Seventy-Four
SEVENTY-FOUR
Luca
PAINFUL NEED DRAGGED me from the warm darkness where I’d been resting, but this time it had been joined by a different kind of desire.
Oh, god. I knew what was coming next, and my body had spent years learning to fear it. I’d barely regained consciousness, and already the garbled words were pressing against the back of my teeth.
Bite me.
Mark me.
Mate me .
For years, every natural heat I’d been forced to endure had ended up with me begging desperately for something I couldn’t have—hating myself even as the pathetic words poured out of me.
I was so tired... my mind too out of it to know up from down. Something niggled at me, trying to convince me that things had changed. That it would be different this time. A feral presence stirred inside me, and with a jolt, I recognized Emiel.
Emiel had mated me. We’d both been too screwed up to mate anyone except each other. I remembered that. But Emiel had worked so hard, and he’d gotten better. He’d mated Mia, too.
In fact, he was balls-deep in her right now, his knot swelling after fucking her. She must’ve woken up before I did. I could kind of feel her, but it was buried beneath Emiel’s sudden worry. My mate jerked his head up to look at me, but he couldn’t reach me. He was knotted to someone else, and he was unhappy .
He was unhappy because of me . Because I was freaking out. Just like I always freaked out after a few days in the heat nest.
I was upsetting my alpha. I was a terrible mate, just like I’d known I would be! And any minute now, I was going to start begging the others to bite me—even though I knew I didn’t deserve a pack. I would only make them miserable with my fucked-up bullshit, just like I was making Emiel miserable right now!
A panicked whimper escaped me. Emiel growled, needing to get to me and unable to do it, because he was tied to Mia. Now Mia was upset, too. I could feel it through the bond.
Suddenly, I was the center of attention, everyone’s eyes on me. Byron and Zalen immediately started toward me. All three alphas had gone into rut over the past couple of days. There weren’t going to be any soothing words from Zalen, trying to sugar-coat the fact that they wouldn’t bite me. They’d just reject me outright, because I wasn’t good enough.
Desperate to keep from begging them for what they wouldn’t give me, I crab-crawled backward until my shoulder hit something hard—my dresser? I yelped at the sharp pain and curled into myself, old fear swirling together with new.
“Hey!” A beta voice cut through the fog in my head. “Luca... Luca ! Hey, now—easy, there.”
Someone knelt beside me, and my instincts whispered ‘safe.’ Unable to hold back a keening sob, I let Nat gather me up in his arms and crush me against his chest. He smelled like sweat and sex, not like lime or coconut or aniseed or fennel. But his skin was warm against mine, and he rocked me gently as I clawed back against the panic.
“Luca. Sweetheart. What is it? What’s wrong?” he asked.
I’d upset him , too.
The urge to collapse into hysterical tears twined horrifically together with the urge to jump onto his dick. My body tried to tear itself in two different directions—uncontrollable lust and desperate grief. I would be the only one not mated to all three alphas...able to sense the pack bond through Emiel, but not truly a part of it.
Still trapped outside.
Nat took my face between his hands, forcing me to look at him. His expression was blurry in the low light of the nest. Was I crying after all?
“Luca,” Nat said evenly. “You’re scaring us. Tell me what you need. Whatever it is, I swear I’ll make it happen, okay? But you have to tell me .”
I clamped my lips together and shook my head within the cage of his palms, biting the words back until it felt like my tongue would bleed. My traitorous dick throbbed, my passage clamping rhythmically around nothing.
“Luca.” Nat’s voice grew softer. Pleading. “Please trust me. I swear it’s going to be all right. Do you trust me?”
I remembered comfort in a dark, moldering office. Salvation arriving while I was being held down on a cold metal table. Another whimper forced its way out of my throat, the words I wanted to say rattling the bars of their cage.
“B-bite me,” I rasped. “Oh, god... I need it. Please... please m-mate me...”
Humiliation flooded me, just like it always did. Emiel’s growl rumbled into a lower register. A whimper not unlike my own came from Mia.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Nat said, wrapping me back up in his arms. “I honestly don’t think we could stop them, at this point.”
And before I could make sense of what was happening, Zalen and Byron’s scents surrounded me in a rich cloud. Nat loosened his grip as strong hands closed around me, tugging me back into the sea of cushions. A hard body pressed up behind me, and another one pressed against my front.
Byron’s cock slid into me, drawing a high-pitched cry from my lips. Zalen hitched me up a couple of inches, until my dick slid against his with every sharp thrust from Byron.
Vertigo sent the room spinning as all my blood rushed south. My voice sounded faraway to my own ears as I panted, “Oh, god... bite me, bite me !”
And before a fresh round of self-loathing could wash through me, teeth closed on the juncture of my neck and shoulder from behind. I screamed and came hard as Byron bit down, blood blooming beneath his assault.
The sharp presence, one that I’d only been able to sense as an echo before, exploded into my consciousness in a blast of possessive protectiveness. Before I could adjust to this new, impossible reality, my pack leader shoved Byron’s head out of the way and bit down over the fresh wound, layering his mark over the other alpha’s.
My vision wavered in and out, the spasms of my orgasm making my body jerk uncontrollably. The only thing holding me up was the two strong bodies I was trapped between. Zalen’s unmistakable fierce love flooded into me like a hurricane, swirling together with the equally violent forces of Byron and Emiel’s devotion.
Emiel’s worried growl settled back into a purr. Mia, no longer a mere echo in my awareness, also relaxed. Nat was there, too—relief and affection.
Byron groaned, spilling into me; his knot swelling. Was he gifting me with pups? A shiver of needy anticipation trembled through me at the thought. I could have pups from all of them after the past few days—even Nat. Three alpha purrs vibrated through me in response to the idea, along with one slightly startled beta gasp. I let my head fall forward against Zalen’s shoulder, hiding my smile there.
Was this real?
The stretch of the knot inside me was real. The pain of twin mating bites felt real, Byron and Zalen’s tongues taking turns lapping over them to soothe the hurt. When my muscles finally released Byron, some hazy amount of time later, it felt real when Zalen took his place and gently fucked me to sleep.
Omegas didn’t dream during our heats... but that was all right. I didn’t need to dream. I already had all my dreams, right here in this nest.