He placed me back down, grinning wildly. “You must have learned something.”
"She did, because she’s bad ass," said Tray, sidestepping the moaning Beta and giving him a disgusted look, “What a pathetic slob.” When he reached me and Dixon, he wrapped his arm around my shoulder and kissed my cheek.
Mac took his time approaching, pausing long enough to uncharacteristically drop his cultured facade and give the moaning Beta a quick, sharp kick to the tailbone. The man’s howling intensified. "You’re lucky she handled it instead of us,” he huffed at the man, before straightening his jacket and becoming his normal self again. When he joined us, he placed his palm against my face affectionately.
Ryder hung back, arms crossed, mouth twitching between a smirk and a snarl. For a second, I thought he might attack the drunkard, but then he strode over and pulled me into a quick, fierce embrace.
"I'm proud of you," he whispered into my hair.
“I’m proud of me too,” I whispered back.
Security, though ‘fired’, went into action and started dragging the Beta out of the lounge. The guy kept screaming about a lawsuit, but nobody was listening. The audience cheered as the troublemaker was tossed out of The Vault and forbidden from coming back.
Catalina’s voice carried over the crowd a few moments later. “We want to thank you again for your amazing donations and for attending tonight!”
“Encore! Encore! Encore!” It only took one person to start the chant, and it grew exponentially in a matter of seconds.
Ryder grinned at me, then at the others. "Let's finish this right," hesaid, grabbing my hand and towing me toward the stage. I tried to protest, but Dixon and Tray flanked me on either side, effectively boxing me in with a wall of Alpha muscle. The moment we stepped back into the spotlight, the crowd erupted. Mac gestured to a mic and Ryder pulled me forward, standing behind me like a shield. Dixon draped an arm over my shoulder, still sweaty and wild-eyed.
Tray bounced in front of our pack, raising and lowering his hands to try and quiet the fans. The uproar began to fade. He put a finger to his lips, signaling the few in the crowd still carrying on. When The Vault was quiet as a tomb, Ryder spoke into the mic.
“This is Tessa Fortune,” he said, voice ricocheting off the walls. “Our Omega. She’s the reason we could play our hearts out tonight. The reason we wrote “Sinner’s Kiss”. The reason we aren’t all losing our damn minds.”
Cameras flashed.
Excitement exploded.
I wasn't ready for the swell of applause. I wasn't ready for the way the guys moved to create a half-circle behind me. But for the first time in a long time, I didn't feel like someone who should be dead. Not a ghost. I felt real. I looked out at the shadowed faces and felt the intoxicating energy. I thought about my family, about everything I'd lost, and about everything I'd regained somehow. I thought about Ryder, Dixon, Mac, Tray. I thought about Josie.
Mostly, I thought about the dumb, perfect joy of being alive.
“I'm ready,” I whispered, so quietly only I could hear it. “I'm ready to truly betheirs.”
46
TESSA
BACK AT OBLIVION HAZE’S MANSION, AFTER THE VAULT...
The tour busrolled to a stop outside the mansion just after midnight. The driver kept the engine running as we tumbled out of the side door. Ryder led our procession, Tray directly behind him. The latter of which was being uncharacteristically calm. I wondered if it was chaos inside his body. That’s how it was for me. I was masking on the outside, but butterflies were rioting in the space between my heart and stomach.
“We all need to shower,” Ryder announced from up ahead, his voice gravelly from singing his heart out.
“Soap on a rope is dope,” Tray filled the void with the stupid rhyme when no one else responded to Ryder; his voice didn’t have the playful, teasing quality it normally held. Any other time, the rest of us would have laughed. Right now, though, the weight of what hovered just beyond the horizon consumed us.
Mac was holding onto my hand, gently tugging me forward. Dixon was behind me, hands on my hips, swaying us a little as we walked. The bus pulled away, its driver revving unnecessarily. He didn’t need to beat traffic. The evening was quiet; the neighborhood long put to bed. It was strangely peaceful, no soft music trailing from an adjacent yard. No scentof grilling hanging in the air. Not a single night owl restlessly running down the sidewalk. It made me feel like we were alone in the world. Me. My Alphas. The last beings on the planet, and we magically belonged together because fate wasn’t so cruel after all.
We took the stairs slowly. My legs both wanted to race forward and slow down at once. I was in a hurry, slick already trailing down my inner thighs, but I also wanted to prolong what was about to happen.
Tonight, I was going to be theirs.
All of theirs.
Permanently.
It was the first time those words had cut through my brain, but they still didn’t feel real. I didn’t think I’d believe Oblivion Haze was mine until I was sore with their marks upon my body. Biting my lower lip, I worried at it as a thought struck: what if I couldn't handle them all? I’d had sex ed class, just like every other Omega. I knew that a giant dick, didn’t always translate into a massive knot. An Alpha could be hung like a horse, and his knot barely swell the size of a golf ball. And, conversely, a medium cock might be blessed with an oversized bundle of muscles expanding so large that the Omega could feel like she’s going to explode outwards, Alien-style. Aside from light play with a medium dildo, only penetrating when I was soaked, I was ill-prepared to accept any of their massive members, regardless of knot girth.
Mac gave me a little tug forward. He was just past the mansion’s threshold; I was frozen on the landing. I hadn’t realized I’d stopped moving. He half-turned to see what the problem was, offering me a warm, assuring smile. Dixon squeezed my waist, and I glanced over my shoulder; his hooded gaze betrayed the fact that he was already flashing forward to the good parts. There was so much heat in those storm-shadowed eyes of his.
