Page 68 of Vendetta

Her fingers came away tinged with red, and her eyes grew wide. “Wait, no. You didn’t. You couldn’t. What did you do?” Her breathing picked-up into panicked gasps, and she started to thrash, trying to get away. My knot hadn’t freed her yet, so I tightened my arms, holding her still so she didn’t hurt the both of us in a futile attempt to escape.

“Shhhh.” I nipped at the small patch of bare skin on her shoulder. “Can’t you feel it?”

“I don’t fucking want to feel anything but space between us, Nico. Let me go,” she insisted, struggling harder against my hold to emphasize her point.

My chest squeezed with the reality of what I’d done. What I shouldn’t have done. Her struggling dragged my mind from that realization and back to the problem at hand. She was trapped on my knot and wanted to be anywhere but here. Her hips jolted, tugging my cock as she thrashed.

Fuck, that hurt.

I grit my teeth against the pain and managed to growl out a few words. “Be still.” I clamped down on her squirming body, holding her tight to my chest. “You can’t get away right now.”

“You wanna bet?” Her legs kicked out, jerking roughly against my knot as she continued to struggle.

I grimaced at the torture she was inflicting on me. I should’ve known better. Omegas were supposed to be docile after getting knotted, but clearly she was not.

By the time Cruz and Oliver made their way past the pool to us, Rosa had calmed some. Both their nostrils flared, picking up the scent of sex and pack, and their eyes widened as they watched me work to restrain the frantic omega in my lap.

She shook her head back and forth, trying to dislodge my arms, flinging her long hair into my face. It took everything in me to keep hold of her once she started fighting again. She was going to rip my dick off and didn’t seem to care much about that fact.

I fucking cared.

Cruz stepped up next to us, cupping her cheek in his hand, tilting her head to the side. She allowed it, but her eyes were wide and wild.

“What have you done, Nico?” Cruz asked, the most solemn I’d ever seen him. Which was really saying something for the stoic asshole.

My knot chose that moment to soften and release the lock. Feeling the change, Rosa jerked her hips, pulling herself loose and leaping from my lap. Slick and cum gushed onto the pool deck, and I tucked my softening cock away as she tugged the hoodie down to cover herself. She looked like a feral creature, hair tangled around her wide-eyed face with blood running in tiny rivulets from the crescent of teeth-shaped punctures on her neck. My cock twitched as I saw it on her.

My mark. My pack. My bonded mate.

She would need to bite me back to seal the bond, but I could already feel the beginnings of the ephemeral thread that tied us all together, pulling on my chest.

“You know what I did.”

Chapter 44

Rosalina

Nico pushed up out of his chair, tall and unrepentant.

Fucking asshole.

I didn’t want to admit it, but the warmth radiating from the bloody mark on my neck was a pleasant sort of burn. Under normal circumstances, I might even have enjoyed it. But not when it was from my fucking mortal enemy. Who I hated with every fiber of my being… even when he made my body sing and took care of my every need and made me feel safe during my heat. Even when his pack cared for me, fought for me, defended me. But they still kidnapped me.

I hated them. Probably.

Cruz’s voice rose in a snarl. “You were supposed to stay with her so she wouldn’t wake up from her heat alone. You were supposed to feed her. You were NOT supposed to force a bond on her.”

Welp, he only kind of did those things in the most half-assed way possible. Why am I not even a little surprised?

Nico threw his hands up, facing off with his packmates. “You both wanted this. Begged even. Now you complain when you get your way? I’m risking my life for this—everything I’ve ever worked for—and this is your reaction?”

A heart-stopping growl radiated from Cruz’s chest as he locked eyes with Nico. Oliver’s attention was equally pinned on the offending alpha, his chest heaving in poorly restrained aggression. All parties oozed a thick sort of menace that I wanted nothing to do with.

Distracted as they were, none of them noticed as I slowly backed toward the kitchen door. If I tried to run down the side of the house, my intention would’ve been too obvious, but I managed to slip inside just as hands started flying and the thud of fists on flesh filled the evening air. The pounding of my pulse drowned out the worst of it.

I didn’t have much time before they noticed I was gone, but I was going to need more than a hoodie to get out of here. I ripped open the kitchen drawers searching for anything…a fork? A knife would be better. As I reached the end of the island, a gleaming set of blades stared back at me from inside the drawer. Most of them were for cutting meat, but my eyes fixed on a sturdy metal-handled utility knife. That would work. I snatched it up.

Adrenaline was surging through my veins, pushing me to hurry.