“I feel like I dropped a tab of ecstasy.”
He snorted at this, then sobered. “What?”
“I’m all warm and fuzzy, and my heart hurts, but I want it to keep hurting. I feel really full, like too full, but I love it.”
He moved in closer, shifting me away from the car and into his arms, and I closed my eyes as I laid my head on his chest. God, I just wanted this to last forever.
“That’s love, Jules.”
“I know
, and it feels so good, and I’ve felt it for every single one of you. Fuck, I love you guys so much, it makes me ache.”
“I reckon you’re a bit pack drunk,” he said, kissing the top of my head.
That was so nice, that little loving gesture. I could feel the care and amusement and satisfaction radiating down the bond, and it kept feeding that feeling inside me. Fuck Leifgart, fuck the Volken and Sylvan and his secret agendas. Fuck all of this shit. I could spend my days moving between each member of my pack. It didn’t even need to be sex, I just needed to touch them, feel them, see them for who they were. They were such amazing guys, and they chose me. My mouth filled with venom. I needed to mark them, all of them, and they needed to mark me. The desire to do just that throbbed within me like it was a living thing.
“Mark me,” I pleaded, looking up at Brandon. I could feel the itch on my shoulder where Aaron’s was, my skin screaming for him. “Please.”
“Jules, you don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“I do. I can feel it in here,” I said, thumping my chest. “You want to, don’t you?”
He just watched me, stricken, but when I parted those plush lips with my thumb, I saw his fangs were out and felt the sizzle of his venom on my skin.
“Brandon?”
“What’s going on?”
Finn and Aaron had appeared at our sides, looking from one to the other in concern.
“She wants me to mark her,” Brandon rasped out.
“Mark her?” Finn said, obviously confused.
“I…I bit her, the other night. She’s wearing my mark as well as the seer’s,” Aaron said.
“Fuck, I have been out of it,” Finn said with a shake of his head. “We need to…have family meetings or something every morning, to keep everyone in the loop of what’s happening, because it seems to change from moment to moment.”
I ground my teeth, fighting back tears, which should have alerted me that something was seriously wrong. I fucking hated crying. Instead, the world went blurry, and the feeling, the longing to have them all around me, touching me, making me theirs as I would make them mine just rode me harder. It hurt, the small distances between us, the careful, logical conversations, that were usually my bag, being had about me.
“We ready to go?” I heard Jack say.
“Love, are you OK?”
Hawk’s hand went to my arm, and then he hissed at what he felt down the bond. He surrounded me, narrowed my whole world down to him as he held me close. His body was against mine, his scent filling my nose.
“Hawk, I need you.”
“I know, love. I’m here.”
My fangs snapped down, my mouth was fire as the venom began to pool. I pushed my face into his hair, searching for his neck blindly like a pup for its mother’s teat. I felt his heart begin to race under my hand, a tumble of elation, joy, and love, always love, so much fucking love. It was a fiery torrent, and it burned everything—caution, awareness, sense, all of it away until there was only love.
My hands scrabbled at his collar, jerking it to one side, the venom sweet as honey as the brown flesh was revealed. I hung there for a moment, like a predator about to strike. “Yes, Jules…” he said, pulling my hips closer.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I was hauled back, a godawful growl rumbling in my chest. I twisted in Aaron’s grip, turning around and breaking his hold on my shirt. He looked at me wild-eyed, dropping his hand and taking a step backwards.