"Minutes. Maybe less." My teeth press against Dominic's thumb, a sound escaping me that's half whimper, half frustration. "The heats I had taken care of by a rent-an-Alpha were controlled and predictable, sometimes lasting no longer than eight hours. This is already more intense than any of those and it's only the first morning."
"This heat is different because your body isn't tolerating a stranger. It's responding to mates." Amos' thumb traces my cheekbone. "Your body has seven years of suppressed cycles burning through. The first day is going to be the worst."
"You don't know that."
"No." He meets my eyes. "I don't know that. But I know we're both here and neither of us is going anywhere."
Dominic's knot deflates and he pulls out slowly, his release leaking from me onto the nest. Everything is soaking into the nest, turning it into something that smells like all three of us at our most raw.
I can feel the next wave coming on, my skin prickling with sensitivity that makes even the brush of the sheets feel like too much and not enough at the same time.
"The next wave is close." I pull Dominic's thumb from my mouth and push myself up on shaking arms. "I can feel it building." A small sigh filters through my lips as the next wave surges forward. “Please.”
Amos
Timestopsmakingsensearound hour fourteen.
The waves come in cycles that I've been tracking on my phone because someone needs to maintain data even when the world has narrowed to a bedroom and a nest and an Omega who can't remember his own name between rounds. The first twelve hours averaged forty-five minutes between waves. By hour fourteenthe gap has shortened to thirty minutes, and Mattaniah's body barely finishes one orgasm before it starts demanding the next.
Dominic is asleep. He passed out twenty minutes ago with his face in the pillow and his hand still resting on Mattaniah's ankle. He'll wake when the next wave hits, but for now his breathing has slowed and his grip on Mattaniah's ankle has loosened.
Mattaniah is in the space between waves, curled on his side in the ruins of the nest with his knees drawn up and his eyes half-closed. The nest doesn't look like a nest anymore. The carefully arranged layers have been fucked into a tangle of damp fabric, the cardigan twisted around a pillow, the scarf knotted through the sheets. Everything smells like sex and slick and the three of us.
His skin is burning when I press the damp cloth against his forehead. The fever has been running between 101 and 103 since this morning. The electrolyte packets are keeping him hydrated but his body is spending calories faster than I can replace them.
"You need to drink." I press the water bottle against his lips and he takes three sips without opening his eyes, his throat working, his hand finding my wrist and holding on.
"Amos." He says my name like it's the only word he has left. "Stay."
"I'm right here." I set the water down and pull him against my chest, his back fitting against me, his body so hot that the contact makes my own skin prickle. His hair is damp with sweat and his curls have lost their shape, plastered against his forehead and the back of his neck. I brush them off his face and press my mouth against his temple.
His hand reaches behind him and finds my hip, pulling me closer. His body is still producing slick between waves, a constant low-level readiness that soaks through whatever fabric he's lying on. The biological machinery of a seven-yearsuppression backlog is running at full capacity and showing no signs of slowing down.
"How long was I out?" His voice is hoarse from the sounds he's been making.
"Twelve minutes."
"It felt longer." His fingers tighten on my hip. "How long has it been since it started?"
"About fourteen hours."
He makes a sound that's too tired to be a laugh. "Only fourteen? It feels like days."
"You're doing well, Niah." I run the damp cloth down the back of his neck and he shivers despite the fever. "Your body is handling it."
"My body is running the show. I'm just along for the ride." He turns his face into the pillow and his breathing stutters, a micro-cramp rippling through his abdomen. Not a wave yet. A warning shot. "Amos?"
"Hm?"
"Why are you doing this?" His voice is small against the pillow, stripped raw by the hours of screaming with need. "The washing and the water and the... all of it. Both of you fuck me through the waves but you put me back together between them."
"Because I love you, Niah." I press my mouth against the back of his head. "I've loved you since you caught the financial fabrication in the Southeast accounts in under thirty seconds. You looked at me like you couldn't figure out why nobody else had seen it."
His body goes still against mine and his breathing changes from the shallow panting of the heat into a slow inhale. His hand tightens on my hip.
"You..." He starts to turn toward me and a cramp cuts through his abdomen that makes him double forward. The next wave is building faster than the last one.
"Don't try to answer right now." I pull him closer and press my mouth against the back of his head. "It's not going anywhere. Neither am I."
