Chapter 61
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
By day two of my “courses,” Zolkan and Cylus have lightened up enough to allow Norabi into my bedroom.
She arrives with a breakfast tray, already glowering the moment she steps over the threshold. Her nose wrinkles—and the pouty expression on her face reminds me of Rask. “It smells like a pit in here,” she mutters.
Zolkan, much looser and less kingly than I’ve ever seen him, snaps out a quick growl from his place across the foot of my bed.
Cylus, propped up on my pillows behind me, glares over the rim of his frameless glasses.
He drops the cracked leather book—or “tome”—in his left hand, leaving it in the mussed sheets next to us.
When he opens his mouth to retort, I giggle and lay a hand on the arm wrapped around my waist. “Good morning to you, too,” I chirp at my friend, deliberately being annoying. “What brings you to our pit?”
Norabi watches Zolkan wrap his tail up my right leg, shaking her head with an eye roll. “I’ve brought you breakfast. These horn-dogs can walk downstairs and get their own.”
I snort a laugh, covering my mouth with my hand. Zolkan and Cylus both scowl, genuinely bemused. “What is a horn-dog?” the king asks.
I kick his chest lightly, not even managing to make him sway. “It’s an Earth term I taught Norabi. Very applicable to both of you.”
And Rask.
The missing male never leaves my mind for long. He’s like a splinter, lodged in the surface of my soul. Pulling and stinging on every deep breath—every swell of affection for the others.
Sobered, I cast Norabi side-eye. “Why would you bring me food?”
She ignores my incredulous tone, setting the tray on my lap without ceremony. Careful not to touch the sheets or my mattress. “Your courses,” she answers, as if it’s plain. “You are bleeding.”
This has been Cylus and Zolkan’s explanation for everything over the last two days.
Why is Zolkan here instead of doing his usual work?
Why has Cylus moved all his research to my chamber?
Why do they both purr themselves hoarse and insist on handfeeding me from their own trays for every meal?
Why do they bicker over who “gets” to carry me to the bathroom and insist on helping me shower?
Norabi’s eyes narrow as mine blink at her. “Are humans not given the option to remain in bed during their courses?”
I guffaw. “Uh, no. We go to work and the gym and clean and cook, all the usual stuff.”
Zolkan goes still. A dangerous note suffuses his voice. “While you bleed?”
“Yes,” I laugh. “Of course.”
Norabi walks to the nearest chair, muttering something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like, “Utter fucking barbarians.”
Cylus smoothly plucks my eating prong up before I can, filling it with my favorite spiced fruit and feeding me. “Their males do not cook and clean for them while they’re in pain?”
It never occurred to me how fucked up that was until this week. I take my bite, chewing thoughtfully. “Not really.”
Zolkan is properly angry, now. “And they still force you to work?”
That was a whole other argument, yesterday. We spent much of the afternoon talking about my life on Earth. When I explained that I had a job and had to report there five days a week in order to earn money to buy food and shelter, they both gawped at me like I’d admitted to being kept in a hole.
Apparently, omegas aren’t actually supposed to work. At least, not in the sort of situation that dictates whether we get to eat or have a place to sleep at night. Cylus ranted on about the stress of such an “unthinkable system” for close to twenty minutes before I finally had to kiss him quiet.
For being the last of these alphas to make out with me, the healer has gotten the hang of it the fastest. Although he does have a bit of an unfair advantage with these tails of his.
Kissing all of the males is a wondrous new experience, but with Cylus?
I never know what to expect. His hands and tails keep me guessing constantly.
It took nearly all day, but the two of them finally coaxed me to a place where I felt comfortable going farther than that last night.
True to his word, Zolkan held me the entire time Cylus worked my body into a frenzy, paying extra care to the places that were more sensitive than usual.
He didn’t knot me like Zolkan did, not wanting to stretch my aching core more than he already had to in order to fit his thick cocks inside me.
But he used both in turn, fucking me so slowly and tenderly, I forgot all about my initial protests and embarrassment.
When I’d come twice on each of his shafts, he kept the upper one buried inside my pussy and took me straight to the shower. By the time we emerged, Zolkan had reset the bed and was waiting for me, filling the fresh sheets with his thick musk, letting his cocks streak them with his scent.
I couldn’t keep my eyes off them, but instead of letting me push my tired body into another round, my mate gathered me into his lap, lying my head on his powerful thigh.
He then proceeded to offer each cock to me in turn, letting me touch them and suck on them until one spurted down my throat and the other released across my bare breasts.
And I knew it should have felt… crazy. Or mortifying. I was honestly sucking his cock to… what? Not make him come—even though he did, I knew innately that was never the point.
He had given himself to me, to use. For my own comfort. To feel closer to him. To cover myself in his essence and mark me as his. To get his scent back into our—oh hell, fine—nest.
Cylus watched us with bright eyes, using his tails to rub me through the soft fabric coverings their females use during their courses. He kissed the top of my head after I’d gotten Zolkan’s seed all over both of us, radiating pure approval and lulling me to sleep with his purr.
Yeah, it should have felt crazy.
But every single thing about it was exactly right. The precise blend of tenderness and connection and carnality I craved. And, God help me, I’m starting to believe them. I’m starting to understand.
I’m not needy or a nympho or a lunatic. I’m an omega.
And these are my alphas.
They don’t want me to swallow my tears and my whines. They don’t want me to stamp out my desires or my big feelings. They don’t want me to feel like I need to build walls around my heart to protect myself.
They want to protect me. And care for me. And know me—even the messy parts that cry over the lack of chocolate on this otherwise beautiful planet.
It would be perfect… if I knew where Rask was. If I knew he was safe, at least.
And perhaps if Norabi would stop gaping at the three of us like we’re a carnival sideshow.
“How can you stand to have him so close to her, Zolkan?” the female asks, openly fascinated. “Do you not want to tear his throat out when he purrs for her?”
I suppose she would know, being the only alpha of their generation who’s ever experienced having a mate of her own. From what I understand, it usually makes them extremely possessive.
It has for these guys, too, really. With literally everyone except each other. And Rask, I suppose, remembering the night he and Zolkan shared me. How my mate’s eyes glowed, watching us together. Flaring with brilliant light in the aftermath.
Cylus forks up another bite, wisely staying silent. He switches hands, pointedly picking his book back up. Giving Zolkan “privacy” while he sighs and admits, “It does not trouble me. Or pain me. I only sense Sofi’s contentment, and it sparks my own.”
Norabi listens, casting her astonished gaze back to Cylus and me as he finally relinquishes the eating prong, settling for cupping his hand around my head while I feed myself, instead.
“That’s… wild,” Norabi finally blurts, using another human phrase. When she looks to me for approval, I shrug my agreement.
I mean, she’s not wrong.
It is wild.
Behind me, Cylus stiffens. I sense his sudden shock before his chest rumbles on a low snarl.
Norabi flinches like she’s going to have to pluck me away for my own safety, but Zolkan firmly plants himself in her way, smoothly moving up the mattress to lie between us.
Letting me stay in Cylus’s lap even as the healer full-on growls.
“What is it?” the Zortaire demands, planting his large hand on my thigh and squeezing. Trying to reassure me with his presence.
Cylus doesn’t move. He stares at the books in front of him with his lips parted in shock. I set my tray aside, twisting my torso to put my palm on his carved cheek. “Cy? What is it?”
“This,” my alpha rasps, nodding at the tome. “Look.”
Cylus swallows thickly. His hands—normally so steady—tremble as he hands me the text. Pointing with a blunted black-pearl claw. Zolkan leans over the open pages as Norabi hovers closer, stretching onto her toes to see.
It’s all gibberish to me. I recognize the letters Cylus has taught me, clumped into words I can’t read, some interspersed with their numbers. There are pictures, too, though they’re not photos. More like sketches of stone walls, which are also covered in alien symbols.
“What am I looking at?” I ask.
Cylus taps his finger on one particular image. Zolkan instantly goes rigid. Norabi audibly gasps.
I squint at the far corner of the page. The rendering looks like a series of… cave drawings? At least that’s what humans would call the primitive pictures that appear to be carved into Khanos’s signature opal stone, auridian.
They’re… Roktusian people, I realize. Groups of them. Clusters with three or four or five bodies. Some with wings, some with fur and two tails. All labeled with the symbol for alphas…
And all centered around one figure.
My nail traces the familiar Roktusian word chiseled over that lone being—one I’ve seen branded on Rask’s skin.
Omega.