“No, I’ll…” Caspian trailed off when I wrapped one arm under Freya’s arms and pulled her up. His eyes widened.
I moved faster than any of them could react — and I didn’t think they wanted to stop me, anyway. Not when I was doing this for the greater good and the sake of her relationships with men she already loved. Pressing my face against her neck, I thought better of following my primal instincts and instead lifted her wrist. I sank my teeth into the skin, tasting the faint copper of her blood, and a bond violently snapped into place.
All I sensed from her was anguish and heartbreak.
For a few seconds it dragged me down, too. I wallowed in sadness, eyes closed and tears streaming from the corners, until she twitched against me.
Then there was hope, from my side of the bond and from hers. It grew until it overtook the anguish, her body beginning to squirm from head to toe. Glowing purple eyes snapped open and she stared at me. The whole room held their breath. Freya rubbed her face, glanced down at the newly marked skin on her wrist, and her entire expression… it lit up.
What?
Freya swung a leg over my hips to straddle me, jostling my wound. It wasn’t even enough to make me flinch, not while I was trying to puzzle out what was going on here. Her body heat was high, but not as sweltering as it had been before. The heat was highest at the apex of her thighs, and it wasn’t just hot, but wet.
Really fucking wet.
She leaned down to press our lips together as it dawned on me what was happening.
I’d made myself her mate while she was in heat. Of course she wanted me right now, but I couldn’t let her do this. Turning my face away, her lips met my cheek instead. “Someone take her,” I said, my voice choked.
Resisting her scent was difficult, but my self control had always been high. She was lifted from my lap by Shan, her arms clinging to him. The innocence in her eyes when she’d first woken had turned sharp, and she glared at me. “If you don’t want me, why the fuck did you mark me?” she asked.
Her wits had returned, the tone normal for her, but the question wasn’t the one we’d been expecting. I wasn’t sure how to respond, staring at her.
“Aren’t you furious at him?” Caspian asked tentatively.
“I was going to die.”
“We know… that’s why Em claimed you,” Cas said.
She let out a soft snort, turning in Shan’s arms so she could push him down onto his back on the bed. “If you knew I was going to die, why didn’t you two claim me?” she demanded.
Freya was grinding her clothed pussy down against Shan’s bulge as she carried on a normal conversation, as if any of us could focus on anything but the movement of her hips. I was entranced, bowled over by her arousal through our newly formed bond. Plus, I was aroused all on my own. With every sassy remark she grew more important to me. And how she’d nested with me, refusing to leave while I was unconscious? There was a reason the decision to bite her hadn’t been as easy as it would have been a week ago. I was falling for her.
“Wouldn’t you hate us?” Caspian asked.
His arousal was making the air heavy, too. Shan was beyond the point of talking, trying to hold back groans. Oswald was shifting uncomfortably in his chair, probably unsure if he should be watching or leaving. I wasn’t sure what I should be doing either, but for me the decision to leave wasn’t so easy. I wouldn’t make it out the door before the pain made me dizzy.
“Without you, I’m dead, and without me, you’re…” Freya trailed off, looking over her shoulder at us. “You all fall apart. Every one of you, but you fall apart the least, Emmett. I thought you were only falling apart because of how Caspian lost himself.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, keeping my gaze locked to her face.
For about five seconds. Then I looked back down at her hips, languidly grinding with a grace only an Omega could have.
She smirked. “It was either the gods or my own fucked up brain, but I dreamt while I was out. I saw my dead body in your arms in the infirmary. I watched everything fracture. Shan died, Caspian lost himself to his nature, Oswald and Nolan hated each other but were stuck together for eternity. You… you picked up Caspian’s pieces. This movie replayed so many times I’ll never forget it.”
My throat was tight. She may think it was because I wasn’t falling apart, but picking up pieces of other people’s trauma was how I coped. I punished myself by doing it, thanklessly. I’d grown up trailing after my father, trying to fix everything he broke.
“If you hadn’t been about to die, if you’d known that you would come back and be fine, would you be furious over me biting you?” I asked, holding my breath for the answer.
Freya snorted. “There’s only one thing I’m furious about, Em.”
The way my name rolled off her tongue made my cock hard, tenting the sheets. She spotted it and licked her lips, keeping me in suspense as she grabbed Caspian’s chin and brought his lips to hers. His eyes had gone black when she pulled back, and she pushed his face down so he could make out with Shan. Her hands gripped the bottom of her shirt, lifting it over her head, and she crawled back across the bed toward me.
I watched the way her tits swayed as she moved, her scent getting heavier as she got closer. Trailing her fingers across my jawline, I was helpless to say or do anything as she pressed her fresh bite mark against my lips and groaned. “I’m furious you left your mark on my wrist,” she said finally. “What kind of fucking erogenous zone is that?”
Any tension I’d held in my body vanished and I slumped into the sheets. My wound ached from how tense my abdominals had been. “I didn’t think you’d want my mark on your neck or anywhere so… obvious,” I mumbled, trying to keep my Alpha instincts in check.
“I’ll be able to see it every time I look at my hands. I’d say it’s a pretty fucking obvious location. You wanted me to remember you, even if I was furious, didn’t you?” she asked, her voice a seductive purr.
