Page 13 of Bonds and Beasts

Another whine crawls up my throat, spilling from my lips. It's the only thing I can do. Words are still so far beyond my reach. Dean's eyes find mine.

"I promise, Sweet Girl, I promise I'm not going to hurt you. Please come out."

It's not the first time he's asked since he started talking to me, but it's the first time a spark of belief flares in my chest. Despite my resistance, he hasn't left me. My omega has me showing my teeth. She was never super kind, but now she feels downright feral.

It has to have been more than an hour since he got down on the floor and started talking to me again, but he's made no frustrated noises. No exasperated sighs. Just calm patience.

And my omega is scared and angry, but she wants him. His scent calls to us. So instead of curling in tighter at his assurance, as I had been doing, I use my hands to slowly, carefully, pull myself toward him.

Dean’s eyes widen and his hand snaps out. I cringe back before my mind has time to process what's happening. He freezes, grimacing, his hand moving back as he starts apologizing. But his retreat is the last thing I want. He protected me from the other alpha. I don't want his distance.

So I reach out, my palm sliding against the back of his hand before he can pull it away completely. He stills. The space between us feels charged. When I look into his face again, I'm not sure he's even breathing.

He turns his hand over so our palms are together, then nods. I nod back. He pulls and all I have to do is let it happen. I'm out from under the bed and lying on the hardwood floor in a second, facing Dean, who's lying on the floor facing me. His eyes are multifaceted blue like Lake Michigan on a beautiful summer's day.

How long has it been since I touched the lake water? How long has it been since I've been out on a summer's day?

"Hi," he says and his voice sounds almost shy.

Every single sense I have hones in on his scent. Basil and mint is not a combination I've ever considered before, but I know it's a fragrance I need. My center pulls toward it. My omega has gone near-feral.

He sits up and before I understand what I'm doing, I'm moving. I climb directly into his lap, curling against his chest, knees on either side of his hips, and bury my face in his neck. Fresh herbs and warmth flood my senses and the constant, tingling hurt I've lived with for almost a year dulls. It doesn't disappear, but it lowers from a teeth-grinding, nail-puncturing pain to something nominally more manageable. Not gone. Not even bearable. But close to a level I can semi-function under. It doesn't matter. I'm not moving from here. My omega knows this is where she belongs. Everything in my center thrusts toward him like a moth to a flame. My eyes are closed and my nose nuzzles in hard, his pulse beating a staccato against my lips.

For a moment, he freezes, and everything in me plummets. Despite his scent, maybe I've misread this. Maybe it's been so long since I smelled an alpha that my omega has lost her mind, and she's simply finding scent sensitivity in the first alphas we've had contact with in a year.

I very reluctantly start to pull away, but his arms come around me. One flat and steady on my lower back, the other sliding into the hair at the base of my skull and pressing my face back to its original place in the pulse point of his neck, where his aroma is strongest.

"Take my scent, Sweet Girl. Take whatever you need from me. I'm here. I have you."

A sharp omega whine is all I can manage as I fist his shirt in my hands and press myself fully into his body, into his neck, into him. My nose trails and presses down the column of his throat to his pulse point, up to his ear and back down to his heartbeat again. I need more. My tongue sweeps out, the tip licking over his hot sweet skin.

"Fuck, baby." His hoarse whisper blows across my forehead. Beneath me I can feel him harden, but he doesn't press me that way. Instead, one hand rubs up and down my spine. The hand at the back of my hair comes down to my neck and gently squeezes, adding warmth there that trickles down my spine, softening the flames that lick at my nerve endings.

"That's it," he murmurs, "relax into me. You're safe. No one's going to hurt you."

We stay like that for a long moment, me taking him in, until movement behind me and the light scuff of a shoe on the floor makes me tremble. But instead of leaping off his lap, I press into him further, every instinct screaming at me to get closer to the alpha beneath me, even though I'm practically in his chest already.

"It's okay," Dean soothes, shushing me. I hadn't realized that sharp omega whines have begun climbing up my throat again. "This is Easton, my packmate and your mate, right?" My mate. Because if one alpha is mated to an omega, his whole pack is. I take another large hit of Dean's scent to help me find the courage to turn my head enough to peer at the alpha now crouching beside us.

Easton is more lithe than Dean. He wears a cardigan with patches at the elbows, round wire-rimmed glasses, and a concerned expression. His brown eyes find mine and something essential passes between us. His presence is a second anchor to Dean's, helping steady me in the storm of my emotions.

"Hey there, Sweetheart. I'm so sorry this is how we're meeting. You okay?"

I think a moment, about the pain in my nerve endings, about the shaking I still can't stop, about my inability to push a single word out, about my loneliness over the last year, and I shake my head no.

Easton's face falls, devastated. His hand comes up as though to touch me, but I recoil. He withdraws his hand and, unlike with Dean, I don't follow. Right now Dean is all I can see. I need him like air.

"Easton." A deep, serious voice rings out, causing all of us to look toward the doorway. The tall black-haired alpha stands like a shadow. His eyes are stormy, but not fully black like before. His jaw is tight and his nostrils flare as he scents the area. His hands ball into fists. But he doesn't move a muscle into the room. I burrow tighter into Dean, but my eyes never leave him and his eyes never leave me.

Easton gets up from his spot next to me. I reach for him, not wanting him to get too close to the other alpha, but he's already up.

"It's okay, I promise," Dean says, touching my chin and turning me to face him. His skin on mine is a balm sinking straight into my static-ridden, pins-and-needles soul.

I dip my face so that his hand spreads, cupping my jaw, fingers pressing gently into the hollows of my cheeks. The pad of his thumb finds my full bottom lip, pressing lightly. Too lightly. I need more, so much more. The more he touches me, the firmer the pressure, the more it feels like a release valve on my screaming nervous system. I sigh and lean forward, causing his thumb to slip into my mouth. My lips close around the digit automatically. Dean's forehead finds mine and his chest expands. For a long moment I don't understand what I'm hearing. His thumb stays in my mouth and my tongue swirls around the pad. His skin is warm and tastes of salt and comfort. Dean's hips thrust up in a clearly involuntary movement. His length is stone beneath me, but with effort he stills again.

The sound coming from him isn't a growl, but it vibrates in his chest like one.

He breathes out long and deep and my lips part enough for his thumb to slip out.