Chapter 24
CLAIRE
“Go, go. YES!” Corey’s on his feet beside me, fist raised, and on the field below, Jakob has just driven through two defenders and planted the ball over the try line with enough force to crack the earth beneath it.
The ground shivers under my boots, or maybe that’s me, because Jakob in rugby shorts is a category of visual stimulus my nervous system was not built to handle.
The crowd around us erupts. The benches along the grass are full, and the ones that aren’t have people standing behind them, coffee cups in hand, scarves pulled up against the morning chill.
A food stand near the far end pumps the smell of grilled onions and mustard across the field, mixing with cut grass and damp earth and the distant salt-edge of the sea.
But I can’t smell any of it, not properly, anyway, because I’m sitting between two Alphas whose scents are wrapping around me.
Jakob jogs back to position without celebrating.
He just rolls his shoulders, shakes the sweat from his curls, and slots back into the line with the calm of a man who expected to score and sees no reason to cheer.
His thighs are enormous in those shorts, the jersey straining across his chest and shoulders, and when he bends to brace for the next play, the muscles in his back shift beneath the fabric and my thighs press together.
All while my fingers curl around the edge of the bench.
This should be the perfect morning, with the ocean glinting beyond the harbor, my Alphas on either side of me, one of them dominating a field forty yards away. It should be everything.
Except Trudy’s sitting on the other side of Brody, and the jealousy in my chest is a beast.
She’s different today. Clean hair, dark and glossy, tied back in a low knot.
Color in her cheeks from last night’s sleep and this morning’s breakfast, which Corey made, because he told me.
She’s wearing a cream sweater that hangs off her thin shoulders and dark jeans cuffed at the ankle, and she’s pretty.
Wide brown eyes and a mouth that smiles slowly, as if she’s checking first whether it’s safe.
I totally understand why they loved her, and I hate even more that seeing this doesn’t make her a villain. It makes her real.
Earlier, Brody asked if I minded her coming.
Of course not, I said, because what was the option?
Say no and become the Omega who can’t share a bench at a rugby game?
They told me she won’t stay long, just needs a few days, and the rational part of my brain, the sliver that isn’t currently baring its teeth, has decided it won’t be long until she leaves.
But I’ve never shared Alphas before. And the primal core of me, the Omega wiring that runs deeper than logic, is screaming that these men are mine and every second Trudy sits beside them is a second she’s breathing air that belongs to me.
The hypocrisy isn’t lost on me. Three men share me, one Omega, yet the thought of sharing them with anyone? My stomach cramps so hard I press my fist against it.
“Last time we watched Jakob play,” Trudy says to Brody, leaning past his shoulder, “that fullback tried to stiff-arm him, and Jakob just stood there. Didn’t even move. The guy bounced off him and fell on his own ass.”
Brody laughs at a shared history, to a time I wasn’t part of.
The blade twists.
Then Corey’s arm slides around my back and hauls me against his side harshly, his lips pressing to my temple. “Missed you last night.”
I tilt my chin up, staring into those mocha eyes of this crazy-handsome man, and the tightness in my chest eases by a degree. “Missed you more.”
“Not possible.” His thumb traces the curve of my hip through my jacket. “And you don’t need to be jealous, gorgeous. She has nothing on you. We belong to you. All of us,” he whispers.
“You can do what you want,” I murmur, and I hear the brittle edge in my own voice and wince.
He laughs, leaning closer to my ear. “The only thing I want to do is get you alone again. And I’m certain that if either of us got too close to her, you’d go full feral, and I’m here for every second of it.” His mouth brushes my ear. “My possessive little lioness.”
“That’s not me.”
He’s nodding. “It drives me insane in the best way that you care so much.”
I try to hold the pout but the grin wins, and he catches my mouth with his, his hand cupping my jaw, kissing me slowly in the morning sun with a hundred people around us and the taste of him flooding my senses. My toes are curling in my boots.
“In public. Really?” Brody’s voice arrives at my other ear.
We break apart. Corey opens his mouth to respond, but Brody’s already turning my face toward his, a hand cradling my jaw, and his mouth captures mine. His tongue sweeps past my lips, his thumb tracing the line of my chin, and I’m swooning.
“You fucking hypocrite,” Corey states.
Brody releases me, grinning. “Just showing you how it’s done. Look at her approving smile.”
“She’s just being polite.”
“Nah, I’m better at this than you, and it’s killing you.”
I press a hand to each of their chests. “I’m sitting right here. And half the crowd is watching.”
“Good,” they say in unison, then catch each other’s eye with the specific male satisfaction of two Alphas who’ve marked their territory in public and are pleased about it.
On the field, Jakob seizes a pass at full sprint, cuts inside, and a defender catches him high across the throat. His feet leave the ground. He hits the turf hard, and the sound of the impact carries across the field and into my sternum.
I’m standing, gasping.
But Jakob is up in a second, shaking the hit off, and the calm is gone. His face is pure fury. He spins on the referee, arms wide, voice carrying sharp and clipped across the grass, and the referee shakes his head and signals to play on.
Jakob takes two steps toward the man. A teammate grabs the back of his jersey and hauls him back.
“Oh, here we go,” Corey says, settling in.
Jakob’s on the field in front of the referee, hands raised and then lowered back down aggressively.
Brody drops his chin. “I’m sorry, ref, did the ball go out, or did my thighs distract you?”
I blink. “What?”
Corey leans in. “Your thighs are not part of the official review process.”
On the field, Jakob gestures toward the ball.
Brody matches the movement perfectly. “Then why are you gawking at them so closely?”
Oh my God. They’re dubbing them, and I’m choking on a laugh.
The referee steps closer. Jakob tilts his head.
Corey fans himself with an imaginary card. “Sir, I’m going to need you to stop standing there like that. This is a family sport.”
Brody’s mouth curves. “Then tell my shorts to stop clinging.”
I snort.
Trudy wheezes beside Brody.
Jakob says something, and the referee’s cheeks turn pink.
Corey gasps. “Do not use that voice on me. I have a whistle and very little self-respect.”
Brody nods gravely. “Use the whistle, ref. I like a man in charge.”
“Yellow card,” Corey squeaks.
“For what?” Brody snaps.
“For giving me a hard-on.”
I can’t stop laughing at this stage.
On the field, the referee points Jakob back into position. He turns, jogging away.
Corey sighs dreamily. “There he goes. The reason I can never again referee while seated.”
Brody sits back, smug. “And that is why I don’t need pickup lines.”
We’re drawing too much attention to ourselves.
Corey breaks character first, snorting so hard he chokes.
Brody holds Jakob’s deadpan expression for another few seconds before it collapses, and they’re both gone, wheezing, shoving each other on the bench behind me.
Trudy has her hand pressed to her mouth, shoulders shaking, and I’m doubled over, my stomach cramping from laughing.
On the field, Jakob is still gesticulating at the actual referee.
The game surges on. Both Alphas have me bracketed, Corey’s arm draped behind my shoulders, Brody’s thigh warm against mine, and for stretches of time, the jealousy quiets and I’m just an Omega surrounded by her Alphas.
Then I catch Trudy studying the three of us, not with jealousy but with what I can only describe as grief. The ache of a woman watching the life she walked away from being lived by someone else.
The guilt sits in my chest alongside the possessiveness, and neither surrenders. “I’m gonna grab coffee,” I say, standing. “Who’s in?”
Both hands go up. Before either can say anything, Trudy is on her feet. “I’ll come.” The smile she gives me is soft. “If that’s okay.”
“Yeah, of course.” And we start moving.
Corey catches my hand as I step past him. Squeezes once. Mouths, I adore you, with a grin. I squeeze back and nod.
Trudy and I cross the grass, weaving through clusters of spectators, the field spreading beside us with its whistles and roars. The food stand sits at the far end, a converted trailer with a service window and a chalkboard menu. The line is short.
For thirty seconds, neither of us speaks. Our shoulders are almost touching. She smells faintly soured at the edges, the telltale bitterness of bond sickness that hasn’t fully faded.
“I owe you an apology,” she says.
“You don’t—”
“Yeah, I do.” She keeps her gaze forward, her voice steady but thin. “If I’d known they had someone, I would have gone anywhere else. I promise you that. Showing up on their doorstep, looking the way I did?” She lets out a laugh that carries zero humor. “Not exactly the entrance I’d have chosen.”
I order four lattes at the window and step aside.
“I appreciate you saying that,” I tell her. “And I’m not angry at you. I’m just trying to manage the intensity of everything. What I have with them is… new. And enormous. I’m still figuring out how to hold it without crushing it.”
“They’re a force.” Something changes in her face, a softening. “All three of them at once is the most intoxicating and terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced. They made me feel safe in a way nobody else ever had.” She licks her lips. “Which made it so much worse when I left.”