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knight

I FALL ASLEEP after her heat breaks. I fall asleep while Lotus is rubbing antibiotic ointment on the little fissures at the opening of my asshole, something that I’m pretty sure I would never have thought I’d trust someone to do to me.

But then, I think about trying to explain to my past self that I actually like having men fuck me, and I know that past me would never have gotten that either.

I feel through the bond that she’s sorry.

She says she’s sorry, too, but I also feel some sense of settledness about it.

It is what it is. We are what we are. We’re not like other people, and sometimes that sucks, but other times, it’s an advantage.

We have to take both the advantages and the disadvantages together.

There isn’t a world where we only get the good parts.

I fall asleep and dream nonsensical dreams that aren’t even remotely sexual, which is nice, because I’m tired, and the thought of being aroused again anytime soon seems nothing but tiring, not even a little appealing.

When I wake up, I hear voices.

It’s Arrow and Calix. They’re not in the bedroom. They must be out in some other part of the suite.

I listen, burrowed into the bed, yawning, unwilling to move.

“I’m only saying, maybe we’re more used to it than you,” says Arrow.

“That doesn’t make sense,” counters Calix. “I should be more used to it than you. You guys didn’t grow up around packs. You don’t even know what this is like.”

“Well, no, we don’t know about what it’s like to be in a pack,” says Arrow. “But being an alpha, having a designation, it’s already meant I had to make sacrifices and I had to accept the fact I wasn’t like everyone else.”

“Me too,” says Calix.

“Well, in the Polloi, it meant something different,” says Arrow. “It meant, in a way, that you were marked for, I don’t know, sort of slavery.” He groans. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s not slavery, not exactly, but the way the Polloi omegas use the alphas, the way they treat you guys—”

“Yeah, okay, I get it,” says Calix.

“Anyway, you thought you were escaping,” says Arrow. “You thought you’d live in this world, where you’d have freedom. And then… boom. Here you are scent matched and life bonded and stuck here. No freedom. It must make you angry.”

Nothing from Calix.

“Hey,” says Arrow, his voice gentle. “Hey, come here.”

I register Calix’s emotional pain through the bond, then, and I realize he might be crying.

“It’s going to be okay,” says Arrow.

“It’s not, though,” says Calix. “And don’t give me that shit that Striker did, about me leaving. The pack needs me. I’m the best defense you have against Coltrain trying to put you guys back into captivity, don’t you think?”

“You don’t have to make sacrifices for the pack if you’d rather choose yourself, that’s what I think he was saying,” says Arrow. “I mean, I don’t want to speak for him. Should we wake him up?”

“Well, but there will be consequences if I choose myself.”

“Isn’t that the way with anything?”

Calix sighs. “I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. To any of you, but Lotus is my omega . I have to protect her.”

“I think that’s what he was saying, though. You don’t have to.”

“I—”

“It would be incredibly uncomfortable to fight that instinct,” says Arrow.

“But if you wanted to, you could, don’t you think?

It’s like you said, if we didn’t help Lotus through her heat, it would still end.

We could have chosen not to help her. But we didn’t.

It feels like we don’t have a choice, but we do have choices.

It’s just that we pay way higher prices for making the choices we make. ”

“That’s…” Calix groans. “Accurate, I guess.”

“I remember realizing this with Lotus when my ex-wife walked in on us.”

“Wait, what?”

“Did we not tell you this?”

“I mean, it’s been one thing after the other pretty much the entire time, so…”

“True,” says Arrow. “Anyway, point being, it’s not for the faint of heart, being an alpha. It’s demanding. It’s less demanding to be a beta, right? But it’s, you know, higher risks, higher rewards. Like, the sex we have, Calix, feeling everyone’s fucking orgasms?”

“No, I know,” says Calix, and I can hear he’s grinning. “Yeah, that’s…”

“So, okay, it’s not like other sex, and it feels, I don’t know, quasi-consensual at times, right?

Because, for instance, if a person wants to force me to do something and threatens to hurt me if I don’t—threatens, I don’t know, to stab me or something?

You can say, in that instance, I still have a choice, because I can choose to take the consequence.

I can choose to let them stab me. But it’s not the same as a choice without consequences.

It is painful for us to deny our instincts.

So, whatever it is with us and sex, it’s high risk. But the reward, it’s… wow .”

Calix is quiet again.

Lotus moves next to me, and I realize she’s been listening to this conversation, too.

She’s pulling on one of the Cedar Falls robes as she leaves the bedroom. “Okay, but we don’t just accept this, Arrow. We can’t just accept it.”

“Hey,” says Arrow. “Look at you, all through your heat and as pretty as a picture.”

“Why are you like that?” demands Lotus. “Why are you still into me?”

Arrow laughs. “You’re my omega. Are you not into me anymore, sweet thing?”

“Not the point,” she says. “Anyway it’s not fair. I have four alphas, and you guys only have me, and—”

“It’s not fair,” says Arrow. “But very little in life is.”

“Arrow, I killed a woman with my bare hands and then forced all of you into a days-long fuck fest where I damaged your bodies and would not let you eat,” she says.

“And maybe I didn’t do it on purpose, but we can’t live in a situation where that’s just possible.

No one can feel safe in that situation. I don’t want to hurt my alphas, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll have the presence of mind to make sure I don’t. And that isn’t workable.”

She’s not wrong, I have to admit. But I don’t know what she wants us to do, because we’re not breaking up or something. I get up off the bed, leaving Striker in there. I can tell now that he’s not asleep either, though. He stirs as I go past him.

Still totally naked, I find them in the living room. “If this is some speech to try to get out of this relationship, omega, forget it,” I growl. “I bit you, and you’re mine, and that’s not changing.”

Calix is sitting on the recliner and he slumps into it, tipping his head back to laugh helplessly up at the ceiling. “And here comes Knight, who’s predictably a caveman about it.”

“I’m not a caveman,” I say. “You know, I think you should let me bite you, Calix.”

“Just going to bite everyone?” says Calix to me, but he’s kind of flirting with me, and I think about how within moments of meeting this man, he sucked my dick, how he was the first man to ever suck my dick, and I… fuck, I like it when Calix flirts with me, I have to admit. I soften.

“You could bite me,” I say, giving him a smile which I think is flirty. I don’t know. I haven’t done much in the way of flirting up until now, not with men or women.

“Where?” says Calix, waggling his eyebrows. “Can I bite you right there, above your hip bone? Or maybe that spot.” He points. “Just above your nipple, right there.”

I look down at myself. I should get dressed. But I don’t move. I just touch myself right above my nipple and think about Calix in my arms, his sharp teeth in my skin, cradling his head as he strikes me.

My cock wants to get hard, but it doesn’t. I’m that tired. Wow.

“Okay, guys, we’re all hot for each other,” says Lotus. “That’s obvious. It doesn’t mean we’re not basically in an abusive relationship, though.”

I round on her. “That’s not even true.”

“Isn’t it, though?” She spreads her hands. “I mean, if none of us can control ourselves—”

“You can control us now,” comes Striker’s voice from behind me. “You can stop us if we get triggered. You proved that.”

“Yeah,” she says. “But no one can control me.”

“I mean, that’s not true,” says Striker, pushing past me.

He’s about a head shorter than me, and he’s naked, and his skin is light brown and he’s a very attractive man.

He touches her shoulder and she looks at him, and he just kisses her, tipping her face back, and we all feel the kiss in the bond, and it makes me happy.

I sag into the door jamb, and deep down, I just know everything’s going to be okay if Striker and Lotus are kissing like that.

She pushes him off. “You’re distracting me.”

He brushes her hair away from her face, tucking it behind one of her ears. “Sorry, sweet girl. I can, though. Control you. All of us can. You’ve felt it. Your alphas can take you over. Each of us has the capacity to make you submit. Your omega submits in that way.”

Yeah, he’s right. I know this. When I told her to present at the end of the heat, for instance, I felt it. I felt the alpha power I have over her.

“But no one did,” says Lotus. “Not during the biting frenzy. You all just submitted to me, and I was not good to you.”

“We’re okay,” says Striker.

“You did feed us,” says Calix. “I seem to remember you making us sandwiches. We were all out of our heads, and you wouldn’t even let me hand out the plates. You were like, ‘I can serve you!’”

Lotus blushes, ducking her head down. “But… Calix… you’re not happy.”

“I am,” says Calix.

“But we all heard—”

“I’m reeling,” says Calix. “I’m trying to get myself together. I’m trying to find my footing. I’m not unhappy.” He looks out at everyone but his gaze settles on me. “I don’t want to leave this pack. I love you all.”

“It’s, uh, it’s just backwards with us,” I say in a gruff voice. “Usually, you’d take time to get to know someone before you fell in love with them, but we just fell in love and now we’re trying to get to know each other, and that feels kind of strange.”

“Is it backwards?” says Lotus. “Maybe it’s always that way. You fall in love fast, and then you try to negotiate whether or not you stay in love.”

“Shit,” says Arrow. “That is exactly my fucking marriage.”

“But in any other relationship, you could leave,” says Lotus.

“We can leave,” says Arrow. “It would hurt, but if it was necessary, any of us could. We’d find a way. We’re all staying because we want to be here.”

“Are we?” says Lotus. “I mean, I do. I want you, all of you. I never felt complete, not my whole life, until I had you, my beautiful, wonderful, amazing alphas. I’m… I need you.” Her eyes fill with tears. “But if I hurt you, and you wanted out—”

“Not me,” I say. “You’re…” I look around at all of them. “I never felt like this before, you know? I didn’t think I’d like it, but I do.”

“I’m all in,” says Arrow. “It’s worth it.”

Striker nods. “Oh, me, too. I’m in. Definitely worth it. Hell, I had committed to a life of celibacy, so if you think I’m going to be freaked out by a little domineering sex, you’re crazy. It’s still sex, right?” He smirks.

“Yeah,” says Lotus, “but you could have sex—”

“No, I could not,” says Striker. “Come on, there’s no way on earth we can top the sex we have together. We have really good sex.”

Lotus blushes again. “True.”

I glance at Calix. It only leaves him.

“I’m here for now,” he says. “Probably forever, but…” He folds his arms over his chest. “You guys, you haven’t even reconnected with your families.

It’s easy to think these pack bonds are everything, because it’s all we have right now.

But when you get back in touch with your loved ones, it could change.

I don’t know if we should all be making promises. ”

“These bonds are everything for me,” I say. I think about losing them. It makes me feel a sensation of panic that I’m not used to feeling. I don’t get that frightened that often.

“I’d let you go,” says Lotus, giving Calix a hug. “I would let any of you go.”

Calix wraps his whole body around her. “I’m not going anywhere. Unlike the rest of you, I don’t have a family to reconnect with.”

I touch his shoulder.

He looks up at me.

“Yes,” I say. “You do.”

His lower lip trembles.

And I kiss him.

Mine. All of them are mine. I’m not letting any of them go, not without a fight.