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“Little Omega, these aren’t things to worry about. It’s why we have business managers and faithful employees. Our businesses run with or without us. You’re our priority. You don’t need to feel bad about going back into heat. In fact, I’ve been hoping you would.”
Shock ebbed through me. “You have?”
The sapphire color of his eyes darkened. “We want to bite you, Sweetness, and claim you as ours. But none of us want you in pain for the event that will bond us as your pack.”
“We want you deep in your heat fever and blissed out on our knots before we bite you, Darling,” Thane rumbled seductively, those wicked fingers grazing the sensitive spot at the crux of my neck and shoulder where one of them would bite me someday soon. “You won’t even feel the sting of pain, just the soul-deep satisfaction of our bond snapping into place.”
“You want that, don’t you?” Leo hummed, the sonorous sound lulling me deeper into their fantasy.
“Yes. Of course, I do.”
“Then don’t worry about going back into heat.” Jamison caressed my cheek. “It’s a blessing that it’s happening again so soon. We want to claim you, Demi, and as long as we have your permission, we’re going to bond you to us as soon as the fever strikes.”
“You don’t even need to ask. I’m yours already, with or without the claiming bites. You have me—heart, mind, body, and soul.”
“Just as you have us,” Jamison all but purred.
Leaning down, he gave me an upside-down kiss, his mouth slanting possessively over my own. I nipped his bottom lip, reveling in the savageness of his moan.
I was about to tempt him into taking me to my nest along with the others when the chime of the news interrupted the show we were barely watching, effectively drawing our full attention to the TV.
There, in high definition, was Anton walking out of the jail in a crisp, perfectly tailored suit with Huck and Reed flanking him. The camera angle shifted to a news anchor talking about their immediate release and wrongful arrests.
“Wait—” I shook my head, living in an alternate reality. “They had evidence. W-what happened to all the proof of his guilt?”
The news anchor’s monolithic voice continued while my mind spun.
This can’t be happening…
“The fuck!” Hades growled from behind me just before something breakable crashed into the wall.
Whatever he’d thrown shattered, but I didn’t fault him for the outburst because I felt the same way. My muscles froze with shock and indignation, holding back the fit of anger that threatened to swallow me whole. The world slowed, the droning tone of the news anchor fading away until all I heard was my heartbeat.
Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump.
“Demi. Darling,” Thane slid off the couch and crouched in front of me, gripping my biceps gently and begging me to look his way, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. They were glued there, watching my worst nightmare play out before my eyes.
The footage flashed again, and this time the air stalled in my lungs. An older, distinguished man with salt and pepper hair wearing a slate grey suit had his wrists cuffed behind his back. He ducked his head, never once looking directly at the flashing cameras going off in every direction. Focus on his shiny black shoes, he let the officers lead him into the station without a single uttered word of his innocence or a plea for help.
I didn’t need to see his face to know who they’d taken into custody in Pack Silver’s stead. I knew that profile. The slant of the nose. The familiar cheekbones. It was my father, Roger Fenway.
The man was guilty of crimes of his own that I wanted to see him atone for, but this wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen. Anton, Huck, and Reed deserved to be behind bars for their sins, and now they were… they were…
My ears rang with a hoarse keen, I belatedly realized resounded from my throat. Sorrow coated the desolate notes, a song of hopelessness and despair.
Immediately rounding the couch, Jamison lifted me into his arms. With an arm under my knees and another behind my back, he cradled me close and headed for the stairs, carrying me to our nest and settling me in the center. My other mates surrounded me on all sides and their purrs blazed to life, cocooning me in comfort.
I sank into it, squeezing my eyes shut against the tears, but try as I might to hold on to my hope, it slipped through my fingers like grains of sand.
Nothing would fix this. This changed everything.
twenty-nine
KNOX
“Recite it back to me,”I prompted Demi, who looked too fucking cute with her winter jacket zipped up past her chin, covering her bow-shaped lips.
The chill in the air had turned the tip of her nose an endearing shade of pink and her cheeks had more color in them than I’d seen in days. Not hard to do since she’d spent nearly the last week curled up in her nest, her scent giving away how fucking terrified she was.
