But they pulled away.
“You were always mine, omega, alpha, beta,” Rhys rasped out. “No one or nobody was going to take that away.” His eyes dropped, some of what had been put on display fading away. “We got into a shit load of fights as a result. Betas trying to fuck with us, omegas trying to get between us, even teachers lecturing us on the ‘right way’ to do things. Don’t throw away your future,” he said with a sneer. “This path is a long and hard one. Alphas can’t pair bond.”
“Fuck off they can’t.” Brendan launched himself at Rhys, kissing him with a hunger that wouldn’t be held back. I watched every single brutal shift of their lips, squirming on Rhys’ lap, somehow knowing what was coming. “I fucking love you, with everything I’ve got. With my—”
“I know.” Rhys grabbed the back of Brendan’s head, pressing their foreheads together before kissing him softly. “I’ve always known, because that’s what’s in me too.”
I felt like I was in the presence of something sacred, the heavy, dense, but beautiful air of a church in the room right now. I probably should have scurried over to Orion, let them have their moment, but damn did it tear my heart in two when they just drew me closer. Because when they turned to me, all that fucking love was in their eyes, not masked by lust or need or anything, just shining there, pure as gold.
There was something a little tentative as they extended this to me, this precious thing. I was invited into what they had, no matter what my final decision would be, and my eyes pricked with tears as a result. I blinked furiously, not wanting my vision to blur for a second. It was the harsh scratch of James’ pencil that dragged me back into the room, my head turning, something angry and protective flaring hard. He just met my gaze, his brows creasing slightly as he looked at us like we had two heads or something.
“Stand down, omega. You keep those claws for us,” Brendan said, then grabbed my clenched hand and kissed every knuckle until they released. “We’re big enough and bad enough to take on anyone who fucks with us.”
“With anyone who fucks with you,” Rhys promised.
And then I collapsed down into the space between them, blindly questing for more pressure, more of their scents, more of them. They meshed in my nose, Brendan’s woody scent and Rhys’ wilder minty one, until they became something else altogether. Which made a strange vibrating sound erupt from me.
My eyes flicked open to see the two of them staring down at me with a combined stare so hot and sweet, I felt sweat prickle across my skin.
“Omega…” Rhys said, stroking his hand down my cheek, and I buried my face in it, needing something, anything to protect me from what I was feeling.
Rhys said omegas were love and we were, forever doomed to feel so intensely in a world that didn’t. Betas were all so bloody moderate, and alphas… I looked at the two of them, not seeing their designation, just a massive pool of emotion I wanted to dive into.
“Alpha…” For once, the word didn’t come out as a whine, but a real ragged plea. One they heard, acknowledged, and answered.
“We’ve got you, omega,” Rhys said, something they’d said over and over, but I was only just starting to understand what that meant. They pulled me into the gap between them, filling it completely until we were welded together, one entity. “We always will.”
Brendan’s fingers were much more tentative as they traced the back of my damn collar, the stupid piece of jewellery they insisted I kept wearing to stop stray fangs from burying themselves into my neck. It was either that or this thick studded leather thing Marcus had brought downstairs with him. I felt the clasp move, the pearls separating as his fingertips stroked what he could of my skin. I shifted slowly, not wanting to dislodge his hand but needing to see his face.
“When you’re ready, if you decide… I’ve mated every single one of them, wear their marks proudly, and I can tell you, you won’t regret it. Even though Marcus is a fuck and Orion is too repressed to get over here, even when he’s dying to do so.”
“Fuck you,” Orion ground out. “You were having a moment. A heart-wrenching, beautiful fucking moment, and I didn’t want to mess with that.”
“You can’t mess with it,” Brendan said, leaning back and holding out his arm to the other man. “You’re as much a part of this as we are. You came to us later, but…” He faced down James, reminding me where we were and what was happening, a neat pile of drawings beside the artist, his gaze completely intent on us. “We fought a lot with everyone to prove we were meant to be together. So together, we were sent to a camp for alpha teenagers with anger issues. And that’s where we found Orion.”
“You want to do this?” Orion frowned, studying the three of us. “He’s feeding off this, planning on his sell-out show made with our stories. You want to put this out into the world?”
“I’m not ashamed,” Brendan replied. “I’m not like you—I don’t have a place in the great and glorious hierarchy to protect. No matter my designation, I’m always the spear carrier in the eyes of your people. Rhys is too big to ignore, you’re one of them, and no one ignores Marcus, not even when he wants them to.”
“Brendan…” I said, shifting closer to him.
“It’s all right, love.” He tucked me in under his chin and stroked me, though was it for my comfort or his? “I don’t want to be anything else. I don’t want the glare or the responsibility or the pressure, just my pack. Someone has to make us a focus.”
“Fine,” Orion said, hard and biting. “I met them in the camp. If my father is an overbearing prick now, he was out of fucking control then. I was new to my designation, further confirmation of my father’s virility, and he was going to shape me into the
perfect alpha. We started butting heads as soon as I was revealed, something that was only exemplified at the fancy arse private school I was enrolled in. Dad made clear how shit was gonna go, and even the alphas there jumped to his tune. I would be cultured, sophisticated, authoritative, and completely lacking in any redeeming qualities that might get in the way of furthering the family’s interest. My father’s a snake, and I was supposed to be one too.”
“But you aren’t,” Rhys said.
“No, I’m not. This is my family, not the Ratcliffe name. I’d change mine to some awful triple-barrelled version of yours in a split second, but…” Orion’s long fingers flexed and relaxed in the light streaming in through the window, his eyes glowing with something fierce. “The camp was supposed to be my last chance to buck up or… I never found out what the alternative would be. I landed in the camp, the only kid from a private school background in a place run by gangs of kids from the streets. The beatings started pretty much as soon as the alphas running the place turned their back, until he came.”
He stared across our heads at Rhys.
“The biggest, baddest motherfucker in the place, the other guys sneered that Rhys would make me his bitch for protection. I didn’t want protection, a gang, anything, but I wanted him. That’s the thing that Dad never could stand, that all that focus on strength meant that’s what I was attracted to. Rhys had this quiet fucking confidence, that no one in my world displayed, as he shoved the dickheads off me, and when he picked me up and wiped away the blood? I wanted to drop to my knees right there and then, some instinct telling me that’s where I needed to be.”
“You were sometimes,” Rhys said with a smile. “You have a mouth like fucking velvet. But you don’t really want to submit, that’s what drives Marcus nuts. No matter how he’s topping you, you remain unbroken. You were such a beautiful boy, all big green eyes and angular cheekbones. I felt like a disloyal prick right then to Bren, but you took my breath away.”
“We fucked so hard those first few weeks, with you in the bunk next to us,” Brendan said with a snort. “It was a bloody relief when you finally joined us.”