“Why the hell would I choose between two good options?”
We both looked Rhys over, some of his alpha nature rising the longer we did. His spine straightened, his weight shifting from one foot to another, like he was preparing for a fight, but the only blows we’d be throwing were the ones you couldn’t counter. Bren followed me as I moved towards Rhys, having to reach up on my tiptoes and grab him by the neck to draw him down.
But he came, as he always would, I realised. A rush of possessiveness, so intense, it took my breath away, made me pause right before I took Rhys’ lips, but I couldn’t resist for long, something I was damn sure Marcus knew. Maybe I was just a pawn, but if I was, all I could do was experience the pleasures of pawn-dom, right? Rhys’ patience lasted right up until the moment my mouth touched his, and then he took over.
Arms locked around me, ignoring the pain it must’ve caused him, one hungry kiss leading to another.
“We’re gonna talk,” he promised, then kissed me some more. “About us, not fucking Marcus.” More kisses, more. “About us, about a way forward. About a way that we can be together, alpha and omega, Cyn and Rhys. And…” Rhys pulled back slightly, then looked over my shoulder. “And Bren?”
A low strangled groan escaped Bren’s chest, and then he was there with us, kissing me, then kissing Rhys with all that pent-up love he kept under the surface. I watched them kiss with a kind of brutality they saved for each other, confident they could take the beating, able to be free in a way they couldn’t with me, but the gentleness they showed me was no less desperate. That was why this worked, how every single one of us was able to provide the other with a part of what they needed.
Mum had described the smart people at uni as being almost inhuman and lonely, which made me wonder, when we were finally forced to stop and take a breath. Was that Marcus? He was this monolithic figure that cast a long shadow over our lives, and it was hard to tell where his influence began and ended. I pushed that to one side as Bren kissed Rhys so slowly and sensually, my breath froze in my chest.
Fuck Marcus. Fuck his machinations and his manipulations and for making this so much harder than it needed to be. I moved towards my mates and pushed my hands into their hair, which resulted in them pulling away from each other and turning to me.
“No,” I said, confident now to express my wants and needs, “keep k
issing. It’s beautiful.”
Chapter 33
“It’s time to get in front of this. If Marcus is playing a game, I wanna know what it is,” Rhys said.
Right now, I was in a perfect state. I was lying on his bed, curled between the two alphas, my omega side positively purring. The nest, the constant stroke of their hands, the easy affection, it was all like manna from heaven for her. Well, the female equivalent of blue balls was a slight downer, and what the hell did they call that anyway? Cerulean clit? Cobalt clit? It didn’t matter. Now was not the time to get nakey, I told my lady parts rather firmly, and Rhys was right.
“Same,” I replied, stretching, conscious of them following every movement of my body, and then smiled. “Do we go to Marcus direct?”
They both laughed at that.
“No one goes to or finds Marcus unless he wants you to. That’s how I knew the whole ‘push Cyn away’ thing was bullshit,” Bren said. He leaned over, covering me with his body, something that drew a little groan from Rhys as his mate kissed me. “You would never have gotten within five feet of Orion or him if he didn’t want it. He was always one thousand percent in. He was just waiting for the rest of us to catch up.”
And how did I feel about that? Was he my stalker, lover, mate, nemesis, or all of the above? The thing that had me feeling cold was that mysterious dark figure in the room. Why could I never see his face? Bren seemed to sense my change in mood, pulling away with a little peck.
“So we go after Orion. He said he had a plan all along, so let’s find out what it is. I’m prepared to kick down boardroom doors or crash swanky parties if that’s what it takes,” he said, watching me squirm a little at that mental image. Butt kicking Brendan was hot.
And I wasn’t the only one affected.
“We’ll all go,” Rhys said. “And considering I look like I’ve gone ten rounds with a meat grinder, that should go some way to pressuring Orion to spill the beans. It’s bad enough that he fucks a bit of rough without it turning up at his social events. I’ve just…gotta deal with something first.”
He was hard, really hard, something we could both see under the towel. I tried not to look, but fuck, it was like a mythical beast, surfacing up and out from under the fabric, drawing the eye, and I just couldn’t stop looking.
And neither could Bren.
“Uh…I could.” Bren’s eyes flicked between the two of us. “I could give you a hand with that, mate.”
He made the offer in a carefully friendly tone, like he was gonna fill up his car or get him a beer or something, but we weren’t fooled. Rhys’ eyes darkened perceptibly, his body tensing, all those poor abused muscles on display, before his focus flicked to me.
“Cyn said—”
“Cyn said she wasn’t having sex,” I corrected, “not you. And I’m not. I think. Maybe.” More growls at that. “But you… This is the first time you’ve ever been apart, right?”
The heat dissipated for a second, and their eyes were a little more shadowed by pain.
“Yeah. Was never us that got into barneys, it was always Orion and Marcus that butted heads,” Brendan replied. “It’s fucking killed me. I’ve never had to go through this on my own before. I thought all the stuff in movies and shit was bullshit because we were always sweet, but this…” His jaw tightened, his eyes narrowed as he looked at his mate. “I needed you so fucking much and… This was supposed to bring us together, not apart, and I didn’t even know what the fuck was going on!”
Rhys moved slowly, like you would approaching a wounded animal, and in some ways, I guessed he was. Bren had put everything aside for me, but it was still there. We were still overlooking it.
“Make it up to him,” I commanded.