfort from the very source of my anguish.
• I was powerless against this unstoppable force of alpha dominance. No matter how hard I railed or fought, Azrael would never release his self-appointed claim over me as his fated mate. The words hung in the air like an immutable brand searing into my psyche - "You cannot reject a bond fated by the Moon Goddess herself."
• "Please..." The whispered plea slipped past my trembling lips before I could rein it back. "I don't want this, I can't..."
• Azrael's massive arms slowly encircled me, the scorching heat of his body enveloping me in an inexorable embrace. One of his large hands cradled the back of my head, holding me securely against the thudding of his heartbeat.
• "Shhh, my lunamatra," he rumbled in that low, seductive timbre that seemed to reverberate straight through me. "Do not weep over your inevitable surrender. It's a joyous occasion to celebrate the formation of our eternal union."
• I wanted to pull away, to recoil from his dominating presence that made every single primal instinct inside me quake with unwelcome longing. But some deeper, baser part of me wouldn't let me extract myself from Azrael's intoxicating heat and strength. It was as if his virile scent and commanding aura were methodically dismantling the tightly-leashed human parts of my psyche, awakening the repressed omega shewolf lurking beneath.
• "You don't understand," I choked out in a ragged whisper. "This...this will destroy me..." I trailed off hoarsely, unable to articulate the bone-deep terror gnawing at my core.
• Azrael's fingers trailed through the long strands of my hair in a possessive caress. "Far from destroying you, little one," he breathed against my temple, "this bond will unlock your truest, most divine potential."
• He shifted slightly, causing me to tilt my chin up until our gazes locked intensely. "Look at me," he commanded in a tone that brokered no argument.
• I found myself powerless to resist or turn away, transfixed by the blazing intensity smoldering in his pale amber irises. They seemed to penetrate straight through every layer of guarded resistance, searing into the deepest recesses of vulnerabilities I wasn't even fully aware existed until now.
• Azrael's gaze roamed over my flushed, tear-stained features with an expression of dark, leonine appreciation. "Do you know what I see when I gaze upon you, my lunamatra?" he murmured in a sinfully rich baritone. "I see strength of spirit unmatched by any other of your sex. A graceful, ethereal beauty that would make mere mortal men weep with unattainable desire."
• My breath stalled in my lungs as he spoke, his words seeming to slither through my defenses like silken seduction itself. I was utterly mesmerized against my will, drowning in the riptide of his alpha magnetism.
• "But beneath that striking exterior?" Azrael's fingertips ghosted a feather-light caress along my jawline, raising chills of torrid awareness across my skin. "An unbridled, feral power exists, lurking in a state of constant, agonizing dormancy. A roiling tempest of primal majesty kept shackled by the fragile limits of your human delusions."
• My chest constricted with each potent word he uttered. It was as if he could see straight through to the terrifying truths I had never dared confront in myself. The eldritch, elemental forces I had blindly cowered from for fear of surrendering the safe refuge of feigned humanity.
• "For too long, you've imprisoned the glory of your true self, lunamatra" Azrael commanded in a rumbling timbre vibrating with quiet dominion. "Subjugated your sacred power to a pitiful, mundane existence unworthy of one such as you."
• He leaned in infinitesimally closer, his searing amber gaze seeming to penetrate straight through my psyche. "But I will help you shed those self-imposed shackles, little mate. Release you from the torment of denying your supernatural essence any longer."
• Azrael's broad palm cradled the side of my face with searing intensity as he closed the fractional distance between us. I could taste the fiery blend of his breaths mingling with mine, a heady elixir of smoked cedarwood and some deeper, more primal musk.
• "And when I finally unleash your truest, most divine form into the world at last?" His voice lowered to a graveled purr thrumming with quiet menace. "You will kneel gladly before your Alpha King in complete surrender...your only instinct to serve me as the radiant, almighty lunamatra you were always destined to become."
• His words seemed to siphon straight through my human shell, piercing the tender inner sanctum where my long-suppressed primal nature dwelled in uneasy dormancy. Something low and rippling roused within that sacred sanctum in response to Azrael's commands...a siren call that resonated through the core of my being.
• Unbidden, my eyelids grew heavy, my body swaying ever so slightly like a flower yielding to the breeze. I was utterly transfixed by the forceful cadence of my Alpha's timbre, the rich promise of transcendent awakening it vowed.
• And beneath that...a deeper, more primal quickening beginning to unfurl in the deepest chambers of my soul.
• Azrael's piercing stare remained locked onto me with laser focus, his powerful presence seeming to inexorably draw me deeper under his alpha thrall. I could no longer tell where his smoldering words ended and my own muddled thoughts began - they intermingled and resonated through my core as one.
• "You resist because you fear the unknown depths of your feral power," he stated, each syllable seeming to burrow beneath my skin like a serpent's sweet venom. "The unbridled majesty slumbering within, kept suppressed by your crippling human inhibitions."
• I trembled faintly against the solid frame enveloping me. Although if it was from trepidation or a darker, burgeoning need, I could no longer discern. His dominant masculinity surrounded me utterly, infiltrating every pore, every shallow inhalation.
• Azrael's broad palm cradled the side of my face with scorching intensity. "But you cannot run from your destiny any longer, lunamatra. Our bond will awaken the glory of what you were always meant to become."
• His nose brushed lightly against mine as he spoke, his words rumbling against my lips with quietly building intensity. "A transcendent alpha female the likes of which our werewolf realm has never borne witness. An ethereal goddess given preternatural form to walk among the ranks of the unworthy..."
• My eyelids fluttered in a dizzying swoon, helplessly surrendering to the seductive truth pouring from Azrael's lips. My Alpha's decree seemed to siphon through my physical form, resonating with the most sacred, primal essence of feminine power coiled at my core.
• "And when that awakening is finally unleashed?" His timbre dropped to a graveled growl thrumming with quiet menace. "You will kneel in rapturous surrender, my radiant queen. Every thought, every instinct existing only to exalt and serve me as your supreme Alpha King..."
• On those sinful words, Azrael bridged the hairsbreadth distance between us to crash his lips against mine in a ferocious, searing brand of possession. The savagery of his kiss seemed to awaken a firestorm in my belly - a conflagration of pure, primal longing igniting within the deepest chambers of my psyche.
• I whimpered against the scorching onslaught, every fiber quavering with bittersweet agony. Yet some deeper, newly roused part of me wouldn't allow escape from his dominating embrace. It yearned for more...more of my alpha's intoxicating dominion and virile power.
• Long moments seemed to bleed into the ether before Azrael finally tore his mouth from mine with a harsh exhalation. His piercing gaze smoldered with undisguised carnal need as he drank in my disheveled, breathless appearance.
• "A mere glimpse..." he rasped in a low, reverent tone. "Just a fleeting taste of the divine rapture that awaits when you submit to me utterly, lunamatra..."
• One of his large hands cupped the side of my neck in a possessive grip, his calloused thumb brushing along my racing pulse point. "The bond is sealed now between us, little mate. Our union grows ever more unbreakable with each solstice cycle."
• He leaned in fractionally closer, his supernatural presence amplifying tenfold and robbing me of rational thought. "And before this moon wanes again, I vow to claim every exquisite inch of you as my fated mate and alpha queen..."
• A shuddering gasp escaped my lips at the sinful promise blazing in Azrael's stare. My vision swam deliriously, succumbing to the intoxicating brume of his all-consuming alpha power - the glory and the agonizing rapture it would bring in equal measure.
• Because in that moment, as his grip tightened infinitesimally along the throbbing of my pulse point, I understood with bone-deep certainty...there would be no more running, no more denying the inevitable awakening soon to transpire.
• My transformation into Azrael's lunamatra - his almighty alpha queen - had already begun.