His fingers went to loosen their hold over me, to withdraw, but I pushed my head back into his hand, and his focus snapped back to me. Those moonlit eyes roamed across my body, picking up all of the tiny subvocal expressions as he sucked my scent in through his nose.
“He wants to take over, Sage. He has since you fucking walked through the door. Crystal was crying against my chest, but it was just annoying noise when I saw you. He knew as soon as he saw you that you were his mate, and he’s fucking done with waiting.”
How much of this was his wolf and how much was just the side of human Max he kept shoved down for some reason, I didn’t know or care. Despite his brothers’ protests or noises of complaint, I jerked against his grip, my hair pulling against my scalp as I reached out for him. His muscles jumped as I let my fingers trail down the part of his chest revealed by his open shirt until he got frustrated with that, letting me go to wrench the garment off him. Then his hands went to his belt.
“Let me, alpha…”
The designation just rolled off my tongue, sounding good, and right now, it was enough to force him to pause. He watched my hands move, pulling the belt free of the clasp, then discarding that as I went to his button, then the fly. He let me slide them down and push the fabric away from his hips before he jerked to his feet, stepping free of all of his clothes, except for his boxers. They were stripped off, tossed aside, then he came to me bare and hard.
“I can’t be gentle, not while he’s riding me hard, screaming at me to stuff my knot inside you, but I can go away and deal with that on my own.”
“How often have you done that?” I asked in a hard voice, bracing myself for the answer.
“Often.” He bit off the word. “Too often.” Ah, that was the wolf, not the man. “He keeps me shoved down, doesn’t even let my nose scent the winds or my paws rake across the earth.”
“Max, mate—” Lucien began to say, and that was when I turned to them.
“Shut up or get out.”
“Sage, you don’t—”
“Did I stutter? You heard me, and those are the rules—shut up or get out.”
Max’s laughter was so dark, so brutal, my eyes and those of his brothers jerked up to check if it was the same person. He reached for me with a kind of lazy intent, grabbing me up and then putting me before him on my hands and knees.
“He worries all the time about you. There’s so many fucking thoughts, about how to please you, keep you, make you love him, but there’s only one thing you need, isn’t there, omega?”
I knew omegas went into heat, something I was vaguely aware of and had read more about in Riley’s pamphlet, but only now was when I felt the first inkling of what this might be. I felt hot, hot all over, something that was relieved the moment he pulled my T-shirt off my body and tossed it aside before shoving the track pants down my hips. I squirmed to get the pants off my legs, but also because a hand went to the back of my neck and held me there and something in me wanted to fight that.
The pants were torn off me, and my bare skin felt flushed and hot when he pressed his thighs against the backs of mine.
“Just this, isn’t that right?” I felt the broad head of his cock swipe through my folds, collecting the copious slick streaming out of me, and then he used it to rub his cock all over me, from cunt to arse. “You’ll be happy, settle down, and stop fucking pulling away when we give you just what you need.”
A small part of my old beta brain had thoughts, so many thoughts about that statement, but beta Sage wasn’t in the driver’s seat anymore. Except neither was omega Sage. Max’s hand kept me right where I was, forcing me to feel the wolf within me stretch and fit her limbs to mine before presenting our lewdly weeping cunt to him, knowing only he would be able to put out the fire that was building.
“Last chance, omega. Tell me now that it’s too soon, and I’ll take fur and go for a run, burn off this energy some other way.” His cock was sliding now, back and forth, back and forth, where he’d slid it between my thighs. “Tell me!”
His alpha bark cracked down across my skin, making me jump and then arch my back as the shock dissipated.
“Alpha…”
That was all I could pant out, but it was apparently all that was needed.
“That’s it, omega. I’ve got every fucking thing you need. Give in to me, and I’ll give everything I’ve got.”
I don’t remember saying yes. I should’ve, but right now, the two of us were sinking down into a place that defied words and explanations. Claws slid across my skin, leaving tiny red trails in their wake, nerve endings springing to life with every pass until one hand slid over my throat. The points pricked at my windpipe and not much more, but the implication that it could? My breath came faster and faster as my thighs spread wider.
“That’s it. Open up for me, and I’ll give you what you need.”
The hand around my throat was pulled away to cover a hanging breast instead, feeling like a hot brand as my nipple pulled tight in response. He didn’t mess around, those claws pricking as he plucked and rolled at my nipple, while the pleasure-pain of it rocketed through me, making me want to pull away and push closer but feeling too afraid of the consequence of doing either. So I let out little strangled noises, which washed away all of the broken confessions that had filled the room, replacing them with something else—sounds of pleasure, biting, vicious pleasure. As if he heard my thoughts, his body slotted against mine, then covered my back, his free hand sliding down to hold me closer. His mouth trailed over my back and shoulder until my hair was pushed away to reveal the sensitive stretch of my neck.
When his lips grazed across my skin, it felt like he was kissing across a much more intimate space. He pulled away and chuckled at the higher pitch of my whines. “You need it, don’t you, omega?” He didn’t bother to explain, raking his teeth across my neck, then gripping a fold of flesh between them before letting it go again. “You need to feel my teeth, my fangs, need me to bite down as I force my knot up inside you.”
I could see and feel every damn thing he described, making me squirm against him in response.
“You need to be mated. All this tending and teasing, it’s just a precursor to this.”
He shifted then, so the head of his cock grazed my entrance, and I tried to force my body backwards so as to push it where it needed to go. Only he bit down again, harder this time, forcing me to still in a way I’d never been able to as a beta.