Chapter Sixty-one — Trinity
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
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TRINITY
Cinder came bounding up to us as soon as we came in the door.
She leapt for my leg, meowing loudly. I picked her up and cuddled her under my chin.
“Hi, baby. Sorry you were lonely.” I wasn’t going to let my brain think about her without me.
Everything still made me cry, and it wasn’t going to stop anytime soon.
She purred so loudly that I laughed. “You missed us, huh?”
Pain pulsed low in my gut. Slow, roiling sickness. It made me freeze. Was I going to throw up? The doctors said I didn’t have a concussion, but throwing up was a bad sign for that, right?
I set Cinder down on the floor, much to her dismay. But I couldn’t quite stand back up.
Another, deeper pulse. “I don’t feel good.”
Every Alpha in the room sharpened, looking at me. Aiden was closest, at my side in under a second. “What’s wrong?”
Wow. He smelled amazing right now. Something about his scent drifted off his skin and entranced me in a way it never had before. More than simply chocolate and cherries. This was chocolate split into sugar, cocoa, and butter. Fresh cherries and hot baked cherries and cherry candy.
Mine.
I turned into him, gripping the dark shirt he wore and inhaling. My mouth watered. It was so, so good. Was this how they’d been experiencing my scent the whole time?
Was this how Ocean and Isolde scented their Alphas? If I’d known it was like this I would have been sooooo much more jealous.
The other scents reached me, like my awareness had expanded.
A wave of the freshest, purest almond, like frosting.
Bastian’s leather was richer and spicier.
Brooks’s vanilla now had a million layers that danced with his smoke.
Logan stepped up behind me, pushing a tsunami of cinnamon.
Fresh, ground, baked. Sugar so sweet it might raise my blood sugar just by being near him.
The scents wrapped around me and wove into my skin. Buried themselves in my mind so deep they’d never leave. They. Were. Mine.
“I can scent you,” I whispered. “For real.”
Logan curled himself around me and buried his face in my neck. I felt him smile. “You’re going into heat?”
I nodded.
Heat bloomed deep in my core, raising my temperature along with the pain of need. Alphas. My Alphas. They were mine.
“Help me.”
Aiden kissed me, hot and hard. “Nest. Now.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. I grabbed his hand and towed him behind me. I hadn’t even seen the nest yet. It hadn’t been ready yesterday, and then today…
They were mine.
The scent match was real.
Knowing was different from feeling.
Now I understood how my friends bonded so fast. If you knew, why would you wait for it? I didn’t want to wait. After coming so close to losing them, I wanted them in me with more than just their bodies.
I stopped walking in the middle of the hallway. “Wait.”
Bastian hovered close. “Are you all right?”
Turning, I looked at them each in turn. “Bond with me.”
The atmosphere went taut. A breathless, echoless silence full of longing. Logan cleared his throat. “Are you sure? It’s not something you can take back.”
“I don’t want to take it back. You’re mine.” My voice broke on the words. “I love you. And after today, I don’t want to wait. I need to feel you.” Then, quieter. “If you want to.”
Aiden slammed us into the wall so fast the pictures rattled. His hand behind my head saved me from any pain. Tilting my head to the side, he bit where my neck met my shoulder.
I gasped, the bond unfurling in my chest like a flower blooming.
Feeling Aiden was like standing naked beneath a waterfall.
All the power, all at once. The deep, possessive feeling of ownership shone through.
I belonged to him. That’s all there was to it.
But it also showed that I owned him just as much.
The idea of being owned by him had never brought me so much comfort as right now. I managed to take a breath and swallow. “Holy fuck.”
Aiden tilted my head farther, dragging his tongue over the bite with one slow, wanton lick. Pleasure swirled and caught the growing warmth in my belly to make it explode.
“Get your beautiful ass in your nest and present for your other Alphas while I go get my bag. We’re going to tie you down and give you the best heat of your fucking life.” No room for argument, though there was no trace of his bark.
Through our bond, I felt the command. Oh, this was going to make our dynamic so much sharper. Feeling their confidence and dominance like a physical thing was heady, and it was only one of them so far.
That was the beauty of it, too. I could feel that his command came from a place of love, trust, and respect, and nothing else.
Aiden raised an eyebrow, his amusement clear in my chest. “Go.”
I bit my lip. “Okay.”
He strode for his bedroom, and I sprinted for the nest with Alpha laughter chasing close behind. I stripped my clothes off at the edge and paused. It was beautiful.
The little leaf-shaped lights trailed over the ceiling like vines. Everything was velvety shades of green and violet. Like a lush little clearing in the middle of a twilight jungle.
After everything today, and all the fear, stepping into the nest was pure relief. Every bad thing I had to face was still out there, but it could stay outside for the moment. In here, in this bubble, we were protected.
A burst of need-laced pain cracked through me. Right. I dropped into the center of the nest and presented. Hands out in front of me, ass in the air, making myself an offering to whoever got here first.
Sugar and cinnamon wrapped around me. Logan gripped my hips and rolled me over. They were all naked, and damn I was lucky. “Where should I bite you?” Logan asked the question, but it didn’t feel like it was directed at me. Even if it was, I didn’t want to choose. I wanted them to choose.
“Mm,” he rolled me back over briefly. “I think I’ll bite your ass. It was the first part of you I got to touch.”
The sharpness of the pain drew a cry from me, and then I was on my back again, staring up at my Alpha that I could feel. He loved me. Loved me beneath him, submitting to him, and when I was sassily talking back. Treasured.
Heat flowed over me, sweat breaking out on my skin. My mind went fuzzy. I wanted all of them to bite me, but I also needed a knot the same way I needed food, water, and air. It was necessary for life.
Logan gripped my ankles and pushed them up, bending me in half. “You want a knot, wildfire? You’ll have one.” A half smile. “I love knowing you don’t want me to hold back.”
I couldn’t speak as he drove home. Logan was thick, and even already soaking with slick it was hard to take him. That delicious edge of pain Aiden was teaching me to love turned the world to glitter and glass.
Three strokes and I was coming. Breaking open and flying. “Good thing you’re with me because I’m not lasting long. This time at least.” He slammed into me, the slaps of our bodies loud and raw. Erotic.
And now I had tools to put them at my mercy too. In the bond between us, I focused on how good he felt sliding in and out of me. How much I loved the thickness and the strength with which he held me. How fucking hot he was.
Logan cursed and came. His cock was buried inside me and he still thrust deeper, never letting his hips leave mine. His knot locked us together, and everything went blissfully quiet in my brain.
Not for long. If anything, this knot felt like lighting the fuse on a trail of gunpowder leading to dynamite. “Naughty Omega.” He lowered my legs. “Teasing me like that.”
“It’s only fair.”
“Is that so?” Through our bond, I felt him focus on how good I felt. How perfect, hot, and snug he felt inside my body. The lightning of his orgasm.
My back arched off the cushions in sheer, reckless need. “Logan.”
“It’s only fair.” He chuckled and kissed me. “I love you.”
I felt how true the words were, and he felt mine back.
Pain and need rocked through me again. “So fast. Why is it so fast?”
Already my heat was gaining an intensity I’d never felt. I figured it would be with them, but this was more than I’d thought. In response to my needs, Logan’s knot released me. Alpha and Omega.
“Because your Omega is protecting itself the only way it knows how,” Theo said.
The craving for a knot felt like the fiercest hunger I’d ever experienced. Like I’d forgotten to eat all day and suddenly my body needed it now.
“Please,” I begged, the whine slipping out of me. It hurt, and I was desperate. I didn’t care that begging was one of my hard limits. I needed— “Please.”
“Shh,” Brooks hushed me gently as he placed his body over mine. “Don’t beg, baby. You’ve had to beg for so much your entire life, and you don’t have to anymore. You never have to beg. Understand me? We’re going to take care of you.”
He pushed into me with one smooth motion, filling up the void that was screaming and burning inside me. Yes. That was what I needed. Him. Them. Over and over again.
“You’re home,” he whispered. “You’re here with us. We may joke about putting you in your place, and you love it when we do, but I need you to know that your place is here. You belong right here with me. With our pack.”
Tears pricked my eyes, throat thick. Fuck, I was tired of crying. But I couldn’t stop when they said things like that.
Brooks bent down and bit the side of my breast. Moved his mouth to my nipple and teased me with his tongue. Our bond was filled with scented smoke and the power he held over me. The way he loved seeing me in his stocks as much as he loved brushing my hair.
Delirious. That’s what this was. Sheer delirium and we’d barely started.
Bracing himself over me, my Alpha fucked me with long, rolling thrusts. He felt when he found the rhythm that caught my pleasure and locked himself to it. Never speeding up or slowing down, just rolling and rolling and every time a wave passed, the pleasure grew deeper.