Page 103

I reach out to Calix. I stroke his face with one hand, and then belatedly realize my hand is covered in someone’s come, and I giggle and apologize.

Calix seizes my wrist and begins licking my fingers clean. “I don’t mind a little Arrow smeared all over me,” he says, grinning.

Arrow grins at him. “I’ll smear you any time you want.”

Calix laughs.

I sigh as he licks me clean. “Did you mean it?” I whisper.

His mouth pauses. “Mean what?”

“That you’ll stay?” I say in a tiny, tiny voice.

He doesn’t speak for a long moment. Then, he resumes lapping up Arrow’s release.

“I mean, you don’t have to,” I say, resigned to this, but sad. “It’s dumb to think we can solve all this with orgasms.”

“It is not,” mutters Knight.

“How can you still want me, omega?” says Calix, and I feel his shame and confusion through the bond.

I lift my head to look at him. “Calix, I have your bite and we’re mated. How can I not want you?”

He stops licking again, meeting my gaze. He looks practically devastated. “The way I was raised, if an alpha did this to an omega, had sex with another woman, it…”

“What?” I say in a low voice. “Would he be stoned to death?”

Calix sighs. “Well, no, not anymore. But it would be bad.”

“The way I see it, I have sex with men that aren’t you all the time,” I say. “If you really want other women, I can make that work. I just think we need to figure out ground rules, because…” I hunch up my shoulders. “It does make me kind of insanely jealous when it’s not one of our mates.”

“I don’t need other women,” he says immediately.

“But maybe you do,” I say. “Because you left the pack and you—”

“It wasn’t about that,” he says. “I wanted to feel special, that’s all. But…” He shuts his eyes. “The truth is, I feel more special and more desired and more at home in this moment than I pretty much ever have. Let me stay, please.”

“You never have to get permission from me for that,” I say. “I don’t decide that for you. You decide that for yourself.”

“Look,” says Arrow, “relationships change with time. We don’t have to nail everything down forever. Calix is the youngest of us. He never had a monogamous relationship.”

“I have never had a monogamous relationship,” Knight scoffs. “Neither has Striker.”

“Uh, that’s not true,” says Striker. “I mean, I never had a committed sexual relationship, but it’s not like I didn’t sort of try dating before I took the plunge and became a priest.”

“Whatever,” says Knight. “Not everyone needs that.”

“Okay,” says Arrow, “you don’t need that, and I know that I don’t need that ever again. But maybe Calix does. Maybe we can give him space to go and explore that and still have the pack here to come back to… or not, if he doesn’t want it. Things are going to change as we all mature. When Lotus has a baby—”

“If I have a baby,” I interrupt.

“If you have a baby,” says Arrow carefully. He touches me. “I want to come back to that, but let me finish my sentence.” He addresses everyone. “If we have children, our relationship will change, and we may all feel differently about things. Thatdoesn’t mean that it’s the end of what we have. What we have… I don’t get the feeling it does end. It’s forever. That’s what a life bond is.”

“Mmm,” says Striker, nodding. “It’s security. Humans need that. We need choices, too, but choices make us insecure and unsettled. We need some parts of our lives that are secure, things we can count on. And we’ve lost sight of that, of how much we can count on this, our pack.”

Wow, he’s right. I’ve been so focused on so many other things. Kyvelki’s prophecy, my fertility, all of those unknowns. It’s made me forget the sweet, wondrous foundation I have here.

“But, Lotus,” speaks up Arrow, “to go back, do you want to have babies?”