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Hunter scratched absently at his salt-and-pepper beard. "I'll be glad when they come and take their Omega back, too. Of course, she had to go into Heat as a fucking parting gift."
"I'm sure she didn't mean to," Jake said with as much composure as he could.
No one needed to be criticizing Zorah, not even Hunter, and certainly not for something she couldn't even control.
"No, I know, I know." Hunter shoved his empty mug to the side and scrubbed a palm over his face. "Unmated Omegas are the bane of my existence. The sooner that one is gone, the better."
Jake's leg began to jitter uncontrollably under the table. "Wh-why's that?"
Hunter waved a hand. "Every unmated Alpha in this place has been trying to get in her pants for months. I mean, don't get me wrong, she's a nice enough girl, takes good care of the pups, but we can't afford to stir shit up with River Bend. If someone here tried to claim her, it would be a right fucking mess. The whole thing is enough to give me an ulcer." He choked out a bitter laugh. "Honestly, all the rebuilding after the fire has kept those horny fuckers too busy to get up to no good with her. And the new Omegas, too, come to think of it." He chuckled again, louder this time, and shook his head. "Never thought I'd see the silver lining in that whole disaster. What the fuck's happened to me?"
Numbly, Jake nodded as if that speech hadn't opened a pit of quicksand under his very feet. In the space of a few flippant sentences, he'd fallen in and sunk up to his eyeballs. Declaring himself as Zorah's mate would be worse than he imagined. All the dozens of people under Hunter's protection, everything his friend had devoted himself to building, this community where Omegas could find a measure of safety, would all be jeopardized by an attachment to Zorah. It would make an enemy of River Bend right when the Pack was at its most vulnerable.
Jake pulled his lip to the side, affecting a casual tone like he wasn't sinking, sinking, sinking into the sucking pit under his feet. "You're a changed man, dude."
Hunter cocked his head, studying Jake for a moment. "You too. You look... better. More focused or something."
Jake had nothing to say to that, so he said nothing and gulped the rest of the lukewarm brew.
"I'm glad the work up there is agreeing with you," Hunter continued, "but you're welcome to come back any time. I never expected you to stay up there. It was late in the summer to start a project like that anyway."
Jake let the words wash over him. Welcome to come back any time? Come back towhat, exactly? The same shit he'd left over, only with the added trauma of pretending everything was fine as he watched his Omega return to her shitty Pack?
He spun the empty mug between his palms. "You know why I left."
"Yeah, I do. But things might be different now, after you rescued that kid. These guys are a pain in my ass, but they aren't all bad." Hunter stood from the table and pushed his chair in, slapping Jake on the back in the process. "Besides, whether they like it or not, you're Pack now. That means we all look out for each other, even the assholes."
"Right," Jake said grimly as he stood and faced his friend. "No asshole left behind."
Hunter's mouth contorted in an ambivalent grimace. "Not quite sure that's the slogan we want to go with."
"Yeah." Despite his careening depression, Jake tried a relaxed smile. "I was just spitballing. Probably should keep workshopping that one."
Hunter's delighted chortle filled the entire room. His icy blue eyes danced next to the crow's feet that mirrored Jake's own. "I swear to God, if I hear the word synergy come out of your mouth, I will punch your fucking lights out."
Jake bowed his head and scratched the back of his neck, more than ready to take his food, and his misery, and hike back up the mountain. Zorah'd wake up and need him again soon, and he couldn't bear to leave her wanting. Not now, when he knew their time was running out.
CHAPTER 29
Zorah
"Yes, yes, oh god —" Zorah's neck arched, digging the snarled crown of her head into the destroyed remains of her beautiful nest, and she didn't care one bit. Jake's narrow hips pounded deep in her body, so deep it set off a different kind of fireworks all over her insides. "Yes!"
She'd lost track of the time, but the first rays of light filtered into the cabin door. It had to have been at least three days, maybe four, since that night on the beach, and her Heat had to be nearing the end. Heats had always seemed like a special kind of torture, a shameful and humiliating ordeal that put her entirely at the mercy of her most base instincts. But that wasn't true at all. This Heat, with Jake, had unlocked something that could never again be caged. This Heat had freed her, and knot or no knot, there was no going back.
"Not yet." Sweat dotted his face and chest, and Jake's gruff words cut through her spiraling pleasure. He slowed his pace, pushing in with a slow, deliberate grind of his pelvic bone into her clit. Zorah whined deep in her throat at the change but also the new kind of sensation. "C'mon, get up."
With a hand around her waist, he flipped their positions, rolling Zorah on top without dislodging his cock from deep inside her.
Zorah planted her palms on his golden-haired chest and whined. "I like it theotherway."
"I know," he said with a playful twitch of his lips, "but you need to practice this way, too."
"Why?" Even in the momentary pause, her cranking climax receded, slipping back into a dull, buzzing ache in her core.
This was a game he liked to play, taking her close to the edge and then backing off, starting all over from the start, only to do it again. The release, when it finally came after his teasing torture, had her shaking and crying for long minutes, her muscles spasming so hard they skated the line between pleasure and pain. Brutal, delicious agony.
In a conciliatory gesture, Jake spread his palm over her lower belly and swiped through her sex with his thumb, rubbing her sensitive clit in a slow circle. "Because," he crooned, "you can't always be a pillow princess." His lips spread into a mocking grin that erased the century of unimaginable hardship from his face. He slapped at her ass, a sharp stinging that made her inner muscles clench. "Now, ride that dick, sweetheart."
