Twenty Nine
“ A re midterms always this boring?” Rhodes asked as he hovered behind my shoulder, watching as I arranged items on the table for an array piece. When the professor had dragged in several carts full of items and announced the assignment with a vague theme, I knew the day would be a long one.
I’d spent the past hour collecting all of the items that would suit the word “eager.”
The vagueness of it made my brain hurt a bit as I tweaked the Barbie doll that I’d managed to prop up on an old model car.
“They wouldn’t be so boring if you were still trying to blend in like a student,” I reminded him, glowering at the suit he was wearing.
Most of the time he played along like he was a student even though everyone already knew he was my bodyguard, but today he’d refused upon seeing that he would need to paw through the carts.
“Are you still butthurt about the D you got on that assignment?” I teased, reminding him of the last time he’d turned something in for the professor to grade.
“I am not,” Rhodes sniffed, looking away from my grin with a frown. “But it definitely deserved at least a B.”
I huffed a laugh and shook my head. “Whatever you say.”
Stepping back I surveyed my work, my lips pursing as I wondered if the scene I’d set up would convey the ‘eagerness’ of summer.
Barbie was sitting on the hood of her car, one plastic hand lifted as all of the shells and other beach-y things I could find in the cards surrounded her on the sandy beach I’d set up. It would be a bitch to clean up after, but the effect underneath the bright lights I’d turned on was nice.
Turning to my camera and my computer monitor, I lined up the shot, humming under my breath as Rhodes stepped back to let me work.
For the next ten minutes, I shifted the camera tripod around to get different angles, checking the shot in the monitor before moving it again, trying to get the perfect reflection of light on all of the items I’d chosen.
It was about fifteen minutes in that I started to get lightheaded and I was busily shifting some shells around when my vision blurred a little bit.
Straightening, I looked up at the lights, thinking the heat was what was doing me in.
I was almost done, I just needed a couple of more shots with the new item positioning then I could turn them off. I just needed to power through and then the ice water in my bag would be enough to perk me up.
Sighing, I reached for another shell, frowning when I saw that the pretty white sand had drops of red in it.
Where had that come from?
More droplets fell and I realized dazedly that it was coming from my face.
Reaching up, I touched slightly sandy fingers to my mouth and nose, gasping when they came away gleaming with red blood.
The last time this had happened to me had been during a swim meet in high school after a race when I’d gotten out of the pool. It had been worse then, dripping down my chin and the white school swimsuit that we all wore.
But what had come after was what was truly chilling.
I needed to get to Rhodes. To try and explain what was happening, but when I whirled on my heel to him the whole world dipped and I heard him call my name as my knees buckled underneath me.
There was a loud crash as my camera tripod fell with me and I vaguely worried about it breaking as the ground came up to meet me and the darkness at the edges of my vision closed in completely.
“I don’t care about waiting for the fucking tests, Eli, you tell me right now what you think is happening.”
Edison’s sharp words were the first thing I heard as my consciousness returned.
I still felt a little bit woozy, but more clearheaded than I’d been earlier as I forced my eyes open.
Edison was standing over Dr. Stedmeyer, practically in his face as Rhodes tried in vain to hold him back away from the shorter alpha.
He looked more disheveled than I’d ever seen him before, his white dress shirt smudged with some kind of dirt and his black hair standing on end as he ran a hand through it to get it out of his eyes so he could continue to glare at the doctor.
“He thinks my leukemia is back.”
My weak voice made all three men whirl towards me, Rhodes and Edison leaving Dr. Stedmeyer behind completely to come stand on either side of the hospital bed I was in.
“Hey, you scared the shit out of me.” Rhodes brushed my hair off of my forehead and pressed a kiss to it, seeming to completely forget about the fact that we were supposed to be keeping our pack a secret.
“I didn’t mean to,” I murmured, lifting a hand up to my face and finding it clean. “At least I don’t look like something out of the Exorcist anymore.”
“Why do you think your leukemia is back?” Edison asked, his face completely bone pale as he stroked the bond mark we shared.
I could feel the rising panic that he was working hard to keep from letting into his expression and I tried to soothe him through the connection already having been through this once before.
Somehow, I felt completely calm. The last time I’d ended up in the hospital with a nosebleed it had taken three people and a sedative to calm my hyperventilating down after they’d told me what they found in my lab tests.
“When I was seventeen I had a really awful nosebleed at a swim meet and that was how I was diagnosed the first time. Isn’t that right, Dr. Stedmeyer?”
The doctor in question was gripping the plastic rails at the end of my bed as he watched the three of us with a stoney expression. “That’s right. But I don’t think that’s what’s happening right now.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, trying to sit up and sending both of the alphas on either side of me jumping into action. Rhodes was pressing the button to lift the back of my bed as Edison slid in behind me, underneath the IV line in order to help support me against his chest.
Edison’s vanilla scent was tinged with worry, but it still comforted me as I leaned back into his warmth to listen to the doctor.
“I wanted to wait for your blood tests to come back and get some other scans done, but when I saw you a few months ago your scans were totally clean. I don’t think this is a recurrence of leukemia, but instead omega hormones swelling before your first heat.”
“Explain,” Edison ordered harshly and I turned to scold him for talking to my doctor like that, but Dr. Stedmeyer didn’t seem to mind as he started to speak again.
“I’ve seen it quite a bit with recovering omega cancer patients in some form or another. As your biology reasserts itself, hormones swell and there are side effects as the omega approaches their first heat post chemo and radiation. Headaches, nausea, body aches, low-grade fevers, and yes sometimes bleeding from the eyes, nose, and mouth.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this could happen?” I asked incredulously, trying to remember the doctor’s appointment where he explained what the first year post-chemo would look like and how my biology seemed to be intact.
Dr. Stedmeyer held his hands up in front of himself defensively, glancing at my two alphas with a frown as a growl rattled out of one of them. “Honestly, it occurs in such a low percentage of patients that I didn’t think it would happen to you, Perrie. When I ran your tests last time you were still six months out at least from a heat, though now I’m sure it’s only a couple of weeks to a month out at best. It usually takes quite a huge hit of alpha pheromones to really trigger an omega’s heat.”
As the meaning behind his words registered in my mind, I felt my face warm. By alpha pheromones he meant sex and we’d been having a lot of it since that first day in Edison’s office.
It had gotten to the point where I was fairly sure that some of the staff would avoid the places Edison and I would go entirely.
But I didn’t want my doctor to know that! He’d been with me since I was seventeen and I knew he viewed me as a child. So his words made me feel like I’d been caught by a parent.
Thankfully, Edison was already changing the subject away from our sex lives before I decided to duck under the blankets with embarrassment.
“So, what does this mean for her? Does she need to stay in the hospital?”
“I’ll know for sure once her blood test results come back in a couple of hours, but no, I don’t think so. She’s going to need some iron supplements in case the nose bleeds keep happening and I’ve got some suppressants as well in case you choose not to engage in heat activities this time around. But if you keep going the way you are…” Dr. Stedmeyer trailed off sheepishly before clearing his throat. “Then you can expect Perrie’s first heat in the next couple of weeks.”
Dr. Stedmeyer excused himself after that, leaving the three of us alone.
“Perrie,” Edison’s hand slid along the side of my face, turning it so that I could look him in the eyes. “I don’t think I have ever been so scared in my entire fucking life.”
His kiss was long and desperate, like he was trying to convey everything he was feeling through it even though I could feel it through the bond.
Love. He loved me so desperately that I could feel it crazed and wild, thrumming up the mental thread that connected us.
“Say it,” I whispered against his mouth, “Out loud.”
Edison pulled away, his golden eyes searching my face before shifting to Rhodes who was behind me. Whatever he found in the other alpha’s face must have given him courage because he nodded, his hands cupping my face gently as he shifted around my side so he could face me fully.
“I love you.” The words were said in a rush, like he was afraid he wouldn’t get them all out if he took his time. “And that scares the shit out of me.”
My throat tightened, relief filling me as I realized what I’d been feeling for the past few months wasn’t unrequited. “I love you too.”
With soft hands, I reached back for Rhodes, pulling him into the hospital bed with us. “And I love you,” I murmured to him, watching his face shift and change as he looked at me with surprise.
“I…” His mouth opened and closed as anxiety entered his dark eyes.
“It’s okay,” I reassured him with a soft kiss. “You can wait until we figure out everything to say it if you want.”
Rhodes swallowed heavily before nodding, pulling me in for a deeper kiss.
“What are we going to do if my heat is coming? Didn’t something bad happen this morning? Should we try and wait?”
Edison had been roused from our bed by Oona, and judging by the look on his face, whatever news she had must not have been good. I didn’t want to have to take suppressants, but I also knew my heat would put both of them out of commission for at least a few days and that could get very dangerous very quickly.
“I will make sure it is safe for us to be with you in your heat. Don’t worry.”
I nodded, trusting Edison to take care of us as my mind finally remembered what I’d been doing before I fainted so dramatically in front of everyone.
Sitting up straight with a gasp, I glanced around with wide eyes. “My assignment! My camera! It fell!”
The camera in question was quickly shoved in front of my face by Rhodes before I could really start to panic and I snatched it out of his hands, surveying it for any damage. A fall from that height should have at least caused a cracked lens.
“I caught it,” Rhodes told me sheepishly as I turned it on and flipped through my last pictures taken.
Edison shot the other alpha a dry frown, shaking his head as he watched me fiddle with the camera. “Yeah. Apparently he caught it over you, so if your hip is bruised, blame him.”
“You perfect man,” I gushed, dragging Rhodes down by the front of his shirt so I could kiss him.
Rhodes’ smile was slow and pleased at the praise. “Wow, I guess I should let you fall on your ass more often.”
My laugh was loud and bright as someone knocked on the door to the hospital—probably Dr. Stedmeyer with my test results.
My heat was coming, my guys were here, I still felt a warm glow from my husband’s confession of love, and even my camera was still intact. All in all, a pretty good day aside from the blood gushing from my nose.
A moan was pulled from my lips as I rode on Rhodes’ cock, my skin covered in a fine layer of sweat as the sound of the headboard of my nest slapping into the wall filled the room.
“I’m not sure any of this is actually to jumpstart my heat,” I managed in between gasps as the alpha underneath me sucked my nipple into his mouth.
“I have it on good authority that it will,” Edison’s voice came from behind me as he continued with the task he’d set out on as soon as they’d slipped into my room after their business had ended for the day.
I was given an extension on all of my midterms even though most of them were almost done and told to rest by my professors, so I’d been at home for the last week… but I was definitely not resting.
If I thought we were having a lot of sex before the day of my nosebleed, I’d been sorely mistaken.
Every single chance the two men got they were sliding their hands into my clothes and pulling me into empty rooms.
Every. Single. One.
Yesterday, Rhodes had even stopped our self-defense lesson and I’d gotten up close and personal with the blue mats in the gym in an entirely new way.
I shuddered at the memory which made Rhodes groan as I tightened around him.
“How will toying with my butt start my heat?” I asked as I felt the soft silicone tip of a plug being prodded at the tight rosette of my ass which Edison had spent an inordinate amount of time stretching and lubing up ever since he’d arrived halfway through what Rhodes and I had been doing in my nest.
“Hmm?” Edison asked, poking his head up and over my shoulder to grin at me. “Well, the more worked up we get you, the more your hormones seem to sizzle under the surface of your skin. Can’t you smell it on yourself, Perrie? Your heat is so close it’s been driving me fucking crazy all day. You’ve been sprinkling your scent around like a trail of sugar and I can barely get any work done.”
Despite his words, I felt no closer to my heat than I had when Dr. Stedmeyer confirmed with my blood tests.
“I think you just like messing with it,” I grumbled tightly as the plug was pushed inside.
It was getting far too easy for him to put things back there, though they still hadn’t actually gotten to the point of putting one of their cocks in my ass.
Every time I asked I was told to be patient and my patience was quickly running out.
I never thought I’d be the kind of girl who actually liked having things put inside of my back hole, but now as I lifted my hips and slid down on Rhodes’ thick length, I could feel him brushing against the plug and it nearly made my legs go numb from how good it felt.
All too soon I was coming, my vision turning white as I wrapped my arms around Rhodes’ neck and held on for dear life as I listened to him growl in my ear.
After, I vaguely felt Edison grab the ring on the end of the plug and tug it out of me and my entire body jerked at the sensation.
“My good little omega,” Edison purred in my ear as I felt him press the head of his cock into my back, drawing the tip down the divot where my spine was, leaving a line of precum in his wake.
That was another thing I’d learned about Edison Keane. He loved spreading his cum all over me and rubbing it in so that I smelled like him.
Just another way he marked me as his.
It should have grossed me out, but instead I found myself purring in response as the two began to shift and move my limp body around.
“What are you two up to?” I asked hoarsely as I felt myself lifted off of Rhodes’ still hard length and Edison slid his legs on top of the other alpha’s, settling in behind me.
“Do you remember what I whispered to you on that first day in my study?” Edison asked as he spread my thighs with his hands.
My muddled mind struggled to think about what he’d said in my ear as he pushed inside of me for the first time and it only got worse when I felt something strange happening below.
Lifting my head, I looked down and frowned. “I’m not sure that’s going to work.”
Edison had slid his cock right up alongside Rhodes’ condom-covered one and the dots were starting to click together.
“It won’t fit.”
“It’ll fit,” Edison reassured me as both of the men started to lower my hips down. “You’re so slick, pet, and we’ll take it slow, one at a time, just relax.”
Nerves filled my belly as I slid down on Edison’s length and he filled me completely up to his knot. It was so full that I wasn’t sure where Rhodes was even supposed to go.
“You’re going to come so hard that your heat won’t have any choice but to be triggered,” Edison rasped into my ear, his voice suddenly tight as he felt my inner walls tighten around him.
Then I felt him nod to Rhodes who shuffled forward and pressed the head of his cock to my already crowded entrance, pushing it in alongside Edison’s.
My head flopped back into Edison’s chest, my eyes squeezed shut as the burn of being overfull rippled out from my hips.
It hurt. Almost too much. But even as my brain registered pain, my instincts were overwriting it, urging me to focus on the tingling pleasure that I was feeling.
Together, their cocks brushed over every sensitive inch of my inner walls and every time they shifted or moved, light danced behind my closed lids.
“Relax,” Edison purred, the sound of it making my clenched muscles start to loosen.
“We got you,” Rhodes, who was normally pretty quiet when we came together as a group, whispered as his own purr joined Edison’s.
More, more, more, my inner omega chanted gleefully.
Edison’s rumbling chuckle washed over me as his hand came up to playfully tweak one of my stiff nipples. “Patience, pet, we’ll give it to you, but first we need to make sure you’re nice and stretched.”
I hadn’t realized I’d been saying the words out loud, the division between me as Perrie the human and Perrie the omega growing so thin that I was having trouble controlling myself.
Prior to this, I could always tell the difference—but maybe Edison was right and my heat was approaching. Soon my instincts would take over and I would be mindlessly rabid for my alphas, but for now I squeezed my lips together to keep my instincts from further taking control of my mouth.
Slowly, achingly, they started to move.
The position didn’t allow for much thrusting, and truthfully, I didn’t think I could handle it. Just the rubbing was enough to make me clench around them, listening to the stutter in their breathing as they slid against each other and inside of me.
“This is too much, Edi,” Rhodes said through gritted teeth, and I opened my eyes to see his face twisted in concentration.
“Hang on for just a bit,” Edison soothed, leaning forward to whisper in my ear. “Give him a distraction, my darling, if you’re up for it.”
Flopping away from Edison, I leaned into Rhodes’ chest and gave his lips a lick, a silent request for him to open up.
The alpha’s dark eyes opened, still squinting, and he reached up and aggressively pulled my mouth to his with a growl.
Hands snaked around my front and down to my thighs and I glanced down to find Edison’s fingers gripping the inside of my thighs, holding them open as his thumbs brushed over my swollen clit.
“Focus on me, Perrie,” Rhodes murmured, his mouth pressing into my jaw as Edison’s hips suddenly pushed up, forcing the edge of his knot just inside.
I knew he wouldn’t actually knot me while Rhodes’ cock was also inside of me, but that along with his thumb pressing into my clit was enough to make me come with a scream.
My brain went all fuzzy as Rhodes continued to kiss down the side on my neck as my body shook in between them.
It actually nearly made me pass out as I felt them both shudder around me, Edison’s warmth spreading through me as Rhodes pulled himself out and finished spilling inside of the condom.
Floating on the sensations, I felt them gently lay me inside of my nest and wipe me down with cool, damp washcloths. They were talking quietly to each other, laughing at whatever joke the other made, but I couldn’t make out the words as a yawn rippled out of me.
“Sleep, Perrie,” came Edison’s voice next to my ear as he settled in front of me and Rhodes settled in behind.
The combination of their purrs and warmth was enough to send me off into a dreamless sleep, completely content despite the voice in the back of my mind still asking for more.