Page 77 of Heat Lightning

Somehow, by sheer force of will, I squeezed myself through that tiny skylight before reaching down to offer Saint a hand up and yanking him through, too.

It didn’t matter that the air was hot and thick with summer humidity or that the sun was setting and the bugs were out—I could breathe a million times easier outside of that too-small cage our father had locked us in.

“You’re like an octopus,” my brother said, sweaty from the effort of climbing out.

“What?”

“From the aquarium we used to go to with Mom, remember? They can get in and out of anything. Didn’t one even escape the tank? That’s you.”

An octopus. Huh.

We didn’t say much after that, watching the heat lightning dance on the blue horizon and the bats circle overhead, just emerging from their hiding places.

Our father never found us up there on that roof. And every time I fucked up badly enough to get Saint bruised and bloodied alongside me, I’d remember when he called me an octopus and find a way to get us out.

I always found a way out, all the way up to the day I took that monster’s life with my bare hands and watched the same fear I knew intimately drain from his eyes, until he couldn’t feel anything ever again.

Hello, Atlas.

My heart, shriveled and unused as it was, warmed. A chink in the armor plating I’d fashioned around it crumbled away, leaving me exposed.

Strangely, I didn’t want to put it back, and that had nothing to do with the way Max still pulsed around my knot, hot and slick, or my rut, the suppressants, or any of that.

It was just him, staring at me openly and unguarded. His eyes were the color of molten chocolate. I would happily drown in them.

I squeezed his hand, fingers gripped tightly in his. “Hi,” I replied.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. Max only smiled and shimmied further into my embrace.

It’d taken every last ounce of restraint I possessed not to bite him. After thinking I’d lost him to that heat teacher, I went out of my mind with the need to stake my claim. He’d all but begged me for it, too, submitting his throat so freely.

Claim him, my alpha had snarled. Make him ours.

But that wasn’t what this was about. We were supposed to end the bond tying us together, not seal it forever.

Right?

The reasons why seemed so very far away, though. Things like secrets and safety and deserving a life better than always looking over his shoulder were very small compared to the way my name sounded in his mouth.

I stayed inside him until my knot deflated and then pulled out. Listening to the storm pass outside, I caught my breath and pressed soft kisses everywhere I could reach, marveling at how right it was to hold him close.

“That was… good,” Max whispered long minutes later, shy despite what we’d just done.

My mask had slipped back down, covering my face. I resented the way it itched—I wanted to rub my cheek all over him and tease the shyness out of my omega.

“Yeah, it was,” I replied, voice raw.

It was more than good. My DNA rewrote itself around the scent of him. And the way he tasted… fuck. I’d never forget it.

I was forever altered by him.

He smiled and stretched his arms above his head, eyes closed. He looked like he was floating. I’d dreamed of moments like this; of watching him while I lay beside him, instead of far away, across the bay.

All long limbs and smooth, soft skin, I couldn’t help but rub my hand across his belly. I may have just been knot drunk, but I swore it was fuller than it’d been before his heat started.

We did that, my alpha said with pride. We filled him up.

My cock thickened, and saliva pooled in my mouth. The sight of that pouch, ready and waiting just for me, made me want to bite and hold. The feral beast in me envisioned pinning Max in the dirt beneath me while I laid claim to that place no one else had ever been—making it fit me, and only me.