Chapter 24 #3
"Max, sweetheart, you've barely touched your food." Margot's hand finds my arm. "Are you feeling okay? You look flushed."
"Fine," I manage. "Just not super hungry."
"You said that last time." Her hand finds my forehead, cool and maternal. "You don't feel feverish, but you look—"
"I'm fine." I pull away from her touch. Too sharp. Too defensive.
Margot's hand drops. Hurt flickers across her face before she smooths it away.
The table goes quiet.
Richard clears his throat. "So. I've been looking at beach houses for August. There's a beautiful property in—"
That's when it hits.
Not a wave this time. A flood.
Heat crashes through me like a tidal wave, sudden and overwhelming, stealing the breath from my lungs. My skin prickles. My vision blurs. Every nerve ending in my body ignites at once, pleasure and pain tangled together into something unbearable.
I grip the table so hard my knuckles go white. A sound escapes me—something between a gasp and a whimper—and I can't stop it, can't control it, can't do anything except hold on and pray it passes.
It doesn't pass.
The heat keeps building. Pressure mounting in my chest, my belly, between my legs. And my scent—god, my scent—I can smell it pouring off me in waves,, thick and sweet and desperately needy.
Three heads snap toward me.
Atlas goes rigid in his chair, hands flat on the table, every muscle locked. His pupils blow wide, gray swallowed by black, and I see the exact moment his control starts to crack.
Zero's nostrils flare. His jaw clenches so hard I can hear his teeth grind. His hands curl into fists, and there's something wild in his eyes—predatory, hungry, barely leashed.
Bane makes a sound low in his throat. Almost a growl. His whole body is tense, leaning forward like he's about to lunge across the table.
"Max?" Margot's voice seems to come from very far away. "Max, what's wrong?"
I can't answer. Can't speak. Can't do anything except shake and burn and try not to fall apart in front of everyone.
"I need—" The words come out strangled. "I have to—"
I shove back from the table. My chair clatters to the ground. I'm on my feet, stumbling toward the house, but my legs don't want to work right and my head is spinning and everything is too much, too bright, too hot—
"Max!" Margot is behind me. Her hand catches my arm. "Sweetheart, what's happening? Talk to me!"
I yank away from her grip. Spin around. And something inside me snaps.
"Don't touch me!" The scream tears out of my throat. "Just—just leave me alone! All of you, just leave me alone!"
Margot recoils like I've slapped her. Her face crumples—confusion, hurt, fear—and some distant part of me knows I'll hate myself for this later, knows I'm destroying something precious, but I can't stop.
"Max—"
"I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE!"
I turn and run.
Through the patio doors. Through the kitchen. Up the stairs, taking them two at a time, my heart pounding so hard I can feel it in my teeth. Down the hallway. Into my room.
I slam the door. Lock it. Press my back against the wood and slide to the floor, gasping, shaking, burning alive.
What did I just do. What did I just do. What did I—
Footsteps on the stairs. Multiple sets. Heavy. Fast.
"Max." Atlas's voice through the door. Strained. "Max, open the door."
"Go away."
"We can't do that." Bane now. "Please. Let us help."
"I don't need your help!" I'm on my feet, backing away from the door, even though there's nowhere to go. "I don't need anything from any of you!"
"You're in heat." Zero's voice cuts through. Flat. Brutal. "You think we can't smell it? You think we don't know what's happening to you?"
I press my hands over my ears like a child. Like that will make any of this go away.
"Max." Atlas again. Softer now. "If you don't open this door, I'm going to break it down. I'm not leaving you alone like this."
"Then break it down!" I'm crying now. When did I start crying? "I don't care! I don't care what you do! Just—"
I don't get to finish.
The lock gives with a sharp crack. The door swings open.
They fill the doorway—Atlas in front, Bane and Zero flanking him. Three alphas, pupils blown, barely holding onto control. The scent of them hits me like a physical force: cedar, sandalwood, gunpowder. Dominant. Hungry. Mine.
No. Not mine. I can't think like that.
"Stay back." I'm scrambling now, putting the bed between us, hands raised like that will stop them. "I mean it. Stay back."
"We're not going to hurt you." Atlas steps into the room. Slow. Careful. Like approaching a wounded animal. "But we can't leave you like this, Max. You're—"
"I know what I am!" The words rip out of me. "I know exactly what I am, and that's why I have to leave. Before I ruin everything. Before I—"
I turn toward my closet. Grab a bag. Start shoving clothes into it with shaking hands.
"What are you doing?" Bane's voice is rough. Strained.
"What does it look like?" I yank open a drawer. Grab a handful of underwear. "I'm leaving. Tonight. I'll go somewhere—anywhere—I'll find suppressants, I'll ride this out alone, I'll—"
"Like hell you will." Zero moves fast. Too fast. He's across the room before I can react, his hand closing around my wrist, yanking me away from the bag. "You're not going anywhere."
"Let go of me!"
"No." His eyes are wild. His grip is bruising. "You think I'm letting you walk out that door smelling like—like that? You won't make it a block before some knothead alpha—"
"That's my problem, not yours!"
"It's our problem." Bane is there now, on my other side, boxing me in. "You're our problem, Max. Whether you like it or not."
"I never asked to be your problem!"
"Too bad." Zero's laugh is harsh. Bitter. "Because you are. You've been our problem since the day you walked through that door, and I am so fucking tired of pretending otherwise."
Atlas reaches past them both. Takes my face in his hands. Forces me to look at him.
"Max." His voice is steady. Controlled. But I can see the strain underneath—the clenched jaw, the rapid pulse at his throat, the barely-leashed want in his eyes.
"Listen to me. You have two options. You can let us help you through this—here, now, safely—or you can try to leave and we will physically stop you.
Because I am not letting you walk out into the world like this.
Not when I can smell how much you need—"
"Don't say it."
"—how much you need to be touched."
The words land like a brand. My whole body shudders.
"This is wrong," I whisper. "You're–you’re my stepbrothers. Margot is downstairs. Richard is—"
"Richard took Margot out for ice cream after your outburst." Atlas's thumb strokes over my cheekbone. "They're not coming up here. And what happens in this room stays in this room. Between us. Only us."
"Atlas—"
"Tell me to stop." His voice drops. "Tell me you don't want this, and I'll walk out that door right now. We all will. But you have to mean it, Max. You have to look me in the eye and tell me you don't want my hands on you."
I open my mouth.
Nothing comes out.
Because I can't say it. Can't lie. Not when every cell in my body is screaming for his touch, for all of their touches, for something to fill the desperate aching emptiness inside me.
"That's what I thought."
Atlas's mouth covers mine.
The kiss is nothing like I imagined. It's not gentle or questioning. It's claiming—his lips hard and demanding, his tongue pushing past my teeth, his hands fisting in my hair and holding me exactly where he wants me.
I melt. Dissolve. Become nothing but sensation and need.
My cock is so hard my head goes fuzzy and I suddenly feel faint.
Hands on my body. Too many hands. They strip me like my clothes are burning me alive—Bane at my shirt, Zero yanking at my jeans, rough and impatient. I try to keep up, try to process what's happening, but Atlas is still kissing me and my brain has gone offline.
"Wait—" I try to pull back from Atlas's mouth. "Wait, I—"
"Shh." Bane's lips against my ear. "Let us take care of you."
And then I'm naked. Exposed. Surrounded by three clothed alphas who are looking at me like I'm a feast and they're starving.
"Fuck." Zero's voice is wrecked. "Look at you."
I try to cover myself. Bane catches my wrists. Pulls them away.
"Don't," he murmurs. "Don't hide from us."
"I can't—this is—"
"Wrong?" Zero laughs darkly. "Yeah. It is. And I don't give a shit."
He drags me forward and pushes me. Just a shove, nothing violent, but I'm so off-balance that I tumble backward onto the bed. Before I can scramble up, Bane is there, catching my wrists, pinning them above my head.
"Bane—"
"Shh." He straddles my chest, keeping me immobilized, his weight a comforting pressure even as panic claws at my throat. "We've got you. Just let go."
Zero appears at my other side. He grabs my ankles. Spreads my legs apart despite my weak attempts to keep them closed.
"God, you're wet." His voice is thick with want. "Look at that fucking slick."
Shame floods through me. They can see everything—my hard cock leaking against my stomach, the slick glistening between my thighs, the desperate clench of my hole around nothing.
"Please—"
"Please what?" Zero's hand slides up my inner thigh. "Please stop? Or please more?"
I don't answer. Can't answer. Because the truth is too damning to say out loud.
Atlas appears between my spread legs just as Bane moves off my chest, holding my wrists firmly above me. Atlas’ eyes are dark, focused, drinking in the sight of me like he's committing it to memory.
"Eyes on me." His voice is low. Commanding. I drag my gaze to his and something in my chest cracks open.
His hand wraps around my cock.
The sound I make isn't human. It's a broken, desperate keen, my hips bucking up into his grip, my whole body arching off the bed. Bane tightens his hold on my wrists. Zero's hands press down on my thighs, keeping me spread and open and completely at their mercy.