Chapter Nineteen
Anathea
The movie ended and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what we’d been watching. Heat and lust filled the air, making breathing and thinking clearly mostly impossible.
“Raise your hand if you know what the heck that movie was about,” Carter said, shaking his head. He had my feet on his lap and had spent the whole movie exploring all the way up to my knees. I spent the whole movie wishing he would explore higher.
“I was thinking about Anathea making a formal police report about the Vex pack. We need something on record.”
I sat up, nearly kicking Carter in the junk. Oops. “Wouldn’t that be worse? Then it will be public record. My address. Everything. They will know where I am.”
“Darlin’, they already know where you are. Remember? And you could give them the address of your apartment, which you won’t be staying at anymore.”
“We’re just concerned for you, omega.” Jayden put his hand on my thigh. Every time they touched me, they stoked the fires hotter. “As with everything else, the final decision comes down to you.”
“I’m going to think about it. I promise. But there’s something else I think we need to talk about.”
“Go on, Anathea. You can tell us anything.” Elias, the sweetheart of the group, came to sit on the footrest.
“I take heat suppressants as some of you know, but lately I’m feeling like a heat is coming on.”
“What are you feeling?” Elias raised his hand to touch my forehead. “You’re a bit warm.”
“Fever. Heat in my belly and…well, other needs are cropping up.”
All three of them growled. This was it. This was the point where it became too much. Where I became too much.
“Maybe it’s time for me to go. Morgana or Dorothy might take me in for a while.” My heart broke thinking about leaving them. Especially when I was so vulnerable.
“Don’t even think on it, omega. We invited you to stay here and that’s where you will stay.” Carter and his bossiness. Damn.
“But I’ll be in heat and it’ll be embarrassing and I’ll beg. I’ll beg for you to take me and make it go away. I can’t…”
Jayden hooked his finger under my chin and waited until I met his gaze. “Sweetheart, there would be no begging. I guess we need to spell it out for her, pack.”
Carter scooted over toward me. “Anathea, I can see we haven’t done a good job making our intentions clear so here it is…
” The others nodded at him. “You are our scent match. We each knew it the first time we met you and, if you’d let us, we would like to court you with the intent of you being the omega to our pack. ”
His admission almost knocked me over. They wanted me to be their omega. That was permanent. Shifter bonding. Mating. Marking. All of it.
Elias shifted in his seat. “We have the means to take care of you. We’ve been saving ever since we became a pack and Carter brought assets with him. If you don’t like the house or your suite, we can change all of that. We earn good money…”
I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder. “I don’t care about any of that.”
All three of them looked like I’d just killed their favorite puppy. “I know we’re nothing like the pack you were…”
“Stop.” I moved to the edge of the couch.
I couldn’t get my words out right when they were touching me.
“I don’t care about any of that. I’ve known I belonged to you since Jayden came in and I thought his sister was his girlfriend.
But with all my baggage and…I didn’t think you’d want to formally court me. ”
“What?” Carter asked. “Darlin, there is no one alive that we want more than you. You are it for us. We decided the moment we all met you. We want to be the ones to see you through this heat and through every heat from now on. We want you to be ours. We are already yours. If you’ll have us.”
If I would have them?
No time like the present. “I would love to be yours,” I admitted. The weight lifted from my chest, and I was free. “All of yours.”
“Then you’ll let us care for you when the time comes. And before that happens, we need to hear your explicit permission.” Carter rubbed my back.
“We need words, baby.” Jayden said.
“When my heat comes, I…” I vibrated with anticipation, even speaking about it. “I want the three of you to mate me, knot me, and if you want, mark me as yours.”