My heart stopped.
"Maeve," Ivan rasped from her other side, his own control hanging by a thread.
She reached up, her hand cupping Ivan's jaw, while her other hand reached back to grip the back of my neck.
"Both of you," she commanded, the absolute authority of an omega claiming her ultimate armor. She tilted her head, exposing the unblemished skin on the left side of her neck to Ivan, and the junction of her shoulder to me. "I want all three of you to be fully mine tomorrow. Claim me. Now."
The sheer, staggering power of her demand shattered the last of my restraint.
I didn't ask if she was sure. She was our queen, and she had given an order.
And I never disobeyed an order.
With a feral roar, I buried my face in the crook of her shoulder and sank my teeth deep into her flesh. At the exact same second,Ivan let out a vicious growl and bit down hard on the opposite side of her neck.
Maeve screamed, but the sound was of triumph and overwhelming power.
The bond exploded in my chest. It wasn't just an extension of Artem's anchor anymore. It was a direct, blindingly bright tether, snapping into place with the force of a thunderclap.
Ivan's tether locked in right beside mine as we flooded her with our absolute devotion, permanently forging into one unbreakable weapon.
When I finally pulled my teeth free, licking the blood from her skin, Maeve lay between us, breathing hard, her eyes blazing with an unearthly, radiant fire.
She bore the marks of her true alphas.
She was untouchable. And Finn O'Shea was going to walk into this house tomorrow expecting a victim, and he was going to find a woman who had been claimed by three alphas who would burn the world to keep her warm.
28
Maeve
I watched Finn O'Sheaarrive on the security feed before he reached the house.
That was Artem's idea. He'd asked if I wanted to see the monitors or wait in the study, and I'd said yes to both. The security hub had a wall of screens and I stood in front of them with Gregor at my shoulder, watching a black Range Rover pull through the gates that my father had chewed up with his tires a week earlier.
For years, Finn had lived in my memories larger than life. He liked door slamming. A hand squeezing my wrist. Teeth in my neck. The smell of another omega on sheets that were supposed to be mine. He was in every room I had been locked inside and every morning I had woken with my body aching for a bond that had never been love.
On the screen, he was just a man getting out of a car.
Not a monster. A man. Medium height. Expensive coat, but it didn't fit quite right across the shoulders. He'd put on weight since Prague, or lost it in the wrong places. His hair was thinner at the crown.
Oh my God, I'd spent three years running from someone who was going bald. I wanted to yell out of the window to shave it off.
Ivan leaned closer to the monitor, squinting. "He thinks he's mafia but he looks like a regional sales manager who's been passed over for promotion."
"He looks like a man who peaked at twenty-four and has been blaming other people ever since," I said.
"Same thing."
It wasn't, but I let him have it.
The camera tracked Finn as he marched up the front steps with his men behind him. His walk was aggressive, chest-forward, the walk of someone who expected doors to open before he reached them.
Blade opened the door anyway.
The study was my choice.
Artem had suggested the old receiving room, the one with dark paneling and portraits of dead Petrovs who looked like they'd personally enjoyed the Inquisition. Ivan wanted the armory. Gregor recommended the outer security office because it had wipe-clean flooring, which I pretended not to hear.
