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Nat shot a final glance at Emiel and Mia savaging each other. Then he dragged his gaze away and nodded, giving the pair a wide berth as he did what I’d asked.
Twenty minutes later, I was gently edging our pack beta with slow strokes of his leaking cock. He’d chosen the handcuffs and gag that Emiel had insisted on bringing, along with a curvedvibrator with a flared base that was angled to hit a male beta’s prostate.
His eyes hadn’t wavered from Mia, who was now the center of attention from two purring alphas and a sleepy Luca. Emiel was calm now that he’d mated both omegas. Nat... wasn’tcalm, exactly—but that had way more to do with the fact that I’d been holding him on the edge of orgasm than worry for Mia.
Mia was slipping into a knotting fugue, but she was watching him back, with apparent enjoyment at seeing him slowly fall apart. I couldn’t blame her; I was enjoying it, too. So much that the unused knotting sleeve sitting in the pile of toys was starting to look damned attractive.
Sometimes, being...generously endowed... had its drawbacks. I had no business popping a knot in Nat’s ass until he was alotmore experienced at bottoming than he was now. But my knot would have a use soon enough.
For the moment, I contented myself with putting Nat out of his misery with a few hard strokes and a twist of my wrist. He convulsed, spurting so much come over my hand that it dripped down onto his toned stomach and wiry black pubic hair. After drawing out his pleasure for as long as I could, I wiped my hand clean on his discarded pants and took the gag out of his mouth.
“Better?” I asked.
“Nngh,” he said, possibly because the vibrator was still buzzing against his prostate.
I left it where it was, and after a few seconds, he managed to regain coherency.
“You’re putting this off,” he said. “Why?”
The question hit like an arrow.
I knew exactly what he was asking, damn him. I just didn’t have a good answer.
Biting Nat wouldn’t be a real mating bite. Not a permanent one. The plan had been for me to bite Nat once the others were mated to Mia, and we were sure everything was okay.
Which it was.
I gathered my courage and helped Nat sit up so I could remove the handcuffs. “This is harder than I thought it would be.”
“It’s only temporary with me,” Nat said, echoing what I’d just been telling myself. “That’s what we talked about, right? Bite me first, and if you can’t handle it, then it will fade on its own in a few days.”
It had made so much sense at the time. And yet...
“Zalen.” Nat’s sober tone derailed my spiraling thoughts. “You’re allowed to not have all the answers, every hour of every day. If it’s not going to work, then we’ll know. And that’s okay.”
“I’m supposed to be the pack leader,” I said quietly.
“Youarethe pack leader,” he shot back.
But how could I be, if I ended up being incapable of forming new mate bonds with my old one broken?
Nat leaned back on his hands, wincing when the toy inside him shifted. “Look, you can keep obsessing about it, or you can just do it and find out if it’s going to work. Plus, I feel like I should add that this would be a really good time to share my consciousness or whatever. Because that was a fuckingspectacularorgasm, and this vibrator is about thirty seconds away from giving me another one.”
I couldn’t help it—I laughed.
“Way to sell it,” I said. “And you’re right. Of course you’re right. I’m sorry if it’s coming across like my reluctance has anything to do with you personally. It absolutely doesn’t.”
He shrugged a shoulder. “Getting bitten doesn’t have the same significance for me that it would for an omega. I’m in thisbecause it’s a way to be closer to Mia that I couldn’t have had otherwise. But it’s still temporary.”
I drew him upright, cupping the back of his skull. “You’re a good man, Nat Bell.”
“I’m honestly a pretty colossal fuck-up. But I think I’ve found a family where I can learn to be better,” he said. “Also, the clock’s ticking on that second orgasm, alpha. Now come here.”
I let him hook a hand around the back of my head and pull me into a biting kiss. At which point, my long-suffering dick decided to take the reins—instinct washing away the rest of the bullshit that had been endlessly circling in my thoughts.
It was easy to tilt Nat’s head to the side and nip my way down the side of his throat as he shuddered in reaction. It was easy to reach down with my free hand and circle his half-hard cock, pumping it with firm strokes as my teeth closed around the hard muscle at the juncture of his right shoulder.
It was easy to bite down, swallowing blood as Nat cried out, his dick pulsing weakly in my hand. The fragile connection as my saliva flowed into his beta bloodstream didn’t hurt. There was no electric jolt of agony as something touched the old, torn tissue of my bond with Julie for the first time in years.