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“Can I?”
“No need, Sweetheart. We’re going to get you cleaned off and back to your nest so you can sleep.”
He pouted and I laughed and pressed a kiss to the crease of his thigh where his scent was insanely strong while he scratched lightly on the back of my head.
“Miles?” I looked back up at him, not quite ready to move but also starting to feel it in my knees. “Trevor claimed me and I—there’s no rush, but I wanted you to know that whenever you’re ready, I am too. I love you, Miles.”
There was a vulnerability to his words, like he wasn’t sure how I would take them, and that was like a hook under my ribs. I didn’t want him to doubt that I was all in, ever again, and there was only one way to guarantee that.
“Omega.”
I let just enough bark slide into that one word that I would have his full focus. His breath caught as I slid my hand up his leg then raised myself up from where I’d been sitting back on my heels. Pressing kisses from his thigh up to the curve of his hip, I looked into his eyes, and struck. My teeth sank through the layers of skin until I tasted his hot blood against my tongue. Ethan cried out again and held my head in place with both his hands as I licked and sucked at my bite, solidifying the new bond between us.
That glimpse of him that I’d felt through Shae the day before was as if there had been a veil between us, blurring my sight and dulling the sound. But after I’d claimed him? He was standing in front of me with nothing between us. Beautiful and radiant from the love I could feel surrounding me and the all-encompassing joy he felt at having his pack complete. I closed my eyes as I sank deeper into that new bond. Somehow, I could feel the whole pack now. Before, I’d only felt Shae this clearly. Ethan’s place as our Omega, the center of our pack, had bonded us all together in a way I hadn’t realized would happen.
When my dads would seem to communicate without words, I’d always assumed it was because they’d been packed up with Mom for so long, they could read each other. After I’d bonded Shae, I’d thought they might also be picking each other up faintly, the way I could sense Jade. I wondered, now, if they had felt this completed pack bond all along. I reached past Ethan in the bond and found the happiness that I had expected from my packmates. Also more than a little smug satisfaction from Shae and Jade.
When I felt like I’d tended it enough, for the moment, I stood and winced at both the way my knees cracked and how I wobbled without my left arm to help balance me. Ethan reached out to steady me and I saw the way tears were mixing on his cheeks with the droplets of water from the shower. I cupped his jaw with my hand and pressed our foreheads together.
“I love you too, Ethan. It happened faster than I could have imagined and that scared me. I’ve only ever fallen for Shae before, and we’d been friends for some time before that. Thank you for giving me the space to find my way through my feelings… find my way to this.”
The tear-soaked little sound that Ethan let out would have worried me before but, thanks to the bond, I could tell that he was just overwhelmed. I remembered how tired he’d been when I found him and cursed myself before turning off the water and reaching outside the shower for the towels on the heated rack. I tried to towel him off but grumbled at how I failed with only one arm.
Ethan’s laughter chuffed against my chest before he plucked the towel from me and began patting me down carefully, wrapping it around my waist. Having him care for me felt decadent. I couldn’t resist the urge to lean down and run my cheek along his jaw and temple, scent marking him. A swell of satisfaction moved across the bond and I smiled before kissing his cheek and reaching for another towel for him.
Once he was dried off, we snagged some sweats and walked back into the main area of his nest. Ethan yawned loudly as we walked but pulled up short when he saw that the bedding had all been changed and our packmates were all freshly showered and waiting for him.
“When did you?—”
“We all woke up when the bottle dropped in the shower. We’d thought you might have fallen but Shae felt Miles and we realized you weren’t alone. Figured we’d clean up quickly too.”
Ethan’s face darkened slightly with a blush at Jade’s explanation and he shuffled his feet in embarrassment before I kissed his temple. Shae bounded up from where they’d been lounging on Jade to give Ethan a kiss and then move to give me one as well before tugging me over to the dresser. I didn’t want to move away from Ethan, but when I saw the collection of bandages and a spare sling, I knew they only wanted to change the dressing on my sutures.
Trevor rolled over and beckoned Ethan to lay down in front of him. Jade moved over to allow me enough space to settle on my back next to him. Shae fixed me up quickly and we made our way back to the sleepy Omega. Shae moved to my injured side, careful not to lay too close but threw a leg over mine and spread their hand over my stomach as Jade tucked herself around their back. Theo grinned from where he sat and then crawled so he laid on his front and wedged between Ethan’s thighs with his face pillowed on our Omega’s stomach, making Ethan laugh. His laugh broke into a yawn, and he sighed, dropping into sleep so quickly both because he was completely exhausted and also because he knew he was safe. He was surrounded by the people who would walk through fire, face down any threat, to keep him from harm.
I closed my eyes and pressed my face into Ethan’s hair, breathing him in and letting all of the contentment, affection, and joy rolling through the pack bonds lull me to sleep.
EPILOGUE
ETHAN
The rhythmic crash of waves rolling into the sand and retreating had a hypnotic quality that stilled my mind as I sat on the deck of the beach house Miles’ parents let us use for the week and stared into the surf. The rest of the pack was inside cleaning up dinner and getting drinks ready to watch the sunset, since we’d be leaving in the morning. They’d shuffled me out here, insisting that I enjoy the beginning of the sunset and they’d be out soon. It had been almost three months since Miles had killed Graves and raids on all of Pack Jackals properties uncovered, not only damning evidence, but more captives, as well as the one turned Omega who’d been abducted a second time. We’d spent the days after bonding answering questions for the police and ensuring nothing would come down on our pack or Drake House.
It had all gone unexpectedly well until the fact slipped out that the Omega of Pack Rothchild hadn’t been an Omega until her abduction. At first, we’d hoped it would be spun as a miraculous late emergence of an existing designation but then someone, connected to one of the other three women who’d been turned, had sold her story to the press and there was no going back. The media had gone into a frenzy and the story made international news. In the end, both Cat and Theo’s names had come to light, and they were hounded relentlessly for weeks. Eventually, after a nasty incident between Theo and a reporter who’d gotten too aggressive and too close to me while trying to get their headline, the press learned to stay away from him. Cat had become somewhat reclusive and had only returned to work at Drake House with Shae a few weeks ago.
None of the newly changed Omegas or Theo had accepted calls or bribes from organizations, individuals, and governments to allow themselves to be studied. Then two weeks ago, Dr. Hopkins, the psychiatrist treating Clint, had phoned me.
“Dr. Stephens has been pardoned. The government decided that he is no longer a threat and his innovative abilities could serve the greater good.
My legs gave out beneath me and I sank to the floor of my office in the BullPen. It took seconds for Trevor to race to my side, switch the call to speaker, and demand to know what was happening. I could feel my other bondmates probing worriedly at me through our connections and I sent back weak assurances that I was fine.
“—refusing to leave.”
I tuned back into the conversation with a furrow between my brows. Trevor had moved to sit behind me on the floor, stretching his legs on either side of mine. He wrapped his arms around my middle, pressing his cheek to my temple and purred. That comfort made the haze of shock retreat so I could speak again.
“What do you mean, Dr. Hopkins.”
Her voice was kind, even through the speaker.
