32. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The sounds of children’s laughter filled the large backyard of Pack Stone’s mansion followed by the sounds of splashing as they were launched into the air by the various adults playing in the pool.
It was Colt Stone’s annual end-of-summer barbeque which he threw every summer to celebrate the countdown to hockey pre-season.
In just a few short weeks the Seattle Sports Complex’s first ever invitational would be taking place and my bones ached with all of the skating we’d been doing to prepare for it.
While my body was used to the grind of perfecting a routine, it still was trying to adjust to having a partner. It took new muscles to do the limited lifts that came with ice dancing and I could feel every single one of them as I lounged on a patio chair with Ciara.
“No, really Brynny, it wasn’t that bad,” Ciara was saying to her sister, leaning forward and blocking the shining sun from my sensitive eyes momentarily. I was wearing a pair of dark sunglasses, but that did little to shield me from the direct rays of sun that were making my already blurry vision worse.
“I ate shit in front of quite literally every other skater in the entire complex,” was Brynn’s dry response and I could see the redhead’s form as she flopped back in her own lounge, a toddler crawling up her chest for attention.
“If it makes you feel better, I couldn’t see a thing,” I tried, grinning when I heard the other omega laugh.
“It actually does, thank you,” Brynn said to me before she was cut off by the babbling of her daughter.
“Pool! Pool! Pool!” The almost four-year-old chanted.
“All right, all right, B, I hear you. I’m gonna take her for a dip, either of you want to join me?”
“Nah, you go have fun.” Ciara lay back down, her fingers threading through mine.
The overhead umbrella was suddenly shifted over Ciara and me, blocking out the sun and making it a little easier to see.
“Thanks love,” I said, my nose picking up Leith’s sweet apple scent hovering just behind me.
Warm hands grasped my chin and brought it around until I could see the blurred outline of his massive figure.
“You’re burning a bit, mo leannan, let me reapply some sun cream for you.”
“I can put it on myself, Leith,” I chastised him gently but sat up anyway.
“Yes, but it’s more fun this way, don’t you agree, mo ròs?” The sound of the suncream cap being opened filled my ears before two pairs of hands began spreading the cream down my pale shoulders and back.
“Oh, completely, we can’t let our omega crisp up in the sun, now can we?” Ciara’s voice was next to my ear and when I turned to follow it she surprised me with a quick kiss.
“Oi! Keep it PG for the kids!” Nash called from across the yard.
“I don’t know what you think is happening, Nash, but no one is getting hot and heavy over here,” Ciara shot back, making the other adults in the vicinity laugh.
“Is that why my daughter has been asking me what Auntie Ciara means when she says she wants to ‘go for a ride’ with her omega?”
I felt Ciara’s wince through the bond. “For all she knows it means I’m going to take Artie for a car ride.”
It most definitely did not mean that if our activities from this morning were any indication.
I’d been asleep in my nest with Enzo when I awoke to a very perky Ciara slipping my half-hard cock into her mouth and…
“Yeah, but I know what it means and it’s far more information than I think I ever wanted to know about your private life with your pack.” I could hear Nash give a loud mock-shudder.
Ciara finished smoothing the suncream into my back and proceeded to wrap her legs around my torso like a koala before responding to her brother-in-law. “And now you know how I’ve felt for the last three years when I’ve heard all about your—”
“Food’s ready!” One of Ciara’s dads bellowed, cutting the increasingly inappropriate conversation off completely.
A veritable stampede of people passed us in their dash for their pickings of hot dogs, hamburgers, steaks, and any other staple that came along with American barbeque.
“I’ll go get you two plates,” Leith said as he pressed a kiss to the side of my head and left us on the lounge to try and fight against the crowd to get some food.
Turning to Ciara who was still wrapped around me, I pressed my lips to her jaw. “Are you going to eat like this?”
“I think I’d like to live like this,” she replied and I could feel her cheeks pull up into a grin underneath my mouth. “But I think I can manage a hot dog without needing to move.”
“I’d make a dick joke, but I think I might get scolded by someone if I do,” Wiz said as he flopped down onto the lounge next to us, two plates in hand. “I come bearing a gift from Leith who is still fighting against the throng to try and get his own food.”
I felt Ciara reluctantly untangle herself from me and accept one of the plates.
“Fork,” Wiz said, handing me a brightly colored plastic piece of cutlery. “Leith put baked beans at ten o’clock, potato salad at two, and some chips at six. The hot dog I’m pretty sure you can figure out, but it’s across the center.”
The desire to grumble that he didn’t need to direct me to what was on my plate was strong, but I tamped down on it before it could escape.
He meant well—they all did—but while I loved that Ciara and Wiz were now a part of their pack it just meant that there were two new people to constantly hover over me and worry about my eyesight.
It was one of the reasons that I hadn’t told them that it was getting worse. Sometimes it felt like I woke up every day and the darkness at the edges of my vision was bleeding in more and more.
I didn’t need Enzo getting the idea that it was dangerous for me to skate—not when Ciara and I had finally hit our stride.
The laser eye surgery that was supposed to alleviate some of the pressure in my eyes was scheduled for a week after the invitational, so we just needed to make it to the invitational without my worrywart of an alpha losing it.
“Thank you,” I told Wiz, digging into my food with a gusto. American food was, as a whole, more flavorful than most things in the UK—though I had to say I did miss a hearty English breakfast at times. Too much of the American breakfast foods were overly sweet and always seemed to make me feel a bit sticky no matter how careful I was.
The heavy head of a dog dropped into my lap, nearly making me drop my plate.
“None for you,” I told Lucky, who just whined. We’d brought both dogs and while Charm was doing her job, Lucky was, as always, unemployed. “You’re better off seeing if one of the babies drops something.”
Lucky let out a huff as if he understood my words exactly and trotted off in the direction of the food.
A moment later I heard the squeal of one of the toddlers. “Bad doggy! My food!”
“That dog is too smart for his own good,” Wiz said with a laugh as he reached past me and snagged a bite of food off of Ciara’s plate.
“Last week it took me until he brought me nearly every shoe in the house to understand that he was asking for a walk,” Enzo said as he dropped down behind me and pressed his soaking wet chest to my bare back.
“That’s freezing,” I gasped trying to push the chilly alpha away from me before he could leak chlorinated water all over my food, grumbling when he snagged my hot dog off of the plate and took what I could only assume was a massive bite. “Oi! Get your own plate.”
“Sharing is caring, babe.” Enzo sounded completely pleased with himself as he held the hot dog up for me to take a bite. “Remember yesterday when you ate half of my bag of potato chips?”
“Love shouldn’t be tit for tat,” I grumbled, poking at his fingers with my fork as they descended into my blurred vision.
Thankfully, Leith came to my rescue just in time. “Stop bullying Artie, Enz, I got you some food too before the hoard could snag it all. You four just have to make room.”
The lounger was already a tight squeeze with just three of us on it, but five? I was worried the legs would give out as we shuffled so that Leith could settle in behind Ciara and hand Enzo a plate.
“And I thought we were attached at the hip,” I heard Wilder, one of Aurelia’s alphas, joke as he passed us by.
A feminine chuckle that I instantly knew was Aurelia herself filled my ears and I turned my head completely to see her passing us by in her wheelchair, a broad grin on her face. “I distinctly remember a certain alpha not wanting to let me even go to the bathroom by myself in the first year of our marriage.”
They settled on the lounge across from us, teasing each other affectionately as the rest of the people at the party seemed to settle in with their food and a hush fell on the backyard.
After about fifteen minutes, one of the twins’ voices echoed through the space. “I’d like to propose a toast, if you don’t mind, Colt?”
“Fire away, Alexei,” Colt, who had come to join Aurelia and Wilder shouted back.
There was a beat of silence before Alexei began and I leaned back into Enzo’s chest, my stomach blissfully full.
“I’d just like to say that I have been so happy today to be able to look around and see just how much our family has expanded. Recently the fifteenth anniversary of our wives and Ciara’s mother’s death rolled around and it made me think about how alone we felt right after it happened. If it hadn’t been for Aurelia holding down the fort, then I’m not sure if we would have ever survived it and now she’s happy with a pack that loves her and now a new baby on the way and Maxim and I couldn’t be happier for her.”
Aurelia lifted her glass to him and her voice was thick with emotion when she spoke. “I love you, Dad and Uncle Alexei, thank you for not giving up on me.”
There was a rumbling of agreement before Alexei continued. “And to my little Brynny, I am always so happy that you found two alphas that love and care for you—even if you drive them up the wall sometimes.”
There was a smattering of laughter.
“She comes by it honestly, Coach,” Nash teased, probably earning himself a withering look from the older man.
“And finally, Ciara.” I could feel all of the attention in the yard turn to our little group that was crammed onto one lounger. “The daughter that wasn’t born to us, but that we were blessed with and the only good thing to come out of that accident. You never do anything in halves, sweetheart, but I am so damned pleased to see that you have a group of people that love you.”
Emotion flooded down the bond from Ciara and it made me feel like I was about to cry as Leith murmured something in her ear.
“I don’t know why I’m crying either,” she whispered back, her voice tight with tears. “I’m just feeling emotional, I guess.”
Alexei, who hadn’t heard the exchange between the two, lifted his glass up high. “To the future and to family.”
“To the family!” Everyone cheered and the sound of clinking glass filled the air.
“How did you manage to get a sunburn?” Ciara asked later on that night as she spread aloe vera over my nose and cheeks. “We put sunscreen on you multiple times.”
“I guess I’m just that pale,” I joked, wincing as her fingers brushed past a particularly sensitive part of my face. “I thought it was supposed to be more cloudy in Seattle than in the UK, but it was downright pleasant today.”
“We do get some sunny days, Art, “ Wiz said from his side of the nest where he was fiddling on his phone. “It’s not like what you see in Twilight. Sparkly vampires would probably be exposed as soon as the midday marine layer wore off.”
It amazed me how comfortable I was having an alpha in my nest that I had no romantic interest in.
We’d become close over the last month, but only in the sense that I was pretty sure I’d found a best friend in the easy going alpha. Which was why I wanted to bring up what had constantly been on my mind ever since Ciara joined us in our bonds.
Tonight—if possible—as my mood was still incredibly sentimental from Alexei’s speech earlier.
“Either way it feels as if you could fry an egg on my face,” I mumbled as Ciara got out of the nest and headed to the bathroom to put everything away.
I turned to Wiz. “While it’s just us, I am going to ask you something completely insane, but hear me out before you say no.”
Wiz sat up, his phone dropping somewhere in the nest as he faced me fully. “Okay…?”
Glancing over at the still-open bathroom door, I lowered my voice a bit. “How would you feel about biting me?”
“What?” Enzo’s voice filled the room and I winced, realizing that he’d heard everything I’d just said and his shout would bring both Ciara and Leith running.
“What’s happening?” Leith asked from down the hallway.
“Artie just asked Wiz if he wants to bite him.” Enzo’s words were quickly followed by the sound of Leith’s rapid footsteps as he joined us in my room.
“He did what?” Ciara stumbled out of the bathroom, nearly slipping on one of Lucky’s balls in the process.
Enzo’s hands shot out and he caught her before she could fall face first into the hardwood floors, but even that wasn’t enough to distract them from what was supposed to be a private conversation before we brought it up to the whole group.
“Why do you want me to bite you?” Wiz asked slowly. “Do you… like me like that? Because I’ve got to be honest, Artie, I don’t really see you in that—”
“No it’s not that,” I cut him off with a firm shake of my head. “But I’ve been thinking about it for a while and I guess now that everyone’s here it’s now a pack discussion.”
“It should have always been a pack discussion,” Enzo grumbled and was quickly hushed by Ciara as everyone piled into my nest.
“If you don’t like him in that way, why on Earth are you asking him to bite you, mo leannan?” Leith didn’t sound angry, just curious. He settled in behind me, a warm, comforting presence that grounded me and gave me the courage to try and explain my reasoning.
“I want him to be a part of the bond so he can feel what we feel—even if we aren’t together romantically. He should be just as much a part of the pack as you three are and if that means letting him bite me… then I think I’m okay with it.”
“Babe,” Enzo’s hand slid into mine. “There are other ways to be a pack. We are already planning on legally adding both Wiz and Ciara. But you don’t have to bond with him to make that happen.”
Wiz, who had been quiet for most of the discussion, nodded. “And you do realize that things will have to be more… intimate in order for the bond to take effect, right?”
I nodded, rolling my eyes a bit at the way they were speaking to me as if I was dim. “I know. I did some research before bringing it up, you know.”
Ignoring their concerned looks, I continued. “The chances of a bond being successful rise exponentially when an omega’s pheromones flourish during sex, but it never actually says that the alpha doing the biting has to be having sex with the omega. There are tons of cases where an alpha platonically bonds with his or her pack’s omega so that they can be included. Besides, we’ve been toeing around the idea of group sex ever since Ciara and Wiz joined the pack, so it’s high time to rip the plaster off and just get to it.”
I finished in a rush and sucked in a long, gasping breath as the four alphas in my nest stared at me as if I’d grown a second head.
“How do you even know if Wiz wants that?” Ciara asked, but I could feel a hint of excitement that she was poorly concealing on her end of the bond.
“Well I was in the middle of asking him that before you all barged in here.”
“I didn’t barge, I walked steadily into the room and heard you asking to be bitten,” Enzo said with a huff.
Ignoring him, I turned my attention back to Wiz. “Don’t you ever feel lonely being the only one in the pack that isn’t a part of the bond?”
There was a pause before: “I do sometimes—yeah—but isn’t that a little bit intimate for two dudes who are just friends?”
“You’re going to have to get used to it at some point. We’re all going to be naked together eventually, especially if you want to see what she looks like getting driven nuts by those two assholes,” I told him dryly, hiking a thumb over my shoulder at Leith and Enzo.
Despite Enzo’s grumbling, I could feel his arousal at the idea of sandwiching Ciara and I knew I had him hook, line, and sinker.
“And you don’t even have to bite me anywhere super sexy, you can have my hand.” I wiggled my fingers in the air to underline my point. “Come on, Wiz, let’s be a family for real, join us in our bonds.”
Silence hung in the nest far too long for my liking and I was afraid, for just a moment, that Wiz was going to say no and we were about to reach the first big roadblock in our newly formed pack.
But then he finally sighed. “Okay, but if it gets weird for any of us we stop.”
Ciara squealed, launching herself across the nest and into his arms, making the alpha laugh.
Turning to Enzo and Leith, I gave both of their hands a squeeze. “Are you two good with this?”
“As long as you are, mo leannan, then I am,” Leith told me firmly and I could feel his steadfastness through the bond.
Enzo seemed to be taking longer to get on board, but he finally just shrugged with a sigh. “If you’re okay with it, then so am I. I’m not the one getting bit, after all.”
I was okay with it—actually I was excited to have my pack, my family, finally together in one solid, inescapable way.