Chapter 20
Twenty
Cooper
S he’s here. I keep my feet planted as I watch her, but there’s another alpha who keeps touching her. I don’t fucking like that.
Her glances keep moving between us, and I flinch as Ethan puts his hand on my shoulder.
“Chill, old man,” he mutters. “We have a lot to talk to her about, and none of it will be easy. Keep it together.”
Yeah, that’s easier said than done. I’m losing myself. I know that, but I can’t keep it from happening. Inhaling deeply, my eyes nearly cross as I smell her heavenly scent.
Fuck, I’ve missed everything about her. I’ve kept myself from being anywhere near Nina, because I can’t be trusted right now. I’m being ridden hard by my baser instincts. In fact, it feels as if logic is not only taking a back seat, but I threw it out of the fucking car.
Breathe.
Yeah, I’m really losing it here.
“What does it mean to be a feral alpha?” Nina asks tentatively, peeking at me again from underneath her long lashes.
Standing taller because my omega is looking at me, I puff out my chest. While I don’t think Silas told her that I was an alpha, there’s no way I could be anything else.
“It means that he’s met his scent match, but hasn’t bonded with her,” Riley replies, pulling her attention. “He’s constantly pining for his omega, and it’s making him lose his ability to process anything outside of finding her. Logic doesn’t matter to him, nothing does outside of his omega.”
“Can… it be reversed?” she asks. There’s no pity in her mismatched eyes, just wonder.
I need her more than anything else. Even breathing, food, or sleep. Anything else isn’t important.
“No idea,” I rumble, my voice sounding like broken glass. It barely passes for words at this point.
“Nina, I need to get on the road before I get stuck here. You saw how the snow is coming down,” Silas murmurs.
There’s a hint of unease in her face before she nods.
“Are you going all the way back to Georgia?” she asks.
“No, I’m staying in a cabin not far from here,” he says.
“My pack really did come up before me. However, I want you to spend time with your pack, because they have been waiting a long time for you. It was never that we didn’t want you, Nina.
We just knew it was up to us to help you find what you’ve lost.”
“Lost…” she whispers, rubbing her temple as if it hurts.
“Take your time,” Silas murmurs. “Can you handle this?”
“I can,” she sighs. “I feel as if everyone else is looped into a conversation I just joined.”
“That’s because that’s exactly what this is,” he winces.
The alpha opens the door and slips out, and Nina jumps a little as it slams closed due to the wind.
“Nina,” Ethan says carefully. “Why don’t you take off your boots and come sit down.”
She doesn’t say anything as she leans down to unzip her shoes and drops them onto the floor. She’s moving slowly, and any other day if I was myself I’d take control by telling her she’s a brat, but it’s clear she’s processing things .
“So everything you told me was a lie, huh?” she asks, turning to face him. “You don’t have a boyfriend who’s a med student and you’re not really new in Savannah.”
“That’s all true,” Ethan says. “I spent a few of my childhood years in Savannah, but didn’t return until you came back.”
“That doesn’t answer anything,” she whines.
I want to take her in my arms and hug her. There are bags under her eyes, signs that she’s not sleeping well. I’m unsurprised that she’s pushing back about this.
“Also, I am the boyfriend,” Riley says, raising a hand. “I really enjoy the stories he has whenever he sees you. My schedule is insane, but he stockpiles every moment so he can tell me about it.”
“And what do you think about it?” she asks, moving to a corner of the couch to curl up into. “I told him I’m not a homewrecker.”
“You let me kiss you,” Ethan teases her.
My hand flies through the air so fast, he grunts in pain as he rubs the back of his head.
“Sorry, that was mean,” he mutters. “You could never be a homewrecker, Little Queen.”
“We talked about nicknames,” she says automatically. I have a feeling this is an argument they have often.
“That was before you found out you were ours,” he says.
“I don’t know that,” she argues. “Ugh, none of this makes sense. I was supposed to belong to one of the four packs that were courting me, but none of them wanted to choose. So my mother fucking beat me?—“
“Vivian did what?” I snarl. “No one told us that.”
“It’s fine,” Nina says, waving a hand in a motion reminiscent of her mother. Except this is her not wanting to talk about it.
Toeing off my shoes, I walk quickly, jumping onto my hands and knees on the couch next to her. I’m not a small man, and she gasps as she bounces too.
“It’s not fine,” I grumble, beginning to crawl closer to her. I remember a time when I wondered what it would be like to have her crawl to me, but I’m no longer interested in power dynamics. The blue flecks of her eyes seem to swirl within the green and it’s mesmerizing, pulling me closer.
“There aren’t any marks anymore,” she breathes as she looks up at me as I hover over her.
“The marks you can’t see are sometimes the most painful,” I say, my palm gently rubbing over her heart.
I know this would be considered inappropriate since she doesn’t remember me anymore, but I’ve never been very good about social niceties. Her blonde strands pull my attention away, and I bite my lip. Fuck it. I’m going to shoot my shot.
“The pink in your hair was one of my favorite looks on you. It feels odd to not see it anymore,” I murmur.
I can feel the tension behind me. I’m the wild card here.
I know it, but I can’t stop the words coming out of my mouth.
“You know why I loved it so much? It was authentically you. Just like whatever is under this wig is too.”
Her pupils are blowing out with a mixture of fear and arousal, and I can’t help but love both of those reactions.
The brute inside of me wants to chase, claim, and fuck her.
It’s very difficult for me to repress my instincts anymore.
Nina can’t close her legs because my body is between them, her slick beginning to perfume the air around us.
“Will you show me?” I beg, my nose burying in her throat and inhaling deeply. My teeth fucking ache to mark her, bite my omega so she’ll always be mine. I can’t though, not yet, and I’m irrationally angry about that.
She smells so fucking good. My tongue wants to swipe up the column of her delicate neck to taste her, but I wrestle back the urge. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“It’s ugly,” Nina whimpers, her head dropping back to give me more access.
That’s all the permission I need to suck on her pulse point, loving the way she mewls for me .
“You could never be fucking ugly,” I rumble. “There’s a light inside of you that can’t be extinguished. Whether or not you have hair anywhere on your body isn’t going to change that.”
Biting her lip, she glances at her hat where it fell and then pulls off her wig. The three of us stare for a moment before I grin.
“I think you’re the only one in the world who can pull this off. You’re gorgeous,” I murmur, my hand cupping the back of her head.
I’m in her personal space, but I can’t get myself to move. My lips travel down her face to her chin, and Nina seems to tremble with anticipation. Everyone has hesitated around her. It’s all been for very good reasons, yet it has left her feeling unwanted.
That’s unacceptable.
My lips press against hers, waiting for her to respond. Her little noises are loud in the quiet of the house, and she opens her lips slightly for me. Slowly, deliberately, I devour her, and she drops the wig to fist my hair as I kiss her.
I’m very careful not to crush her or lay fully on top of her body. All I can smell is honeysuckle, it completely surrounds me. My fingers claw at the pillow behind her head, struggling to rein myself in. Nina sucks in little puffs of air as if she’s starved, or trying to smell me.
We still don’t know how ruined her sense of smell is after the water boarding.
“I think I could kiss you forever,” I mutter, my eyes gazing into hers as they flutter open.
“I hate that I can’t smell you,” she sighs. “You feel so right, but I’m still broken.”
“Not broken,” I growl, dragging her with me as I sit up to cuddle her in my lap. “Being able to tell if we’re your scent match or not doesn’t change the fact that we are.”
Ethan moves over to sit next to us, pulling her feet into his lap. He takes off her socks and begins to rub her feet absently as Riley sits on the coffee table. Nina lays her head on my chest as my arm wraps around her waist, and I vow I’m going to do whatever possible to keep her.
“Mine,” I purr against her hair. She rubs her cheek against my shirt before squeaking in embarrassment. “Why did you stop?”
“I’m scent marking you,” she gasps, looking up at me. Color runs high in her cheeks, and she looks adorable.
“Good, I like it,” I say, pulling my shirt off and tossing it to the side. “Come do it some more.”
Her lips twitch slightly in amusement, and she lays back against me with a happy sigh. Her fingers gently rub against my chest where my heart beats just for her as if mesmerized. Ethan and Riley leave her to it before one of them clears their throat.
“What?” she asks petulantly, pouting. My lips curve in a smile, leaving the other men to look at me as if I’ve lost it.
Yeah, I haven’t exactly been a joy to deal with lately.
My thumb moves to tug her lip down teasingly, but that makes my cock thicken underneath her ass. I’m imagining all the things her mouth can do, and her head lifts to gaze up at me.
“Are you having dirty thoughts?” she teases me.
God, there are so many ways she’s changed, yet others where she’s still herself. Her eyes glitter with mischief, her body language more open than it ever was before.
“The filthiest,” I growl, enjoying the way she shivers. “Before I act on any of them, we need to talk about a few things.”