“Keep sucking, beautiful,” he tells me, nipping at the skin just above Cassian’s bite. “Make Cassian blow in your pretty mouth.”
My whine sharpens into a keening, cut-off cry as Simon circles my clit faster, tweaks my nipple harder.
I tighten my lips around Cassian’s cock, whimpering with every stroke. My alpha thickens in my mouth just as my own orgasm crests. We come together, and I shake as Cassian shoots rope after rope of cum down my throat. Panting, I try to catch my breath when he withdraws, but he’s on his knees before me, claiming my lips in a needy kiss before I can. The moment he breaks our kiss, Simon fists a hand in his dark hair, stealing him, his lips, his kiss.
We touch and we kiss, and we revel in our love as the hot water falls down around us and, in their arms, my life begins again.
CHAPTER27
Simon finally draws me to my feet, lathers shampoo into my hair and massages my scalp while Cassian soaps up my skin. They clean me with sweet, possessive touches as the hot water washes away my worries. They help me rinse and then quickly wash as I stand in the hot spray. Cassian finally shuts the tap off, and Simon bundles me into a fluffy terry robe. He dries my hair with a soft towel and guides me from the steamy bathroom to the antique vanity across from the nest.
They disappear into the connected room—their room—to change, and I stare at myself in vanity’s gilded mirror. I draw the collar of the robe away from my neck and study the shimmering silver scars where my neck flares into my left shoulder. Just as I felt earlier, the bite is fully healed. I tilt my head, baring my neck in the mirror, and I almost don’t recognize the woman staring back at me.
A mated omega, soon to be free from her father’s control, an omega who escaped a cruel, cruel fate.
They return, each dressed in old tee shirts and sweatpants, Cassian with a worn Fairhaven tee in his hands. The alpha disappears into the massive walk-in closet to my right, and I crane my neck, trying to see just how big it is.
Simon follows my curious gaze and shoots me a smile in the vanity’s mirror. “Bethany’s already filled half that closet for you. Not bad for a day’s notice, huh?”
“She really didn’t have to go to the trouble,” I murmur as Simon rakes leave-in conditioner through my tangled hair.
“That’s Bethany for you,” Simon says, shrugging and grabbing the brush off the vanity.
Cassian emerges from the closet with a pair of leggings, undergarments and a pair of fuzzy socks and sets them on the edge of the vanity with his old tee-shirt. “What about my mother?”
Simon smirks as he gently brushes out the knots that tangled together during my heat. “She likes to spoil… everyone. And Cass’ mates get extra special treatment.” He winks at me in the mirror.
“She’s going to adore you,” Cassian says with a fond smile. “She loves having other omegas around after spending so long surrounded by big macho alphas.”
Simon rolls his eyes at that. “She dotes on Ellie and our mom when they visit. She’ll be over the moon to have three other omegas under her roof for the holidays.”
My breath stutters in my lungs. Saints, I hadn’t even considered that the Monroes might be spending the holidays with Pack Leclerc. I’m somewhat prepared to meet Cassian’s family, but to meet Simon’s mother? To look her in the eyes, knowing I’m the reason her son was almost killed?
“You’re worried,” Cassian observes quietly. Yet again, I’ve forgotten our bond. I’m so used to gleaning the emotions of those around me with my affinity, that having my own feelings known so intimately will take time to get used to. “But I think I have an idea to help us with our predicament.”
Predicament. It’s such an unassuming way to describe how two powerful, slighted alphas will retaliate against me and the men I love for breaking the contract and promise between them that they made on my behalf. It’s not what is currently sending anxiousness buzzing through my body, though it hasn’t been far from my mind since I woke up with Cassian’s bite on my body.
“We’ll never win in a fight against your father,” Cassian says thoughtfully, as he leans against the vanity. “Not directly. Our best chance will be to prevent a fight entirely.”
Simon arches an eyebrow. “Sure hope you’ve got a plan for that.”
“I do. Juniper and I need public opinion in our favor. And to achieve that, we’ll need the press on our side. That’s easy enough to accomplish. We tell them a story they’ll eat up, a story about how two star-crossed lovers beat the odds stacked against them and found their happily ever after.”
It sounds so calculated when he says it like that. It’s not that his words aren’t true; they are. And yet I find myself uneasy because the truth of it is so much more complicated. But this calculation, it’s a facet of Cassian I’m only just beginning to understand. For all his warmth, for all his generosity and his love for his mates, there’s a part of him that’s coldly logical, always five steps ahead, playing the high society game of rumors and appearances like it comes to him as natural as breathing. Has he always been this shrewd, scheming alpha?
He has, I realize, my heart sinking and rising all at once. Before Ian unlocked my magic, and it looked like all hope for me staying at Fairhaven had been lost, Cass masterminded my escape to a sovereign state and convinced Luca to lie to me for months. All while having fake documents forged for the both of us.
“I was promised to Rad. My father solicited him for one of my mating contracts.”
Cassian waves off my worries. “Our love was stronger than your father’s wishes for you. We’ll have to lie, of course.”
I duck my head, but nod like a good omega. We’re newly mated and already Cassian wants to lie about our relationship? Have I been so misled? I thought…
“The media can never know your father intentionally kept us apart.”
I jerk my head up, my hair snagging in the brush, pulling at a knot so hard I wince. Of all the lies I expected, I never thought Cassian would expect me to protect my father, the man who hurt me—who nearly killed me—time and time again.
“We can’t show him for the villain he truly is,” Cassian says quietly. “Not if we want him to relinquish your mating contracts. If we attack him in the press, he’ll fight back. Your father cares about appearances more than anything else. Breaking a contract is damning, sure, but if we have public opinion on our side, he would be downright vilified in the press if he tried to part us. So, we’ll give him the chance to convince the world he’s a loving father who let his daughter follow her heart. He’ll see reason.”
