Riven pressed closer, his scarred face finding the crook of my neck, a low growl of satisfaction rumbling against my skin. "You are free. No one will ever cage you again. No one will ever hunt you. No one will ever make you run."
"You're one of us now," Vale added, his hand finding mine in the pile of soft furs, his fingers lacing through mine. "Pack. Family. Mate."
"Forever," Thane whispered, his body curling around mine from the other side, his warmth seeping into my bones. I closed my eyes, feeling their hearts beat against me, feeling the rise and fall of their breathing, feeling utterly, completely safe.
Tomorrow, my heat would come. Tomorrow, they would claim me fully, bind me to them in ways that went beyond transformation, beyond choice, beyond anything I'd ever known.
Tonight—tonight, I was just a siren, held by her pack, finally and irrevocably home.
For the first time in my life, I wasn't afraid of tomorrow. I was looking forward to it.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
LILY
I woke to fire.
Not the gentle warmth that had been building since my transformation—this was an inferno, blazing through my veins, setting every nerve ending alight. My skin felt too tight, too hot, desperate for something I couldn't name. My tail thrashed against the furs of the nest, scales catching on the soft fabric, and a sound escaped my throat, a keening, desperate thing that echoed off the cavern walls. The omega call for her alphas, primal and instinctive.
The heat pulsed through me in waves, each one more intense than the last. I could feel something happening lower on my tail, a strange pressure, a tingling sensation in a place I'd never felt anything before. My new body was responding to the heat in ways I didn't understand, and it was terrifying and exhilarating all at once.
Sweat beaded on my human skin, rolling down between my breasts, and even that small sensation made me gasp. Everything was too much—the brush of fur against my scales,the weight of the air in my lungs, the distant sound of water lapping against stone. My nipples had hardened to aching points, so sensitive that even the whisper of air across them sent sparks of need shooting down to my body. Another keen tore from my throat, high and desperate, begging.
"She's burning up," someone said, hands pressing against my forehead, my cheeks. The touch was cool against my fevered flesh, and I turned into it instinctively, craving more contact, more sensation, more everything. "We need to get her in the water. Now."
"The heat is too intense for air," another voice agreed—Vale, I thought, though everything was hazy through the fog of need. "Sirens aren't meant to mate on land. The water will help regulate her temperature."
Strong arms lifted me from the nest, and I whimpered at the movement. Every brush of skin against skin sent electricity crackling through me, and I found myself pressing closer to the body that held me, rubbing against the solid warmth like a cat seeking attention. A needy keen escaped my lips.
"Hold on," Kaelan's voice rumbled against my ear, a deep alpha sound that made my core clench. His chest was solid against my side as he carried me toward the pool. "We've got you. We're taking you home."
The moment my tail touched the water, I gasped with relief. The coolness washed over my overheated scales, soothing the fire just enough that I could think again. Each scale seemed to drink in the water, and I felt my gills flutter with relief as I was lowered deeper into the pool. Kaelan submerged us both, and I breathed in the water through my gills, feeling my body relax incrementally as my natural element surrounded me. The water flowed over my sensitive skin, caressing every inch of me, and I moaned at the sensation—so different from air, so much more intimate. The heat was still there—banked now, but buildingagain with every passing moment. The water helped, but it couldn't extinguish the fire entirely. Nothing could, except...
"Please," I gasped, reaching for Kaelan, my fingers tangling in his dark hair. Another keen built in my chest. "Please, I need?—"
"We know," he said, his voice a low rumble with barely contained desire, his dark eyes blazing as they met mine in the underwater dimness. His pupils were so dilated that his eyes looked almost black, and I could see the tension in his jaw, the strain of holding himself back. "We're going to take care of you. But I need you to tell me—tell me you want this. Tell me you're choosing this."
"Yes," I breathed, the word coming out distorted by the water but still clear enough. "Yes, I choose this. I choose you. All of you. Please—please, I need you?—"
That was all he needed to hear. The others slipped into the water around us—Riven's scarred form cutting through the depths like a blade, Vale's silver tail catching the light and throwing it back in dazzling patterns, Thane's honey-colored hair floating around his face like a halo. They surrounded me, their bodies close, their scents washing over me through the water—pine and storm and jasmine and honey, all mixing together into something intoxicating that made my head spin and my core clench with need.
Then they began to circle. It was instinctual, primal, the three who were waiting moving in slow, deliberate patterns around Kaelan and me. Their tails undulated with hypnotic grace, muscles rippling beneath scales, their eyes never leaving us. The movements were predatory but protective, displaying their strength, their power, their worthiness as mates.
The sounds they made... low growls that vibrated through the water and resonated in my very bones. Clicking sounds that seemed to communicate something ancient and wordless, alanguage older than speech. Deep rumbles of anticipation that made my omega instincts sing with need. The sounds grew more intense as they circled, building anticipation, creating a rhythm that made my blood pulse in response.
"Look at me," Kaelan commanded, and I obeyed, my eyes finding his in the underwater darkness. His tail wrapped around mine, the scales sliding together with a sensation that made me shudder—smooth and textured at once, the friction sending tingles up my spine. "I want to see your face through all of this."
His hands found my tail, stroking down the length of it with deliberate slowness, learning the feel of my scales. Each touch sent ripples of pleasure through me, my transformed body responding in ways my human form never had. He traced patterns on my scales, found spots where the texture changed, pressed against places that made me gasp and arch into his touch. Then his fingers found it—a spot lower on my tail that made me cry out with sudden, shocking pleasure.
"There," he murmured, satisfaction thick in his voice, his fingers circling the sensitive area with knowing pressure. "There you are."
I looked down, watching through the dim water as his fingers traced over a seam in my scales I hadn't noticed before. A line that ran vertically along the front of my tail, about a third of the way from where my hips would have been, hidden in the pattern of my scales until his touch made it visible.
"Your vent," he explained, his fingers stroking along the seam with deliberate gentleness, tracing its edges with his fingertips. "It's closed now, protecting you, keeping you safe. But it will open for us. For me." His dark eyes held mine, intense and hungry. "Let me show you how."
His fingers pressed more firmly against the seam, stroking up and down with patient insistence. The sensation was unlike anything I'd experienced—pressure building against a barrier Ihadn't known existed, heat gathering in a place I'd never felt. At first, nothing happened—just the strange pressure of his touch against a part of me I'd never explored.
Then something shifted. I felt the scales begin to part, felt the seam slowly opening under his ministrations, and the sensation was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. It was like a flower blooming, petals unfurling, something hidden being revealed for the first time. The water rushed against newly exposed flesh, and I keened at the intensity of it—cool and strange and impossibly intimate.
