"Fuck," I mutter to the empty room.
I should meditate. Should take another cold shower. Should do anything except what my body is demanding.
But my hand is already sliding beneath the waistband of my pants, wrapping around my hard length. The initial touch sends a jolt up my spine, drawing a hiss between my clenched teeth.
I tell myself I'm just releasing tension. Dealing with the biological imperatives triggered by the omega's heat pheromones. Nothing more.
As I stroke myself, I try to keep my mind clear, but my traitorous brain fills in the blanks, conjuring images I've been desperately trying to suppress.
The omega from my dreams, with those aquamarine eyes and wild honeysuckle scent. Her slender frame beneath mine, those soft lips parting on a gasp as I enter her. The way she mightlook coming apart, crying out my name the way she cried out Wraith's.
The fantasy shifts without my permission. Suddenly it's Whiskey's weight pressing me into the mattress, his mouth hot on my throat, his hands pinning my wrists above my head. That cocky smile disappearing as his gaze meets mine and...
"Goddamnit," I growl, increasing the pace as heat builds at the base of my spine.
I shouldn't be thinking about this. About him. About either of them. It's inappropriate. Unprofessional. A complication I neither need nor want.
But my body doesn't care about should or shouldn't. It responds to the fantasy with a surge of pleasure so intense it borders on pain. My back arches off the bed as release crashes through me, vision whiting out at the edges as I spill over my hand.
For a few blissful moments, my mind is blank—no thought, no complication, just the endorphin rush of release. Then reality crashes back in, bringing with it a wave of irritation at my own weakness.
I clean up methodically, wiping away the physical evidence of my lapse in control, but the knowledge remains. The memory of what—ofwho—I just fantasized about.
This is exactly why I maintain distance. Why I guard myself. The moment you let someone in, you lose the ability to think clearly. To act rationally. To maintain the control necessary for survival.
I turn out the light and lie in darkness, listening to the occasional creak of the old house settling around me. From somewhere upstairs comes a muffled thump followed by a low growl.
Wraith and the omega, still lost in each other.
The thought sends another unwelcome pulse through me, followed immediately by intense frustration. This situation is rapidly becoming untenable. One omega in heat shouldn't be able to destabilize our entire pack dynamic so completely.
Yet here we are.
Thane retreated to his room with a migraine. Wraith fucking the omega senseless. Whiskey pacing the halls like a caged animal. And me, lying alone in the dark, my control slipping through my fingers like sand.
I roll onto my side, punching the pillow into a more comfortable shape. Tomorrow I'll need to be the rational one. The voice of reason. Someone will have to deal with Valek's arrival and the aftermath of tonight's revelations with a clear head.
That someone will be me. It always is.
Because I'm the only one who can be trusted to keep emotion out of the equation.
Even if it's a lie I'm starting to have trouble believing myself.
Chapter
Thirty-Two
IVY
Iwake to a gentle warmth surrounding me, cocooned safely against something solid and strong. My eyelids flutter open, adjusting to the dim light filtering through unfamiliar blinds.
The first thing I register is Wraith's bright blue eyes watching me, crinkled slightly at the corners in his version of a smile.
His massive arm curves protectively around my waist, cradling me against the hard planes of his chest. His skin radiates heat like a furnace, chasing away the morning chill. My legs are tangled with his, one of his massive thighs wedged between mine, anchoring me securely to him.
I breathe in his midnight forest scent and feel my muscles instinctively relax. My body remembers last night, how perfectly we fit together, how gently he held me through the fever of my heat.
He's still wearing his mask, but I can see by the way his eyes track my movements that he's fully awake and has probably been watching me sleep.
