Love.
I realize as that one word lands in my brain that nothing will ever erase that. The love I have for Auryn, our child, and my pack.
I meant for us to bathe in the stream first, had this grand idea I could wash the blood off of her, and it would be super romantic, but we don’t make it to the stream.
Auryn knocks me down, and I don’t fight her. We fall to the ground, and within seconds I can feel her heat sliding along my hardness, and nothing else matters.
The cloying, terrible thoughts try to push through.
The ones that try to poison this can never really poisonthis.
Auryn slides herself over top of me, and I grab her ass, sinking my fingernails into her flesh hard enough I know it will leave a bruise. She slides one hand up around my throat and kisses me. My knot feels tingly, and it still hurts. But I know it won’t hurt forever. I roll us over in the mud, leaves and sticks falling from our bodies as we find comfort in one another’s touch.
I settle on top of her, knowing this moment is monumental. As an alpha, submission is burned into our brains. It’s what we want, what we crave from our omegas.
Sunshine and lemongrass perfume the air, and I smile as she stares up at me with understanding. She doesn’t fight it. That itself is a victory.
I slowly thrust into her, waiting for the moment she will tap out. But it doesn’t come.
“Are you okay?” I ask, pushing some matted hair out of her face. Cinnamon and peppercorn perfume through the air but she makes no move to shift me off of her. Instead, she wraps her legs around me and draws me closer, until my knot breaches her completely, and then I feel the tightness of her lock.
“Never better,” she says as she grabs my throat tightly and pushes up against me. She bites at my bottom lip, and I lose myself in her ferocious kiss, in the warmth of her wrapped around me.
The world is nothing but bliss as the sounds of the night echo around us while we both chase our impending pleasure, a relief long awaited.
Together we push past the pain, the blood, the truth.
When we come, it’s like a bliss I’ve never known before. It’s full, it’s warm, and it feels so damn good. Me and my alpha. Me and my omega.
Me and my mate.
I bury my head in her hair, my lips grazing her neck as I slide two fingers between us and stroke her clit like Olly does to help her release me.
She purrs in contentment as I wash her skin in the stream, the crimson streaks flowing away from us with finality. I don’t bother to get dressed, and she doesn’t either.
Instead, we walk hand in hand, back to the compound, and head straight for the nest.
When we get there, I can’t help but grin because the nest is already full.
Olly lays on his side reading a book of all things—naked, of course— while Diego and Gage look like they’re already pretty engulfed in one another. But the minute we step into the room, everyone looks up.
Warmth rushes over me as they look at me and then at our mate.
“‘Bout time, I was about to send a search party,” Gage says with a chuckle.
“Well, sorry to keep you waiting,” I say with a smirk of my own. Olly doesn’t look at me, and I growl.
Auryn chuckles as she drops my hand and heads straight for the center of the nest. She grabs the book out of his hand and throws it across the room. It lands in front of my feet. Seconds later, she’s crawling on top of Olly, and I pick up the damn book. Watching them is strangely arousing.
Well, watching Olly actually fuck Auryn is more than arousing. I could watch that all day.
I shut the book, noting the cover readsExpecting Omegas: 101 Topics.
I roll my eyes, but my heart warms a fraction. I set the book on the nightstand before crawling in beside Gage, since Diego is squished on the other side of Auryn, who can’t seem to get enough of her pain in the ass beta.
Well, our pain in the ass beta, I guess.
Gage’s arm finds its way around my hip, his fingers gently stroking the base of my cock.
