before I can swallow it, but it settles a comfortable weight in my empty belly.
“I was going to tell you the day after the feast,” I say quietly. “About Gage… About how I feel… About all of it.”
At his stillness, I lift my eyes to meet his. I see hurt, but also understanding.
“Most Omegas reveal when they are a child. But my mother told me on the day of the feast that there was a chance I was a latent. She thought because I had chosen you, that I had bled and become a Beta. I never bled. I didn’t realize that was because I was an Omega. Nor that I couldn’t get with a child unless an Alpha rutted me.”
My cheeks heat.
He nods, discarding his half-eaten jerky on the cloth.
“We are connected, Gage and I. That day when you were so cross because he brought me home, a miracle happened. I healed him, Brandon. His injuries were grave, perhaps fatal, after he fought with the Orc. The Goddess blessed me to heal him. She would not have done so without reason. I felt a spark inside me bloom that day. It was the same spark that bloomed for you the day wolves cornered me after my sleepwalk. We are tied. All of us have long been tied.”
He presses his lips to mine.
“I know, Jessa,” he says. “Not that you healed him, but that you needed him too. It was hard for me to accept. I was angry that I could not have you to myself. Were it anyone but Gage, it would have been easier. Not easy, but easier. But it is hard for me with Gage, Jessa. I have been at loggerheads with him for as long as I can remember. But he is not a monster. I didn’t believe you when you said that at first. But I believe it now, for the bond does not lie. And without him, I would not feel this Goddess-blessed connection to you.”
He presses another kiss to my lips, this one longer, full of all the love that we share.
“I was going to talk to you, too, after the festival. To tell you that I would find a way if you wanted to be with us both.”
“You did not seem like a man ready to accept,” I say, smiling tentatively.
“Aye, well, happen it might have gone better had he not turned into a fucking caveman.”
A blush creeps over my cheeks. “I quite like that about him,” I say before I can think how that might come across as inflammatory.
Rolling his eyes, Brandon snatches up the jerky and holds it to my mouth.
Dutifully, I open and take a bite.
Overly loud thudding signifies Gage’s return with a wooden bucket in his hands. He cuts a glare toward the nest. Also, he is still naked, and my poor sore pussy clenches at the arresting sight.
“You will not be getting any of that today,” he says gruffly, filling the great iron pot over the fire from the bucket and setting it to warm.
“Goddess,” I mutter weakly when his stern Alpha voice makes my pussy clench twice as hard. It is bad enough that they can scent my arousal without them also sensing it through the bond.
Gage stomps back down the stairs.
“I think I saw some apples in another bag,” Brandon says. “Would you like an apple to eat while the water warms?”
“Yes, please,” I say. I try to sit up, wincing when my intimate places throb.
“Let me help you,” Brandon says. He makes a roll with a nearby pelt, and lifting me forward, tucks it behind me.
“Thank you,” I say. The throb in my temples eases now that I am sitting. My hand trembles as I brush my hair back. Tentatively, I touch my throat, finding a crusty residue there. I smile at a hazy memory of how it came to be there.
Brandon halts when he turns back to see me smirking. His eyes narrow, and he shakes his head. But he is also grinning as he leans down to present me with an apple. Standing, he runs a hand over his messy hair. My eyes track his activity, watching the play of muscles under the skin of his arms, shoulders, and chest as they bunch, flex, and stretch skin taut. Even bruised, battered, and filthy from all the rutting, he is still the most beautiful man I have ever met.
Heavy footsteps signify Gage’s return.
He enters the room, clean and dripping water everywhere.
Goddess, my eyes