Chapter 29
She was so fucking hot, breasts half spilling from the lace top she wore—one I didn’t dare touch. She was desperate for us, though, pupils blown, eyes crossing with pleasure when we pushed her over the edge, and she tumbled from that cliff over and over and over, never seeming to get sick of us rutting her into oblivion.
I didn’t know how many hours we’d been at it when Knight returned enough to feel lucid in the bond. He was the same as me, though, not free enough of the rut to have the self-control to stop. Not when she was like this for us.
A siren designed to turn our brains to mulch.
And she didn’t seem to want to risk catching feelings, because she kept taunting us. She was being a cunt and… well; it wasn’t making me want to fuck her less.
Quite the opposite.
I didn’t know how many times my cock had found new life at this point. The rut left the cycle endless. She was presenting beneath me, my cock at her entrance, and I found the self-control to wait, hands lingering on her hips.
She let out a little whine of impatience.
“Beg,” I growled.
Her breath caught, and she pressed her cheek to the sheets, rich brown eye taking me in, something furious in it.
“Zed!” she whined.
“Beg.”
A moment passed, and she wriggled against me, trying to edge back over my cock. I held her still.
“Please,” she said at last.
I growled, appreciation for hearing that making me even harder. “Please, what?” I pushed.
“Please, fuck me.”
I almost came from her words alone, and how tight she was as I drove into her. Now I was lucid, the reality was setting in, and maybe it was fucked up, but hearing her beg for me was more than I could handle. “You walked away from us and look at you now, Little Devil,” I breathed.
“Fuck you.” She struggled beneath me, a snarl in her throat, but I felt the way she clenched around me. She was reacting to what I was saying. I let her writhe a bit, pulling out and flipping her on her back before driving back into her cunt. My hand closed around her neck where the collar remained. “Begging for my knot like a desperate little fuck doll.”
I wasn’t expecting how instantly she came from those words, whole body seizing over my length as she cried out.
Fuck.
I gritted my teeth and it took everything in me not to finish with her.
“You came so fast I didn’t even get to knot you this time,” I growled, leaning close, twisting her nipple roughly.
She let out a derisive snarl, her hand closing around my neck.
“I don’t even think you care which hole I knot, as long as I’m using you,” I breathed, pulling out and using the tip of my cock to stretch out her other hole.
Her chest heaved, generous breasts pressing against the lace that was supposed to be holding them in.
“Or am I wrong?” I asked, hand at her throat shifting up enough that I caught her chin, forcing her to look at me.
There was a long silence between us, and a bead of sweat trickled down her cheek.
“Are you going to make me ask again?”
“Please, fuck me, Alpha,” she whispered, pupils still fully dilated as she shifted against my tip.
“Good girl,” I growled, driving into her, feeling her tense at the initial shock before she relaxed around me.
“You want my knot, Baby?”
“Yes,” she whined.
It was pure heaven, feeling her tight little hole stretch around the girth of my knot. I went slow, watching the way her teeth caught her lip, expression tensing as I made her feel every inch of me. And then I was in, rocking into her, feeling her tremble at the pressure.
Knight, I realised, was watching from the bathroom door, leaning against it, arms folded and a dark look on his face. He kept doing that, like he wanted to dip out. At the sound she made when I entered her, though, he gripped the base of his cock, an irritated expression on his face as he stroked his length.
He was far enough past his rut that he seemed happy to occasionally watch.
I wasn’t. Not yet.
“You’re such a good little fuck doll, Glade,” I breathed in her ear, cupping the collar at her neck. “Maybe I’ll keep you forever, after all, so I can use these sweet holes whenever I want.”
She gripped me, another shuddering orgasm tearing through her as her nails dug into my flesh.
At my side, Zed’s eyelids drooped shut, and within half a minute he was out like a light. Once he woke up, I was sure the rut would have passed entirely.
I glanced up to Knight, who was propped up slightly by pillows at his back, but dropped my eyes before I met his, fixing my gaze on the beautiful deep brown rippling muscles across his chest.
We were connected, which eased so much within me, but now that the hormones were fading, I think I wanted to pass out as fast as Zed had.
I didn’t, though.
Knight cleared his throat, and I jumped slightly as I felt his hand brush my waist. “I’m going to, uh…” He seemed to be searching for the word. “I’m going to… just hold you for a bit.”
I looked up this time, unsure of what I’d find.
There was something faintly disconcerting in his gaze as his hands closed around my waist and he readjusted us.
“Hold me?” I asked, unsure exactly what he was getting at.
“It would be very rude to treat a girl like that and not… not um…” He didn’t seem to be able to finish. Instead, he readjusted his sitting position so he was more upright, and my head easily tucked just beneath his chin.
I frowned, still not getting it, until his arms wrapped around me in one of his bear hugs, and a low rumble of a purr began in his chest.
Tears suddenly burned my eyes and I shoved them back, wrapping my arms around him and burying my face in his chest. I inhaled the low notes of pear grove, cool and sweet, lodging itself in the back of my throat.
We’d just gone through a rut together, one that had been neither gentle, nor kind. I’d left him and his pack mates, had put Kyan on the edge of a roof with a gun in his hand, and still, he was holding me.
I love you.
The words whispered in my mind, over and over, desperate for freedom yet caged by shadows more frightening than any light they might bring me, even for a few brilliant seconds.
So I sank into his embrace, bit down on the tears and tried to claim this, even if there could be no more.
Of course, Knight made it all but impossible.
For an age, we lay like that, until his knot released me. And when it had, he shifted, lifting me to my feet.
What was he doing?
I watched as he crossed the room and put on a pair of underwear and sweatpants. He returned to me, handing me my underwear and waiting for me to put it on. He didn’t meet my eyes as he drew me up in his arms and carried me to the bathroom, setting me gently on the counter.
Oh…
Okay.
I mean, if it was what he wanted, I’d sit through this quietly. I had sort of baited them into the fuck. And rut.
I was silent as he ran the tap and grabbed a cloth from beneath the sink. Then he stood before me, running it beneath my eyes and over my forehead, warming it when it got too cool. Then, when he was done with the cloth, he grabbed a bottle of lavender moisturiser and set it on the counter at my side.
It became too much when he sank to his knees before me.
“Knight, you don’t have to?—”
I cut off at his low growl, which he stifled just a little too late. He shut his eyes with a deep sigh, pressing his forehead against my shins and hiding his eyes for a long moment.
A long silence passed, and slowly he leaned back, touching firm around my legs as he worked the moisturiser into my skin, not saying a word.
He didn’t meet my eyes, but he was tense, as though waiting for another protest.
I didn’t give him one.
“Kyan must be spoiled,” I said quietly, needing to find something to break the strange serenity between us.
“Kyan refuses this,” Knight replied, voice too flat.
I swallowed.
“Oh.”
Damn.
Why was this so hard?
When he was done, he stood, rinsing his hands off in the sink and then returning to me. His knuckle brushed my chin as if he wanted me to look up at him, but I couldn’t. Instead, I stared really hard at his abs, cursing the burning in my eyes.
Don’t cry.
Don’t fucking cry.
A hot tear splashed to my thigh, and I felt the shift in the air, the stiffness to the knuckle beneath my chin.
“I’m near heat,” I whispered. “It’s not…” I took a shaky breath. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Okay.”
He was going to leave now, which was good because I think I was going to cry a hell of a lot more.
To my frustration, he didn’t. “You’re sick.”
“Sick?” Finally, I glanced up, frowning. “What do you mean?”
“You told Zed you use drugs through heats.”
I nodded.
“All of them?” he asked. “Were there any that you didn’t?”
I frowned, trying to read his expression as I blinked away my tears.
“You’re touch-starved, Glade,” he said. “I looked it up.”
My heart took flight in my veins, offsetting every ounce of peace he’d brought me in the last few minutes. “Looked… what up?”
“Why we’re drawn to you all the time. Why it feels so…” He looked around, searching for the word. “Right, when we touch you.”
“We’re mates,” I said, forcing a smile through a few more escaped tears.
“It wasn’t like this before.” He shook his head. “Not even close. You said you used drugs through all your heats, but were there any that you didn’t?”
“You mean, did I skip the drugs and find a pack?—?”
“No.” Knight was firm. “I mean, have you had heats where you didn’t have drugs or Alphas to get you through?”
My breath caught at the question, and I fought to keep my expression straight, pleading with the tears to stop.
So many… Over and over for years…
“No drugs or Alphas?” I asked, as if the question was insane, but my forced smile ached and sickness twisted my stomach. “Who would do that?”
“…You can make it stop, Omega. One word from you, and this will all be over…”
Knight was staring at me, though, gaze fixed as though he was processing every inch of my features, searching for a lie—one he’d find with ease if I couldn’t pull myself together.
“Tell me the truth.” The words were low, but his Alpha bark seized me. I clamped a hand over my mouth in shock, just managing to halt the words before they tumbled out. I slipped from the counter, eyes wide with shock, but the power of the bark was already fading.
“Glade—” He cut off, looking almost horrified at himself.
“This was a mistake,” I whispered.
“What?”
“This was a mistake!” I could feel panic constricting my throat as I reached for the necklace—no. Collar. “Take it off.”
“Glade—”
“Take it off me!”
Zed was there at the bathroom door, ice-blue eyes wide. “What’s happening?”
“You said I could choose.” My fingers were tight around the collar, the world blurring with tears. “I want the room. Take me back to the room.”
“Why—?”
“Take me back!” The world was shutting down around me. I couldn’t look at Knight as my feet hit the ground, and I stumbled toward Zed.
He caught me, frowning, but all I could see were his eyes: ice-blue, just like Ace’s. I clung to that, needing to find my steel, even as tears fell from my eyes, making my vision swim as I repeated the only words I knew to say.
“Take me back.”