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Incorporeal and made of moondust.

Walden sucked on the base of my neck, and I rushed back into my body. Where the pleasure still built, and I moved against him now. Not content for him to take, I gave as well. How beautiful and right he felt inside me. Walden pressed our foreheads together, covered with sweat. He ground against me and even though his knot restricted movement, it was the most expansive thing I’d known.

When our gazes clashed, he flooded my insides.

“Oh, yes,” I sighed and curled against his body.

If I could hinge open his ribs, I would have stolen that space too, if only to be close to his thundering heart. Which felt like it might belong to me.

20

Tully

In the past, my heat ended with an echo through my tired muscles. Biologically, I did everything my body demanded. I filled myself with silicone knots and managed the extreme spikes with prescribed medication. But the emptiness was a gaping maw, and it took a long time to fade.

As I rolled away from Pan’s sprawled naked body, I knew what I’d been missing.

The scent of salt, different on every naked expanse of skin.

No amount of silicone could replace the feeling of my pack’s heated pants on the shell of my ear. Nor the sensation of their hot release flooding my insides. Haze lifted like gauze over my eyes, and I shifted my limbs.

Sticky.

It should have disgusted me, but I was pleased. I climbed over the padded lip of the nest with care not to wake the alpha next to me. Pan was decadent in repose. Full swollen lips, his body a lithe line. Our scents together settled me in a primal way.

I wanted to slip back into the nest next to Pan, but I couldn’t lie and wait any longer. I wanted to find the rest of my pack and—I froze on the edge of the nest. And what?

I wasn’t a part of Baylark Pack.

This was a heat, not a claiming.

“You’re getting carried away,” I muttered to myself.

After Chase, my trust in my own feelings eroded. I never used to be so tentative or frightened of joy.

The Hartlock legacy attracted people, not always for the right reasons.

Chase hadn’t cared for me at all, except to carve me as a notch and drain me dry. A convenient pussy he stored away like a toy. The glow of the heat trickled away, replaced by tightness in my chest. My thoughts came thick and dark.

Heat pricked behind my eyes, and I blinked at the ceiling. I’d done more than let Baylark Pack into my body. I’d taken their affection and care as real, as lasting.

This heat made me realize how badly I wanted it.

To belong.

How do you trust when your ability is obliterated?

The entwined scents in the room were thick. Maybe if I washed them off, I would feel better. Pan snoozed, his hand stretched wide, but curled like a claw. Like he searched for me in sleep. I fought the urge to crawl under his relaxed arm.

My stomach swooped as I entered the bathroom. Lloyd and Ajax laughed in unison by the sunken bath, and Walden was perched against the marble countertop, his laptop in front of him and a phone pressed to his ear. Incongruous with thesetting, he wore a suit. This one a charcoal gray with a pair of silver frames balanced on the end of his nose. He had glasses?

Oh, that was not helping my resolve.

A soft, buttery smile spread across his face. “I’ll call you back. My omega just walked in the room.” Walden tossed the phone to the side.

My omega.

Butterflies churned in my stomach. His smile tightened as I lingered.