"We'll see," I replied softly, pressing a kiss to her forehead—gentle, tender, nothing like the heat that was building between us. "We have forty-eight hours, Avalon. And I'm a very patient man."
I felt her shudder against me, felt her fear and her fury and her terrible, unwilling want.
Good.
The teaching had begun.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
AVA
They didn't let me out of their sight.
For three days, there was always at least one of them touching me. A hand on my back. Fingers in my hair. An arm around my waist. They passed me between them like something precious, something fragile, something that needed constant tending.
It was maddening. It was torture. It was exactly what Mason had promised.
The first day wasn't so bad. I was exhausted from the correction room, wrung out and shaky, my body still recovering from twelve hours of cold and darkness. They fed me warm soup that Mason made, settled me on the couch between Caleb and Leo and wrapped me in soft blankets, while Ethan checked my vitals as Mason watched from the armchair.
"Your temperature is still elevated," Ethan observed, pressing the back of his hand to my forehead, his green eyes clinical behind his glasses. "Heart rate is faster than baseline. Pre-heat is progressing."
"I'm fine," I said flatly, though we both knew it was a lie. My skin felt too sensitive, every brush of fabric like sandpaper, every touch like fire.
"You will be," Ethan agreed, his voice calm and measured as he made notes on his tablet. "Once you stop fighting it." I didn't have the energy to argue. Just sat there, sandwiched between two massive Alpha bodies, their warmth seeping into me from both sides, their scents wrapping around me like chains I couldn't escape.
That night, they put me to bed in Mason's room. Not my destroyed nest, not the correction room, but the master bedroom with its enormous bed and soft sheets and the overwhelming scent of the pack's leader.
"I can sleep in my own room," I protested weakly as Mason guided me through the door, his hand warm and steady on my lower back.
"Your nest is destroyed," Mason reminded me gently, his honey-brown eyes soft in the lamplight. "You tore it apart yourself. Until you're ready to rebuild it, you'll sleep here."
"With you?" I asked, something like panic rising in my chest.
"With all of us," Mason replied, and I realized the bed was big enough for five. "Pack sleeps together during an Omega's heat. It helps regulate your symptoms." I wanted to refuse. Wanted to demand my own space, my own bed, my own anything. I was so tired, and the bed looked so soft, and some treacherous part of me craved the closeness even as my mind rejected it.
They arranged themselves around me like a living cocoon. Mason at my back, his arm draped over my waist. Caleb on my other side, his massive presence a wall of warmth. Leo at my feet, curled like a cat, his hand resting on my ankle. Ethan sat against the headboard, reading by lamplight, his thigh pressed against the top of my head.
Surrounded. Caged. Held. I should have felt trapped. Instead, despite everything, I felt something loosen in my chest. Some tension I hadn't known I was carrying began to ease.
A sound escaped my throat. Low and soft, almost like a hum. Almost like...
I froze, horror flooding through me.
I'd almost purred.
"Shh," Mason murmured against my hair, his arm tightening around me, a low rumble building in his chest. The sound was soothing, vibrating through me, making my eyes heavy. "Sleep, Avalon. You're safe."
I wasn't safe. I was in bed with four men who had kidnapped me, claimed me, locked me in a concrete cell. I was going into heat, my body betraying me, my instincts screaming for things my mind rejected.
I wasn't safe at all.
I slept anyway.
The second day was harder.
I woke surrounded by warmth, by the scents of four Alphas, by a growing ache between my thighs that made me want to scream. My skin was on fire. Every nerve ending felt raw, exposed, desperate for contact.
"Good morning," Leo said from somewhere nearby, his voice warm with amusement. "Sleep well?" I opened my eyes to find him lounging at the foot of the bed, gray eyes dancing, that familiar smirk playing at his lips. The others had apparently already risen, their spaces on the bed still warm but empty.
