"Ava," Mason breathed, his voice cracking. "Sweetheart, you're?—"
"I know," I whispered, humiliation burning through me even as the purr continued. "I can't stop?—"
"Don't stop," Caleb rumbled, and I felt a matching vibration start in his chest. "Don't ever stop. That's the most beautiful sound I've ever heard."
Mason's purr joined his, then Leo's, then Ethan's—four deep rumbles surrounding my lighter one.
Pack. This was what pack sounded like. I should have hated it. Instead, I closed my eyes and let the sound wash over me. Forthe first time since they'd taken me, I didn't fight it. I just let myself belong.
When I finally slept, real sleep, deep and dreamless, it was with their purrs still rumbling around me, their bodies still wrapped around mine, their seed still warm inside me.
Safe. Wanted. Home.
Maybe, just maybe, that was what I'd needed all along.
CHAPTER THIRTY
AVA
Time lost all meaning in the heat.
I drifted in and out of awareness, my world reduced to sensation—hands on my skin, mouths on my body, the endless cycle of need and relief and need again. They rotated through me like tides, each Alpha taking his turn, filling me, knotting me, then caring for me in the spaces between. It should have blurred together. It didn't. Each of them was distinct, unmistakable, their touches and rhythms as unique as their scents.
There was something else. Something that cut through the haze of pleasure with sharp, deliberate pain.
They kept biting me.
Not just once, not the single claiming bite that was supposed to last a lifetime from my first heat. Again and again, every time one of them knotted inside me, their teeth found the mark on my neck, my shoulder, reopening wounds that had barely begun to heal.
"Why?" I gasped the third time Mason's teeth sank into my throat, his knot swelling inside me, his cock pulsing as he spilled.The pain was bright and sharp, mixing with pleasure until I couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. "Why do you keep?—"
"Because you need to remember," Mason growled against my bleeding skin, his tongue lapping at the wound he'd made. "Every time you feel this mark throb, you'll remember who you belong to. Who's inside you. Who owns this body."
"Claiming bites don't need to be renewed," I whimpered, even as my walls clenched around his knot, even as another small orgasm rippled through me from the combination of pain and pressure. "Once is enough. That's how it works?—"
"Once is enough when an Omega accepts her place," Ethan said from somewhere nearby, his clinical voice cutting through the haze. "You haven't accepted anything, Ava. You've been forced to surrender by biology. That's not the same thing."
Mason pulled back to look at me, his honey-brown eyes dark with possession, my blood on his lips. "Every bite is a reminder. Every scar we leave is a lesson. By the time this heat is over, you won't be able to forget who you belong to even if you wanted to."
I should have been horrified. Should have fought, screamed, rejected this fresh violation. Instead, I tilted my head back, baring my throat, offering him the unmarked skin on the other side.
"Again," I heard myself whisper. "Please, Alpha. Again."
The smile that crossed Mason's face was dark and satisfied. "Good girl." His teeth sank in, and I shattered. Between the claiming, between the knotting, there were softer moments. Moments that confused me more than the biting ever could.
Mason fed me by hand, slices of apple, pieces of cheese, sips of water held to my lips. His touch was gentle, patient, nothing like the man who'd just bitten me hard enough to draw blood.
"You need to eat," Mason murmured, pressing another piece of fruit to my mouth. "Keep your strength up."
"Why do you care?" I asked, my voice hoarse from screaming. "You just—you keep hurting me?—"
"I keep claiming you," Mason corrected, his thumb brushing across my lower lip, catching a drop of juice. "There's a difference. The bites hurt, yes. But they also feel good, don't they?" His eyes searched mine, knowing. "The pain and pleasure together. Your body craves it now."
I couldn't deny it. Every time teeth sank into my flesh, my orgasm intensified, my body responding to the claiming with devastating arousal. They'd conditioned me to it—or maybe it was just Omega biology, the deep-seated need to be marked, owned, possessed.
"Eat," Mason said again, softer this time. "Let me take care of you."
I ate. Caleb was the gentlest, despite his size.
