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“It’s not, though,” says Calix. “And don’t give me that shit that Striker did, about me leaving. The pack needs me. I’m the best defense you have against Coltrain trying to put you guys back into captivity, don’t you think?”

“You don’t have to make sacrifices for the pack if you’d rather choose yourself, that’s what I think he was saying,” saysArrow. “I mean, I don’t want to speak for him. Should we wake him up?”

“Well, but there will be consequences if I choose myself.”

“Isn’t that the way with anything?”

Calix sighs. “I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. To any of you, but Lotus is myomega. I have to protect her.”

“I think that’s what he was saying, though. Youdon’thave to.”

“I—”

“It would be incredibly uncomfortable to fight that instinct,” says Arrow. “But if you wanted to, you could, don’t you think? It’s like you said, if we didn’t help Lotus through her heat, it would still end. We could have chosen not to help her. But we didn’t. It feels like we don’t have a choice, but we do have choices. It’s just that we pay way higher prices for making the choices we make.”

“That’s…” Calix groans. “Accurate, I guess.”

“I remember realizing this with Lotus when my ex-wife walked in on us.”

“Wait, what?”

“Did we not tell you this?”

“I mean, it’s been one thing after the other pretty much the entire time, so…”

“True,” says Arrow. “Anyway, point being, it’s not for the faint of heart, being an alpha. It’s demanding. It’s less demanding to be a beta, right? But it’s, you know, higher risks, higher rewards. Like, thesexwe have, Calix, feeling everyone’s fucking orgasms?”

“No, I know,” says Calix, and I can hear he’s grinning. “Yeah, that’s…”

“So, okay, it’s not like other sex, and it feels, I don’t know, quasi-consensual at times, right? Because, for instance, if a person wants to force me to do something and threatens to hurtme if I don’t—threatens, I don’t know, to stab me or something? You can say, in that instance, I still have a choice, because I can choose to take the consequence. I can choose to let them stab me. But it’s not the same as a choice without consequences. It is painful for us to deny our instincts. So, whatever it is with us and sex, it’s high risk. But the reward, it’s…wow.”

Calix is quiet again.

Lotus moves next to me, and I realize she’s been listening to this conversation, too.

She’s pulling on one of the Cedar Falls robes as she leaves the bedroom. “Okay, but we don’t just accept this, Arrow. We can’t just accept it.”

“Hey,” says Arrow. “Look at you, all through your heat and as pretty as a picture.”

“Why are you like that?” demands Lotus. “Why are you still into me?”

Arrow laughs. “You’re my omega. Are you not into me anymore, sweet thing?”

“Not the point,” she says. “Anyway it’s not fair. I have four alphas, and you guys only have me, and—”

“It’snotfair,” says Arrow. “But very little in life is.”

“Arrow, I killed a woman with my bare hands and then forced all of you into a days-long fuck fest where I damaged your bodies and would not let you eat,” she says. “And maybe I didn’t do it on purpose, but we can’t live in a situation where that’s just possible. No one can feel safe in that situation. I don’t want to hurt my alphas, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll have the presence of mind to make sure I don’t. And that isn’t workable.”

She’s not wrong, I have to admit. But I don’t know what she wants us to do, because we’re not breaking up or something. I get up off the bed, leaving Striker in there. I can tell now that he’s not asleep either, though. He stirs as I go past him.

Still totally naked, I find them in the living room. “If this is some speech to try to get out of this relationship, omega, forget it,” I growl. “I bit you, and you’re mine, and that’s not changing.”

Calix is sitting on the recliner and he slumps into it, tipping his head back to laugh helplessly up at the ceiling. “And here comes Knight, who’s predictably a caveman about it.”

“I’m not a caveman,” I say. “You know, I think you should let me bite you, Calix.”

“Just going to bite everyone?” says Calix to me, but he’s kind of flirting with me, and I think about how within moments of meeting this man, he sucked my dick, how he was the first man to ever suck my dick, and I… fuck, I like it when Calix flirts with me, I have to admit. I soften.