she said. “Please don’t smother me again. I need to see him. The flushing won’t stop until I do.”
I didn’t want to see Ethan, not while I wanted to beat on his face. I might not know the story yet, but his guilt turned my stomach.
Pressing my lips to her silken hair, I asked, “What do you want me to do?”
She clung to me, small teeth against my throat like she might take my blood the way she did when in heat. All she did was kiss me. “Open the door, Ryker.”
Lilly
I wasn’t ready for whatever was eating at Ethan, but I also needed to face it. The last few weeks had been an episode of madness. For the first time in many days, I felt fully awake. I’d been irrational. Manipulation was part of Ryker, and I thought his emotional awakening might have made this worse. Without Ethan, he might always default to such tactics under pressure.
Ryker’s lips pressed to my forehead, while his strong hands cupping my face trembled slightly.
They had fought earlier. I’d given Ryker my blood, but I could still feel Ethan’s pain.
Ethan, what have you done?
Releasing me, Ryker stood and opened the nest door.
My heart clenched painfully seeing my long absent mate. His hair had been shorn close to his head, dark roots meeting blond. This physical alteration reinforced that much of his life was unknown to me. I wanted my Ethan back, but I didn’t know who my Ethan was anymore.
Three weeks and five days did not sound so long, and yet it felt much longer. Even with the guilt I’d glimpsed locked tight behind a wall, he was so beautiful to me, beautiful and a little broken courtesy of Ryker’s fists. My flush rose, while my intellect wavered in no-mans-land.
“I need to touch her,” he said, eyeballing Ryker like they might go at one another again should the wrong answer prevail.
“It’s okay,” I said, my fingers curling around Ryker’s hand. He squeezed once before releasing me slowly.
Ethan came at me too quickly—Ryker growled, setting a flurry of panic low in my belly as my back hit the nest in a rush. Ethan was over me, his wild, earthy scent enveloping me in a way that offered comfort, security, and a thousand other more subtle connections that made me whole.
“I didn’t fuck her,” Ethan said.
My chest sawed unsteadily. “Her?”
“That was as subtle as a sledgehammer,” Ryker muttered. The bond surged with conflict and exasperation—I could sense him gripping his hair.
Instinctively, I knew her was another Omega. Chest contracting on a sob, I fought, pitiful struggles that he easily subdued.
“Stop,” Ethan growled. His fingers enclosed my throat, warm, gentle, controlling, and quieting the clawing panic.
He told me what had happened, details that must have been confidential.
It hurt.
It hurt more than I could rationalize, and still, it hurt.
And all the while, I was trapped underneath him, contained under his comforting weight. I wanted to hide from this, from him, and from the terrible feelings his story provoked. My mind kept looping back to the day when he pressed my forehead to the wooden floor in my lounge, spanked me, and told me coldly how he’d used other Omegas, forcing their heat, turning their instincts against them—controlling them. I’d already claimed him in my mind, although it took a little longer for reality to eventuate.
I was calm now; there was no mind manipulation at play, but I knew I was too calm. Shock, maybe, I was too exhausted to work it out.
“Did you enjoy it?”
“The fuck kind of question is that? No, I didn’t enjoy it. Did you not listen to what I said? I nearly fucking killed her.”
Ryker growled low again. He was on his knees beside us, not interfering but projecting the rage I felt should have been mine.
My chest was an open wound, and I could not help but poke at it with morbid curiosity. “Did she enjoy it?” My voice was a whisper. My vision swam as I searched his face, his dark eyes beautiful, his lower lips swollen and split, and a bruise distorting his right cheek.
“Baby, she was an Omega in heat. A lump of wood would be interesting.”
It wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear, but it was the one I got, and the truth of it cut through the last of my frigid state. He’d touched her and made her body rise in pleasure. Pleasure that should be mine and only mine.
Tears began to fall.
He growled, frustration, pain, and