Page 223 of All Packed Up

Tate chuckled affectionately at her side and wrapped an arm around her. “It’s okay, babes, it’s okay.”

Wendy leaned back a moment later, wiped at her eyes when her throat felt less wobbly. “If I didn’t love you two so much, I’d be so pissed that you ruined my makeup.”

They fell silent, and Wendy waited, kept her gaze on the kitten as they processed her words. But she was scared, her heart thumping against the tiny cat pressed into her chest, and a part of her wondered if the two alphas could hear it.

“You—what?” Arlo whispered, eyes wide.

“I love you,” she repeated, but it didn’t come out any cleaner, any less of a sob of happiness. “I love you both a lot. Like, an impossible amount for the short time we’ve known each other. I’m sorry if it’s too fast and I just made things super weir—”

Tate pulled her close, cutting off her words with a kiss to her lips, before he traded her to Arlo.

They both wiped at her tears.

“I love you too,” Arlo said.

“We love you too,” Tate corrected, arms sliding around her waist to hug her from the side. “Don’t leave me out,” he teased.

Wendy glanced from alpha to alpha, wondering how the hell she’d been so lucky to find the stoners in C70 too.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she promised.

* * *

“Can I see your bond mark?” Wendy asked, lying in bed between Arlo and Tate.

After their date, they’d taken her and the kitten back to their place, fucked her brains out, and then given her a fucking kitten to cuddle afterward.

What more could an omega want?

But now her mind was racing with too many thoughts, thoughts she’d spent the last few weeks trying to dissect and put into order.

Wendy hated her bond mark so much, the way it was messy and scraggly and didn’t heal smoothly. That was probably from the way she’d struggled, but, well. Hindsight.

She had to know if it was going to be like that again.

Tate’s and Arlo’s jaws dropped. “I didn’t know you hadn’t seen it. It’s not in a very secretive place,” Tate admitted, pulling his arm from under the covers.

“Well, I mean, I’ve glanced at it, but I never really studied it, y’know?” she admitted. “It seemed rude.”

Maybe she only thought it was rude because she hated when people looked at hers. It was just a stark reminder of something she never wanted. Something that had been taken from her.

Whereas their marks… they’d wanted them. They’d wanted each other.

Their bonds had been placed out of love. Marked forever because they wanted to spend forever with one another.

Hers had been placed by Derek for nothing more than added control.

She drifted her fingers over the mark on Tate’s arm, feeling the smooth, shiny skin.

“What was it like?” she asked.

Their gazes dipped to her bond mark for a split second as confusion filled their expressions.

“Did it hurt?” Like hers had.

They shared a look before shrugging. “I mean, it’s teeth going into skin, so it hurt in that sense.”

“But we hardly felt it at the time.”