Page 54

Julian

W hat feels right, it turns out, is taking our time.

We spend the morning in what can only be described as extended foreplay.

Coffee that becomes lingering kisses, breakfast that becomes feeding each other strawberries and watching Lila's eyes go dark when Dean licks juice from her fingers, casual touches that become increasingly deliberate until the air between us feels thick with want and anticipation.

But there's also something ceremonial about it, something that acknowledges the magnitude of what we're choosing.

The weight of claiming bites, the permanence of the bonds we're about to forge, requires acknowledgment.

This isn't just sex, though the physical component is undeniably important.

It's transformation. After today, we'll be bound in ways that go beyond emotion or convenience or even love.

After today, we'll be pack in the most fundamental sense possible.

I watch Dean move around our kitchen with easy competence, making pancakes that somehow become an elaborate production involving fresh berries and whipped cream and the kind of attention to detail that speaks to nervous energy channeled into nurturing behavior.

He's stress-cooking again, I realize with fond amusement, using food as a way to take care of Lila when he can't quite process the intensity of what's coming.

Callum sits at the kitchen table with coffee and his characteristic quiet observation, but there's tension in the set of his shoulders that speaks to barely contained alpha instincts. He keeps glancing at Lila with an intensity that makes her cheeks flush and her scent warm in response.

And Lila herself moves through our morning routine with a new kind of awareness, like she's suddenly hyperconscious of her body and ours, of the way we watch her, of the significance lurking beneath every casual interaction.

"You're all being very careful with me," she observes with gentle amusement as Dean presents her with a plate that's arranged like artwork. "I'm not made of glass."

"No," Callum agrees, his voice rougher than usual, "but you're about to be claimed by three alphas who've been wanting this for weeks. Some caution seems appropriate."

The blunt words make her breath catch and her scent spike with arousal, and I watch Dean's pupils dilate in response to the chemical evidence of her desire.

"I've been wanting this too," she says quietly, looking at each of us in turn. "This isn't something you're doing to me. It's something we're choosing together."

The distinction matters, I realize. She's not submitting to our claiming because alpha biology demands it. She's participating in pack formation because she wants to belong to us as much as we want to belong to her.

By the time we finally make our way upstairs, the sexual tension has built to something almost unbearable. Every glance carries weight, every casual touch feels charged with possibility, every breath seems to contain more of her scent until I'm half-drunk on the promise of what's coming.

In our bedroom, Dean approaches claiming with the same care he brings to everything involving Lila's comfort. He kisses her with a thoroughness that makes her melt against him, hands mapping her body with reverent attention, building her arousal slowly and steadily.

"Let me see you," he murmurs against her throat, his hands working at the hem of the soft sweater she chose for today. "All of you. Everything that's going to be ours."

She raises her arms to help him remove the sweater, and when she stands before us in just delicate lace underwear, the sight takes my breath away.

Not just because she's beautiful, though she undeniably is, but because of the trust in her posture.

The way she lets us look at her without trying to hide or cover herself.

"Perfect," Dean breathes, his hands skimming over newly revealed skin. "You're absolutely perfect."

"So are you," she says, reaching for the buttons of his shirt with steady fingers. "All of you."

What follows is a slow revelation of skin and trust and the kind of intimacy that comes from knowing someone wants you exactly as you are.

Dean's shirt joins her sweater on the floor.

Callum's flannel follows. My own button-down and slacks disappear with the methodical efficiency I bring to everything, though my hands are trembling slightly with anticipation.

When we're all finally naked, standing in the afternoon light streaming through our bedroom windows, the moment feels sacred somehow. Not because of any religious significance, but because of the profound trust required to be this vulnerable with people who matter this much.

"You sure?" Dean asks one final time as he guides Lila toward our bed. "We can stop here. Wait until you're more certain."

"I'm completely sure," she breathes, settling against the pillows with unconscious grace. "I want this. Want all of you."

Dean settles between her thighs with careful reverence, his hands stroking over her skin with the kind of attention that builds arousal slowly but inevitably. When he finally positions himself at her entrance, both of them are breathing hard with want and anticipation.

"I love you," he says as he slowly pushes inside her, the words carrying extra weight in this moment of connection.

"I love you too," she gasps, her back arching as he fills her completely.

From my position beside the bed, I can see everything. The way her face transforms with pleasure, how Dean's careful control wavers as her heat surrounds him, the exact moment when instinct takes over and claiming becomes inevitable.

He begins to move then, slow and deep and exactly what she needs to prepare her body for what's coming. Each thrust builds her pleasure while his knot begins to swell, preparing for the biological lock that will hold them together during the claiming.

"Your knot," she gasps, her hands gripping his shoulders as she feels him expanding inside her. "Dean, I can feel it growing. I want it. Want you to lock inside me when you claim me."

The breathless words make Dean groan with need, his hips stuttering as his control threatens to snap. "Soon, sweetheart. When you're ready. When you're right on the edge."

I watch, fascinated despite my own desperate arousal, as Dean's knot continues to swell.

The biology of it is incredible, the way his body instinctively prepares to lock them together, ensuring that every drop of his release stays exactly where it belongs.

The way her body responds, opening for him, welcoming the stretch and fullness that comes with being properly knotted.

"Now," she gasps when she's trembling on the precipice, her body wound tight with approaching orgasm. "Please, Dean, claim me now. Knot me and bite me and make me yours."

The desperate plea shatters what's left of his restraint. His knot fully inflates, locking them together as he bites down on the perfect spot where her neck meets her shoulder. She arches into her climax with a broken cry, her inner walls clenching around his knot as pleasure crashes through her.

The scent that floods the room is incredible.

Lila's natural green apple and white musk mixing with Dean's marshmallow and campfire, but deeper now, richer, marked permanently with the evidence of their bond.

It's intoxicating in ways I wasn't prepared for, making my own alpha instincts roar with the need to add my scent to the mix.

"Mine," Dean growls against her throat, his teeth still embedded in her flesh as his knot keeps them locked together. "Mine and claimed and perfect."

"Yours," she agrees breathlessly, her hands stroking through his hair as they ride out the intense high of claiming and knotting simultaneously.

They stay locked together for nearly twenty minutes, Dean's knot ensuring that every drop of his release stays deep inside her while the claiming bite settles into her system.

When he finally pulls back from her throat, there's a perfect crescent of marks on her neck.

. The first of three claiming bites that will mark her as ours completely.

"How do you feel?" he asks softly, stroking her hair as his knot begins to soften enough to allow separation.

"Perfect," she whispers, tears of joy streaming down her face. "Claimed and perfect and ready for more."

But even as she says it, I can see her body responding to the chemical changes claiming triggers. Her scent deepens, becomes richer and more complex, advertising her newly claimed status while simultaneously calling to the unclaimed alphas in the room.

"My turn," Callum says, his voice carrying that edge of possessive hunger that emerges when his careful control starts to fray.

Dean nods, pressing a gentle kiss to Lila's forehead before carefully extracting himself from her body.

His knot has gone down enough to allow separation, but I can see the effort it takes for him to move away from her when every instinct is screaming at him to stay close to his newly claimed omega.

"Yes," Lila breathes, turning toward Callum with eyes still glazed from the intensity of being claimed. "Please, Callum. I need your knot. Need your bite."

Watching Callum claim her is a study in contrasts. Where Dean was gentle and patient, building her arousal with careful attention, Callum is possessive and demanding. Not rough, he'd never be rough with her. But intense in ways that make her respond with desperate hunger.

"You're mine," he tells her as he settles between her thighs, his cock already hard and ready from watching Dean claim her. "Say it."

"I'm yours," she gasps as he pushes inside her still-slick heat. "Completely yours, Callum."

The way she says his name, breathless and desperate and full of love, makes something primitive and possessive rear its head in my chest. Not jealousy, but anticipation. The knowledge that soon she'll be saying my name the same way, offering herself to me with the same complete trust.