“I feel it too, Lucy.” His eyes are glimmering and soft. Honey brown and honest, shiny orbs that reflect nothing but care and concern. “That was…” His mouth opens and closes as he searches for the right word. “Intense. It was…”

  He’s trying to be eloquent and failing, and I love that for him. He looks vacant and stunned, which is exactly how I feel.

  “Was it more intense than other heats you’ve been involved in?” I snuffle hopefully.

  He looks at me for a while, studying my eyes. Eventually, he nods slowly. “Yeah. It was…unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I-I haven’t… I didn’t know it could be like that.”

  My stupid heart races at hearing him say it. It beats jubilantly and so quickly that it loosens my tongue. “It was so strong, Branson. It rolled over me, and now everything is sore. My chest hurts. It feels like there’s a big, bruised ring that’s been branded into my sternum, and my neck is so sore. Not just my throat. My neck too.”

  Beside me, Branson stiffens. His Adam’s apple bobs and sticks in his throat. His eyes become fixed and glint with something hard to place as they bore into me. He turns his head sharply from me as if to stop me from reading what’s written in them.

  Huh?

  Something is off. This isn’t him at all. Branson is the most alpha alpha I’ve ever met. Confidence and self-assurance ooze from his pores, yet now he looks…sheepish?

  No. That isn’t it.

  It’s not sheepish, but it’s something like it.

  He keeps his head turned away from me, seemingly engrossed in the view of the forest. He laces his fingers together and releases them, rubbing his palms on his jeans. He stops that and begins fidgeting with his thumbnail instead.

  The entire time, something remorseful tightens his jaw.

  Guilt.

  Branson looks guilty.

  What the hell?

  The brand on my chest pangs deeply, and so does the sore place on my neck. It’s an odd ache. Deep and painful, yet not altogether unpleasant. The type of pain that could feel good if it received the right kind of pressure.

  I move my head, testing my range of motion, and it hurts deeper.

  I raise my hand absently and run my fingers down my jugular vein, seeking relief. I get close to the base of my throat and flinch hard. “Ow!”

  Wait.

  What the fuck was that?

  I grab my neck again, this time with both hands, and frantically run my fingers over my scent gland.

  It’s raised.

  Sweet Jesus, it’s raised. It’s hot, bumpy, and sensitive to touch. More sensitive than usual.

  Much, much more sensitive.

  I fly off the bench and launch myself at the front door as panic takes hold. I yank the door open violently and throw myself through it.

  I stand in front of the entry table and gape at my reflection.

  In the mirror above the table, I see my eyes, wide and wild, as my hand slowly travels up to my mouth to stifle a scream. There, in plain sight, is a mark on my neck. An angry, red mark. An irregular circle of shiny, raised skin.

  Pure, unfiltered shock torpedoes up my legs and down my arms. My limbs stiffen, fingers stick straight and splay open as my eyes stretch in horror.

  I spin in a broad circle, arms flailing as I attempt to wave off an invisible attack. “A mark?” I hiss and squawk. “A motherfucking mark?”

  Branson appears in the doorway, casting a long shadow into the room, but wisely giving me a wide berth. His eyes are downcast and his mouth is a thin line. He looks pained and ashamed. As he bloody well should. “You.” I jab a furious finger at him. “You bit me.”

  He’s lucky I’m hoarse, or I’d be raising the fucking roof. Things being what they are, most of what I say comes out in soft hysterical tones, and the rest in screechy consonants that make my eyes water.

  He works his gaze slowly up my face until our eyes meet. They bounce off each other like oil and water, but Branson keeps his eyes fixed on mine until I relent and look at him. “I’m so sorry, Lucy.”

  The room spins, and so do I. In the mirror, my reflection waves its arms around and my face morphs into something I normally wouldn’t let other people see.

  “You’re sorry?” I scream silently. Branson looks at me soberly and nods. I splutter, clutching my chest as I choke on shock and disbelief that rapidly turns to fury. “You mated me for life, and you’re sorry? Sorry?”

  As I say it, the gravity of the situation begins to sink in. Panic makes my blood run cold and my ears uncomfortably hot. A thick fog swells and puts so much pressure on the backs of my eyes that I feel dizzy.

  Holy shit. Branson bit me. He mated with me. He sank his teeth into my neck, into my scent gland, during a heat wave. He injected his alpha venom into my omega bloodstream.

  He altered my DNA and bonded us for life.

  For life! For fucking life.

  No.

  This can’t be happening. This cannot be happening.

  It’s impossible.

  Think. Think, think, think. There has to be something you can do.

  “I said ‘I’m so sorry,’” says Branson, attempting an apologetic smile.

  I glare at him open-mouthed. My brain cuts in and out, thoughts jumbling, as what has happened slams into me.

  “Oh, this is bad,” I say to my reflection. “This is very bad. No. No, this can’t be happening.” I swipe at my neck furiously, trying to wipe the mark off. “Wash! Yes, that’s it. We need to—”

  “Lucy,” says Branson, not moving.

  “We need to wash it off! Get disinfectant. Get petrol and a lighter. Get whatever the fuck you can think of to get this thing off me before it takes. Hurry!”

  “Lucy,” he says again. This time, his voice is low and rumbles not only through the air, but through me as well. It floods my mind and my bones, turning them to jelly, rendering me mute and immobile. “It’s too late.”

  He takes two steps toward me and pulls the collar of his flannel shirt away from his body. He pauses, eyes hard and soft, and arches his neck deeply. If it weren’t for the situation being what it is, if it weren’t a complete shit show, and if I weren’t more hysterical than I can ever recall being, it would be quite something to see him like that. It would be strange and arresting to see Branson, the most alpha of alphas, willingly exposing his throat to me, a man half his size, half his stature, half his strength. If things were different, it might even be beautiful to see Branson showing himself to me at his most defenseless.

  It’s such an unexpected sight that it jumbles my thoughts. I don’t move for several seconds, until the situation at hand comes roaring back to my consciousness.

  I notice Branson has raised his hand, so I follow the line of his finger as it points above his clavicle. I notice a tiny indentation near the base of his throat. An irregular circular dip in his skin that emulates the scar on my neck. A mirror image of the mark he bit into me, sunken into his flesh.

  A dip where mine is raised.

  A pale, silvery dent, where mine is hot, angry, and swollen.

  The mystical twin of the mark on my neck.

  “It’s taken,” says Branson, voice still low.

  “I think I need to lie down.”

  “Do you want me to carry you?”

  I hold up my hand weakly, raising my nose high in the air and sniffing disdainfully. “Kindly don’t touch me.”

  I totter to the living room, amazed I’m able to stay on my feet, and slither onto the sofa as soon as I get to it. I melt into the seat, flat on my back, as the shock of what’s happened robs me of the last of my strength.

  Branson props a pillow under my neck, and when I don’t protest, he props another under my knees.

  I allow it because I’m too faint to do it myself.

  “Can I bring you some soup?” he offers quietly.

  “No talking,” I say, tight-lipped as my eyes flutter closed. “Please, don’t disturb my peace any more than you already have.”

  Branson pads silently to the kitchen, and the brand on my chest throbs a little more with each step he takes. I throw my arm over my face to hide my eyes, and to try to nip the infuriating compulsion to look at him in the bud. I know where he is. He’s in the kitchen, clanking crockery and cutlery like a bull in a china shop. I can hear him plain as day. I don’t need to look at him.

  I don’t.

  I’m not that pathetic.

  I open my fingers a crack and peer through them to see a sliver of Branson stooped over the stove. His chest is caved and he has a hand on his heart. His face is lined with discomfort. He looks in my direction every few seconds, and when he does, the hand on his heart clenches hard.

  18

  Lucien

  Afternoon melts into evening, and Branson keeps bringing me small portions of food that are, annoyingly, exactly what I feel like. Hungry doesn’t begin to describe my current state, so I wolf down everything he gives me, though my rage remains firmly intact.

  Now and again, curiosity gets the better of me, and I take a brief hiatus from my silence.

  “How long was I out for?” I whisper.

  The day has been strange. It’s been very short. I think it was past noon when I woke up, but I’m not sure. I have no idea what time it was when I passed out, or even what day it was, so I’m struggling to piece things together.

  “Um, ’bout seventeen or eighteen hours, I think,” replies Branson. “I was a little out of it, so I’m not sure exactly, but I woke up seven hours before you did, and I usually sleep for at least twelve hours after…you know.”

  As he speaks, I’m sucked back in time with a dizzying whoosh. I’m lying on the sofa in the past, like I am now. The big difference is that in the vision, I’m naked, and I have the weight of a jacked alpha on top of me. I’m on my back, with my legs wound around Branson, and the base of his dick is swelling inside me. I’m begging for his knot. Pleading for it as it thickens. So desperate that I keep asking for it even though he’s giving it to me.

  I hear echoes of my voice, desperate and strident. “Please, alpha, please, alpha, please knot me.”

  What he did to me felt unbelievable. Indescribable. His knot was so big. So thick that even now, during what I know full-well is a flashback, not the real thing, I can’t move a muscle as the memory of it consumes me.

  The way my body stretched to accommodate him was beyond reason. Beyond words. There was pressure everywhere. Pleasure everywhere. More than pleasure. Whatever comes after pleasure, after euphoria, after nirvana—that’s what it was.

  As my memory flits to the surface, I remember screaming when I came. In my mind’s eye, I see it happening all over again. I see the way my cock choked and spurted between us, and I see the way Branson looked down at me as he moved inside me. He barely blinked. He panted and struggled through, his biceps and abs straining as he held back his own peak.

  His groans were anguished, but his words, oh fuck, his words were so soft and sweet.

  “Come for me, Lucy,” he said.

  “Come for me, Lucy.”

  “Come for me, Lucy.”

  He said it over and over, and each time he said it, I did it. I came screaming. Shattering. Splintering into a million pieces as his knot fucked me open.

  Afterward, when we were both spent, he sat up, taking me with him. He had to, I suppose, as we were knotted together. He sat on the sofa, with me straddling his lap. His fingertips danced up my thighs and around my waist. Every time he kissed me, his smile was a little more unguarded.

  “I think I’m going to lose my voice,” I told him huskily.

  Back in the present, Branson brings me a smoothie and a sandwich and sits on the floor with his back against the sofa. He is so close to me that I could stroke his hair if I wanted to.

  “Is it okay for me to sit here?” His hand digs into the muscle on his chest, massaging deeply. “I kind of… I think I need to be close to you.”

  “Is it the bond?” I rasp.

  It might be my imagination, but I think he tenses at the sound of my voice. His shoulders raise slightly and a deep quiver shakes him from side to side.

  No. It’s not my imagination. It happened.

  This big, strong alpha has been reduced to a shivery mess in my presence. Why?

  Another flashback bursts to life, picking up where the last one left off. We’re still on the sofa. I’m sitting astride Branson. His knot is still swollen inside me. I can’t lift myself off him. We’re knotted together.

  “Oh fuck,” he panted, eyes heavy, lips curled into a ridiculous, lopsided smile, “I’ll be toast if you lose your voice.” He stroked my face and my neck tenderly. “I don’t think I’ll make it. Seriously, baby, just the thought of fucking you hoarse is almost more than I can take.” His knot thickened when he said it, and for some reason, we both started laughing. “I can’t even imagine what it would do to me to hear you like that, so fucked out that you can’t make a sound.”

  “Yes,” he says, here and now.

  It takes me a second to remember what we were talking about. “Is that what the pressure on my chest is? Our bond?”

  He nods and turns to face me. His eyes are lit up like they were during my heat and his pupils are extremely dilated.

  Bonds are known to be more debilitating for alphas than they are for omegas in the first few days after mating. Biologically, alphas are programmed to stay close to their mate after a heat, to protect and take care of them when they’re at their most vulnerable.

  “Yes,” he says again.

  “What does it feel like for you?” I whisper.

  He blinks slowly, eyes drooping slightly. He looks unsure whether he should answer, but he sighs and speaks all the same. “It feels like life when I’m close to you, and like death when I’m not.”

  The band of pressure around my heart sparks painfully when he speaks. I don’t answer because I’m not sure how to. Instead, I lie on the sofa, assaulted by flashing images of my heat.

  Branson’s body. Ripped muscle pulsing and beating.

  Branson’s dick, thick and throbbing, thrusting into me.

  Branson’s knot tying the two of us tightly together.

  Brain-melting kisses and the sound of his laughter.

  Screaming orgasms and soft brown eyes.

  His hands on my face.

  The taste of his tongue.

  The stark, icy shock of waking up alone in my bed.

  “But,” I mouth, “if it hurts to be away from me, why did you leave me to wake up all alone?”

  “Because,” he says, looking down and then flicking his eyes up at me, hitting me with a look that makes my brain sizzle, “you’re my omega, Lucy. I knew you’d be hurting when you woke up, and I wanted to try to help you. You’re mine to take care of now. I’d rather hurt myself than let you go without something that could make you feel better.”

  From there, I drift in and out, spending most of the evening in a flickering, heated haze of disjointed memories.

  If the flashbacks are to be believed, Branson knotted me a lot. That’s all I can say. Every time I open my eyes and let them land anywhere in the living room or the kitchen, I see another bone-melting image of Branson and me coupling.

  The kitchen counter.

  The living room floor.

  The sofa.

  God, the sofa over and over.

  The memories of the fuck on the sofa keep swimming to the surface, hitting me like a cold splash of water to the face. “How long were we stuck together?” I ask when the not-knowing becomes too much to bear.

  “Which time?”

  Oh yeah. That’s right. He’s not in my head. We’re two separate people, even though it doesn’t feel like we are.

  “The time on the sofa. When you were sitting over there.” I point my finger to the place where we were joined, where I sat on top of him and we couldn’t make ourselves come apart.

  “Oh, um…” He nods thoughtfully. “I’m not sure.”

  As he says it, I’m bombarded with an image of amber eyes, bloodshot and bleary. Lids hooded as helpless laughter ricocheted out of him.

  His knot thickened and pulsed when he laughed, and it made me come. When I came, my hole spasmed, and that made him come.

  We laughed and laughed as we came uncontrollably.

  When the memory threatens to make my blood pressure spike irrevocably, I try to shake it off. In doing so, I land on something completely different: Branson on the kitchen island. Not next to the counter. Not near it. On top of it. His feet planted on the marble, his posture that of a man built to fuck. One leg was bent at the knee, and his hip and cock were cocked in my direction. He was stark naked, his dick rock hard and dripping with precum. He had a pink feather boa wrapped around his neck, and he was butchering a Mariah Carey number.

  “Why were you on the kitchen counter, and why were you wearing a feather boa?” I ask, too befuddled by his attire to touch on the Mariah Carey situation.

  Branson drops his head into his hand and a slow, amatory grin creeps up his face. His lips part, pulling back and showing me a flash of teeth. He shakes his head and swipes his hand across his forehead. He looks at me, and there’s something so familiar, so comforting, about his smile that I’m grateful I’m lying down.

  “You told me that if I did it, you’d invite me to join the Bad Bitches Getaway group chat,” he says.

  As he speaks, a devastatingly soft, gravelly laugh reverberates out of him. I don’t hear it as much as I feel it. In my dick. In my balls. In my quivery, throbbing, bruised hole.

  “And, and, is that something you want?” I splutter, taken aback.

  He laughs again. Better and worse than before.

  My vision blurs.

  A smile wraps around his words and ties them in a bow. “It seemed…aspirational at the time.” He shakes his head at himself and scrapes his teeth against his lip to tamp down his laughter.

  I giggle, though I don’t mean to. I giggle, even though I’m not even sure it’s all that funny. I laugh in an out-of-control way that my ass remembers. My dick too.

  I sit up quickly, grabbing the pillow from under my head and placing it firmly on my lap as I realize with shock what’s happening in my pants.

 

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