Burning #2
But I can’t get myself to explain how scared I am. That I need Mack here too. That I ruined my nest while panicking about Mack. That I’m spiraling and suffocating and burning alive all at once, and I’ll continue to be tortured until I know for a fact that my whole pack is safe and sound.
"It’s my fault," Owen whispers from the wall. He sounds wrecked. "Her nest. I panicked and I pulled her out, and it came apart in my hands. It was an accident. I swear to God, I didn’t—”
Adrian crosses to him, wraps an arm around his bare shoulders, and pulls him in against his side. He doesn't look at Owen while he does it. His eyes stay on me the entire time, big and blown out, his cock already tenting the front of his pants.
I open my mouth, trying to tell my beta that none of this is his fault, but all that comes out is a high-pitched whine.
Then the next cramp hits, and it's worse than any of the ones before it. It’s so hard and so deep that my stomach rolls over with it. Bile climbs the back of my throat, and everything blurs and slides sideways.
I fold forward and press my face down into the pile of blankets and drag air in through my open mouth. For a second, I'm sure I'm going to be sick right here in the middle of my nest, but it rolls through me in a long, grinding wave. I ride it face-down, gasping, my fingers knotted in the sheets.
"Lyra," Nico’s deep voice moves closer, but I don’t look up.
I'm too hot. I'm so hot I can't stand another second of it.
The flannel is soaked in sweat, and I can't breathe around it. Soft-worn cotton I've slept in a dozen times, is suddenly too rough. It drags rough as burlap over my skin, every seam and every button scraping my nerves raw.
My fingers fly to the buttons, and I fumble them open one after another, clumsy and shaking, tearing down the front of Adrian's shirt until it falls open and the cool air of the room hits my bare chest.
It's the first mercy I've felt since this started. I gulp it in, but the relief lasts all of five seconds.
More slick gushes as my body opens.
My cunt is a raw, gaping hole, wet and empty, a desperate, aching void that needs to be filled. But I need all of them. Every last one of my mates. I need them to pin me down and fuck me until I'm nothing but a writhing, sobbing mess, until I'm so full of their cum it's leaking out of me.
"Mack," I snarl, desperately needing to see him.
Please don’t be dead.
Please!
"Goddamnit!" Adrian yells from somewhere else in the house. I blink, shocked to see him gone. "Get your ass in here now!"
Then the front door bangs twice.
Heavy footsteps race through the house, and then they’re here. Adrian and Mack fill the bedroom doorway, and every bit of the air goes out of me at once.
Mack is stripped down to his underwear. His hair is soaked through and dripping, water running in dark lines down his chest and his stomach and the thick muscle of his arms. He looks like he just hosed off in the front yard.
"Lyra." He's breathing hard. His green eyes find me in the center of his bed and lock on.
Still terrified, I scan him head to foot.
I go over every inch of that big body, frantic, hunting for any damage, or blood. Any kind of wound. And there's nothing.
His chest is whole. His face is fine. All I find, anywhere on him, is a scatter of raw, reddened marks across the knuckles of his right hand.
That can’t be it. Can it?
I move forward, crawling out of my nest. My legs shake, barely holding me up as I cross to the alpha. Mack watches me, not moving a muscle, like he's afraid any sudden movement might frighten me.
Reaching up, I press one hand against his cheek, and his eyes float closed the second my skin touches his.
All the hard tension goes out of him in one long exhale, and he leans the weight of his head into my palm. I feel some knot in my own chest come loose just from the warmth of him under my hand. He's real. And he’s safe. And he’s not hurt.
I open my mouth to tell him that I was so scared. And that I've been dying waiting for all three of them to come home, but not a single word comes out.
Another ruthless cramp slams up through me, and every inch of me shakes. The pain is so vicious my knees give out.
Owen is there before I fall. He comes off the wall and wraps both arms around me from behind, gathering me against his bare chest. He holds me up on my feet, filling my lungs with lemon and sage.
"I've got her," Owen breathes.
From the edge of the room, Nico speaks. He still hasn't come closer. He's holding himself at the wall with both hands like a man chained there, and his voice comes out low and rough with the effort of it.
"Kiss her neck, Owen."
Owen goes still behind me. "No, I can’t—I don’t want to overstep, this is your—"
"She's hurting." Nico's voice gentles, all the command draining out of it at once. "Our omega needs to be soothed, and she doesn't want to be touched by me right now. Please. Kiss her neck."
My head rolls loose to one side, and through the blur of pain I find them.
Nico and Adrian stand together by the door, and somewhere in the last minute the both of them have stripped bare.
Two big alphas, shoulder to shoulder, all that hard muscle laid out in the low light, and their cocks are heavy and flushed and straining toward me.
But they don’t move to touch me. They just watch, chests heaving, eyes black and fixed on my face, drinking in every twist of pain and need that crosses it as Owen lowers his mouth to the side of my neck.
The beta kisses me, working his way up until his lips find Nico’s mating bite tucked beneath my ear. He presses a kiss there, right over the mark, and something in me goes molten and loose.
My head tips back onto his shoulder, and my eyes slide shut. It feels so good it steals what's left of my breath, the ache in me easing back half a step for the first time all night.
A low growl rumbles out in front of me. Mack.
"Can I touch her?" he asks, his voice rough like gravel. I can only assume Nico has said yes, because then he whispers, "Baby. Please. Can I touch you?"
"Yes." The word leaves me on a breathy mewl as Owen nips my earlobe.
The beta’s hand slides up and cups my breast, warm and sure, and his mouth stays working at my neck, as I sink back into him.
Then I feel Mack’s rough hands on my hips, steadying me from the front.
A mouth presses to my belly, a slow kiss just beneath my navel, and the heat of it rolls straight down through me.
I open my eyes and look down.
Mack is on his knees in front of me. He's stripped bare now, that huge wet body right in front of me, his hands spanning my hips to hold me up. He bows his head, and as I watch as he drags his tongue up the inside of my thigh, chasing the slick where it runs down my leg, lapping it up.
I’m lost in the feel of Owen’s mouth and Mack’s tongue when I’m suddenly lifted.
Mack sweeps me off my feet, then he turns and lays me down on the edge of my nest, right in the soft hollow I just built. The blankets close warm around me and my lungs fill with the scent of pack, but Mack doesn’t crawl inside next to me.
Instead, he stays crouched at the edge of it, his wet hair dripping onto the sheets while his chest heaves.
"Can I get in there with you, darlin'?" His voice is shredded down to gravel. "Can I come into your nest?"
I want him so badly, but he’s not what my body needs. Not yet.
My hand lifts, and I reach past the alpha, stretching my hand toward Owen.
The beta freezes. His eyes cut to Nico, then to Mack, then back to me, and I watch the war break out across his face.
I know he wants me, I can smell it in his clean beta scent, but he’s also spent eight years learning where a beta stands in a pack, learning that the alphas move first and he waits, but I don’t care about any of that hierarchy bullshit. I just want my Owen.
"Please." It's the only word I can find. My fingers curl in the air. "Owen, please."
"Go on." Nico's voice is deep, vibrating around the room. "She's asking for you, beta. Don't make your omega ask twice."
That seems to do it, and Owen moves.
His glasses are gone now, and his bare eyes are dark and soft and fixed on mine like there's nothing else in the room worth looking at. The mattress dips as he settles next to me. Then his hands are on my face.
He caresses my cheeks, smoothing my hair away from my face as he kisses my lips.
I moan against him, then open my mouth, begging him to deepen it.
And he does.
His warm tongue slips between my lips, tasting every corner of my mouth. I moan into his, a desperate, needy sound, my fingers digging into the hard muscle of his shoulders. Then I feel his hand smooth over one breast, before sliding down over my belly and lower, and one finger dips into me.
The noise he makes goes straight through me.
It's a low, hungry sound, muffled against my mouth, a filthy groan of approval that makes my pussy clench. He sinks that finger into the knuckle and drags it slow through the wet heat of me. He shudders all over as he does it again, a full-body tremor of pure, unadulterated lust.
"God, Lyra." His forehead drops against mine. His voice is wrecked. "You feel like heaven. You're so soft. So wet." He works the finger deeper and groans again like he can't help it. "I've thought about this for so long. About how you'd feel."
I roll my hips down onto his hand and whimper for more.
He gives me one last slow curl of that finger, then slides it free, and shifts. He settles himself down between my open thighs, the weight of him warm and sure against me, and lines himself up where I need him most.
But he doesn't push in. He rubs the smooth, blunt head of his cock against my slick folds, coating himself in my wetness. The slow, deliberate drag of him against my clit is a sweet torture that has my whole body trembling with anticipation.
Then, inch by beautiful inch, he slips inside me.