Espie finds her bite mark on my throat, and traces it. The touch sends a shiver through me, warmth spreading from the scar, down my spine, into my chest. My omega hindbrain hums at the contact, the bond flaring bright for a moment. Claimed. Hers.
“She's different. She’s safe.” Espie says.
“Well, you did kiss her,” I tease and watch her cheeks turn a brighter shade of pink. Gods, this woman is beautiful. Despite everything she’s still accepting life.
“The others were there too. Watching us.” Her touch sends little sparks down my spine each time her fingers pass over her claiming scar. I love this connection I have with her. “They were part of it, even if they didn't touch us.”
I take her hand off my throat and bring it to my mouth and kiss her knuckles. Then I rest our joined hands on my chest.
“Espie. My heat is coming and… and so will yours.”
She goes rigid, every muscle in her going hard. “I can’t go through that again. No—”
“Sweetheart. Listen to me. A natural heat isn't what you went through. I promise you. A natural heat is… it's a good thing. With the right alphas.”
She's shaking her head. I keep my hand wrapped around hers. She needs to hear this no matter how she denies the inevitable.
“And when it comes, you're going to need alphas.”
Her eyes are wide and she trembles. Her mouth opens and closes. Her terror slices through me. She had forced heats, but she never had the relief alphas bring.
“You're going to need them, Espie. I'm not going to be enough. I love you and I will be there for every second of it, but I know what an omega body does in heat. I know what it asks for. And I'm not going to be able to be that for you.”
“I'll suppress it. I'll take whatever they give us at the OHC, I'll push through it —”
“You won't, sweetheart. Your system has already gone through too much.” I don’t know if she’s noticed her developing scent, but I have. “It's already started cycling again, I can scent it on you. Especially yesterday.”
She closes her eyes.
“Mine's coming too. And we’re bonded. It’s likely my heat will trigger yours.”
“We have Sera. She’ll help,” she says, picking up on my thread.
I trace her smooth cheek. Wipe the wetness away. Not so easy to wipe away my twisting stomach. “She will. She helped me yesterday, but… she doesn’t have…”
“A knot. She doesn’t have a knot,” she says.
I didn't hate my heats with my first pack. They eased me through them. They loved me through them. It was easy until it was all taken away from me. I shove aside the multitude of memories my brain wants to throw at me. “I know what you've seen of alphas, and I know it's the worst version of what alphas can be. Not all alphas are Wallace. Not all alphas are Axel.”
She's quiet for a long stretch. “Promise me?”
“I wouldn’t suggest this if there was any other way. Yesterday was… something happened in me. I felt it. You felt it. We needto try. At the very least. They haven’t done anything we haven’t wanted. They’ve been respectful and yesterday what they did in the kitchen was...”
She catches my lips with hers and my cock swells. “Yeah. That was hot.”
“I was going to say it let me see them in a very different light, but hot works too,” I say. A joke always eases tension, doesn’t it?
She searches my eyes, her gaze flicking between my eyes and I try not to let the endless lump growing in my stomach stop the both of us.
“I trust you, Aubrey.”
“You're mine, Espie. That's the answer to every question.” My stomach chooses this time to rumble, which is not the most comfortable with a hard dick. “Looks like we have a choice. Make love or eat breakfast.”
“Can we do both? Sera did yesterday,” she says, a light in her eyes.
“You’re not helping my situation,” I say.
She sighs, thankfully a little lighter. “Come on. Let’s get our stomach sorted. I make no promises about the rest of the day.”
