“Are you hungry?” I asked her.
“Yeah,” she answered.
“I’m going to order pizza for us,” I said, finding my phone on charge beside the bed and opening the local pizzeria app.
Harriet sat on the edge of the bed as I placed the order.
I liked the sight of her: hair damp, wearing one of my tops, bare legs.
I placed the order and put the phone down, my attention on her, a sort of playfulness bubbling within me. I didn’t consciously make the decision before I had pounced on her.
She screamed and struggled beneath me, working her way up the bed until she was lying beneath me, and I straddled her hips, pinning her to the bed.
“You gave me a fright,” she said with amusement as she calmed down.
“You’re easily frightened,” I replied.
She smiled, but it faltered, and I felt her mood shift subtly.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
“I don’t want to ruin this,” she said and turned her face from me. I turned her back to me.
“What’s going on inside that head of yours?” I asked.
“Everything is so wrong,” she said, and she wiped angrily at a tear that ran down her cheek. “You’re engaged; I’m going back to Ashford soon. This is all wrong,” she said angrily, and I couldn’t suppress the growl that left me when she mentioned that Blizzard boy.
She was right. I moved off her.
“I don’t want to think about any of that right now,” I told her.
“Well, I do,” she challenged. “It’s my life. I’m just some omega to fuck and throw away?” she asked.
“I’m not throwing you away,” I argued.
“But you’re still going to give me back like a used toy,” she challenged further.
“Never!” I growled out. She was mine. No one else could have her.
“Are you going to call off your engagement then?” she asked.
“It’s not that simple—” I began.
“You can’t have us both,” she said.
Suddenly, I was pinning her beneath me again, the challenge to my claim on her causing me to act without any conscious thought.
She yelped in surprise.
“You’re mine,” I warned her. Her throat was bare and there, and I wanted to mark her. Mark her properly. Tear into her flesh and leave behind the imprint of my teeth that could never be replaced. I brushed my hand up her right thigh, feeling wheresomeone else had scarred her already, and it almost sent me mad with rage.
“Did you ask Hannah to be your third too?” she said, and the mention of Hannah was like a bucket of cold water being dumped over me. It brought me back to myself.
I released Harriet and got up from the bed.
“Well, did you?” she asked.
Hannah. The pain was still raw. It had been over a year, but the mention of her still poked at a wound in my chest. I had tried so hard to keep her. I had asked her, begged her to stay with me, even though it meant watching me marry someone else.
