Seventy-Three
SEVENTY-THREE
Zalen
IN SOME WAYS, WAITING a few hours for Luca and Mia to surface from their period of rest was an exercise in self-control. After all, we were more than a day into the heat, and I still hadn’t come a single time.
In other ways, the lazy stretch of time spent guarding the nest from threats that didn’t exist was the deepest peace I’d experienced in years. Before my life had fallen apart, I’d sometimes stayed awake half the night, simply so I could feel Julie’s sleeping mind nestled inside my own. I’d let her dreams wash over me as a series of emotions, drinking in the long stretches of absolute serenity in between her REM cycles.
Of course, the crash that omegas experienced between the peaks when they ovulated wasn’t precisely sleep. For one thing, they didn’t dream. It was simply the physical price they paid to sustain the wild bouts of need that happened each time a new egg was released, ready to be fertilized by an alpha or male beta’s sperm.
Back when alphomic lines hadn’t been so thoroughly mixed with beta lines, it wasn’t unusual for omegas to whelp quadruplets, quintuplets, and even sextuplets—potentially with a different sire for each pup, if it was a pack mating. Most purebred omegas had four nipples, or sometimes six. These days, singles, twins, and occasionally triplets were more the norm, and extra nipples were becoming less common. But even so, omegas still peaked up to a dozen times in the heat nest.
And in between, they rested.
I was on the fringes of the bond, still connected only by the ephemeral link through Nat’s blood. But I could enjoy the hazy sense of five other people brushing up against my thoughts. And soon, that bond would deepen to its full potential.
Somehow, much to Byron’s disgust, both omegas and Nat had ended up in a messy pile half on top of Emiel. Byron had flopped down next to me, not having bothered with clothing after the last round. He hadn’t gone feral yet, but we’d clearly entered the ‘who gives a fuck’ stage of this heat.
Which, honestly, was when the real fun started—assuming everyone in the nest was happy.
“They’re starting to come out of it,” Byron said, lifting his head from where it had been thrown back against the beanbag chair he was resting against.
“Mm-hmm,” I agreed, my dick once again making its presence felt as omega horniness filtered into my consciousness from two directions. “You doing okay?”
I knew the answer already, of course. But I wanted to hear him say it.
“... Yeah,” he said, after a slight hesitation. “Yeah, I am. You?”
A needy whine was the only warning I got before I ended up with a lapful of Mia. Her sweet floral scent wafted around me in an intoxicating cloud.
“Better than I’ve been in a really long time,” I said, before further words were cut off by soft lips closing over mine in a deep, biting kiss.
I was only peripherally aware of Nat dragging Byron backwards and crawling on top of him in a sixty-nine position... or of Emiel spilling Luca backward onto a pile of pillows and diving between his legs to start eating him out with a rumbling purr.
“Mia,” I breathed into the fraction of space between us as she pulled back for air.
She whined again, clearly nonverbal at this point in the proceedings. Her dripping pussy smeared a wet patch on the track pants I’d somehow neglected to take off, as she rode my thigh in search of friction.
But we could do much better than that.
“Let’s get you filled up, beautiful girl,” I told her.
Mia’s deep brown eyes were huge and liquid with lust as I eased her into a nest of cushions. I could feel her shiver of pleasure in response to the words—filtered as it was through a thirdhand connection in the bond. I resolved to call her all the pet names, if that was what it took to get her to blush every single morning for the rest of our lives.
She arched and keened as I ran a possessive hand down the front of her body, from the hollow of her throat to the neat triangle of closely trimmed hair between her legs. Her scent intensified when I kept going, sliding my palm firmly over her engorged clit and rubbing circles with the heel of my hand.
Her pitiful mewling tugged at my self-control, and in the back of my head, something nagged at me... something I’d forgotten? But how important could it be when Mia was here on her back, wriggling deliciously as I slid three fingers into her clasping passage... then a fourth. The pulse of her muscles urged my fingers to curl inside her, forming a fist where my knot would be soon.
I let the rhythmic, rippling motion of her internal muscles move me alternately shallower and deeper, my thumb sliding roughly over her clit with every silky stroke. Her eyes never left mine, even as they grew glazed and faraway. I let my free hand roam over every part of her I could reach—cupping her perfect breasts... stroking over her throat and chin... sliding my fingers deep into her hot mouth.
Something primal rose up in my chest, bottomless and burning like lava.
Oh , I thought, as the sudden realization of what it was that I’d forgotten hit me. Right. I forgot to take another dose of dampeners. Well, shit .
And then it didn’t matter, because one of my mates was writhing around my hand, her muscles clenching in the unmistakable rhythm of orgasm as she sucked and bit at my fingers. Poof , went my rational mind, and all that mattered was the unfathomable fact that I wasn’t sheathed inside of her with my teeth buried in her neck.
A growl rumbled up from my chest, burning its way along my throat. It was a million fucking degrees inside this room, and it still wasn’t enough heat.
I knew where I could find the heat I craved.
Mia gave an excited gasp as I tore my fingers free of her mouth and pussy, flipping her bodily and hauling her upright so her back was pressed against my front. Half marching and half carrying her, I waded through the pillows to a bare stretch of wall near the door and pushed her against it. Her palms slapped against the drywall with a sharp sound, and she moaned as her breasts squished up against the unforgiving surface.
The mismatch in our heights meant I couldn’t get the right angle until I grabbed her hips with bruising force and hauled them up a few inches. She squeaked in surprise and scrabbled at the wall as her feet left the floor. But then I was thrusting into her, my big cock forcing its way into her hot, wet depths.
She shrieked as gravity pulled her down, burying me inside her to the hilt. My mind whited out, the need to repeat that motion again and again driving my hips and hands as I lifted her and slammed her back down.
Over and over, our bodies slapped together. Her legs kicked weakly at nothing a few times before bending at the knee to clamp around the backs of my thighs. I pinned her tightly against the wall with my upper body. Scent rose from her mating gland, reaching me like an irresistible siren call.
I only had to bend down a few inches to brush my lips over the swollen red gland with its double-ring of half-healed bite marks. The need to add my teeth to that messy pattern overwhelmed me as she shuddered in my grip, her muscles milking my cock with demanding force.
Mine .
I bit down, blood blooming across my tongue for the second time in the last twelve hours. I moaned as it flowed down my throat, my mouth flooding with saliva. My mate let out a high, wavering cry and spasmed around my dick, drawing out an orgasm that felt like it had been years in the making.
We collapsed downward, my knees giving out as my knot swelled. Instinctively, I cushioned my omega from the slow-motion fall, crying out around her bloody flesh as her body locked me into place inside her.
The bright, unfiltered sunshine that was Mia Dimitriadis exploded into the forefront of my awareness. She was drunk with her climax and mindless with the mating frenzy. Her consciousness was different in every way from Julie’s, and yet it fit perfectly within the space I’d carved out for her in my soul.
My feral growls softened into purring as I eased us sideways to lie curled up together. My tongue rasped over the fresh bite mark I’d just made with slow, easy strokes, soothing it.
One by one, each of my mate’s muscles went lax, until I was holding a soft bundle of sleek skin and amazing smells. The bond expanded, other presences that had been distant and blurry before coming into sharper focus. My dick throbbed in reaction to the rise and fall of sexual pleasure bombarding me from all directions. Mia moaned, a gentler climax rolling over her as I burrowed deeper into her body, curling my hips.
We lay like that until blood stopped beading around the dents made by my teeth in Mia’s neck. I readjusted my hold to tuck her even closer against me, letting the secondhand pleasure from the others wash over us as their increasingly wild coupling climbed toward its natural conclusion.
The other alphas were like me—lost to instinct. Nothing mattered except the biological imperatives that drove us. Fuck, mate, protect .
Time slid past without meaning, marked only by the loosening of Mia’s muscles around my softening knot. Eventually, I slipped free, unable to stifle a little whine of regret as my dick slid out of my mate’s passage. Unthinking, I wrapped a leg over hers to keep her in an even tighter hold against me, so she couldn’t leave me alone.
But Mia had no intention of leaving. She snuggled back, a contented little humming noise vibrating against me where her back pressed to my chest.
All was right with the world. Almost all. There was still one quicksilver presence in the bond who was too far away from me. But the next peak would come... as inevitable as the tide. And when it did, I would bury my teeth in another neck, until every single thing in this room was mine.
Mine to protect.
Mine to cherish.
Mine to worship until my last breath on this earth.