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It was a hoarse rasp after the throat-fucking I’d just been subjected to, but Byron’s hand cupped my throat and lifted me onto shaky knees. I fell backward against his chest, convulsing as the movement jostled the throbbing cock inside me. He supported my off-balance weight easily, his other arm coming around my waist. His hand settled over my womb, and I sobbed again.
Nat swallowed the noise of need in a kiss, his hands cradling my face with aching tenderness.
“What have you all done to me?” Byron murmured against my mating gland.
In the next moment, sharp teeth clamped over the tender flesh, pain exploding as the skin gave way in a bloom of blood. Byron groaned against his mouthful, his cock swelling and pulsing hot spend into me. I went limp in his and Nat’s arms as his knot swelled, stretching me perfectly even as my muscles clamped around it.
Tying us together.
SEVENTY-ONE
Mia
HAVING BYRON NOT ONLYinside my body, but also inside myhead, was the strangest sensation I’d ever felt.
His mental and emotional essence was both exactly like the rest of him, and so different that it took a moment for my mushy heat-brain to make the connection. The mating bond wasn’t like a mind meld on Star Trek. I couldn’t hear Byron talking to me psychically or see the world through his eyes.
Instead, there was simply another presence inside me. Sharp and acidic; bright and piercing. Byron felt the same way metal tasted when you licked it. But beneath that cold tang, I could see the darkness inside him directly. I’d already known it was there. I’d even been able to make out the shape of it sometimes. Now, it waspartof me.
In the space of a heartbeat, I learned what it felt like to understand how every single thing in your life could be ripped away in an instant. I knew the feeling of a body being torn and sewn back together, forever different than it had been before. I knew someone else’s experience of never being enough, no matter what you did or how hard you tried.
My breath caught on the familiarity of that last part. Without thinking about it consciously, I thrust the feeling back throughthe bond... working and working and succeeding to levels no one ever expected were possible, but still beingonlyan omega.
‘How inspiring to see an omega succeed in the restaurant industry!’
‘So unexpected for an omega to achieve a Michelin star!’
And at the same time, never being omegaenough.
‘You can tell she was raised by beta parents.’
‘Why on earth would an omega choose to go so long without a natural heat? Career isn’t everything, you know!’
Byron gave a little gasp, pulling back from the bloody bite wound he’d been licking. We were on the floor. I didn’t remember getting there. His knot stretched me in all the best ways, tendrils of pleasure radiating out from the place that joined us physically. ‘You are enough’echoed through the deepening bond like cathedral bells, traveling in both directions... ricocheting back and forth until it was impossible to say where it had originated.
Not words, just a feeling.
You are enough. We are enough.
Byron’s arms clamped around me, holding me tight. His forehead rested against the nape of my neck. I felt the loosening of his control before his chest convulsed, his tears of emotional release dampening the fine hair at the base of my skull.
“Hey...hey.” Nat was there, his hands on both of us, stroking and soothing. “Are you okay? Is everything all right?”
“Yeah,” I said softly, a beatific smile stretching the muscles of my cheeks. Already, the warm darkness of the knotting fugue was tugging at me. I let that peace and contentment flow outward to Byron. To mymate. “Everything’s just fine now.”