Chapter 13 #3
"You are ours. Our omega. Our mate. Our reason for existing." His forehead pressed against mine, his breath warm on my lips. "And we will burn the entire world before we let anyone hurt you again."
They surrounded me. Four massive bodies, eight arms, four growling chests pressed close. I couldn't tell where one ended and another began. They were a wall. A fortress. A barrier between me and a world that wanted to own me.
Riven's growl was constant now, a low, vibrating sound that I could feel in my bones. His claws were still out, still bloody. He looked like he wanted to destroy something, and the only thing stopping him was the fact that I was in his arms.
"You're never going back." His voice was ragged. "Not to that ship. Not to land. Not anywhere humans can touch you."
"I have to go back. The potion only lasts—"
"We'll get more. We'll get the transformation potion.
We'll do whatever it takes." His voice broke on the last word.
"I can't—I can't send you back there knowing what they'd do to you if they found out.
I can't watch you climb onto that ship and pretend to be something you're not while alphas who would hurt you sleep ten feet away. "
"Riven—"
"He's right." Vale's voice was ice and silk and something sharp underneath.
"We've been watching you go back to that ship every night, and it's been killing us.
But we thought, we thought the human world was safe for you, somehow.
That you were just passing through it, hiding temporarily until you found somewhere better. "
"We didn't know," Thane's voice was thick with tears. "We didn't know what you were hiding from. What would happen to you if they caught you."
"We should have known." Kaelan's arms tightened around me. "We should have asked sooner. We should have—"
"You couldn't have known." I reached up and touched his face. His beautiful, terrible, inhuman face. "No one knows. That's the point. Humans don't talk about it. It's just... how things are. How things have always been."
"Not for us." His dark eyes burned into mine.
"Among our kind, omegas are treasured. Protected.
Worshipped. The idea of selling one, of treating one like property, of forcing one to work and hide and be afraid—" He stopped.
His jaw was clenched so tight I could see the muscles jumping. "It's obscene. It's an abomination."
"That's why I ran. Because I knew there had to be something better. Somewhere I could just... be," I told them softly.
"You found it." Riven pressed his forehead to my shoulder, his massive body curled around me. "You found us. And we are never, ever letting you go."
I was shaking. The intensity of it all—their rage, their protectiveness, their overwhelming presence—it was too much. My omega was overwhelmed, caught between relief and terror and something else I couldn't name.
Kaelan saw it. Of course he did. He saw everything. He cupped my face in both hands, tilting my head up until I had no choice but to look at him. His dark eyes captured mine, and I couldn't look away.
"Lily," His voice dropped into something deeper. Something that resonated in my bones, my blood, the very marrow of me. It wasn't just sound—it was command. Power. Authority that demanded obedience not through fear, but through something far more primal.
Alpha voice.
"You are safe."
The words wrapped around me like a physical thing. My muscles went loose. My racing thoughts went quiet. Everything that was clenched and terrified inside me just... let go.
"You are ours. No one will ever sell you, touch you, hurt you again." His thumbs stroked my cheekbones, impossibly gentle. "Do you understand?"
I couldn't do anything but nod. My voice had abandoned me. My whole body felt like warm honey, liquid and pliant in his arms.
"Good omega," the words washed over me like warm water, like sunlight, like everything soft and safe I'd ever wanted. "Such a good omega. You did so well, telling us. You were so brave. We have you now. We're never letting go."
A sound escaped me, something between a whimper and a sigh. My omega was singing with contentment, with relief, with the bone-deep knowledge that I was claimed. That I belonged.
"That's it." His voice was softer now, but still layered with that power, that authority that made every cell in my body stand at attention. "That's our good girl. Our perfect omega. You're safe now. You're home."
I believed him.
That was the terrifying part.
I believed him, and I wasn't afraid.
He was still holding my face. Still looking at me with those bottomless dark eyes, still close enough that I could see the flecks of silver in his irises, still radiating that alpha authority that made me want to bare my throat and submit completely.
"I'm going to kiss you now."
Not a question. Not asking permission. Just... telling me. Giving me a moment to stop him if I wanted.
I didn't wait. I tilted my chin up, the smallest movement, but he saw it. His eyes flared with something hot and hungry and intensely satisfied—alpha satisfaction at omega submission. I felt it too, felt my omega preening at having pleased him.
"Good girl," he murmured, and then his mouth claimed mine.
The world disappeared. There was nothing but him—his lips on mine, firm and demanding, his hands cradling my face like I was something precious and breakable, his body solid and real against me.
He kissed me like he was claiming my soul.
Like he'd been waiting centuries for this moment and refused to waste a single second of it.
My omega keened.
Not out loud, or maybe out loud, I couldn't tell anymore. But somewhere inside me, something that had been clenched and frightened for years finally let go. Finally surrendered. Finally found what it had been looking for.
Alpha. Our alpha. Pack alpha. OURS.
I made a sound against his mouth—something between a whimper and a moan—and he swallowed it.
Devoured it. His tongue swept against my lower lip, and I opened for him without thought, without hesitation, without anything except the overwhelming need to be closer.
His tongue slid against mine, and I forgot how to breathe.
He tasted like the ocean. Like salt and depth and something darker underneath, something ancient and predatory and utterly, completely mine.
One of his hands slid from my face to the back of my neck, gripping firmly.
Possessively. Holding me in place while he explored my mouth, laid claim to every corner of it, branded himself onto my very soul.
I whimpered. Actually whimpered. And pressed closer, my hands fisting in his hair, my body arching against his like I could crawl inside him if I just got close enough. He growled against my mouth, a low, vibrating sound that I felt in my teeth and the hand on my neck tightened.
"Mine." The word was more growl than speech, pressed against my lips between kisses. "You're mine, Lily. Say it."
"Yours," the word came out broken. Desperate. "I'm yours."
"Good omega." Another kiss, deeper this time, more demanding. "Such a good omega. Taking my kiss so sweetly. Submitting so perfectly."
My whole body was trembling. I'd never felt anything like this. I'd spent my entire life being afraid of alphas, running from them, hiding from them—and now I was pressed against one, being kissed until I couldn't think, and I had never felt safer in my entire life.
He kissed me until I was dizzy. Until my hands were fisted in his hair hard enough to hurt. Until my body was arched against his, seeking more contact, more heat, more of him. When he finally pulled back, I was gasping. Wrecked. Destroyed and rebuilt in the space of a single kiss.
"Mine," he said against my lips, his voice rough with want. "Ours. Forever."
I couldn't speak. Could barely think. My lips were tingling, my whole body was humming, and my omega was practically vibrating with satisfaction.
Pack alpha kissed us. Pack alpha claimed us. We belong now. We belong.
Then I became aware of the others. They were watching. Of course they were watching—they'd been right there the whole time. But now I could see their faces. Could see the HUNGER written across every feature.
Riven looked like he was about to come apart at the seams. His golden eyes were molten, his chest heaving, his claws flexing in and out of visibility.
Vale's silver eyes had gone dark, predatory, fixed on my mouth like he was memorizing the shape of it.
Thane's breath was coming fast, his gentle face transformed by raw want.
They were waiting.
Waiting for their turn.
"Not yet," Kaelan's voice was rough, but there was a note of possessive satisfaction in it. "She's had enough for today. There will be time."
Riven made a sound of protest, low, desperate, almost pained. He surged forward, and for a moment I thought he was going to ignore the command entirely. His golden eyes were fixed on my mouth, on my lips still swollen from Kaelan's kiss, and the hunger in his expression was almost violent.
"Riven." Kaelan's voice dropped into that register again—the one that resonated in bones and blood. "I said not yet."
Riven went still, though his whole body was trembling with the effort of restraint. A sound escaped him, something between a growl and a whine—and his claws dug into his own forearms hard enough to draw fresh blood.
"She's right there." His voice was wrecked. "She just, she told us everything, she's crying and scared and I need to—I need—"
"I know." Kaelan's voice softened slightly, though his arms around me didn't loosen. "I know what you need. But she needs gentleness right now. She needs time to process."
"I can be gentle." Riven's eyes found mine, and I saw the desperation underneath the hunger. "I would be so gentle with you, little human. I would worship you. I would—"