Episode 31 The Better to Love You With
Thayer
Ren watches Grieves leave with a furrow between her brow that I want to smooth away. I move to her side, running my hand down her spine. “We should get you cleaned up too. It’ll help settle him to see you out of this dress and comfortable.”
It’ll help settle me too. All of us.
What we really need is for all of us to pile into that big bed in her bedroom, for each of us to claim some part of her skin with our hand and to just bask in the feel of her warmth, breathe in her scent.
All of us are one wrong look away from going feral entirely, and only her safety and comfort will help.
She nods, and all of us let out a relieved breath that she’s finally willing to let us care for her the way she needs.
We move into a whirl of action, hustling her into her bedroom.
Forsythe and Court work on getting her out of the dress, while Piers goes to grab new clothes for her.
I go to the bathroom and start heating the shower water.
When my omega steps inside the steamy room in nothing more than her lacy strapless bra and panties, it takes everything I have in me not to lunge, to take, to devour. To mark her as mine so I can always feel her.
Instead I take a deep breath and motion at the shower. “Do you want company?”
A sharp shake of her head. “I can do it alone.”
I ignore the hurt that swells, but she must still see it, because she steps forward, running a hand down the front of my button up, before gripping it and giving a little shake.
“I want to be quick,” she tells me. “I want to be out before Grieves, and I have the feeling if you get in with me it won’t be quick.
” Ren casts a sneaky little glance down to the bulge in my pants, my erection pressing almost painfully against my zipper.
“Probably not,” I agree. Goddamn, I want to bury myself inside her, to reassure myself that she is here and alive and well and mine.
With a smile she pats my abs, then shoos me out of the bathroom.
I go, even though my alpha protests. While she slips under the water, I take the opportunity to slip out of my suit, strip down to my boxers and then turn my attention to making the room as nestlike as it can be, grabbing more worn clothes from our rooms and tossing them on the bed for Ren to use later. Court, Piers, and Forsythe do the same.
Barely three minutes have passed when the water in Ren’s ensuite shuts off.
She emerges from the steam skin flushed, a towel wrapped around her still damp body.
At the same time, Grieves enters the room, hair still wet, dripping onto his bare chest and shoulders.
Like neither one of them could be bothered to take the time to properly dry off.
He relaxes when he lays eyes on her, when he sees again that she’s unharmed.
Ren, for her part, seems completely unaware of how close all of us are to absolutely losing it as she moves over to the bed, drops her towel and then plucks a worn shirt—Courtland’s—from the clothes I tossed onto the bed and pulls it on.
When she turns and finds all of us staring at her with hungry, predatory expressions, she shifts, uncomfortably, fingering the hem of the t-shirt. “Is this okay?”
“Of course it is, cor mea,” Forsythe is quick to move toward her, tugging her into his chest. “Whatever you need is more than okay.”
She gives him this adorably shy little smile, then nods. “Okay, good. Then I need all of us to sleep in here tonight. I need you all close.”
We all move closer, drawn in by the gravity that is our mate. “Whatever you need, omega,” Grieves reiterates as Forsythe bends to nuzzle into her throat. A sweet burst of her perfume hits the air and my cock—my knot—throbs in response.
We all groan.
Ren’s phone chimes with an incoming text. “Ignore it,” Forsythe rumbles, running his mouth over her neck in a hot kiss. “Please.”
Ren shifts, clearly wanting to listen, but then she sighs and shakes her head. “It might be Haven. She might… The baby might be on the way.”
Our prime stops kissing her with a pained groan, even as he keeps his forehead pressed into her shoulder. With a shuddering inhale he steps away from her and gives her a soft smile.
She gives him an adorably shy grin and then turns to fish her cellphone out of the tiny clutch purse I carried for most of the evening for her.
We all watch her as she wakes up the screen and a frown folds her expression. She goes sheet white and makes a wounded noise that has all five of us rushing to her side.
“What? What is it? What happened?” Grieves asks. “Is it Haven? Is she okay?”
God, I hope she is. I’m not sure how much more our omega can take.
Ren flicks her eyes up to us. “It's… it’s not Haven. I mean it’s from Haven, but she’s fine.”
That has us relaxing some, but not all the way. “Okay, so then what-” Piers cuts off as she taps on her screen and a voice emerges from it.
“Miss Aureline. Miss Aureline. Is that a bite I see on your neck?” All of us freeze, Ren more than anyone, I’m not even sure she’s breathing. Her fingers tighten on her phone, until their tips go white with the pressure.
With a curse I find my pants and pull out my own phone and one quick search later and I know exactly what Ren is looking at.
Bonded Behind Closed Doors, the Ashbourne Pack Couldn’t Wait.
There are pages of pictures of Isadora wearing a loosely tied scarf. A video of it slipping. The clip of the paparazzi asking if it’s a bite, knowing that it is.
It's a set-up, pure and simple, a fake.
But our girl doesn’t know that.
“Where were you all day?” she asks softly but doesn’t wait for an answer. “The whole time I’ve been here one of you has always been by my side. You never leave me alone and today… Today I was alone. What were you doing?”
“Getting ready for tonight,” I say quickly. “For bringing you to the theater. Getting things in order. Securing the venue.”
Her brow wrinkles. “And that took all day?”
“Well, no.”
“So you were with her?”
We all exchange a look. Its Court that blurts out. “It’s not what you think, Pix. I swear.”
Moisture fills her eyes, shimmers along her lower lashes and it kills me. But she’s still here, still standing in front of us, and that’s a gift. “So explain it to me, please.”
All of us sag in relief. And I’m nodding emphatically. “Yes. Of course. We went to have a conversation with her, to tell her-”
“To tell her we would never bond her, never marry her, never elevate her to the position of princess,” Grieves finishes bluntly for me.
“We wanted to be clear of her before we made a true commitment to you,” Court adds. “It was important to all of us that we start this next section of our lives with no roadblocks.”
Piers brushes his fingers lightly over hers, trying to get her to loosen her grip on her phone. “She didn’t take it well.”
I snort. “That’s putting it mildly.”
Florence looks back at her phone, at the image there. “How did she end up with a bite on her neck?”
“Are we sure she did?” Grieves asks, pushing into her back to peer over her shoulder at the screen. “I wouldn’t put it past her to fake it just to cause problems.”
Our omega hums as she zooms in on the picture. “It looks real.”
God, what a gift she is, letting us explain, believing us when we’ve given very little reason for her to.
“What happened after you told her you weren’t going to be with her?” This question is directed at Forsythe who scrubs a hand over his mouth.
“She… tried to change our minds.” He’s inching around the truth, clearly not wanting to give specifics.
But Florence deserves to know everything so I explain, “she dosed herself with a heat stimulant. It caused a spike while we were with her. She thought it would force us into a rut.”
“She did what?” Florence hisses, fingers tight on her phone again. Piers tsks and plucks the cell from her hand, probably worried she might throw it against the wall.
Our prime slides his palm to the back of her neck and squeezes. “Settle, omega. Settle.”
“It didn’t work,” Grieves adds and we all watch as Ren melts a little, sagging between the two alphas. “As soon as she started perfuming, we left, went to a hotel and showered off her scent.”
“So how did she end up with a bite on her neck?”
“That is not our bite. Not my bite,” Forsythe growls at Florence who is watching him with the wariness that has faded of late back in her eyes.
“No? Then whose is it?”
I shrug. “She’s getting desperate. The queen too. She was probably hoping you’d see that bite, jump to the worst conclusion and leave without talking to us about it.”
A furrow appears between Florence’s brows and she tilts her head to get a better look at the bite on Isadora’s neck, partially hidden by a scarf, like she was trying to hide it and it slipped. But the glint in her eyes tells me she knew exactly what she was doing.
“So she let someone else bite her? Do you think she bonded them?” For some reason, Ren sounds saddened by the notion. “Do you think she was desperate during her heat spike and some alpha took advantage?”
“I doubt it’s a bonding bite,” Piers says, also tilting his head. “She wouldn’t want to risk her position with our pack by bonding with someone else. Even in a spike, like that, she would have enough control to not allow that.”
Ren’s nose wrinkles adorably. “Does that mean she had a beta bite her?” Her eyes flick to Piers.
“Not that I have a problem with it. I really want you to bite me too. But it’s just…
I know it’s going to hurt like a sonofabitch, worse than an alpha bite, and I can’t imagine doing it with anyone but a soul mate. ”
My chest goes all melty as he beams at her. “I want that too, little bird. So bad.”
Ren gives him a sparkling smile, but then she grows serious. “That she would go through that pain just for this, on the slim chance that I wouldn’t ask you about it… She’s a little deranged, isn’t she?”
“Oh, Pixie, you have no bloody idea.”
“I suppose the fact that she tried to lure you into a rut with a fake heat should have tipped me off before that.”
Forsythe’s mouth tips into a smile. “She’s going to face a veritable shitstorm for this when we show up bitten and bonded to you.”
Ren startles, blinking up at him in shock. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
He runs a knuckle down her cheek before brushing over a spot on her neck, that I know he’s going to claim as his own, right at the front, where everyone will see.
“We’re going to bond, cor mea. As soon as you're ready, I’m going to sink my teeth into your neck and claim you for my pack, for me.
You want that, don’t you? To be ours? For me to bite you right here so everyone knows who you belong to? ”
Ren’s staring up at him with a dazed expression on her face, that grows even more heated as he lifts her hand to his own neck, pressing her fingers into the skin just under his jaw.
“And you’re going to bite me right here, where no shirt will cover, where there will be no doubt for anyone that I am taken, that I belong to you. ”
A sweet little growl rolls out of our omega. “Mine.” That one word has my cock harder than steel.
“That’s right, Florence. Yours.” Forsythe strokes over her pulse point. “Whenever you're ready, you can bite all of us.”
Some of the haze clears from her eyes. “And-and you’ll all bite me too?
” The uncertainty in the question guts me.
But I can’t really blame her. She’s worried that we’ll only want a one way bond, one that will fade over time.
That’s what happens when an omega bites an alpha.
It creates a bond, but not one strong enough to last.
“‘Course we will, bubbles,” Grieves is the first to reassure her.
“I already have my spot all picked out,” Court adds. “I actually have two spots picked out. One where everyone will see and one that's just for me.” He gives her a saucy little wink.
Ren’s cheeks flush, even as she turns to look at me. “I’ll bite you right now if you want, killer. I’m more than ready to have your blood in my mouth and my mark on your pretty skin.”
Her eyes do that hazy blinking thing she was doing earlier and she nods. “Okay. Yes. Let’s do it now.”
My whole pack goes still, eyes sharp on the omega in our midst, hunters sighting the most important prey of their lives. Ren has gone still too, as though she just realized the danger she’s in.
Not real danger but inviting a pack of wolves to bite her is like waving a steak in front of a lion.
“You’re sure?” Sythe asks, voice rough with a growl that is entirely his alpha.
“I am.” Ren nods. “Unless you’re not?”
The grin he gives her is all wolf. “Oh, love. You have no fucking clue how ready I am.” His smile drops and he reaches out to tenderly trace her face.
“But today has been a lot. You’ve faced down my grandmother, been shot at, worried about Grieves and have just been confronted with an image of Isadora with a bite on her neck.
I don’t want you to do something you’re going to regret come morning, after you’ve had a chance to rest, to come down. ”
A low growl sounds from our omega. Adorable and tiny.
Displeased. “I won’t regret it. I would have bonded with you months ago, back on that stupid island, if you’d given me any indication at all that you wanted it, that you wanted me.
But you were so focused on your duty, that I knew you’d never choose me.
” Her fingers move to the hem of the t-shirt she only just put on.
“But you have, haven’t you? You’ve picked me? You want me?”
“So much,” I growl out, unable to keep from taking one stalking step toward her.
With a smug little smirk on her lips, she inches the fabric up and up and up, revealing her soft, sweet skin to us inch by inch.
“Then what better way to prove it, then to bond with me? Imagine it. Isadora shows up with one half ass bite on her neck. Tomorrow, I’ll show up with five fully healed mating marks and a bite on each of you.” She whips the shirt over her head and off, damp hair swinging around her bare shoulders.
We all stand and stare at her, take in the beauty of her naked body, the dips and curves of her. The long lean muscles, the flare of confidence in her eyes, almost a challenge. Like she’s daring us to take her, to make good on the promises made to bite her, bond her.
“You’re sure, bubbles?” Grieves asks again, sounding for all the world like he’s barely holding himself back.
She doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t pause or take a breath. Just smiles that sunshine smile that I love so damn much. “I’m sure.”