As I served them, Hunter’s hands flexed like he wanted to take the ladle from me, but my glare kept him from interfering. Itook pride in not spilling a drop as I placed the bowls in front of them, smiling and satisfied with my effort.
All the while the alphas watched me with heavy gazes. It wasn’t as if they’d never been served before… Florence served them all the time. But I’d never made any effort to act the part of an omega like this. I wasn’t sure what they thought of my gesture, but I didn’t regret it either.
“There you go,” I said, waving at their steaming bowls. “You’re going to love it. Now eat up.”
It felt hotter in the room suddenly, and I wasn’t sure it had anything to do with the steam rising from the bowls. As I waited for them to recover from my gesture, I wondered if there was another significance here that I had missed. The way they reacted… the deep, focused stares of their beasts in their eyes… it was definitelymore.
Hunter picked up on my confusion and said, “For our scent match to feed us… it’s a gesture of courting. Our beasts are losing their minds.”
Slade scoffed, though he didn’t disagree. No doubt a dragon felt slightly different about such a simple gesture. “I didn’t know it wasthatnoteworthy,” I said with a casual shrug, though I felt anything but casual inside. “But I’m happy to dish up your stew whenever you need.”
My lighthearted words were an attempt to lessen the tension, but it had the opposite effect. Hunter growled and grasped me around my waist, hauling me out of my chair and right into his lap. “I can’t eat until you’re satisfied, little omega,” he said, his voice deep and filled with his wolf.
Between his husky tones and Slade’s probing gaze, I was combusting where I sat, needs I hadn’t even known existed battering my body.
Hunter spooned some meat and broth from his bowl and he lifted it to my mouth. I opened automatically, too fuzzy todo more than accept his offering. He rumbled in satisfaction, and growled, “Good girl,” before spooning another, this time for himself.
I stared hard as he wrapped his lips around the spoon. Oh,damn. In my next life, I wanted to come back as that fucking spoon.
Hunter fed me again and I didn’t fight, and all too soon he’d shared that bowl between the two of us, leaving me full to bursting. Sated and content, I let my exhaustion press me into his firm muscles, and tried not to wiggle against him.
He’d been hard under me from the second I landed in his lap, but neither of us acknowledged it, and it didn’t make me feel even slightly uncomfortable. Nope, I was craving another afternoon of Hunter staking his claim all over my skin.
Only this time, I wanted those marks to last.
Unfortunately, the only lasting mark was a claiming bite, which would bring an end to this happiness and contentment, as the energy slowly corrupted him.
Your mom got years with her pack.
It was a truth I’d been steadfastly ignoring, because it was no better than a Band-Aid over a fatal wound. I wasn’t supposed to want this at all, not even for a few years.
But as I sat there cuddled into Hunter Reeves, it grew more difficult to remember the reasons why I couldn’t bond to my pack.
Maybe… a few years would be enough.
After all, a year could feel like a lifetime with the right alphas.
CHAPTER 16
FINLEY
Faster. Harder. Faster. Harder.
My skates cut through the ice, digging in, destroying what had been a smooth surface, but for once I didn’t care. I wanted the ice to represent the chaos inside me, and for that, it must be destroyed.
Faster. Harder.
My breaths wheezed in and out. I’d be worried about my fitness and stamina, except this was my third or fourth hour of sprints.
Why was it so fucking hard to outskate my demons?
I hadn’t felt this way since the day my mom snapped and let her bear tear our family to shreds. Afterthe weekthat broke me in more ways than one, I lost control and shifted, living as a bear for almost a month before Kenzo tracked me down. He’d risked his own life and coaxed me back to civilization. Back to sanity.
Even as an alpha wolf he was no match for my feral bear, and if not for advanced healing, he would still bear—pun intended—the scars of my rage. Another fucked-up event in my past I wouldn’t forgive myself for, even though my brother never held it against me.
“Fin!”
Like I’d conjured him with my dark thoughts, Kenzo’s voice rang through the arena. I almost ignored him, but in the end, he was still the only shifter in the world I pushed through my rage for.
