As I step under the spray, the hot water stinging against my skin, I can still hear them in the other room.
Soft. Real. Alive. Safe.
My mate.
Our mate.
I scrub the blood from my hands, from my skin, watching it swirl down the drain, and make myself a promise as the water runs red, then clear:No one gets near again.
No one even tries.
Episode 31: The Better to Love You With
Thayer
Ren watches Grieves leave with a furrow between her brow that I want to smooth away. I move to her side, running my hand down her spine. “We should get you cleaned up too. It’ll help settle him to see you out of this dress and comfortable.”
It’ll help settle me too. All of us.
What we really need is for all of us to pile into that big bed in her bedroom, for each of us to claim some part of her skin with our hand and to just bask in the feel of her warmth, breathe in her scent. All of us are one wrong look away from going feral entirely, and only her safety and comfort will help.
She nods, and all of us let out a relieved breath that she’s finally willing to let us care for her the way she needs. We move into a whirl of action, hustling her into her bedroom. Forsythe and Court work on getting her out of the dress, while Piers goes to grab new clothes for her. I go to the bathroom and start heating the shower water.
When my omega steps inside the steamy room in nothing more than her lacy strapless bra and panties, it takes everything I have in me not to lunge, to take, to devour. To mark her as mine so I can always feel her.
Instead I take a deep breath and motion at the shower. “Do you want company?”
A sharp shake of her head. “I can do it alone.”
I ignore the hurt that swells, but she must still see it, because she steps forward, running a hand down the front of my button up, before gripping it and giving a little shake. “I want to be quick,” she tells me. “I want to be out before Grieves, and I have the feeling if you get in with me it won’t be quick.” Ren casts a sneaky little glance down to the bulge in my pants, my erection pressing almost painfully against my zipper.
“Probably not,” I agree. Goddamn, I want to bury myself inside her, to reassure myself that she is here and alive and well andmine.
With a smile she pats my abs, then shoos me out of the bathroom. I go, even though my alpha protests. While she slips under the water, I take the opportunity to slip out of my suit, strip down to my boxers and then turn my attention to making the room as nestlike as it can be, grabbing more worn clothes from our rooms and tossing them on the bed for Ren to use later. Court, Piers, and Forsythe do the same.
Barely three minutes have passed when the water in Ren’s ensuite shuts off. She emerges from the steam skin flushed, a towel wrapped around her still damp body. At the same time, Grieves enters the room, hair still wet, dripping onto his bare chest and shoulders. Like neither one of them could be bothered to take the time to properly dry off.
He relaxes when he lays eyes on her, when he sees again that she’s unharmed. Ren, for her part, seems completely unaware of how close all of us are to absolutely losing it as shemoves over to the bed, drops her towel and then plucks a worn shirt—Courtland’s—from the clothes I tossed onto the bed and pulls it on.
When she turns and finds all of us staring at her with hungry, predatory expressions, she shifts, uncomfortably, fingering the hem of the t-shirt. “Is this okay?”
“Of course it is,cor mea,” Forsythe is quick to move toward her, tugging her into his chest. “Whatever you need is more than okay.”
She gives him this adorably shy little smile, then nods. “Okay, good. Then I need all of us to sleep in here tonight. I need you all close.”
We all move closer, drawn in by the gravity that is our mate. “Whatever you need, omega,” Grieves reiterates as Forsythe bends to nuzzle into her throat. A sweet burst of her perfume hits the air and my cock—my knot—throbs in response.
We all groan.
Ren’s phone chimes with an incoming text. “Ignore it,” Forsythe rumbles, running his mouth over her neck in a hot kiss. “Please.”
Ren shifts, clearly wanting to listen, but then she sighs and shakes her head. “It might be Haven. She might… The baby might be on the way.”
Our prime stops kissing her with a pained groan, even as he keeps his forehead pressed into her shoulder. With a shuddering inhale he steps away from her and gives her a soft smile.
She gives him an adorably shy grin and then turns to fish her cellphone out of the tiny clutch purse I carried for most of the evening for her.
We all watch her as she wakes up the screen and a frown folds her expression. She goes sheet white and makes a wounded noise that has all five of us rushing to her side.
