Chapter 42

Simon's POV The howls had quieted. The crying, too. I'd just finished comforting the last family whose son had been injured during the infiltration. Mothers, fathers, siblings—they looked to me with a mixture of reverence and grief. It never got easier. The weight of leadership, the pain in their eyes… I carried it all on my shoulders. But as I walked away from the infirmary, it wasn't their pain that lingered. It was her—the way Aisha had looked last night, flushed beneath me, her mouth parted, her back arching. Her soft whimpers echoed in my mind, and my body responded before I could stop it. My cock had been half-hard since I left our room. And now, it throbbed against the seam of my jeans with each step. I was losing my fucking mind. Get it together, I growled at myself. You're mated, not a pup in heat, my wolf muttered. Shut up. You're the one who keeps pushing her scent to the forefront. He huffed but didn't argue. Still, I knew it wasn't just lust. It was deeper. The thought of