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“I overestimated myself. I expected her to have been ours already. Her loyalties at least.”
I wanted to hurl something at his head. The arrogant prick would keep his eyes closed rather than accept that his control of the situation did not extend to Polly or Jude or myself.
“You’ll have us all where you want us soon enough.”
“On your knees?” he sneered. “Is that what—”
“No one knows what you want.” I forestalled his childish question. Then it hit me. The way he had been ready to leave her when her heat began. “You knew she’d call us back. How?”
“I didn’t know.”
“You made a gamble. When she told us to leave. You stood, no protest.” My heart was racing. I couldn’t hear myself think because I was so furious.
“She was close to kissing me. And I knew then she would give in to us. Those mirrored gold eyes. You saw them.” He became lost in the memory. “Do you think she’ll regret it?”
I’d never seen him so lost. I’d never hated him more. “Are you mad? Has fucking her but not knotting her melted your brain? If you cannot see the goodness before you, leave. If you cannot accept that your reality is better than your ideal, leave. I’ll not stop you or hold on tight because I’ve realised something. We have propped each other up, built some fantasy impossible to achieve because there was an omega who we thought needed taking down and humbling.”
“It was never like that,” he snarled. “I never told you—”
“Precisely. You never told me.” I looked away from him. Wanting to see. “You held back because you do not see me as your equal.”
He stepped back, his face white with fury.“You are my equal. If some part of my intention was withheld… I did it because there are no stationary objects. But what I meant and what I did… You were hurt by it, schatz. And I’d rather cut my arm off than hurt you.”
“Just your arm?”
He laughed. It was good to hear the sound, raw and vulnerable. “Tod, that omega, and your pretty boy each have a limb of mine.”
“We must rejoin them.”
Polly stirred when I knelt next to her in the nest. She rolled towards me, reaching out to clutch at my thigh. “You left,” she grumbled. “I didn’t permit that.”
“Petals, a man had needs beyond you.”
“Do not speak to me of nature’s call or I will need to respond. Much better to sleep here.”
“You like your nest?” I asked, easing next to her. “Even if alphas built it?”
“It isn’t a next.” Her protest was firm. “I don’t nest.”
A teasing correction was on the tip of my tongue when Jude caught my attention, shaking his head. “It isn’t a nest,” I said slowly. Her eyes softened and I wondered how something so ordinary as a nest could cause her so much distress. “How silly of me, little mate.”
“Mate?” Her fingers traced my bite, which had stopped bleeding in the night. “I suppose I am.”
24
Polly
Inuzzled Puck’s chest, sucking in deep breathes of his spicy scent. My heat had broken in the night. Only twenty-four hours, most of which I had slept through. Too soon, my omega howled. I had not fucked Jude. Had not had his knot or Oberon’s. I knew what it meant. I’d have another soon and in that one I would take two more mates. “Hello,” I murmured when I felt his breathing change. “It broke.”
“So soon?” The rumbling purr he gave me had me shifting so that I could straddle his waist. Never had I felt this powerful. Out of the heat craze he let me take his wrists in hand and stretch them above his head. “I like this. You touching me.”
“Yes.”
His smile, warm and understanding, turned lascivious and he rolled his hips rolling into mine. “The others are still asleep?”
I shook my head. At some point they had left us, and I realised that that was why my heat had ended so abruptly. Mated by one alpha, my omega had expected to be mated by two more. But when they had left, my heat ended.
“Do not take it to heart.” He tucked a lock of my hair behind one ear. “You’ll go into heat again and they will knot you then.”
