Chapter 57
fifty-seven
brIAR
A bark means I have to comply.
It doesn’t mean I have to obey.
Cillian wanted me to run from them to hide.
But my Omega wants them to rut us. Bite us. Ruin us.
And honestly? I do, too.
After they work for it, of course.
Being an omega doesn’t come with many physical advantages, but speed is one. I dart for the exit, leaping over Rhys despite the way my bad knee wobbles when I land. Dane reacts on instinct, whirling to lunge for me, but I bob and weave, ducking behind him. Out the French doors.
Our rose garden beckons, fat crimson blooms waving in the dusk. I’ve memorized every path, over the last few weeks, but the gravel will tear my bare feet up—and once my alphas come to, they’ll be devastated if I’m hurt.
Instead, I make a beeline for the farthest edge of the labyrinth, racing for the springy grass that surrounds it.
My heart pounds, the pulse beating in my throat, my chest, the apex of my thighs. Out here, I feel like I’m made of pure sensation. The soft turf tickling my feet, damp evening air cooling my lungs, needy muscles ticking tighter at my core.
I like this, I realize. Being chased. Hunted.
It unlocks some primitive type of abandon. Because I can run… but not forever. Which means, eventually, they’ll catch me. And do whatever they want with me.
The thought shoots lightning through my veins, propelling me on. An ocean breeze blusters inland from the bluff and I shrug, letting my robe fly onto the breeze. Gaining speed.
Truly, our lawn is as big as the garden. Which works well for my purposes, because it means my alphas will be able to track my path clearly. Roars and grunts ring behind me as I turn, streaking diagonally across the grass.
There’s something oddly freeing about it. They’re chasing me, but really, I’m in control. And I know when they catch me, I’ll still be safe.
There’s no time to reflect on how astonishing that notion is. Because I’m rapidly reaching the end of the lawn… and veering straight for the cliffs.
I only pause for a second. To try to determine where I can go from here.
But it’s too late.
Rhys hauls my body into his snarling chest, arching his neck back as if aiming to strike—
Shit. He’s not the pack leader, which means any bond we make would ruin our ability to create a pack bond. He can’t remember that, now, though. Not when he’s out of his mind.
“No!”
My bark halts the alpha halfway to my throat. He growls, grumbling his disapproval, but I’m pleasantly surprised to find my Omega isn’t having it. She looses a growl all her own. “You have to share.”
Rhys bares his teeth with a moody snap. I narrowly resist the urge to smirk as the other two barrel into the clearing on the edge of the cliffs, their faces twisted in equally menacing scowls.
Cillian’s suit jacket is gone, his work shirt hanging from his bare chest…
while Dane is entirely shirtless, wearing nothing but a pair of low-slung jeans that show off his thick, muscled abdomen.
They shove at one another, Cillian knocking Dane back before the bigger alpha grabs his arm, ripping him aside.
“Enough,” I interject, infusing every word with as much power as I can manage. “You all have to share. Or none of you can have me.”
The three feral men blink at one another, blank aggression covering their expressions. I try to imagine how this could possibly work. How I’ll possibly direct all of them…
We can’t, the voice in my middle whispers. We have to give in.
The thought is terrifying. Suicidal, even. Like standing over the edge of the cliff we’re on, deciding to let the wind carry me off instead of clinging to the craggy stone.
Can I even do it? Let go? Let them do whatever they want?
It’s the one thing I’m not sure I can withstand.
Because for someone like me? Pain isn’t scary.
Surrender is.
The air washes over us in thick gales, whipping my hair loose. I feel the force of it, sparking the familiar urge to leap. Lose myself. Be free.
That part won’t be hard. It’s trusting them to catch me, even when they’re out of their minds, that feels impossible.
I’m surprised how much I want to. Need to, really. If I’m going to have my first heat here… and all my other heats… I need to be able to trust them.
“No bites,” I bark quietly, knowing it’s the last command I’ll give. My eyes find the black holes where Cillian’s should be, projecting softness for him. Hoping he’ll recognize the submission he prizes so fiercely. “Please, alpha.”
His answering snarl is ragged, his face creased with pained emotion but missing all traces of his usual guile. Right now, Cillian is just… a beast.
And like this? At his basest form?
He’s still mine.
They all are, I realize, absorbing Rhys’s desperate panting. Dane’s heaving chest and shaking shoulders.
These alphas need me.
And I decide to fall into it.
Three sets of hands paw at me. Under their strength, my nightgown tears like wet paper. It drifts to the ground in tatters as they rip their own garments out of the way. Until we’re all naked, standing on the grassy knoll beside the cliff and the scattered remnants of our clothes.
My body clamors, blood thundering hot and hard to every pulse point. Their scents fill each stuttering breath, burning hot trails to the cramping muscles between my hips. They tweak tighter, grinding wetly. The sensation is unfamiliar, but the gush of slick that comes after isn’t.
The cherry-tart arousal slides down my bare thighs. Our pack alpha tracks it with his glittering black eyes, dropping to his knees with a groaned growl.
Rhys starts to snap at him, jostling for position, but my body reacts before I can, gripping his silver-blond hair and dragging him in for a kiss. The menacing alpha snarls into my mouth, tangling his tongue with mine.
I reach for his cock, squeezing hard enough to get his attention. When he rears back, eyes full of wild glee, I turn and practically leap at Dane, snagging my elbow around his brawny half-scarred neck.
My big man kisses me with naked desperation, moaning and gasping as I run my free hand down his body. I find the throbbing erection pressed into my hip the same moment my husband’s lips skim the soaked lips of my pussy.
Crying out, I close my fingers around Dane’s length and clutch Rhys’s growing knot in a tighter grip.
Cillian dives lower, thrusting into my slick hole with savage insistence.
His tongue flicks, striking the ring of nerves squirming for one of their knots.
He traces the pounding ache, choking on a growl when more arousal gushes onto his face.
Dane catches my fresh scent and bucks into my hand. His need is so sincere, I feel it scrape the bottom of my heart, settling beneath my lungs like an anchor.
Even like this, my big man would never ask me for anything. Which makes it that much easier to give him everything.
I push at his shoulders, holding his empty eyes while I guide him onto the ground. He sits back with a huff, clamping his huge hand around my forearm as if…
He’s afraid to let me go.
The organ in my chest shatters into a thousand shimmering shards. I grab a fistful of Cillian’s glossy black hair and tug him away, ignoring his roar of protest. Rhys looses a dangerous rumble, too—but I know what I need to do, crouching to mount Dane’s big body.
The position reminds me of our first time. My throat thickens as I hold him in place, lowering myself onto his throbbing hardness. Damp ocean air stings my lungs as I gasp, moaning.
Dane is always a tight fit, but I’m not sure he’s ever been this hard. The stretch feels incredible, finally filling the gnawing emptiness carved into my core.
He growls and groans, his hands holding my hips hard enough to bruise. I start to ride him immediately, needing more.
I forgot—I’m not the only one with rut instincts. Because no sooner has a whine reached my lips than Rhys drops into position behind me, holding his pre-cum-glossed cock in his fist, painting the seam of my ass with the kind of intent that has me clenching around his packmate.
More slick and perfume gush around Dane’s dick as Rhys finds my back hole. Cillian’s roar rends the air, his hand snapping to his raging erection, strangling it as he watches with his hauntingly dark gaze.
Dane’s sightless eyes roll back and the menacing man behind me scoops the wetness onto his fingers, shoving them into the tight ring of my ass without warning.
I whine in earnest when he works them in, adding a third too quickly. It’s not painful, but I can’t catch my breath, either.
Cillian barks, “Omega,” turning my attention upward. Before I can blink, his cock is pushing past my lips, filling my mouth with hot, silken hardness.
It should panic me, but instead his taste lights every neuron in my mind, the synapses flaring as bubbling pleasure tingles through my center. My core unclenches. I slip lower on Dane’s big cock as Rhys rumbles wordless approval.
Let go, my Omega reminds me, her voice a far-off echo. Let them have you.
I know she’s right. I brace myself for an internal struggle, but—
Cillian thrusts mercilessly, black eyes burning like hot coals as he watches me gag on him. The motion of his hips is somehow hypnotic. Push, pull, push, pull. Striking me deep, forcing me to drop lower on Dane’s thickness. Spiking ecstasy when my big man hits the end of me and keeps going.
It’s too easy to give in to them. Let Cillian set the pace, hammering his spiced, smoky girth into my throat. Gasping while Dane’s knot stretches the opening of my pussy. And screaming as Rhys rips his fingers out and replaces them with his cock.
Oh—oh my—oh shit.
“Yes,” I sob, bearing down onto Dane’s swollen skin. Shivering as Rhys slides deeper. Stretched and stuffed to the hilt—my ass, my pussy. And my mouth, when Cillian growls and pushes his knot against my lips.
It’s too big for me to take, but my alpha’s grip on my hair still softens with gruff approval when I try my best, sucking on the top third of his pulsing swell. Moaning when more of his flavor dribbles out.
I swallow it greedily, my body begging for more. Wanting all of them—their knots filling me, their release splattered over my skin and deep inside me.
Delirious and dizzy, I surrender to Cillian’s rhythm. Dane’s invading thickness. Rhys’s desperate thrusts.
They’re everywhere. Everything. All mine.
That lone, spinning thought breaks me. With another whine, I finally plunge all the way down. Dane bucks up, his knot squelching past my fluttering muscles and popping into place.
White light explodes across my vision and expands in my body. Growing so big, so fast, there’s nowhere for it to go except inward, deeper. To my soul.
Ecstatic ripples detonate between my hips, releasing a rush of tension as my alpha sprays out inside me. The hot flood and twitch of his cock sets Rhys off. He jets just as fiercely, filling my ass and falling forward with a serrated moan.
While he nuzzles the nape of my neck, purring and sliding his arms around my middle to hold me up, Cillian finishes. Cloves and sweet smoke burst across my tongue, the taste sparking a new wave of bliss. Dane pants while I squeeze him all over again, his face a grimace of pure pleasure.
Stillness washes over us, followed by the whip of cold wind from the cliffs. I float in a state of semiconsciousness, still skewered on Dane’s knot, letting Rhys support my weight as I sink farther backward on every ragged exhale.
I don’t know which of them comes to first, but it seems to happen all at once. “Briar,” Dane roughs out, jerking upright and reaching out to touch my neck, my arms, my face. “Fuck, I’m so sorry. I—I don’t even—did I hurt you, moonbeam?”
It’s a wistful sort of relief to see the gold of his eyes again. I stare at them, smiling despite my bone-deep exhaustion. “I’m great, big man. Not sure how the hell you’re going to get me inside while I’m locked around you, but…”
I shrug, and Rhys purrs louder, rubbing his forehead along my shoulder. “I tried to bite you,” he remembers, whispering. “I’m so sorry, viper.”
I turn my head to grin. “You’re not nearly as scary as you think you are, venom. Besides, I’m starting to think the three of you biting me might not be the worst thing…”
My confession rings out, echoing between the four of us. Cillian’s hand finds my crown, massaging my scalp in his special way before skimming down to my chin, lifting my face to look into his icy gaze.
I know him, now, though. So I see the devotion smoldering under all his cool control. The love.
“If anyone tries to bite you before I do,” he warns, irises blazing, “they’re dead.”