Page 55 of Sweet Torment

Twenty minutes pass like this, skin against skin, their hands gentle on my oversensitive body. When Freddie’s knot finally goes down and they carefully separate from me, I’m floating, barely conscious.

“We’ll take watch,” Tristan says to Weller and Owen. “You two take care of her.”

I end up situated against the rock wall, nestled between Owen and Weller, their warmth surrounding me. Their hands are gentle as they stroke my hair and rub my back.

“Sleep, Princess,” Owen murmurs, his hand tracing patterns on my spine.

“I’ve finally got the whole collection,” I mumble against his chest.

I hear them laugh softly, but my eyes are already closed, too heavy to open. Someone kisses my forehead tenderly, but I’m already falling into darkness, feeling safe between my alphas while thunder cracks outside.

18

WELLER

She’s so deep in sleep she doesn’t stir when I shift my hips, adjusting the angle while I’m still inside her.

It’s the only way I can get her to rest.

Not that I’m complaining.

Being knotted to her for the first time since we bonded is like finding the rest of my soul. My knot is long gone, but I’m still hard enough to keep her satisfied and give her what she needs. Every time I pull out of her slick heat, even an inch, she whimpers. I can feel her walls clutching onto me, as if her body is refusing to let me go.

I never want to be apart from her again.

The cave is dark except for the dying embers of our fire. Orange light dances across stone walls that have kept the worst of the storm out. Outside, rain is still falling, but it’s quieter now. The violence of it has passed, leaving only this steady sound that I try to match my breathing to. Anything to find a rhythm while my mind races through every possible way to keep her safe in a world that keeps trying to take her from me. And now we’ve killed three people in a situation we have no way of controlling. It was probably recorded.

What happens next? For us? For Bianca?

All that mattered was getting to her, and we did. She’s bonded. She’s ours.

But will it be enough?

Dr. Montgomery won’t give her up. I know that. We all know that. Our fathers won’t give up either. This isn’t just about Bianca anymore. This is about power, and we just made a very public, very violent move against their interests.

What does life look like tomorrow? A week from now? A month from now? A year from now?

Will it ever just be the five of us like it was always supposed to be?

I hold her tight, knowing that this is all we have. Right here, right now. This moment that never belonged to us in the first place.

I haven’t slept a single second.

My hand spreads across Bianca’s stomach, holding her back against my chest as if I don’t anchor her to me, she’ll disappear. Five years of not knowing where she was, if she was safe, if she was alive—it changed something fundamental in me. Now, every heartbeat of hers that I feel against my arm matters. Every breath she takes is proof that I haven’t lost her. Yet.

Her other hand stretches out, her fingers laced with Owen’s where he lies beside us. Even unconscious, she reaches for him, for all of us. Her body knows what her waking mind fights. We’re hers as much as she’s ours.

Her skin burns, but it’s not like before. Not that desperate, clawing need that had her begging and crying, so lost in it she didn’t even sound like herself. This is quieter. The kind of warmth that makes her soft in my arms instead of fighting everything, including her own body. I’ve never seen her like this. So unguarded.

It’s everything I imagined our life could’ve been, should’ve been, if I hadn’t been such a fucking coward. If I’d been strong enough to stand up to my father instead of letting him manipulate me into that room with Whitney. If I’d been smart enough to see Montgomery’s game before it destroyed everything. The what-ifs are poison, but I can’t stop them. They circle and pick at who I used to think I was. The strong one. The leader. The one who was supposed to protect them all.

What a joke.

I protected none of them.

She makes a small sound, pressing back against me, and my cock throbs in response. The sensation pulls me from the spiral—the heat of her, the way her inner walls flutter even in sleep, how perfectly she fits against me. I rock forward just slightly, barely moving, but it’s enough to make her sigh and settle deeper.

It’s been like this for hours. There’s something so calming about having her like this. The need to invade her so deeply that no one can take her from me. Branded inside and out as mine. And ours.