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SEVENTY
Mia
THE DAY WAS FINALLYhere, and I still couldn’t believe it was real. Nat, Emiel, and I were in the nest with Luca—waiting. This time, though, there was no question of Luca’s and my heats being several days late. Luca was right on the cusp of full heat already, and the scent of him and Emiel together coiled its way into my bloodstream like a drug, ready to drag me along with him.
Nat paced the edges of the room restlessly, avoiding the mounds of soft pillows and blankets Luca and I had endlessly arranged and rearranged.
“You’re both sure you’re okay with what we’ve all agreed on?” he asked, unable to keep the nervousness completely out of his voice.
“Nngh,” Luca moaned, burrowing closer into Emiel’s side in a shadowed corner. Both Luca and I were naked; clothing having become unbearable a couple of hours ago. By contrast, Nat and Emiel were dressed in low-slung track pants... and I was pretty sure they weren’t wearing anything underneath. I could hardly wait to verify that theory... possibly with my teeth.
“He’s okay with it,” Emiel said, answering for Luca.
The big alpha’s normally deep voice rumbled even deeper than usual, and something about it settled beneath my skin, making me shiver in delight.
“Mm-hmm,” I managed, succumbing to the urge to flop down on Emiel’s other side so I could jam my nose against his throat and sniff deeply.
His breath caught, the scent of spicy citrus deepening as I licked a stripe up the tempting stretch of skin.
“You, uh—” Emiel paused and cleared his throat. “You might wanna go get the others now, Nat.”
“Christ.”
Nat sounded choked. I was busy, with my lips fastened around the tendon on the side of Emiel’s neck—but I glanced up from beneath my eyelashes to see him pressing a hand hard against his straining erection.
“Yeah, um...” he gulped, his dark gaze hot on mine. “I’m on it.”
He practically ran from the room, still with his hands cupped to his groin as though he thought his dick might somehow start without him. I snickered into Emiel’s shoulder.
Emiel groaned, carefully peeling me away from his skin with a hand on my nape. The fragrant slick that pulsed hotly between my thighs in response to the gentle manhandlingprobablywasn’t the reaction he’d been going for... not that I could have prevented it.
“Mia, stop it,” he said. “There’s a plan, and if you keep doing that, it’s not gonna happen right.”
I pouted, but didn’t fight him. I wasn’t quite all the way gone yet, and I knew what he meant. The six of us had talked at length about this, and there was a reason we weren’t simply throwing caution to the four winds and going at it like animals from the first moment.
Emiel was still worried that he’d hurt someone, and no amount of reassurance could convince him otherwise. He and Byron had their whole...thinggoing on. Rivalry, or whatever you wanted to call it. They’d agreed not to take dampeners, since dampeners hadn’t done a damn thing for Emiel last time.
However, they’d decided that the way to keep things from getting ugly was for Byron to mate me first, while Emiel was helping Luca toward his first peak. Then Emiel would mate me as well, and I would be the conduit to bind the two alphas as pack. Once that psychic bond between the two of them was cemented, Emiel thought he’d be ‘safe,’ as ridiculous as the rest of us found his concerns.
Byron would no longer be a rival alpha trying to bite Luca, Emiel’s established mate. He’d be pack, with the connection already established through me.
I found it telling that neither of them seemed worried about Zalen biting us... but that was just the effect Zalen had on people. And speaking of Zalen, he’d volunteered to take dampeners for the heat, so there would be someone keeping an eye on things.
I’d taken him aside privately, because that didn’t really seem fair. Except then he’d told me—also in confidence—that he hadn’t enjoyed going into rut, the couple of times it had happened during his mating to Julie. It made him anxious, not being in his right mind.
“Maybe I’ll try it again in the future... after we’re established as a pack,” he’d finished. “Not this time, though.”
I recognized a fellow control freak when I saw one, so I’d simply kissed him on the lips and thanked him for looking out for us. Although I didn’t say so, I hoped that someday, he could get the same joy I was getting at the prospect of setting that control aside for a few days.
My first heat with these alphas had been under just about the worst circumstances imaginable. And yet, what stuck with meabout it—aside from the absolutely brain-melting hotness of the sex—was the way in which I’d feltcared for. My every need had been met without me having to say a word.
I couldn’t wait to have that feeling again.
As footsteps jogged along the hallway, a deep sense of rightness flowed through me—because the waiting was over.
A cloud of lime and coconut, spice and musk hit me in the instant before Nat, Byron, and Zalen appeared in the open doorway. That was apparentlyitfor Luca. He whined low in the back of his throat and climbed into Emiel’s lap, rutting shamelessly against his big cock through the increasingly soaked fabric of the track pants.
Emiel growled, his hands closing around Luca’s hips to guide his movements. Beads of sweat broke out across my body in response to the possessive noise, and my higher brain functions abruptly packed their bags as my blood transformed into boiling lava.