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Arrow lets out a little, bemused laugh, and he’s pleased. “I am, yeah. Yours.”

Knight’s hand rubs up and down Arrow’s chest. “Yeah, baby,” he says, licking him vigorously. “You did so well. Took my cock in your ass and my teeth in your neck.Mine.” There’s a hint of a growl in his voice, and it’s possessive.

I blink up at them, still rubbing my neck, still shaking, and I feel a jolt of jealousy at the two of them like that, soconnected.

It bubbles up in me and I can’t stop myself. I’m saying it before I can even think. “Bite now, then? Knight, let Arrow bite me.” My voice is piteous and needy.

Knight focuses on me and pauses his lick. “Well, okay, sure, omega. Arrow, baby—”

“No.” Striker’s voice halts all of us.

I shiver in the wake of it. I turn to Striker, and my voice is still piteous. “Where were you?” I accuse him.

He lets out a noise, almost a whine. His hands are on me, stroking my face, my shoulders, my arms, and he rains kisses over my forehead and nose and my cheeks, words tumbling out of his mouth. “Fuck, sweet omega, I’m so sorry. I was walking around the house, trying to clear my head. I… I’m so sorry, my pretty Lotus. I shouldn’t have— youneededme.”

I reach up and thread my hand into his hair and hold onto him. I’m still shaking.

Striker groans. His face is close to mine, and he gazes into my eyes, but he’s talking to all of us. “What happened?”

“We… got worked up,” I say in a tiny voice. “Arrow showed me things for the nest, and we started making it nice and then we started kissing and then they had knots and they smelled good, and Knight wanted to fuck Arrow, and I wanted to watch that.” I can’t even describe how hot that made me, the two of them going at each other. “So…”

“We got our teeth,” says Knight. “Like, really got them. I felt it before a couple times, but never quite like this—”

“What teeth?” says Striker, annoyed. He disentangles himself from me, first giving me a gentle kiss in the middle of my forehead and then sitting up to face Knight.

Knight shows Striker his teeth, but they’re just normal now. Knight furrows his brow, running his tongue over his canines. “Well, I guess they went down. It’s, like, uh, it’s like an erection, only two of them, in your mouth, and they’re so damned sensitive, and you justwantto bite.”

“I wanted to bite her before,” says Striker. “I didn’t have… teeth.” He thinks about it, scratching the back of his head. He surveys me.

“I think you did,” I say in a tiny voice, because I remember it. After the first time all four of us were together, Striker and I woke up first, and we had a solo session, just him inside me as the others slept, and I remember seeing him, a couple times, his head rearing back like I just saw both of my other alphas did, their long fang-like teeth glittering as if they were about to strike me like a cobra.

“Oh,” says Striker. He touches his canines, looking concerned.

“It’s okay,” said Knight. “It’s good. Bites are good. You want them, Lotus.”

“I do,” I say. “The Vasilissa here, Penelope, she says I need to get them, that it’ll help.”

“Never mind the teeth,” says Striker, shaking his head as if to clear it. “What happened to her neck?”

It’s quiet.

I rub myself there again, feeling small and afraid.

Arrow’s eyes open. He shoves at Knight’s forehead, dislodging him from his licks.

“Hey, I need to do that,” says Knight, reaching for him.

But Arrow holds him off and focuses on me. “Oh, shit, Lotus.”

“You tried to kill her,” says Striker.

“I was going to bite her,” says Arrow. “She was begging me for it, and I had this feeling, like it was right and it was now, and there was this spot on her body, and I knew that was my spot, that was where my teeth fit into her, and I was…” His expression twists. “Oh, God, and then I tried to kill her.”

It’s quiet again.

Arrow’s fingers brush over my neck. He reaches down, between us, to find his cock. He tries to tug himself free, but he’s knotted in, and that justhurts.

“Ow, no, you can’t do that!” I cry out, panicked.