“Well.” Hendrix interrupts my shock. “That was somehow interesting and terrifying at the same time.”
I hold my hand up, needing more time to process everything that happened in our phone call. Because it was mortifying but also a lot happened. Heidi is back with Kai and Pack Alastor and they’re apparently claiming her as their Omega. On top of that, equally important, Tristan is hiding something pretty massive, albeit poorly. While Raney wasn’t her usual self. Raney is normally the most stable out of all of us, and her being bitchy has me worried.
On top of all that, my pack are going to think, rightly too, that my girls are absolutely stark raving lunatics.
“I guess the good news is I’m the quiet one?” I say although it most certainly comes out like a question, drawing amusement from Hendrix.
Dom still looks a little thrown.
“All okay?” I ask, suddenly nervous.
“Obviously, I knew you were going away to see Siderno getting packed because you know his Omega. Strangely, that fact is just sinking in now.”
I search Dominic’s face for a hint of where his thoughts are headed before asking, “How so?”
“Raney Grady is Siderno’s Omega, and she is also one of your girlfriends. I’ve met her, helped her with an ex who was giving her issues.”
“And that’s the guy that took her on her packing day.”
“But that woman I heard just now was not the same person I had sitting next to me in a meeting, Simona. Her voice was the same but she… she…”
I don’t mean to laugh at Dominic’s obvious struggle, and I crawl to him, climbing on his lap. To comfort him, but also because if I have a choice of sitting on nothing or curling up on one of my mates, clearly, I’ll always go for the second option.
“She is one and the same.” I cup my hands around his face, trying to get rid of his mood.
When he opens his eyes, Dominic throws me for a spin, exactly like Raney just did to him. His mood has flipped upside down. There’s feral rage in his eyes now and it looks like it’s threatening to derail him. “What? What’s happened, Dominic?”
His scent becomes bitter. And he doesn’t try to hide his mood, or the reason for it.
“I just got a very visual reminder of the power some people hold over others. I saw Raney, spoke with her and I knew she was stressed by the situation, as expected. But she was subdued in our interaction. Nothing compared to the vivacious and confident woman I saw now. And then I feel you in our bond. I look at you and I realise I would raze the world if someone did that to you. But someone did hurt you very badly, Amore Mio, and now I’m thinking emancipation isn’t enough. I want to make every person pay with blood and anything else I deem suitable payment for what you had to endure.”
I wrap my arms around his shoulders, so his skin is on mine and our breath is mingling as one. Letting him feel thereality that I am in his arms. “I’m okay, Dominic. I hate seeing you angry like this.”
“They fucking hurt you.” His confession is heavy and hard, I feel the pain of his words and his anguish.
“They’ll never get another chance, Dominic. Because of you, Hendrix, and Ryder will always be with me.”
He makes such an awful sound. Like a rabid wolf growl, half in agony, half in unfathomable fury.
I pump our bond full of sweet reminders of where I am—with him. I don’t rush what I say either. “I finally get the chance of finding happiness and falling in love. But it won’t happen if you’re consumed by anger or a need for revenge on my behalf that it steals you away from me. I want to be the one who makes you so angry you can’t think straight, not them. Please, Dom, from this second on, don’t let my past play such a big part in our future. In your office, if it’s legal crap we’re dealing with, then sure, but in our home,theyshouldn’t be here.”
Perhaps because it really is a day of revelations, I realise what we need to do next. My stomach plummets and my scent dips, making him pull my face up to stare into my eyes.
“What, Simona?”
I take a steadying inhale, tugging on our bond to draw Hendrix and Ryder to me. Safely cocooned between them—in the middle of a three-way cuddle, wrapped in the intoxicating blend of my Alphas’ scents—I speak aloud, more as an admission to myself than anything else, what they’ve likely already realised.
“You have to override Brody’s bark with yours. Each of you. You have to barkme submissive. I can’t have him being able to influence me anymore. Ever.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Hendrix says, his mouth pressed against that spot under my ear he loves so much.
Ryder’s head sits heavy on my shoulder, and I swear I hear him in my mind whispering promises, and praises.
Dominic wraps his hands around my face and holds my attention. “Jesus, Simona, your trust is such a sight to see. If that is what you need, of course we will, but Amore Mio, we own you. A bark will not alter the bonds that bind us. Our claims on your body, and soul, are louder, more influential than anything else in the world.”
Chapter
Forty-Two
