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She tugged on Kalen’s shirt again, and this time, his body lowered over hers, his eyes seeming darker with the expansion of his pupils.

“I’m okay,” she whispered to him, lifting her wrist to his face. “S-Scent me,” she suggested, trying to sound reassuring.

Even while surging, he refused to take orders. He knocked her hand out of the way and lowered his face to her neck, his nose drifting across her skin.

Elijah and Gabriel had theorised—in a research paper , no less—that different types of Alpha aggression might lead to different types of surging, and the best way to deal with a surge would be to pinpoint the type of aggression and quickly remedy the trigger.

Kalen’s growl vibrated along her collarbone, his hands gripping her thighs, pressing her legs further apart, briefly scattering her thoughts before she forced herself to focus.

Types of aggression.

Proprietary. Reactive. Defensive. Status. Dominant. Punitive. Pre-emptive.

Kalen made a dissatisfied sound against her neck that had her hair standing on end, and for the first time, she felt the smallest shiver of fear.

This couldn’t be about her safety because he had scented her. He knew she was okay, uninjured. Fuck. She didn’t know what to do. What had they been talking about? She had … snatched his power away. Teased him.

Status aggression had something to do with Alpha hierarchy. Proprietary was about possessiveness, defensive aggression was?—

Kalen made another dissatisfied sound, his teeth sharply scraping the sensitive skin of her neck.

Dominant aggression.

She had challenged his dominance, and it had tipped him into a surge? Just how tightly was this man wound ?

And how the fuck did she solve this?

“Um, P-Professor?” she whispered.

He bit her. Not hard enough to break skin, but he had her body jolting in shock and warmth pooling in her stomach—though she did her best to ignore that reaction.

“Sir?” she tried.

His stubble scraped her skin as he shifted down, biting her collarbone.

“You don’t give a shit what I say, do you?” she asked, her thighs tightening around his hips.

He licked from her collarbone to her ear, making her whine and shiver, but he made another one of those threatening sounds.

In the case of dominant aggression … may be beneficial to …

adopt posture of deference … submit … align with dominant individual’s natural tendencies.

The words she had read swam back to her in a disjointed mess.

She sucked in a shaky breath, reaching into her pocket for her phone.

Turning her head to the side, she was able to click into her camera a half second before Kalen sensed her wavering attention and gripped her chin, sharply forcing her head forward.

She held her phone up to him wordlessly, but he refused to look at it.

She pressed it into his hand insistently and then pulled it over her face, holding it between them so that he would be forced to look at the screen.

At her, through the screen. It was a wild gamble.

Maybe he never looked at those pictures he took of her.

Or maybe he did, and the familiarity of it would calm him down.

He eased off her an inch, both hands suddenly gripping her phone.

He stared at the screen, moving it across her face, the slightest sigh of satisfaction whispering from his lips.

It made her hurt. Her heart squeezed, the sensation painful, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes even though she tried to hold them back.

She thought Kalen was doing fine.

He seemed to be fine.

She was a fucking idiot.

He touched her cheek, looking at her only through the screen of her phone as he traced the trail of her tear up to the fan of her eyelashes. His thumb was still wet when he brushed it down to her mouth, spreading her own tear over the parted surface of her lips.

“Mine,” he whispered, voice rough.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered back, the words barely audible, but it didn’t matter. He caught them against his thumb, read them through the phone.

“Shit,” he hissed, dropping her phone like she had snapped her fingers and jolted him out of a trance. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” His voice was still husky, alarm underlying the words.

He traced strong fingers across her neck and collarbone, obviously remembering biting her, his brow furrowed. He brushed more of her tears away and cupped her face with forced gentleness. “Illy?”

“I’m fine,” she croaked. “But I don’t think you are.”

He winced, easing his weight fully off her. She quickly re-crossed her legs, nervously tugging on the ends of her ponytail.

“Mikel,” he barked suddenly.

Isobel jolted. The door swung open immediately, and the other man entered, slamming it behind him and storming over. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting or if there were any lingering effects of the surge, but she was surprised when Kalen muttered, “Sorry.”

Mikel clapped him on the shoulder but didn’t actually reply.

“Can we finish this?” Kalen asked, not looking at either of them.

Not even a minute later and he was already pushing his own needs aside. He couldn’t keep doing that.

Mikel sat again, casting his eyes over her like he had to make sure she was unmarked. He raised a brow at her in question and she dipped her head, silently letting him know she was okay.

“Kalen,” she ventured.

“What do you think of a schedule?” he asked, blowing out a hard breath and fixing guarded eyes on her face like nothing had happened.

Can I touch him? she whispered the words into Mikel’s mind, wondering if she should reach out to the other man in some way.

If you were anyone else, fuck no, he responded. But you’re you. I would let you touch me.

She shuffled forward until she was almost touching Kalen, holding her hands out on her thigh, palms displayed, fingers flexing out shyly.

She was shaking, but there was no help for that.

It was all she had the courage for. Kalen slipped his larger hand into her grip immediately, examining her small sigh of relief.

“You need me?” He said the words in a confused, soft voice, almost like he hadn’t intentionally said them out loud.

And then he dragged her bodily into his lap.

Her head spun, her back hitting his wide chest, her legs splayed out before her in shock.

He scooped them up like he didn’t want any part of her touching Mikel.

Mikel now faced them both, a muscle ticking in his jaw, his mismatched, blue-black eyes narrowing slightly.

“You two have shared before,” she found herself saying.

Kalen exhaled roughly against the top of her head, his strong arms squeezing her tightly. She almost felt like she disappeared completely, wrapped in his limbs. “What are the chances I’m going to get you back on topic?” he grumbled.

“They aren’t great .”

He huffed something like a laugh, his chest pushing against her back. “You want us to share you now, princess? On the gym floor? While you’re late for class? Splay you out on the mats and taste your pretty cunt in the middle of the day until you’re screaming down the entire fitness centre?”

For a moment, she was too shocked to respond, the images he evoked too vivid, heat barrelling through her body until she was shaking with need. They could feel it. Mikel’s eyes darkened, the muscle in his jaw ticking faster. Kalen’s chest vibrated with a dark sound of warning.

“If you had to sit through Professor Dubois ranting on about how we must keep our reputations as pristine as the Pope’s—as though we’re desireless, tireless, opinionless robots, you’d do anything to skip it too,” she shot back, ignoring the frenzied pounding of her heartbeat.

“As much as I admire this adorable fucking attempt to distract us from your sticky scent with awkward humour, you’re the one who brought this up, so say what’s on your mind,” Kalen demanded.

Mikel smirked, apparently agreeing with the other man.

She cleared her throat. “Sticky?”

“Mhm.” He loosened his arms from her midsection, and one of his hands tunnelled into her hair, gently pulling her head back until he could see her eyes. “Ask what you’re really asking. ”

She blew out a breath, deciding to just force the words out of her mouth before she lost the courage. “You’re both obviously dominant, and you’ve been dominant with me before, both of you at the same time, so maybe you can stop holding back so much when it’s just the two of you?”

Mikel’s eyes shifted from her face as they silently communicated over her head.

“Maybe,” Mikel allowed, gaze drifting back down to hers.

“Maybe,” Kalen agreed.

She didn’t know whether to roll her eyes or press a palm against her chest to ease the ache there, so instead, she decided to test them.

“I think a schedule is a good idea,” she said, “with one condition. Instead of rotating ten days, we should rotate five. Everyone can pair up and decide between each other if they want to alternate days and come less often or come together more often.”

“That’s diabolical, Isobel,” Mikel said, but his expression was so blank that she had no idea if he was serious or not.

She shrugged lightly, noting that Kalen hadn’t responded at all. “Maybe, if you were all my boyfriends or something, but we’re doing this for the bond, right?”

For a moment, they didn’t answer, and she was starting to realise that even though all her mates had discussed this idea of a schedule, it was likely none of them actually liked the idea.

She settled her hands on Kalen’s hard thighs, rubbing along the material of his pants slightly, trying to reassure him.

Her instincts were right—he responded very well to physical touch.

She could feel some of the tension falling from the large cage of his body.

His arms slipped back around her, not squeezing but just holding her.

“It doesn’t really matter,” she said, trying to read Mikel’s expression, aware of the irony that she was now trying to talk them into their own plan. “We don’t really sleep that much, and our days are so full, we’re usually unconscious by the time we hit the bed.”

Mikel nodded. “Once every five nights is better than once every ten.”

She quickly nodded.

He looked up at the ceiling for a moment before a quick laugh escaped him. “I’m fucking relieved,” he admitted. “I’m a selfish bastard. I know you deserve some time on your own?—”

“I don’t want it,” she cut in, her tone serious. “I meant what I said before. That was the only reason.”

“You might want it,” Kalen rumbled from behind her. “And that’s okay.”

She finally relaxed back into him, her head falling to his chest, her body melting into his hard muscles.

“Thank you for … deciding this.” She could barely say the words.

“I don’t know how to consolidate my need to keep them away from …

the remnants … and my need to ke ep everyone close within the bond.

” There was more to say, but she felt too terrible to say any of it out loud.

This wasn’t a decision she could have made.

It was something they needed to push for, and she realised that now. They had to force her to let them back in, to let them be put in this position.

“Gabriel, Niko, and Elijah are strong, capable men,” Mikel assured her, reading her face like a book.

“I know you’re most worried about Gabriel and Elijah, but out of all of us, those two are exceptionally self-aware and skilled at establishing and maintaining whatever boundaries they need.

They can look after themselves. Trust them to handle their own mental health.

This is the solution they want. It’s the solution everyone wants. ”

“It’s the solution they want, but it’s not really what anyone wants,” she quickly shot back.

Mikel scoffed out a short, hard laugh. “Carter. Have you met us? Rules are just guidelines. This is just to put something in place so that everyone knows they don’t have to fight for time and space to settle their bond.

Even if it’s for four hours. Even if they’re dead to the world.

Even if they barely have time to breathe in the four days between, they know they only have to hold out for a few days. ”

“And I know too,” she added quietly, thinking about two of her mates in particular and wondering what it would be like to have Moses or Niko sleeping beside her.

Or Kalen and Mikel. Or Gabriel. Or Elijah—the last time she had been in his bed and his lips had found hers in the dark, he had urged her to leave.

They still hadn’t spoken about why, but she respected his need to move at his own pace. And yet, knowing that they were all willing to spend nights in her bed soothed a ragged part of herself that she hadn’t even realised had been agitating her.

“Who’s making the schedule?” she asked.

For some reason, Mikel cleared his throat. “Ah.”

“Someone already made it, didn’t they?” she asked dryly.

He cringed. “Maybe.”

“That someone was Elijah, wasn’t it?”

His cringe turned into a small smile. “Maybe.”

“He did it ages ago, didn’t he?”

Mikel burst out laughing, and Kalen chuckled, the sound travelling through her body.

“Definitely,” Kalen said. “But it’ll have to be adjusted to pairs instead of singles. Now get off my lap before I force him to change it so that you’re with us tonight.”