Pain shot through Arit’s nervousness, and he jerked his mouth away. “Ow.” He probed his lip with his tongue, tasting salty blood. “Dammit.”
Nick winced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—I’m sorry,” he repeated.
Of course.
The crown prince hadn’t dared a shift into his wolf, not once throughout his many seasons in the lands of men. Powerful alpha though he may be, he wasn’t an experienced one. The excitement of mounting or being mounted by his mate had called forth Nick’s wolf, and as Arit’s bottom lip stung, Arit could not fault him for his enthusiasm at delivering the mating bite, not while his own gums prickled. “It’s all right.”
“I hurt you. That’s never…” Lines grooved both sides of Nick’s mouth, his noble features twisting in horrified dismay. “I’ve always controlled shifting, especially partial shifts. Always.”
Probing his injured lip with his tongue, Arit winged up an eyebrow. “Accidents happen.”
“Not to me.” Nick’s shoulders bunched under Arit’s hands, the muscle going taut. “My life and the lives of those who protected me depended on never revealing who I was.”
When the prince would have jerked from their embrace, Arit tightened his grip. “Shifters bite during sex. It’s what we like and what our instincts compel us to do. We nibble to show our affection. Taking it too far at times in the heat of the moment is no big surprise.” Arit, who had little experience beyond kisses and light petting, knew that. “We all struggle with the wolf when our emotions are roused, and you’ve more reason for stress, anxiety, and distress than most.”
Though Arit hadn’t believed it possible, Nick stiffened even more in his embrace. “W-what?”
“Burying your mother, father, brothers, and sisters. Returning to cities you knew as a child, now fundamentally and substantially changed. The political posturing and gamesmanship in the capitol.” Arit dug his fingers into Nick’s warm skin, securing his hold. “Meeting your mate—our mating heat alone would have delivered a grave blow to your self-control. Mating shakes everyone. Including you.” He licked his wounded lip. “I’ve already stopped bleeding. It’s fine. I’m fine.”
The crown prince gaped at him. “No.”
“No?” Arit laughed. “I heal as quickly as you do, and no one is more keenly aware of what damage my body is capable of absorbing than me.”
“Not your lip.” Nick shook his head. “What you said before that.”
Eyes narrowing, Arit studied the sudden pallor of Nick’s face, the glimmer of shock reflected in his gaze. “You’re under a lot of pressure?”
“Like hiding among humans to survive hasn’t been stressful?” Nick grimaced. “No, what you told me before your laundry list of my perceived weaknesses.”
Arit jerked his head back. His brow furrowed. “You are my mate. I was not attacking—”
“You said we all bite.” Nick stared at him, spine straightening.
Frustration prodded Arit to stand taller, too. He and Nick were the same height, and Arit refused to show submission by hunching his shoulders or slouching. Nick’s station as Arit’s emperor was irrelevant behind closed doors. Inside this suite if nowhere else, they were mates alone. Mating alphas did not play dominance games unless they were spoiling for a fight. “Shifters regularly nip at each other, lovers and family members alike.”
“Rolan likes chewing my fingers. I doubt he realizes he’s gnawing on me most of the time.” Nick frowned. “I’ve caught him nibbling Mom’s hand while he was still in his human form, too.”
“Biting is natural for us. In normal everyday life, we bite those we love, but that’s especially true during sex.” Arit glowered. “The mating bite has been romanticized by humans into some mystical means of triggering a pair bond, but the importance of bites when we mate cannot be understated. The marks mates leave on each other prove our wolves have accepted the mating and signal other shifters to stay away from what is ours until the individual scents of each mate comingles to become a single new scent.”
“Human teeth won’t leave a mark unless the bite is particularly violent.”
Bewildered, Arit nodded. “When we’re showing affection to family or friends, our teeth remain blunted so we don’t hurt them. Only during sex will our shifter teeth push through—”
“You can’t achieve a partial shift. Only my bloodline or those closely tied to the imperial family can manage the transition from man to wolf with enough precision.” Nick glared at him. “I’m the last Marisek strong enough to control a partial shift. No one else survived who has the discipline.”
“Ah.” The epiphany crashed through Arit like a tsunami, sweeping away his budding anger and replacing it with fond indulgence. Tension fled from his taut muscles. He dared a small grin. “How old were you when the war began?”
Nick scowled at him. “I finished my eighth winter in rebel captivity, right before the executions.”
Thoroughly steeped in shifter history and lore, Arit had known the answer to his question, but asking it would help nudge his mate into his own realization. “Seven summers then, when food riots over hunting restrictions in the southern plains launched the rebellion. You were a child.”
“I was young.” Nick sighed, the bare shoulders under Arit’s hands drooping. “I don’t think I was ever genuinely a child.”
“Perhaps not.” Far be it from Arit to argue the pressures born by royalty. “The murder of your parents orphaned you before you’d neared sexual maturity, though. They wouldn’t have had The Talk with a boy at such a tender age.”
“Like that matters.” Nick rolled his eyes. “I’m no virgin.”
“I am.” Arit chuckled. “Yet about mating, I am the expert. Not you.”
In the span of a heartbeat, Nick pounced on Arit. He pushed into Arit, hip to hip, chests rubbing. Arit’s pulse roared in his ears at the rigid swelling at Nick’s groin pressing into him.
“Oh, really?” Nick said, voice husky and low as he looped his arms around Arit’s torso to drag Arit closer still.
“Really.” Lust heated his blood. The musk of arousal perfumed the air, and Arit trembled, his dick hard as flint in his pants, but he regarded his mate with a steady stare. He’d hesitated over—and craved—this mating, in part because he’d desired the challenge of strength on strength, an alpha mating another alpha. Although Arit supposed at least one of them should know what the hell they were doing during sex. His virginity putting him at a grave disadvantage with his worldly mate had stirred anxiety in Arit’s gut, but they were more equally matched than Arit had guessed, the both of them innocent in their own unique way. “For all your travailing with humans, you are as virginal as I am.”
A slow wicked smile curved Nick’s pink lips. He arched his hips, rubbing the hard length tenting his boxers deliciously into Arit’s crotch. “You—”