Chapter 3
Violet
My eyes fluttered shut as Skye tipped a cup of lukewarm water over my head. My stomach cramped and my entire body shook as my fingers clasped the edge of the marble tub.
This heat was going to kill me.
I was so desperate for touch that I was practically crawling out of my skin. I’d even willingly let Logan have sex with me if it meant taking his knot. It’s not like I’d stay pregnant if anything happened.
But I didn’t have to worry about that, because I had not one but two alphas in this house.
I’d met Serena earlier; she was nice and smelled like roasted hazelnut, but another was lurking in the home.
Their scent was all over everything; it was coffee and cinnamon.
My mind ran wild with the idea of who the mystery alpha might be.
Another cup of water hit my face, and my eyes jerked open to see Skye staring at me. I liked Skye; his hands were soft, and he smelled like honey. His electric blue eyes were trained on mine as he massaged conditioner into my hair.
Slowly, I reached up with a dripping hand and traced his boyish features before swooping a few mahogany curls away from his face.
He’d taken his shirt off when we’d started the bath, and while I did my best not to look, it was hard not to notice the bite marks scarred onto his trapezius muscles, nestled between a few tattoos, almost as if he intended to frame it.
Slowly, I ran a finger along the ridged skin. Yeah, it was proof two alphas had claimed him, but the marks were clean and well cared for. My mind drifted to the night Logan marked me even after I told him no.
He had a few of his henchmen hold me down as he bit my left ring finger. Proof I was his, but it was easily hidden under my wedding band.
My stomach twisted as I looked at Skye’s scars once more. He was pregnant, which meant he’d done his duty as an omega. Of course, his alphas loved him, but I was defective.
“Hey, you still with me?” He clamped a warm hand on either side of my face.
I nodded.
“Good, I was a little worried you might have a concussion, you know, after Serena hit you with the car.”
I blinked at him, lips parting slightly.
Right. That had happened.
Between my heat and the panic of running from Logan, I’d barely registered the pain, but now that Skye mentioned it, the back of my shoulder throbbed, and my knees stung like hell.
He reached for another cup of water, but before he could dip it into the tub, the door creaked open. I didn’t bother to look; I could smell the alphas. Excitement prickled my skin, and I tried to suppress the subtle clench of my knees.
“Skye,” Serena’s voice carried in. “You need to lie down. Vinny and I will take over.”
Vinny.
That must be the coffee-scented alpha.
Skye didn’t listen at first, he continued to twist his fingers through my wet hair.
“It’s okay, we're almost done,” he promised, looking over his shoulder. “Do you have clothes for Violet? Her dress is filthy.”
“We’ve got it,” Serena replied, stepping fully into the bathroom with a bundle of fabric folded over one arm. “But you need to rest, Skye. You’re carrying the pack’s baby.”
He shot Serena a weary look, but he complied.
With a soft groan, Skye pushed himself to his feet, one hand resting on the gentle swell of his belly.
My head cocked to the side, and I wondered how they trained their omegas, if they’d locked Skye in a room and starved him when he didn’t listen. Or maybe they’d pushed him outside naked during Florida’s one and only snowstorm last December.
Or maybe those were only things done to me.
Skye reached the doorway, and Serena leaned in to kiss his cheek, brushing her knuckles over his stomach with a tenderness that made my throat tighten. Then, a tall man whom I assumed to be Vinny placed a hand on the small of Skye’s back and pressed a kiss to his temple.
My brow furrowed as I watched with a feeling I couldn’t quite place. I wasn’t envious; Skye deserved this life. But, the bone-deep ache in my sternum lingered, growing sharper as I watched the three.
After a moment, Skye trotted out of the room, shutting the door behind him. I sank lower into the tub and pretended I hadn’t been staring at them.
The alphas circled the tub, and while Serena knelt beside me, Vinny stood against the wall, crossing his arms.
I looked up at him and did my best closed lip smile.
“Christ,” he mumbled under his breath, shaking his head. “Serena, that’s a kid.”
My forehead creased as my lips parted. I almost said I was twenty, and I’d be twenty-one in October. I was a full-grown adult, thank you very much. But, after two years of not speaking, my lips and tongue didn’t cooperate, leaving me to sit there, gaping like a fish.
Vinny didn’t mean to insult me, I don’t think. His voice wasn’t cold, just… stunned. Like he couldn’t reconcile the mess in the tub with whatever image he’d expected.
Serena didn’t miss a beat.
“She’s not a kid,” she said, kneeling beside the tub again. “She’s an adult omega.”
Vinny’s arms locked tighter as he stared at the wall above me.
“She looks like she should be in a college dorm, not soaking in my bathtub.”
It was decided then and there that I didn’t like Vinny.
Because he was right, I should be in a college dorm, studying horticulture, or ancient literature, or something equally as brainy and useless.
I’d get away with it because I was pretty and interesting–just like how I’d gotten away with everything else in my life.
Unfortunately, being pretty and witty didn’t end with me skating through life; it ended up with me being used to settle a debt I never created. And again, I tried to tell him just that, but the only sound I made was a pathetic rasp.
Finally, Vinny looked down at me, but his next words weren’t sorry for talking about you like you weren’t here.
Instead, he doubled down.
“She can’t even fucking talk,” he spat.
I flinched, not because he hurt my feelings, but because he was right and I was embarrassed.
“Vinny,” Serena said quietly, but firm enough to make him stop. “Shouting about it won’t help her.”
He cleared his throat and looked away, and I flipped him off under the safety of the water. I’d never put effort into learning how to sign; I didn’t have to, but a middle finger seemed to be universally understood.
Serena either didn’t notice my bit of rebellion or didn’t care; either way, she leaned in and I nuzzled against her, desperate to smell her once more.
“We’re going to help you through your heat, is that okay?” She purred in my ear.
I nodded far too fast, causing the water around me to slosh. I wanted her so bad, I could feel it in my bones.
I wanted her to bite me, to mark me like she had Skye and keep me beside her forever.
I’d been a good little omega for the wrong alpha for years; imagine how good I could be for the right one.
Sure, my uterus was shit, but Skye made the heir, I could cook, clean, and be on her beck and call.
I wanted to have sex with her, and even if a time came when I didn’t, I knew how to fake it.
“But, it’s going to take both of us, okay?” Serena continued, and my elation nearly turned into sorrow, but then I realized she was right.
Serena was an Alpha, but she was a girl. Sex toys existed, but artificial knots were rarely as good as the real thing. I’d even been skeptical about the one at the clinic, but seeing as it kept Logan from sleeping with me, I accepted that it would work.
But, if I had to choose between Silicone sating the need but not scratching the itch, or a real, thick, meaty alpha knot, even one attached to Vinny, I’d choose the real deal.
Plus, if I dealt with him, I’d get to be with Serena, and I was so eager to please my new alpha.
Swallowing hard, I grabbed the loofah Skye so tenderly washed me with and lathered it up before beckoning Serena closer.
She extended her arm, and I pushed her sleeve up. My stomach fluttered as I noticed the tattoos covering her arms. I was practically salivating over this woman, but now wasn’t the time. I had to be patient.
Grabbing the loofa, I spread a thick layer of white suds on Serena’s arm before writing Please, fuck me in the foam.
Serena’s green eyes lit up as she smirked, and I licked my lips and whistled just to get Vinny’s attention. Tonight, we would have sex because I allowed it, and I would use him as Logan used me for the last two years.
My new alpha was nowhere near as gracious as I thought she was. If she’d been as kind and merciful as I assumed, she’d have fucked me on the bathroom sink. But no, we had to eat dinner first. Not like I could eat with my skin on fire.
But, she dressed me in one of her shirts and allowed me to sit on her lap while the rest of the pack enjoyed the spaghetti Benji so lovingly prepared.
Someone muttered an apology, something about Skye craving it, and Skye explained he used the tags in my dress and sweater to order me a few more outfits but they wouldn’t be here for a few days.
I didn’t give a single fuck about any of it.
For years, I’d learned to fight against my biology and suppress all embarrassing urges during my heat.
It was not becoming to have Mrs. Stellar panting like a bitch in front of strangers, grinding down on her new alpha’s thigh like some desperate low-brow omega.
Not like I ever wanted to grind on Logan, or have myself covered in his scent.
But, Gods help me, if Serena didn’t mark me tonight, I’d die.
I rolled my hips against hers, doing everything in my power to make it through dinner. It was humiliating, and I’d soaked her thigh with my slick. She had to feel it. She had to.
But she wasn’t making me apologize or locking me in the den; she just rubbed my back with her free hand and purred behind me.
The sound was a low rumble, almost like a motorcycle, and it made my body feel warm, not like the heat, but like a fuzzy blanket fresh out of the dryer. And it was relaxing, and it made me a little sleepy, but I was so horny I could barely breathe.
“Little Omega.” Her breath warmed my ear, and I whimpered. “Are you sure you don’t want to eat?”
Ten days. That’s how long it’d been since I had a meal.
From the second the nurse at the clinic injected me with the heat serum, I’d been too hot to even think about eating.
If I’d been in a regular heat, I would have been a mindless husk of myself, but the medication First Heat used wouldn’t allow me that comfort.
I shook my head and rocked against her harder.
I could eat after, maybe then I wouldn’t be so nauseous.
Serena sighed before tracing patterns on my shoulder blades.
“Vinny,” she said. “You ready?”
A pause. Then the soft scrape of a chair being pushed back.
“Yeah,” he replied, his voice far rougher than I expected. “Let’s get her comfortable.”