Page 34 of The Omega’s Nest

And well, I know I said I’d keep this secret, but this is my mate. There are no secrets between mates.

“Leo.” And he hears the smile in my voice because he’s skittering his eyes back to me, the hazel depths painfully hesitant.

Beautiful Leo, I think, and grin at him. He’s been cut up about this. Well, I can fix that. I can’t fix what’s happened since, but I can reassure him that I really was waiting. When it was my choice, I was waiting.

“I did my heats alone.”

His lips part, but his brow pinches. “What? No.” He shakes his head, squeezes his eyes shut. “You don’t have to lie to me. I know you used a beta service. I couldn’t smell anything—”

“Leo.” I tap his cheek and wait for him to look at me again. He smells so fucking sad. I’m fixing that.

“I did them alone. My dad, both my dads, said it’s a myth. How do you think my omega’s managing his heats now?”

Curiosity blooms in Leo’s scent, and I see the realisation dawning in his eyes.

“But … you would’ve died …” he says faintly, like he’s not sure whether or not he believes that either. I can almost see him thinking what I thought after that first heat, when I had the clarity to parse through what my dad had said, what I’d just done.

The people in Hollow Point thought my dad’s drinking was compounded by the awareness of his omega being bred by another alpha—my dad would’ve felt that in high definition down their bond. But of course my omega wouldn’t do that to him. And no omega in their right mind would take suppressants. There had to be another way.

And there was another way. And that morning, when lucidity returned to me, I knew it. It’d been fucking hell on earth doing it alone, not going to lie, especially since I knew my mate. But I’d done it. I’d survived. I would be able to wait.

Well, that had been the plan before it all went to shit.

“You did them alone …” Leo says with awe.

He slips his hand up into my hair and pulls me down, kissing me deeply. It feels like a promise we’d tried to make to each other years ago.

Except now I’m here and that promise is a past shattered by the alphas who’ve had me since. And I’ve endangered him. Again.

I pull back. “Leo,” I pant against his lips. “It’s not safe. I asked Cammie to tell you. Why did you come back?”

I don’t understand the smile that ticks up against my lips. “I’m here to mate you.”

I know he hasn’t missed the collar I’m wearing, but I tug on it anyway and give him an exasperated look.

His smile widens. He shifts his hand around under the mess of my nest, looking for something, and then he produces a knife with a grin. I stare at it, dumbfounded.

Chapter 12

Leo

The knot finally went down—and how fucking awesome was that? I wish I could live tied inside Addie!

He’s up, pacing his tiny walk-in robe, gloriously naked. His hands gesticulate wildly as he lectures me. I know I should feel alarmed by everything he’s saying, but I can’t stop smiling. I stroke my hand up and down my chest as my cock stirs against my belly.

Fuck, but he’s gorgeous. All slender lines, sleek muscles under his pale skin, a sheen of sweat coating him from the heat. Slick mixed with my come trails between his thighs. I grab my cock and give it a good squeeze.

Addie pauses, takes in my hand on my cock, my face, then throws his hands up, but I don’t miss the arousal flooding his scent. I grin.

“Are you even listening to me?”

“Yes,” I tell him and stroke myself slowly.

He groans but drops down and slides his body back on top of mine. I release my hand on myself to hug him closer.

“I don’t care about the challenge. I’ll win. I don’t care that I’m breaking the law. We’ll run. I don’t care about the Air Force. You’re more important. Getting you somewhere safe, with me, is more important.”

He exhales, long and slow, his scent tinged with the scent of cherry blossoms on the wind. Addie’s happy smell.