My hand whipped out, grabbing him by the back of neck, not letting him pull away when something eminently vulnerable crossed his face. I held his eyes. He wasn’t going to retreat behind that façade. I stared at him, and he stared back, until finally, he broke.
“I need you, Cyn.”
“Not Cyn,” I croaked out, my throat feeling impossibly thick, and he blinked, then peered at me closer.
“Omega?”
We were strange creatures, binding ourselves to each other on two different levels, unsatisfied until we were joined via both. I nodded, his eyes widening as I shifted my grip, dragging him down on top of me. I needed that, the weight of him, them, everything, pushing me down on the bed, grounding me, and then I moved. I wrapped my legs around his waist, opening everything to him, and just like Marcus, he took everything we had and then gave just as much back.
Rhys’ hand slid down between us, giving Marcus’ cock a slow swivelling stroke, but Marcus shook his head frantically at that.
“Not gonna last long,” he said with a sigh, his eyes falling half closed, but they opened again when Rhys swiped Marcus’ cock against my seam. “Fuck, Cyn, omega, you feel so good.”
“Then feel all of me.”
I moved, a long arching stretch that seemed to allow him to slide home that much quicker, the burn harsh but wanted. It hurt to love Marcus, but we wanted it anyway, because of what came with it. My eyes flicked open, going wide as I felt him push deeper and deeper, forcing me to surrender, to accept him into me, and I did. I met his downstroke, embracing this connection with every muscle, until finally, I felt the pop of his knot.
“Fuck…”
Marcus looked impossibly beautiful and young right then, his eyes betraying something that rarely seemed to happen for him—surprise. He looked up, searching the others’ faces, and they all nodded. He wanted to say something, do something, but instead, he just gasped out, “Omega…” Then the heavy weight of his body crushed into me, his teeth, his lips on mine, as he began to move. Not far, not for long. We couldn’t, but with the frantic need that comes from a heat, he pushed me to my limits.
My body sang like it was filled with pure light, my focus on the here and now receding, because something else was shouldering it out of the way. This was it—the moment the omega rose. I was crying out something incomprehensible because I couldn’t find the words to express it, so instead, I pushed my head to one side, baring my neck, and myself, to Marcus. To them.
“Yes, omega…” he ground out, then thrust as deep as he could. It felt like he pierced my soul, right as his fangs sank deep.
I didn’t know if I’d ever felt that complete before. I knew nothing that came after challenged it, because it wasn’t just my soul and Marcus’ bound together, it was all of ours. There was a sweetness so intense, tears ran down my cheeks as I felt them all rush in, some intangible yet whip strong cord that tied us tight. I heard a million different murmured bits of praise as I sank down into it, a low throbbing sense of them.
We didn’t emerge for days, and when we did, we wore marks all over our bodies. Marcus’ bite seemed to have started a whole wave of marking each other, every limb declaring who we belonged to, even if some of them wouldn’t last. It was in this state of dishevelment that James Chadwick met us. We’d received a message that a parcel had arrived for us in the front foyer.
James looked flushed and a little worried when we emerged. I got it, my alphas were still feeling the after effects of my heat, hands on my skin, arms holding me close when we came to a stop. He held a long cardboard tube under his arm, then smiled and said, “I wanted to touch base, see how you were a while ago, Cyn, but…artist problems. We get buried in an idea, and we can’t seem to extricate ourselves until it’s out. The session at my studio…” He blinked and stared at the floor for a second, as if he could still see it. “What I saw, I couldn’t let go of until I got it down. This is for you.”
I frowned slightly, forcing myself away from the guys and pulling the huge drawing out. Rendered in watercolour and colour pencil, there we were. Was this real? I wondered, reaching out and wanting to touch it but not allowing myself. Who would with such beauty? There we all were, our humanity blazed away by his artistic vision, casting us as young gods at war or at play, I couldn’t tell. There was tension and passion and need and desire and love. That would be harder for others to see, but it was what I saw the most. A love trying to find a way, persistent as water through cracks, finding its target, despite our best efforts to avoid it.
“Well done, mate,” Brendan said, stepping forward. “You got the payment fine?”
“Yes, thank you,” Chadwick replied, scraping his hair back from his face. “But you needn’t have. This one was always going to go to you. I couldn’t imagine it hanging on some corporate boardroom wall, ignored by all and sundry. Though…” Our eyes jerked up. “If you were open to sitting again, I’d appreciate it. I have an upcoming show I’m working on, and I really think there’s something in this the public needs to see.”
“Ah…I don’t know—”
“All of us,” I said definitely, then looked over my shoulder. “We need one with all of us. I want something to record that—us.”
Chadwick nodded, a small smile forming. “The desire to record the unrecordable, to put lightning in a bottle.” He let out a long sigh. “That’s an impulse I understand well.” And right then, I knew when James stared at us, we weren’t what he saw. Something, someone else perhaps? But he shook his head and said, “I’ll be in touch.”
Epilogue
The drawing had been framed and was being hung on the wall behind Marcus’ desk. Having it look down on the place I’d been reintroduced to the rest of them seemed somehow fitting.
“So you’ve achieved your goals. The upper echelons are reeling,” Orion said. “Those still standing are trying to circle the wagons, but there aren’t many wagons to circle.”
“Simply not being a fuck would have gone a long way to preventing that from happening,” Bren muttered, jumping down from the bench behind the desk. He moved over, wrapping an arm around me and giving me a squeeze. “Does it meet your standards, milady?”
“Always,” I said, giving him and the others a long look.
“So the revolution has been successful,” Orion said. “What now? World domination?”
Marcus smiled slowly, then turned on the big screen on the wall and booted up his computer. “Well, I have some ideas…”
“I bet you do,” Rhys rumbled, “but I’ve got just one. You kept all the shit alphas were doing, the rapes and the abuse, to yourself, because you knew I’d want to act on it. You’re right. Ari, all those other omegas…” He shook his head. “That could just as easily be my brother. We can’t let that stand.”