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Moses pulled off his shirt. “Yes.”

Niko was the only one who didn’t stand. He gave her a small smile from where he sat. He already had her mark. The others were standing and lining up behind Moses, in reverse order this time .

“Where do you want it?” she asked Moses, not even bothering to keep the eagerness from her tone.

“Same place as Niko,” he said. “Can’t have the cameras catching sight of it.”

She nodded and slipped to the edge of the coffee table, curling her fingers into the waistband of his pants, working them down a few inches until his entire body was tensed like a boulder, his hand flashing to her shoulder to grip her in a claw of tight restraint as he looked down at her.

“You think I’d be used to this sight,” he joked, but there was a husky edge to his voice.

Hurt.

He was hurt that he could tunnel his dick into her throat but couldn’t … what? Kiss her? Call himself her boyfriend? Fuck her? She tried to read it in his eyes, but he only ripped open one of the wipes and scrubbed his skin.

“Come on, Carter.”

She turned on the portable tattoo pen and drew a little heart, her own heart glowing and weeping, ecstatic and overwhelmed, wrung out and overfull.

Theodore stepped forward, and she drew another, and another, and another.

The night, her punishment had begun as a flex of dominance and ended in silent submission.

She was crying again when she finished Kalen’s heart.

“Thank you, everyone,” she whispered.

Kalen set the tattoo pen aside and pressed against her chest, forcing her to lie down on the coffee table. He didn’t say anything, but suddenly, the black marker was in his hand again and she picked up her head to watch as he scrawled another word into her skin.

Beautiful.

He passed the pen on, each of them stamping her with label after label, filling up her torso, her chest, her thighs, and arms.

Perfect.

Brat.

Pet.

Puppy.

Mine.

Girlfriend.

Brave.

Soft.

Clever.

Ours.

Sigma.

When they ran out of room, they turned her over, tickling words down her spine, and then without warning, someone was parting her thighs, testing the desperate mess of desire between her legs with thick fingers before notching the head of something thick and hard against her entrance.

She didn’t need the wash of vanilla over her skin to know it was Kalen.

The shock of his invasion stretched her body to the limit, a hoarse cry expelled from her throat as she grappled for the edge of the table.

Kalen had snapped.

Without her noticing.

The projector toppled to the floor, the movie flickering off, glass shattering.

“You’ve never been more ours than right fucking now,” Kalen snarled against her ear, finally giving her aching body everything she had been begging for since they began to touch her, though he had managed to do it the most brutal way possible.

“Is this what you needed, hm?” He pulled himself out and shoved back in without mercy, her body scrambling beneath him.

Scrambling to get away , she realised. Her mind wanted it, but her body was fighting, the shock of his size too much.

“Yellow,” she hiccupped, and he slowed immediately, stilling inside her, the warmth of his big body brushing over her back. He nuzzled into her neck, silently letting her know it was okay, and she softened, turning to liquid.

“Green?” he guessed, the word a purr.

“ Fuck … yes.” She grappled with the edge of the table.

His teeth latched onto the skin beneath her ear, where their marks were tattooed into her skin.

“Good,” he snapped, releasing her, the brutal drive of his hips resuming.

“Because I’m going to fuck all these words into your skin, Isobel.

Every twinge of pain tomorrow, every wince as you try to move this ass—” He slapped her flesh hard, grunting above her.

“—you’ll feel all these words, won’t you? ”

“Y-Yes,” she sobbed, as her body absorbed shock after shock, the violence of it soothing something broken inside her.

There were secret wounds scattered about her insides, some of them so deep and faint she didn’t even realise they were there, but Kalen dragged them up to the surface and hammered them into submission.

Their leader was claiming her. Openly. With brutal, unrestrained savagery.

It caused something to click between them all, some sort of link falling into place, closing their chain into a perfect circle.

Their shields crumbled, everything they felt through the bond pouring into her.

They weren’t able to hold it back anymore.

It took her a few dizzy and disorientating moments to detangle and label that emotion that kept pounding into her, almost in time with Kalen’s thrusts.

No, definitely in time with Kalen’s thrusts.

It was satisfaction.

This was something they wanted. Needed.

“You’re squeezing me to death,” Kalen groaned, feeling the tip of her orgasm attempting to pulse through her body. “Let go now, Illy.”

“No,” she cried her refusal into the table, fingers still scrabbling for purchase against the wood, her body threatening to break apart from the pleasure .

“No?” He laughed, squeezing her ass tightly enough to leave bruises behind. “Why the fuck not, brat?”

“Not if it’s the last time.” It was so quiet, none of them would have heard it if they hadn’t been straining their breath, waiting for her answer.

“Come,” Kalen ordered because he was cruel and wanted to prove that he was in control. “Now.”

She fell apart, gasping and crying, his thrusts suddenly slow and languorous but no less punishing. Not even the slick of her orgasm could properly lubricate his movement. He fell over her again, lips by her ear again.

“Is my girl trying to dictate when I can get between these perfect legs?”

She sniffed, still gasping as her body began to unwind from the release, catching on several snags as his filthy words threatened to build her back up again before she was ready.

“No,” she grumbled.

“No,” he agreed, hips flexing. “Because not even you can keep me away, now. I’m going to fuck you whenever, wherever, and however I want.”

Her breath hitched as she tried to twist her head to see him, unable to believe that he was giving in just like that, but he caught the back of her head, pushing it down, the slap of his hips quickening.

“All of this is ours,” he snarled, rough fingers drifting over the words written into her skin.

“Fuck, I’ m done … I can’t.” He released her head, gripping her legs and pounding into her.

“I think they want to see you come again, so you better give it to them.” He pressed his weight against her, grinding her into the table, the pressure against her clit exploding sensation through her body.

She whined his name, pleas tumbling out of her lips until she couldn’t take it anymore, and gave herself over to another forced orgasm at his bidding.

He seemed to lose control at the same time, snarling, “Take it, mate,” as he spilled into her with a loud, drawn-out groan.

Pain and heat ricocheted through her, jolting her to her soul, the bond humming in a happy, bubbly glow.

It had never felt like this.

An explosion of colour was the last thing she saw before she sank into darkness.

Elijah had never felt so satisfied before in his entire life. It wasn’t that he got off on watching someone else have sex with Isobel—although he had been hard since she first dropped that fucking towel.

It was a deeper satisfaction. Animalistic. Primal. Possibly deranged. He felt that their mate was thoroughly claimed, thoroughly theirs . He wasn’t even sure what did it, but even the bond felt happy and complete, the damage done to it somehow stitched back together through sheer, brutal force.

They all stood there for a little too long, staring down at Isobel’s prone body, struck with shock and that sick, bubbling satisfaction.

“Is she dead?” Moses asked.

“Jesus, you dickhead.” Theodore shoved his shoulder, but their eyes quickly returned to Isobel.

“What?” Moses kept pushing, apparently needing to fill the shell-shocked silence with sarcasm. “I’m pretty sure nobody checked her pulse.”

Elijah sighed, rubbing at his forehead, but he managed to swallow the reprimand, snapping forward a step. Kalen’s arm shot out, preventing him from moving any further. At least he had tucked himself away.

“Sorry,” Kalen grunted, staring at his arm, which still wasn’t lowering. “Shit. Sorry. Give me a moment.”

Elijah stepped back because that primal part of him understood.

What the fuck?

Nobody else moved, all of them waiting for Kalen to finish his deep breathing exercises, each new breath rattling less and less.

“Okay,” he finally said, and somehow all of them knew that it was Mikel who should step forward and gather the limp body into his arms.

What in the mind meld?

“What the fuck is going on?” Gabriel blurted, almost in time with Elijah’s own thoughts.

Elijah’s mind was spinning a million miles a minute, ripping through everything that had just happened and trying to arrange it in a way that made sense. He could feel the emotion emanating from each of them—not scent it, feel it, through the bond.

“This is going to sound insane,” he ventured, as everyone’s eyes snapped toward him, pinning him to the spot.

Expectation .

“I think we all had to accept it,” he said. “Fully accept it. In our minds. And I don’t mean that we had to accept Isobel. I mean we had to accept the bond . A bond for eleven people.”

He stalled at his own choice of words. For eleven people, not of eleven people. It betrayed the state of his own mind. He no longer saw this as a curse, but a gift. A family. A circle so tight nobody else could penetrate it.

“So,” Moses spoke up again, and Theodore groaned in preparation. “Who was the hold-up? It was me, wasn’t it?”

Several chuckles broke out through the room, and Elijah felt himself smiling, shaking his head.

That satisfaction was still there, even as he traced his eyes over Isobel’s face, following the stroke of Mikel’s fingers as he tucked strands of hair behind her ears and surreptitiously checked her pulse, even though he didn’t need to.

They could all feel her.

The satisfaction was inside her too.