“Yes,” I breathe. “Yours.”
Then it’s Boone’s turn.
He handles me like I’m made of glass. He’s gentle, almost reverent. He worships my body with his hands and his mouth before he enters me.
He kisses me as he moves, swallowing my moans. When the knot forms, it feels like coming home. It feels right. Like a puzzle piece finally clicking into place.
We fall into a rhythm. We rut. We sleep. We wake up and do it again.
The fever becomes a thick fog. I lose track of time. I don’t know if it’s morning or night. I don’t know if it’s been one day or three.
My only reality is the touch of their hands. The sound of their voices. The scent of them filling the room.
Boone’s scent, especially, is my lifeline. Whenever the panic rises, whenever I feel like I’m drowning in the heat, I bury myface in his neck. The rosemary and mint cut through the haze, calming me, anchoring me to the earth.
I am completely claimed. I’m knotted. I’m safe.
But eventually, the fever breaks.
I wake up one morning to silence. The birds are singing outside the window. The rain has stopped.
I’m lying in the middle of the bed, tangled in sheets that feel heavy and stiff.
I try to move, but pain shoots through my lower abdomen. My body feels battered. My cunt is swollen and sore, tender to the touch.
I groan.
Boone is sleeping beside me. He opens his eyes instantly.
“You okay?” he asks, his voice raspy.
“Sore,” I admit.
He reaches out, his hand resting on my stomach. “It’s over.”
“I think so,” I say. “The fever is gone.”
Knox stirs on the other side of me. He stretches, wincing. “Thank god. I’m starving.”
Rhett is already sitting up. He looks tired, but his eyes are clear.
We lie there for a long time. Just breathing. Just being.
We did it. We survived.
But I know that nothing will ever be the same.
I look at Boone. I look at Knox. I look at Rhett.
I was theirs for days while I was in heat. Completely. Irrevocably.
And I have a feeling that I still am.
Rhett
Iwalk out of the kitchen, scratching the back of my neck. I’m wearing jeans, but I haven’t bothered with a shirt. The air in the house is carrying the scent of sex, sweat, and the sweet, musky smell of Saramaria’s heat.
It’s a scent I have become addicted to over the last seventy-two hours. It lingers on my skin, in my clothes, in the very walls.
