Page 88 of In Deep

Seb returns to his pizza, but his hand strays back to my gland. He strokes his thumb across it as we eat our food, the others discussing the training schedule for the week ahead.

Their words drift through my head, but I don’t take them in because all my attention is focused on Seb’s fingers on my gland. The way he caresses and strokes it. I’m sure it’s only an absent-minded action, and yet it sets my pulse racing.

For the whole of those three days of my heat, all I’d wanted my alphas to do was bite me there and make me theirs permanently. I’d begged them multiple times, but they’d all stoically resisted.

The instinct to be claimed with a bite to the gland is overpowering in a heat and only a dickhead alpha would take advantage of an omega like that. Maybe things happened like that in the old days. But now there’s a thing called consent. And I’m grateful my alphas know the boundaries.

And yet, here I am, my heat over, and that throb in my gland and that longing to be bitten is just as powerful.

“What’s wrong, lass?” Seb whispers.

“Nothing,” I say, swallowing, and immediately he shifts me around so he can make eye contact. The others fall silent. Seb glares at me, and I relent. “I guess I’m just wondering where we all stand now. We haven’t discussed it.”

“What’s there to discuss?” Zane says, lunging at another piece of pizza. “You’re pack now.”

“Am I?” I say, peering into Seb’s eyes.

“Yes,” he says, tickling my gland lightly as he does and making me gasp. “We’re committing to you, Omega, if you’re willing to commit to us.”

“Yes, I’m more than willing,” I beam.

“You can have the attic on the top floor,” Ollie says. “An entire floor to yourself. It has its own bathroom.”

“What?” I drag my gaze from Seb’s to Ollie’s.

“Well, you’re moving in, aren’t you?”

“I am?!” I ask, thinking of my shitty dorm room back in the centre of town.

“Of course,” Ollie says, “you’re our omega, one of us. This is where you belong. Your home.”

“And besides, I’ve never been happy about you living in that shithole,” Zane adds.

I lick the grease from my fingers. If I move in, then everyone is going to know the truth about me and this pack. I’m going to have to tell my family too. Then there’s my own security to think about. What happens if this doesn’t work out? If they tire of me? I’d literally be homeless. Am I willing to take that risk? I take a deep breath, their mingled scents rushing down my throat, and I know that, yes, I am. Being with them all the time is far too good to resist.

“OK,” I say and Seb purrs his approval beneath me. “But,” I counter, raising my hand, “we need to talk about how this is going to work – this relationship between all of us.”

“With honesty and openness,” Zane says, and I raise my eyebrow at him. “I know, I know. I haven’t always been as upfront about things as I should’ve been. But it’s the only way this can work.”

Seb nods seriously. “You have to tell us how you’re feeling and we have to do the same.”

“We’re already used to sharing,” Duncan adds, obviously picking up on some of my uncertainty. “Things work differently in a pack; there isn’t the usual territorial bullshit and possessiveness.”

“I think I might get jealous sometimes,” I admit.

“It’s natural,” Seb says.

“And besides, I like it when you get jealous,” Zane chuckles. “It leads to good things.”

I stick my tongue out.

There’s one other question I want to ask. One burning in my gland. My stomach churns as I consider how to put my question into words. But I have to. They said we needed to be honest.

“And the future?” I mumble, unable to look any of them in the eye.

They are all silent and my stomach spins so violently I might vomit.

Then Seb soothes his fingers over my gland. “We’re in this together for the long run, Omega. There is the option for you to be too.”