Chapter 27
Gregor
I had spent my entire life preparing for violence. It was the language I learned first, before Russian, before English, before I found my pack, or had the weight of a cooing baby in the crook of an arm. Only now, I felt my preparations were for Mac and Maeve and not the Bratva.
I wanted to destroy with my bare hands the man we expected to come to the house soon, but it was hard to stay focussed when my omega kept making faces at our son as she sat on the rug.
Maeve was on her stomach, propped on her elbows, holding a brightly colored block in front of her. Mac’s fists were waving, tracking the block with the intense concentration of a sniper spotting a target.
I leaned down and he tried to grab it, and Maeve made a sound of exaggerated delight and he released a gurgle that was either approval or a critique of her technique.
Fergus lay beside her on his back, paws in the air, having abandoned all pretense of guarding the home in favor of belly rubs from, to my great surprise, Ivan.
Artem took Mac from my arms. “Stop planning.”
“I’m not.”
I was. Finn O'Shea had arrived in England this morning.
I should have been in the armory with men, checking tactical loads. I should have been reviewing the gatehouse protocols, the sight lines from the upper windows, the evacuation route for the nursery. But I couldn’t drag myself away from them.
"If you glare at that window any harder, it's going to surrender," Maeve said without looking up.
"I’m looking at you through the reflection in the window.”
“Aww. My alphas are the sweetest." She rolled onto her side and propped her head on her hand.
Maeve smiled. It was the smile that meant she was about to say something that would make me uncomfortable in a way I didn't know how to name. "You're worried about tomorrow."
If he landed today, it would be too obvious to come to the house. Finn needed to gather his pawns before he prepared for battle.
"I’m preparing for tomorrow. Worry is inefficient."
"You're worried and you don't know what to do with your hands when you're not holding a weapon, so you're standing by the window like a bodyguard at a diplomatic function."
I looked down at my hands. They were empty. I had not noticed.
"I should hold Mac," I said.
"You could hold Mac," she agreed, and her voice had gone soft in the way it did when she was trying not to let me see that she understood me better than I understood myself.
She patted the space beside her.
I walked over and lowered myself onto the rug beside her. The movement was more awkward than it should have been. I was designed for concrete and combat boots, not wool rugs and wooden blocks, but Maeve turned to make room and Fergus rolled onto his side with a grunt.
"Here." Artem lowered Mac and settled him into my arms. He was warm and solid and smelled of milk and the faint lavender soap the housekeeper used on his laundry. His fist closed around my thumb.
"See? No weapons required."
"I am aware."
Maeve winked. "You look terrified."
"I’m not terrified. I’m calculating the appropriate grip pressure."
"You've held him a hundred times."
"This is the first time I've held him while you're looking at me like that."
She tilted her head. "Like what?"
Like I was someone who deserved to hold a baby on a wool rug in a sunlit room. Like the blood on my hands was something she'd already forgiven. Like she'd seen every scar and decided none of them disqualified me.
I didn't say any of this. Words were not my primary function.
Instead I said, "Tomorrow he comes. Finn."
"I know."
"I won’t let him near this room."
Maeve reached across Fergus, who made a small sound of protest at being briefly compressed, and placed her hand against my jaw. Her palm was warm. Her thumb traced the scar that cut through my eyebrow.
"I know that too," she said. "But you don't need to stand at the window like you're already at war. He expects a victim. He would have got one, before I found you. Before—" She glanced at Mac, then back at me. "Before all of this."
"Now he will find the opposite."
"Yes." She leaned forward and kissed the corner of my mouth. It was not a kiss of passion. It was a kiss of certainty. "He will."
I swapped Mac to my other arm and wrapped the other around her waist, pulling her against my side. She fit there. She had always fit there, from the first moment in Prague when she'd stumbled into an alley with a steak knife and a bad plan.
"You make me want things I was not designed to want," I said.
Maeve looked at me. "What things?"
"A baby. Wooden blocks. A dog that fits in my pocket." I paused. "More children."
Her breath caught.
“Wow, Gregor. You’re getting good at this.”
"I’m not good at saying things," I argued, because I had started now and stopping seemed worse.
"I observe. I stand near the doors. This is what I contribute.
But I watch you with Mac and I want—" I stopped.
The words were not arriving in the correct order.
"I want to see you get bigger with our child.
I want this more than I ever thought I would. The love and the babies I mean."
Maeve was very still. Then she laughed. It was the bright, surprised laugh she made when something had gone past her defenses.
"That is the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me."
"It was not romantic. It was logistical."
"You said you wanted to have more babies with me and not once did you mention perimeter or weapon safety. That's a marriage proposal in your language."
"I was not proposing. We’re already married in the eyes of pack law."
"You were proposing a baby."
"I was—" I stopped again. "Yes. That is accurate."
She kissed me properly then. Her mouth was warm and steady and her hand stayed on my jaw and Mac made a small sound between us like he was registering a complaint about being excluded from the conversation.
When she pulled back, her eyes were bright but dry. "Ask me again after tomorrow. When Finn is gone and the house is quiet and you're waiting for a war."
"After tomorrow," I agreed.
Maeve rested her head against my shoulder. "That's love, Gregor. It's inefficient and it takes up all your processing power and you can't do a thing about it."
"That’s not encouraging."
"It's not supposed to be. It's supposed to be true."
Fergus had fallen back to sleep, he kicked one paw as he dreamed. Outside, the shadows had nearly reached the tree line. Somewhere beyond the gates, Finn O'Shea was preparing to arrive and collect what he thought he was owed.
But in the sitting room, the light was gold and my omega was warm against my side and my son's fist was wrapped around my thumb.
Tomorrow, violence.
Tonight, this.
The house was dark when Maeve came to us.
Mac had been fed and settled. Fergus was on duty at the foot of the bassinet. The guard outside the nursery had been rotated. Everything was in its place except the three of us, who had been pacing separate corners of the master bedroom like wolves waiting for a signal.
She walked, took off her thin robe, and was wearing nothing but moonlight and the mark Artem had already given her.
She didn't wait.
She came to me first. I didn’t know why she chose me first. She grabbed the collar of my shirt and pulled me down to her mouth.
"Maeve," I said against her lips.
"I want all three of you." Her voice was steady. Commanding. The voice of an omega who had spent years being currency and had decided to become a queen instead. "Before tomorrow. I want to be fully yours and I want you to be fully mine."
She walked with a sexy wiggle to the bed. Before she could make it I picked her and held her in my arms.
Her scent wrapped around me like a drug, sweet and needy and unmistakably ours.
Artem and Ivan followed me onto the nest, their low growls vibrating through the room as I laid our omega in the center of the massive bed.
But she didn't want careful. She wanted our strength.
She wanted to feel the undeniable power of her pack.
"Please," she whimpered, her hands tangling in Ivan's hair as he trailed open-mouthed kisses down her stomach. "I need you. All of you."
Her skin was flushed, her breath coming in short, needy gasps.
"Kiss me, omega." Artem claimed her mouth, kissing her deeply while his hands mapped the curves of her body.
Ivan spread her thighs.
My cock was already painfully hard, the knot at the base beginning to swell.
I settled beside her, cupping one soft breast and rolling the nipple until it was stiff between my fingers.
She whimpered as Ivan buried his face between her legs and devoured her soaked center with long, hungry strokes of his tongue.
The sounds he made were feral. Her hips bucked against him and her fingernails dug into his scalp. He plunged two thick fingers inside her, stretching her while he sucked hard on her swollen clit. Maeve cried out, coming hard on his face, and flooding his mouth with her slick.
I growled in approval. “Good girl. Give it to us.”
Artem flipped her onto her hands and knees. He mounted her in one smooth thrust, burying himself to the hilt in her slick soaked pussy.
I knelt in front of her and fed my heavy cock between her swollen lips. She took me eagerly, sucking and swirling her tongue while Artem fucked her with deep, measured strokes.
When her orgasm hit, her moans vibrated around my shaft. Artem snarled and slammed forward.
"Knot me," she begged.
"Not yet, omega." Artem pulled out and nodded to his brother.
Ivan pulled her on top of him. Maeve widened her legs as she settled on his cock. I moved behind her, wetting my fingers with her slick before pressing them into her tight hole, scissoring and stretching her carefully.
Her head flung back. "Please fill me," she begged.
"I'm going to knot you," I whispered.
I rushed to the bathroom and slid a condom over my cock. I wanted my cum in every hole, but tonight I was also going to claim and knot her pussy.
Back on the nest, I stroked my cock with one hand while I stretched her hole enough to take my dick.
"Gregor," she gasped, her head falling back against my shoulder.
When she was finally ready, I pulled out my fingers, lined up my cock and pushed in slowly.
"Breathe..." I murmured in her ear. "Keep breathing." I pushed inch by thick inch. The overwhelming sensation of sliding inside her while Ivan was buried deep in her pussy made my vision white out.
A guttural roar ripped from my throat.
She was completely filled. Claimed in every possible way by the men who would burn the world down for her.
We began to move, a primal, synchronized rhythm that drove her higher and higher. The room echoed with the wet sounds of our bodies, her broken moans, and our harsh, demanding growls.
She was fucking perfect. She clenched around me while Ivan’s cock filled her pussy.
Ivan and I moved in sync, fucking our omega until she was shaking and sobbing with pleasure.
"I'm coming...I'm..."
"I need to knot you," Ivan grunted, his eyes black with lust. "Take it, malen'kaya."
"Please..."
Ivan cursed as he ground against her. He pulled out and then pushed back in, this time pushing harder until he locked his knot deep inside her with a guttural roar.
I thrust into her, drawing out her orgasm until she was clenching and fluttering around both of us.
"Oh God," she whimpered.
When Ivan’s knot finally went down, I pulled out, dragged off the condom before I flipped Maeve onto her back, and hooked her legs over my shoulders.
I drove into her cum-slick pussy in one brutal thrust, bottoming out.
“Mine,” I growled against her mouth. “Our perfect fucking omega.”
I fucked her hard and deep, savoring every wet slap of skin, every gasp and moan. Her walls gripped me like a velvet glove.
When my knot began to swell, I pressed it against her entrance and pushed. The thick bulb popped inside her. Her eyes rolled as I stretched her to her limit, and locked us together.
"Oh my..." Maeve screamed as her pussy spasmed around my knot and another powerful orgasm ripped through her.
I snarled and came with thick, heavy jets of cum flooding her insides, pulse after pulse, and my knot sealing every drop deep inside her.
I stayed locked inside my mate, purring deeply, my hand covering her belly. I so wanted to see her pregnant with our pack baby again.
When my knot finally eased, I withdrew carefully and gathered her against my chest. Maeve should have been limp with exhaustion. Instead, she turned in my arms, her brilliant green eyes locking onto mine, feral and completely lucid.
"Gregor," she panted, her chest heaving. "Make me yours."
My heart stopped.
"Maeve," Ivan rasped from her other side, his own control hanging by a thread.
She reached up, her hand cupping Ivan's jaw, while her other hand reached back to grip the back of my neck.
"Both of you," she commanded, the absolute authority of an omega claiming her ultimate armor. She tilted her head, exposing the unblemished skin on the left side of her neck to Ivan, and the junction of her shoulder to me. "I want all three of you to be fully mine tomorrow. Claim me. Now."
The sheer, staggering power of her demand shattered the last of my restraint.
I didn't ask if she was sure. She was our queen, and she had given an order.
And I never disobeyed an order.
With a feral roar, I buried my face in the crook of her shoulder and sank my teeth deep into her flesh. At the exact same second, Ivan let out a vicious growl and bit down hard on the opposite side of her neck.
Maeve screamed, but the sound was of triumph and overwhelming power.
The bond exploded in my chest. It wasn't just an extension of Artem's anchor anymore. It was a direct, blindingly bright tether, snapping into place with the force of a thunderclap.
Ivan's tether locked in right beside mine as we flooded her with our absolute devotion, permanently forging into one unbreakable weapon.
When I finally pulled my teeth free, licking the blood from her skin, Maeve lay between us, breathing hard, her eyes blazing with an unearthly, radiant fire.
She bore the marks of her true alphas.
She was untouchable. And Finn O'Shea was going to walk into this house tomorrow expecting a victim, and he was going to find a woman who had been claimed by three alphas who would burn the world to keep her warm.