The other pushes in hard and then stills. The pressure builds, thick and insistent, and it hits me all at once.
I’m about to be double knotted.
Exhilaration and nerves tangle with my need. I want it. I want to be filled, claimed, held between them like this, even though I’ve never done this before.
“Take my knot, omega,” Corbin growls.
The knot slips in.
I half moan, half scream, head tipping back, vision white. Sweat slicks Gage’s forehead, and I know mine and Corbin’s must look the same. Corbin’s forehead drops to my shoulder. Gage’s rests against my other side. They breathe with me, deep and steady, like I’ve wrecked them instead of the other way around.
Everything slows.
My omega sinks, exhausted, quiet for the first time. I find my voice.
“Gage,” I whisper. He turns his head from my shoulder to my throat, kissing the pulse there so I know he’s listening. “I love you.”
He goes completely still. I can feel my heart pounding against his mouth.
“Gage?” I whisper again.
Corbin shifts behind me, his knot tugging where we’re joined, a reminder of how tangled this moment is. It occurs to me, distantly, thatI could have waited. That maybe I should have waited until another alpha wasn’t buried inside me.
I just didn’t want to.
Gage exhales a rough, broken laugh against my skin.
“Fucking hell, Princess,” he murmurs. “I’ve loved you since the moment you wouldn’t let me kill that spider.”
My chest lifts, my heart swelling until it almost hurts, and I laugh.
Held between them, full and claimed and loved, I’ve never felt safer.
Corbin
Everyone is finally asleep. It’s been three relentless days of knots and heat. Freezer meals from Winnie’s friends were delivered to the door, packed with exactly what she needed to get through her first heat with us. We were so grateful. We’d planned to order one of those specialty heat-meal kits, but it came too early for that. They took Deputy and he's been staying at one of their houses.
Getting Winnie to eat and bathe was harder than I ever anticipated. She’s so endlessly sweet, so gentle, that I never expected her omega to be stubborn and wild.
Zeke and Gage had to double knot her just to get her into the shower. I had to anchor her in my lap just to get her to eat and drink. Her omega let the woman beneath flicker through once or twice, but never for more than seconds at a time. It was nerve-racking.
I love that we get to share this with her. But I ache for my mate. I miss her soft, caring eyes in the morning. I miss her smile, the way she holds the whole pack together without even trying. I miss her talking about her book club, the quick little observations she makes about the town, the way she sees everything.
Her head rests on my abdomen, face turned toward mine, eyes closed. Her hair has been washed and carefully tended. Gage showed us exactly how to use each product, how to comb it through. It spillsover my stomach and chest, impossibly soft. As my fingers trace the line of her neck and shoulders, she stirs.
When her eyes open, my breath stutters.
Her pupils have receded. Her beautiful brown eyes meet mine, full of soft, sleepy joy.
My omega’s heat has broken.
“How do you feel, Sweetheart?” I ask. Her breathing is even. Her skin is warm, but not fevered. We were careful to give her only what she asked for but fear lived in my gut the entire time. That we pushed her too hard. That she was hurting and couldn’t tell us.
She hums low in her throat, a sound of pure contentment. “I feel so good.”
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.
The pack begins to stir. Zeke, curled into her side, tightens his arm around her and kisses the back of her neck before opening his eyes. He watched her through the bond the entire heat. I’m jealous enough it burns but I shove it down. She doesn’t need that from me right now.
