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A hint of self-consciousness crept past my sated exhaustion at the thought of Zalen and Nat sitting across the room, silent observers with twin cases of blue balls. Then my gaze fell on them, and a breathless laugh escaped.
Nat was silent, all right—but only because Zalen had borrowed the ball gag that Emiel had insisted on bringing to the nest and used it to shut him up. I was willing to bet he’d also appropriated the handcuffs, because my husband was lyingon his back with his arms folded underneath him in a way that suggested they’d been bound there.
Nat’s eyes were wide open and fixed on me—or on the pile of bodies in which I was currently tangled, anyway. His muscular chest rose and fell rapidly, quite possibly because of the slow and devastatingly thorough handjob Zalen seemed to be giving him.
Reassured that our pack leader and our pack beta were enjoyably occupied, I settled in to watch Nat being tortured, while Byron teased my breast and Emiel purred me through the remainder of our knotting.
SEVENTY-TWO
Zalen
I WOULDN’T LIE. I’Dbeen worried that with all the psychological baggage and old wounds cooped up together in this nest, something would go wrong.
I knew that was just the shadow of my own wounds...mostly. But my subconscious whispered that it wasn’t an irrational fear, with Emiel and Byron’s badly hidden rivalry, Luca’s years of sexual trauma, and Nat still half-convinced that he didn’t belong here.
The scent dampeners I’d taken were holding, even if my dick was starting to get its own opinions about sitting mostly on the sidelines while the others mated one by one. It was only when Emiel fell into an alpha rut that my decision to stay clear-headed was finally vindicated.
I’d been watching Nat closely while Byron mated Mia, but he’d seemed surprisingly okay with what was happening. Maybe it was easier because he’d been with both of them, or maybe it was because Byron was still more or less in control of himself.
Whatever the case, I’d felt Nat twitch hard when Emiel started manhandling Mia. I put a hand on his arm before he could do something dangerous like try to intervene—but I could feel his muscles trembling with the need to move.
“All right?” I asked Byron, who was in a better position to answer than Mia was.
“Yeah,” Byron panted, as Luca made a spirited attempt to ride him like a rodeo bull. “Yeah, we’re...good.”
I gave Nat’s arm a warning squeeze.
“Hear that? I know it looks violent—but Byron can feel everything Mia’s feeling. He’s her mate. He’d tear this room apart if anything was happening that she didn’t want.”
Nat’s shaking didn’t abate, but he didn’t try to pull away.
He swallowed hard. “I know that’s true... but I don’t know how to watch this and not freak out. I’m not sure I can...dothis.”
I hadn’t ever joined Byron and the others when they disappeared into Byron’s room, sometimes for hours at a time. But Nat and I had done enough on our own that I felt like I had a pretty good feel for how his brain worked. Following a hunch, I moved my grip from his arm to the nape of his neck.
He let out a little gasp of surprise that really wasn’t helping with my dick situation.
“I can see how difficult this is for you,” I told him. “Do you think it would be better if you had fewer choices?”
When he didn’t answer immediately, I gave another squeeze.
“Oh, god,” he choked out, and I could practically see the hormones he’d been taking win the battle against his higher brain functions. “Yes, please.”
“Good. I can do that for you, Nat.” I let go of the back of his neck. “Get those track pants off and bring me whatever you want me to use on you from the stuff on Luca’s dresser, okay?”