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Ethan’s voice was part command, part plea, but Shaun’s fingers did as he said, making me shiver.

“More…” I moaned as I began to shift, the movement becoming more exaggerated as more men came closer, a ring forming around us.

I was both performing and experiencing, and the line between the two things was blurring.

“More,” Ethan agreed, bucking his hips up, testing Axel’s claim, the other man sinking down to swallow him to the root, but that wasn’t what had his attention.

His eyes were locked with mine, and he just stared, taking in what Shaun was doing, unblinking and unwilling to look away for a second, even as Axel started to suck him off in earnest. So I caught the moment when his face tightened, when his body did, the need in him twisting its knife into his guts.

When those full lips parted, prompting me to peel myself off Shaun’s lap, his hands going to my hips, sliding between my thighs as I presented my arse to him, as I took Ethan’s mouth with mine.

“Yess…” he hissed right before I kissed him.

We were going to come. I didn’t need to look at what Axel was doing to him, though I did pull away to watch, just for the sheer delicious pleasure of it, a storm inside me stirred by Shaun.

Two fingers speared into me, then three, trying to approximate the stretch I’d feel if it were his dick thrusting in, Axel pulling back to the musical sound of Ethan’s groans.

He sucked just the head of Ethan’s cock, the whole shaft glistening bright red, staring up into my eyes until I wasn’t sure what I was experiencing.

Was it me on my knees, dragging things out to Ethan’s increasingly frustrated grunts?

Was it me that sat on my hands and knees on the podium, tasting those moans on his lips?

Was it me that grumbled, “I need in you. Tell me you want me, Bec.”?

Was it me that said yes over and over as I felt Shaun’s body settle behind mine, the sweep of the head of his cock, then its hard push, splitting me open, breaking down my barriers and making me into this?

The minute Shaun seated himself deep inside me was the moment my focus fractured.

I became so much more than myself. I could actually feel the hot, wet suction of Axel’s mouth like it was between my legs, like it was my cock disappearing down his throat, and the insane slide of sensations made me pant.

I could feel the steady throbbing ache of Axel’s cock, needing to be buried in something, the delay twisting harder and harder inside him.

Part of him wanted to gesture someone over, some random mouth or hand or arse, letting him rut against them as he sucked Ethan dry.

They’d want it, at least some of them. I could feel the shifting, surging, wave of lust that came from the room, some focussed on their partner or partners, but too many zeroing in on us.

They were aware of the rules and the bands of my wrists and how it all worked, but that hunger…

Somehow, what we were building, Shaun’s cock burying itself deep on every stroke, Axel matching his rhythm perfectly, was infecting everyone in this room.

And beyond.

The other me, the one who’d strutted around naked in a world that looked nothing like mine, she’d done this.

Her unveiling, her revealing a sign for all attending the ritual.

There were no children, no one unwilling present, because they knew what was coming.

This was literally an orgiastic rite, and when I took partners, took my pleasures, they were shared with everyone, building, augmenting them, becoming so much more than just my own.

And that took a whole other form in Sanctuary.

All across the town, I felt adults wake up.

Old, young, alone or with their mates, they reached for willing partners or their own hands, getting themselves off as they were lit on fire.

My fire. They were just a wild kaleidoscope of flickering reflected bliss, but he, he cut through it all.

Right as I felt that moment, when Shaun, Ethan, me, and even Axel reached our peak, the latter shooting his cum helplessly over the concrete floor, there he was.

A long fall of black hair, eyes chips of blue ice, a slow smile spreading across his face right before he was swept away too.

“Happy solstice to you, priestess,” he said, right before his eyes closed, his face becoming so incredibly vulnerable as he began to shoot all over his bed, his hands shaking with the intensity of it.

But he was shoved to one side, the mysterious man, as the one inside me hauled me up and against him, his cock still jetting cum as his mouth found my neck.

“Bec, I want… I need…”

This is always where we were supposed to be. He is our mate.

My Tirian was a predator, lying in wait, knowing the best time to attack, when my defences weren’t down but annihilated.

Was it her or me who said the words? “Yes…” I yelped when his teeth closed over my skin, when his fangs pressed down.

“Yes…” when they sunk into my flesh, marking me as his, the subsequent rush making everything my Tirian had been going through starkly clear.

I barely knew Shaun, but right then, what rushed in and filled my heart made me see the lie in that.

I was still recovering it all, this body, this mind, but inside me, I carried a beast who’d witnessed this over and over.

On the mosaic tiled plaza, he stepped towards me, over and through the writhing crowds and into my arms. Over and over, the face, the hair, the colouring, the age shifted, but it was always Shaun and it was always me.

I was dimly aware of the other guys, my hands caressing their faces as I turned towards him, those blue-green eyes shining now, the light inside Shaun still partially shrouded with fear, with disbelief.

I knew exactly how he felt. We’d been longing for this moment for so fucking long, we waited for it to be snatched away.

That was a concern we should have honoured.

We stumbled out of the club. What we’d sought had been found, and now it was time to return to the cabin, my skin losing its heat, just returning back to normal.

A very naked, cum encrusted, normal.

So when cars roared up to the club, when people spilled from them, staring wildly, staring harshly, they did so at my naked body, my hands instinctively going to cover myself, Shaun, Axel, and Ethan doing the same thing much more effectively.

I was surrounded by a wall of male flesh, but it didn’t protect me at all.

“What the fuck is going on?” voices said, strident, female voices. “What the hell are the lot of you playing at, and why the hell have you got a naked woman with you in that bloody club?”

“Cool heads are needed,” Ophelia said. “Something unexpected has happened. We will identify the source and interrogate it when we’re all calm.”

“I believe I can provide some insight here.” That voice, I knew it, could see those ice chip eyes and black hair, even if I couldn’t get a glimpse through the guys.

“You! Is this your doing? If you’re playing those stupid fucking games again, trying to lure us?—”

“Your prodigals are returning. The balance is tipping, recalibrating. Change is coming,” he replied.

“For just once, I’d like someone to give it to us straight. All this pseudo mystical bullshit. Brandon, did you see this?”

“No, this is something else again.”

“They need to be separated and locked up until we can work out what the hell is going on.”

A lot of things were being shouted, but it was that which had me shouldering through my men.

My nudity didn’t matter anymore, not when I heard that.

My fists tightened, my jaw squaring as I thrust myself forward, glaring at every single person there who seemed to think right now, after what we’d all just gone through, was an excuse to make decisions about my life.

I’d ballsed out shitty customers and overbearing Karens many a time in my working career, and I was about to do the same here, but then they saw it.

Gasps went around the group as they saw the bleeding mark on my neck, my fingers finding the wound.

“Who bit you?”

The girl with the wild tangle of brown hair, Jules, they’d called her, she stepped forward, frowning, her eyes wild as she scanned the guys, but when Shaun’s arms went around me, pulling me close, they became laser focussed.

“You? You did this to someone who was going through the first day of her heat? Jesus, Shaun. How fucking low are you prepared to go?”

Which seemed to open the floodgates, people shouting, waving hands around, stabbing fingers into the air, the noise getting louder and louder.

“Enough!” I snapped, using my biggest, best crowd control voice, but this time, it was augmented. A hollow, echoey roar coloured my words, creating instant order, and from that, I made my decision. I grabbed Shaun’s arm, gave the other men grateful looks and said, “Let’s go back to the cabin.”

Which I thought was the end of that.

“Not so fast,” a voice said, and I saw several older women step forward. “Dress the girl in something and then bring her to the alpha residence. We need to get to the bottom of this.”