Prologue #2
Oh, god, I was wrong, I’m not going to last.
I’m still so sensitive, still so needy for these men that my orgasm is already right on the edge.
I doubt it’s going to take much at all for me to explode, maybe a few minutes of hard fucking after a slow build.
Yeah, that’s all it’ll take for them to have me screaming their names, but they know that as well as I do.
We might not have years and years as a pack, and maybe we aren’t necessarily fated in the traditional sense, but my mates know me inside and out, and I can say the same about them.
We love each other, and that counts for everything.
My belly dips as our pace increases, a warmth starting in the pit of my stomach that spreads through my entire body as everything starts to tingle.
Almost as if they planned it, Emery and Jay both push their knots inside of me, neither swollen enough to keep us joined, but the thought alone has me reeling. So much so that I start to take control.
“I love you,” I whisper as I press my lips to Emery’s, kissing him deeply as my hips start moving faster. “Oh god, I love all three of you so much.”
Dante growls the same words as he slams into Jay so hard he buries him in my ass to the hilt, his knot quickly thickening, holding him there even though I keep rocking my body against theirs.
Emery follows almost immediately, gripping my hips firmly while his knot swells inside my pussy, making it almost impossible to move as they start to come.
I’m nothing if not determined.
Rolling my hips the best I can, I work my body in a way that has them pushing all of my buttons, a way that still gives just enough for me to keep fucking myself on their cocks while I get closer and closer to my release.
I close my eyes and focus on the feeling, on the way we’re all connected, on how much we do love each other.
I listen to the sounds they make, the soft moans and deep grunts, skin slapping against skin, sweet words and professions of love groaned into the space around us until Dante lets out a muffled roar.
Rocking faster, I gasp as Emery starts circling my clit, his hips lifting periodically as he continues to come and just as I open my mouth to cry out my orgasm, the sound gets lodged in my throat.
Something flies past my ear, slicing through the air so quickly I can feel the way it kicks up my hair, then moments later how a thick piece of it falls against my arm.
My eyes follow the strands, watching closely as the dark chocolate pieces hit my fair skin almost as if it’s in slow motion, some sliding off my biceps while others stick to it.
Almost as if it’s glued on.
Glued with sweat and cum, and a rich red color in large spots and squiggly lines.
That doesn’t make sense.
I lift my gaze, ready to ask Emery what the hell he got all over me, but I pause as my brow furrows.
His face looks the same.
Red spots and squiggly lines, but the largest spot is above his right eye and there’s a steady stream following the wavy S shape down his brow and over his eyelid.
It takes a second for what I’m looking at to register, to realize the marks aren’t the same because my mate isn’t moving, he’s not reacting at all, and that isn’t actually a spot.
It’s a hole.
And that realization is what sends things into overdrive.
“Emery?” I whisper, panic replacing everything I was feeling mere moments ago as I lift my hand to his cheek. “Emery, please—”
Something smacks into my arm, pain burning just above my elbow seconds before the same happens to the back of my hand, blood exploding from a wound I watch form.
Emery’s head jerks against the wall, his cheek blown open under my palm, his handsome face ruined as the last ounce of life fades from his eyes.
Tears burn my nose and throat as I try to make sense of what’s happening but I’m not given the chance.
I feel Jay slam into my back, his arm wrapping around my waist as we fall to the side. “Stay still… and quiet,” he pants next to my ear. “I need, I need you to do that for me, bug.”
Blinking back my tears, I hold my breath as Dante is thrust forward, his face crashing into Emery’s chest, his vibrant eyes already vacant as they bore into mine.
“Olive. Can you… can you do that?”
Before I can respond, he covers as much of my body with his as he can, pinning me between Emery and himself, and that’s how we stay while the sound of gunshots ring out through my nest. It’s how we stay as I watch bullet after bullet hit two of my mates.
It’s how we stay until everything goes quiet and I don’t feel Jyron’s chest rise and fall against my back anymore.
I continue carrying out his final request long after that. Long enough for the blood to stop flowing, replaced by a never-ending stream of tears until those dry up, too. Then I just lay with my mates, the silence deafening while I pray for death to take me, and I wait to follow them.
I stab the shovel into the dirt, the point sinking into the small pile at my feet as I use my forearm to push my hair out of my face. I take a few deep breaths as I wipe the sweat from my brow then tilt my head back to squint up at the sky.
I had no idea how warm it was today.
Springtime in Minnesota can bring warmer temperatures, but it has to be somewhere in the seventies and I wasn’t really expecting that.
Then again, the house about 400 yards away has probably increased the heat index on some level.
Burning buildings probably do that.
It could also be the fever I no doubt have. That’s definitely something that could have me sweating buckets, especially while doing hard labor with infected wounds wrapped in dirty, makeshift bandages.
Thankfully, I think my body is still in shock, otherwise all of this would be much more painful, and probably a lot harder than it already is.
I close my eyes against the setting sun, momentarily wishing it would rise and take me back to two days ago, that it would cycle backwards to the end of my heat or hell, even the beginning of it.
I wish that stupid ball of burning gas could rewind the last month of my life and put me back in bed with my mates when we were arguing about visiting that shitty little cabin they wanted to rent.
The one-room shack close to the border where we could shut down and go off grid for a while.
They wanted to do something different, to go somewhere we’d never been, and they wanted it to coincide with my heat for some reason. A romantic one that I probably ruined by arguing.
But the idea of leaving our house gave me so much anxiety. It scared me. I started a fight just to keep the panic attack at bay, and they gave in because they always do.
Always did.
I’d give anything to go back to that.
Now, that very same house is burning behind me, and instead of going away somewhere with my mates, I’m burying them in unmarked graves under our favorite tree in the woods on our property.
Our initials are carved into it, and that’ll have to suffice for now but their final resting place won’t stay unmarked forever.
I’ll honor them the way they deserve and I’ll do it as soon as I’m able.
For now, I just need to make sure they’re safe and at peace.
I swipe at the tear that slips down my cheek before digging the heel of my hand into my eye so no more can follow, then quickly go back to filling in the final hole at my feet.
I smooth out the last of the dirt, flattening the surface before I drop the shovel and grab the bucket and trowel.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
That’s what they’d say back home.
It’s probably the only thing I took from that garbage they spewed at us, and it was only because I was waiting for the day they’d say that about my father.
I didn’t think I’d be saying it about my mates, nor did I think I’d be taking it so literally.
Bracing myself for the finality of the moment, I dip the trowel into the bucket, scooping out ashes from the part of our house that has already burned to almost nothing then begin spreading them over each grave one at a time.
Carefully, reverently. I pat the smoldering ash into the dirt with every ounce of love and appreciation I can muster.
I want them to know that.
To really know, to feel the things I tried to convey every single day we were together.
I want them to take that with them.
When I finally hit the bottom, I toss those tools with the shovel, grab my hatchet and begin the painstaking task of retrieving twigs and branches from the surrounding trees in a sad attempt to protect these men the way they always protected me.
Always.
Right up until the very end.
They loved and protected me with their last breaths, and I will be damned if I don’t do the same.
After saying my final goodbyes, I tell them I love them one last time, wrap up the tools I used out here then head to our truck, loading them in the bed with everything else I bothered to salvage before I slam the tailgate closed.
I take a good look around at our property, at the place we worked so hard to have for ourselves, the contrast between the peaceful forest and blazing house almost laughable, and maybe I’ll find it funny later.
Much later.
When the infection in my hand and arm is so bad I’m delirious and hallucinating.
When I finally crack under the weight of all this pain and let it consume me once and for all.
PT. 2: LIV
Look to Windward - Sleep Token
I didn’t know where I was going when I left, I just got in the truck and started driving.
Aimlessly for the most part.
There might have been a part of me, a small part that was hoping I’d drive until I fell asleep behind the wheel and something terrible happened, but I’m beyond exhausted now. I’ve entered that weird in between where I’m tired but lucid enough to run on autopilot and function without sleeping.
That’s what I’ve done.
For the last five hours.
I’ve been driving around with no destination in mind, with no plan or end goal in sight.
Somehow, I didn’t die, and I’ve found myself sitting in front of the last place I want to be.