18. Chapter Eighteen #2
I blink and scan the room for Blaze and Viper. They're not in the den, but I can feel them through the bond, close by and furious.
My heart pangs.
This isn’t how my heat is supposed to go. We’re supposed to be together. All of us. Safe in the nest, sealed away from the war and the blood and every awful thing waiting outside that door.
Knox makes a low, disgusted sound.
"Knothead," he mutters at himself, staring at the floor. His jaw works, and his voice comes out rough with self-loathing. "Should've set up a perimeter, but I was too busy thinking about getting my dick wet."
My chest pulls tight at the pain I can feel through our completed bond.
"Alpha," I say.
He doesn’t look at me.
"I left you," he repeats, quieter this time, and the shame in the bond sinks deeper. "You needed me, and I left."
I hate the pain in his voice more than I crave his knot.
I know him. He'll use this one terrible interruption as proof that he failed me as my Alpha, and I can't let him do that. I won't let him take this from us.
I prop myself upright, my body humming with every movement and every brush of fabric against my skin.
"I don’t care," I say.
Knox’s eyes snap to mine.
"I care." His voice roughens. "I was inside you. I was supposed to keep you safe and knot you, and instead I—"
"You protected the nest," I say, cutting him off before he can sink any deeper. "You protected us."
I crawl closer, even though my limbs feel loose and my heat is still clawing at every inch of me. "And you came back. That matters more."
Knox stares at me, caught between guilt and wanting me.
I reach for him, curling my fingers around his wrist. His skin is hot under my hand, and the fresh bond between us answers with a heavy, aching pull.
"I hate this," I admit. "I hate that even our beautiful moments are marred by violence, but it's our reality. It always has been, Knox. I'm not a pampered Omega from the Capital, so I know happiness costs sacrifice. It's what makes me perfect for this Pack."
His throat works, and his gaze drops to my mouth, my throat, the bite he left there. Red flares in his eyes.
"Princess," he says, voice strained.
I press closer to him, nuzzling up against his side. "Finish what you started, Alpha."
"You still want to?" His throat bobs, his brow furrowing in confusion. "But I didn't knot you. I—"
"Then knot me," I say, looking up at him from under my lashes, trying not to show just how badly my body needs his on top of me again. Like now.
"It won't fit."
I swallow the saliva pooling in my mouth. "I still want it."
Knox goes still.
The uncertainty in his expression doesn’t vanish, but it changes. His gaze drops to my mouth, then my throat, then down at his lap where his cock is still painfully erect, the base fully inflated in a knot, and when it comes back to my face, there is intent in it.
"You understand what you’re asking me for?" he says.
My heat answers faster than I can. "Yes."
Knox sways forward and holds on to me, his fingers still stained red as they curl into my side, tugging me closer. He rubs his face along my neck, where the bite is still fresh and painful, nuzzles around it and mouths at it. "You still want it, princess?"
"Yeah," I breathe, swallowing as he cants his hips forward, sliding his cock along the soft skin of my inner thigh.
I shiver and make the most pitiful whine.
"Now?" Knox asks. He leans forward, pressing me down until I'm once more on my back and legs spread open around him.
"Uh-huh," I squeak. "As soon as possible."
Knox’s jaw flexes, and the bond between us pulls tight with decision. I should probably recognize that determined expression, the one he gets when he's making a plan.
I don’t. I'm too heated and yearning.
Knox’s knot is already swollen, and it’ll take at least half an hour to subside, assuming Knox is like other Alphas. He’s not. He has never been. He’s a damn overachiever in everything he does, so knowing him, he’ll hold his knot for hours.
Hours.
In my head, the conclusion is obvious. We kiss, he touches me, maybe fucks me with the tip of his cock, hopefully gives me a few mind-blowing orgasms, and we wait.
Before I can spiral, he kisses me.
It’s his signature messy, unpracticed style. All mouth and teeth and lips and tongue. It’s wet and filthy, and I moan into the kiss as he distracts me from all thoughts of my poor pussy not surviving being deprived of his knot for hours.
His enormous hands knead at my ass, sliding his hands up my thighs and pressing them back to my chest, leaving me vulnerably open once more. It feels good being under his hands again, so if this is what we do until his knot deflates, then I think I can make it work.
He adjusts my legs to where he wants them, and then sinks his cock inside me. His eyes stay fixed on my face, watching every reaction like he’s measuring what I can take.
Knox doesn't let up, going up on his knees so he can pull out and ram in again, picking up where we'd left off. It's shallow, his knot stopping him from filling me up the way we both crave, but it's enough. The licks of heat and the dull ache in my core ease under his attention.
My body remembers that it has been denied its orgasm and gets on board real fast.
"Knox—"
"Call me Prime Alpha."
Heat rolls through me, and I obey. "Prime Alpha."
The title leaves my mouth on a shaky exhale, and his whole body reacts. His hips press deeper, his fingers tighten on my thighs, and the red in his eyes burns brighter as those two words drag another piece of his rut to the surface.
I say it again because I want that reaction. "Prime Alpha."
His breath catches. The bond floods with hunger and satisfaction, possessive and filthy, and the pleasure of it makes my body clench around him.
"Again," he orders.
My lips part around the title, softer this time, more ruined. "Prime Alpha."
Knox stares down at me with his mouth open and his control thinning by the second. I should have known this would undo him. Of course my duty-obsessed, rank-wearing, command-giving Alpha wants me calling him Prime Alpha while he’s buried inside me.
He picks up the pace, snapping his hips in until I'm stretched loose again, the slick easing the way. The base of his knot presses against me insistently.
That's when he leans forward, looming over me, and whispers, "Think you can take my knot, Omega?"
I moan, nodding despite being confused. I don't know why he's teasing us both with what we can’t have yet.
Knox grabs both my arms, pushing them until my wrists are crossed above my head again. He tests his weight and looks to our side where Shade is lying and watching.
Shade’s eyes meet mine first, then they flick down to Knox's knot, and back up again. I don't understand why his eyes are so wide or why he's looking at me with a mix of awe and apprehension.
"Hold her down," Knox grunts.
Shade doesn’t move right away. His gaze stays on mine, and his question comes through the bond without words.
I answer by lifting my wrists toward him.
Only then does he spring into action, smiling as he enters the fray.
Knox watches as Shade’s hands close around my wrists. Shade’s grip is firm, but the bond stays gentle, a quiet promise that he’ll let go the second I need him to.
Knox gives my arms a testing pull, and Shade holds me exactly where he wants me.
Knox grunts in approval and sits back on his haunches. His gaze drags over me, pinned beneath Shade’s hands and split open on his cock, and his mouth curves.
"Good girl."
Slick gushes from me, and he chuckles.
I’m dazed and breathless, but I smile back at him. I don’t fully understand why Knox asked Shade to help when he was managing on his own, but Shade’s hands feel firm around my wrists, and my Omega likes that Knox, despite being in rut, is letting him share this space.
I look up at Shade, and he smiles down at me while brushing the hair off my forehead.
Knox drives into me a few more times, watching my face with focused intent as my breasts bounce with every thrust. The base of his swollen knot presses against me.
He bears down.
Trepidation finally weaves its way through the haze of my arousal.
He bears down harder, and I cry out in confusion.
He's not going to… is he? He can't! His knot won't fit like this.
"Knox!" I shout.
His eyes narrow, and he clicks his tongue in disapproval.
"Prime Alpha," I correct quickly, breathless and frantic.
It doesn't help my case.
He keeps pressing. The pressure builds, and my thoughts scatter around the impossible size of him. His knot is already swollen. He can’t fit inside me like this. He knows that. He has to know that.
The entire point of a knot is that it gets too large to slip out after he comes, sealing his come inside me.