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My overriding claim made the other mark fade. The angry red drained of color. Dr. Stanson reached out to touch Tully’s skin, and I slapped his hand away.

He stepped back, holding his hands palms up. Pleased rather than annoyed. “You’ll feel protective while the bond settles, but your mate still needs medical attention. Will you allow a beta nurse to tend her?”

“I’m not leaving her side.”

I focused on the ball of warmth inside me. Hoarded it like a dragon. The idea of anyone around Tully made my skin crawl with unbearable heat. Even the amount of people in the room was making my chest tight. I was more alpha than Pan right now. For a moment, a flash of blistering anger stole everything but the need to run them off.

They’re pack, I had to remind myself.

I blinked back tears as I realized another thing. I’d always wondered what it felt like to be an omega. To have that malleable soft sweetness. Now I tasted it in my blood. Between my ribs and exhales. She filled every empty, lonely space I’d loathed all my life. I wasn’t an omega, but I could touch it with her bond.

What a gift.

Lloyd stared intensely at my mark, leaning on his fists. “Thank you,” he breathed. “For doing what I couldn’t.”

Ajax slumped against the door. Walden clenched his fists and his breaths came ragged. I crawled into bed with Tully and pulled her into me. I’d marked my body with dozens of tattoos. Some meaningful, and others purely for the prick of pain and spontaneity.

I never thought the most important mark I made wouldn’t even exist on my body.

“She’s tender, be careful,” Beatrice warned, and her eyes flew open as I sent a growl in her direction.

I rattled off with a curse. “Sorry, it’s just—”

“You’ll be emotional and possessive until the bond heals. Keep her close and it will pass,” Dr. Stanton explained.

Beatrice crept closer and peered at Tully with a hooded gaze. Walden put his arm around his sister, and she squeezed him.

“We did the right thing, didn’t we?” Beatrice whispered the question on the tip of everyone’s tongues.

Dr. Stanton tucked his hands in his pockets.

“Our options were limited. But time is a magical thing. We just need more of it for Tully to heal.”

Ajax made a noise, and I knew he wanted to be in my place. He didn’t form relationships like I did. Reckless, selfish. I consumed without thinking. Ajax wasn’t built for passing fancy or malicious greed. For Ajax, need rolled deeper than ocean trenches, thicker than blood, and richer than the marrow in his bones.

He wanted Tully, and the flicker of fear on his face told me he was worried he might never have his mark on Tully.

I hoped what I’d just done hadn’t ruined his chances.

41

Tully

My skin prickled with an overflow of heat. It pressed against an unbreakable barrier and sweat trickled down my back. I tried to move away from the source, whimpering as an arm clamped around me. I thought Chase had been hunting me in a dream. He’d taken my forearm and shattered it with his teeth.

But that was just a dream, wasn’t it?No.I’d escaped Chase. Hadn’t I? But I remembered… something.

The arm pulled tighter, and my skin ached as if bruised. Gunk fused my eyes shut.

“I-I’m sorry.” My muffled apology was necessary.

Chase wanted a perfect, biddable omega. He wanted my signature and capitulation. Panic tightened my scratchy throat, and the threat of tears tickled.

“Angel, oh, Tully.”

There was no anger in Chase’s usually acerbic tone, only relief and tenderness.

So soft it made my heart ache. But it didn’t fool me. This was another method to break me down. As my awareness filtered back in, I forced myself to remain rigid against the hard chest plastered to my back. Hands whispered down my side and my body sighed and sang under the featherlight brushes.