Page 173 of Promised to the Alpha Prince

I smiled, feeling the way that washed through the marks on my chest.

Suddenly, they were all moving forward, even Johannes and Corentin, even though they were connected, and then they were all there, licking their bites, and I was writhing and sighing into them, and we were all kissing each other and everyone was saying it, lots of murmured hasty words into each other’s lips.

I love you I love you fuck I love you all so much I didn’t even know I could feel this kind of love

“We’ll still fight,” I said. “You fight with people you love, but you can, because you have the freedom to fight with them, because you know you’re safe with them, because you know they’ll always be there, because you have each other. Always.”

31

aurelie

IT WAS EARLY in the morning and I was waking up alone.

Blissfully alone, I thought, stretching as I rolled around in the king-sized bed that I had slept in all by myself.

Everything would have even been more blissful if my phone hadn’t been ringing.

I snatched it up. “Ilse,” I said in a sleep-ravaged voice, “I want to tell you about a marvelous invention called texting. You want to talk to someone, you simply send them a little message that you type out and the other person can respond at her leisure.”

“Oh, whatever. If you didn’t want a phone call, you could have put your phone on do-not-disturb,” she said. “And I specifically remember you telling me that you wanted to get up early and have breakfast on the terrace. I’m on the terrace. Breakfast is on the terrace. You, however, are not here.”

“I said that last night,” I said, getting out of bed and going over to pull aside the curtains and look down at the capital city of Arenze, the ancient city, the sun still pink and new on the horizon. “This morning, I want to sleep.”

“Too bad,” she said. “You wanted a girls’ trip, and we’re on a girls’ trip—no boys, no mates, no babies—”

“That’s why you get up this early,” I yawned. “You’re used to getting up with little Quentin.”

“Well, true,” she said. “But you’re going to be pregnant soon.”

“Maybe,” I said, turning away from the curtains. “Dmitri would have had me pregnant years ago. I’ve just wanted… freedom.” I smiled at the room.

Was I going to get pregnant?

Maybe. Someday. I hadn’t decided.

If I did, I was pretty sure I’d want a baby with each of them, Valhn expectations that the omega only have her husband’s babies be damned. We’d already smashed all of the expectations to smithereens, after all.

But maybe I wouldn’t at all.

I had time to decide. It wasn’t the point of us, of our pack. We’d be us regardless if there were ever any babies.

She snorted at me. “Freedom? You with the four men who follow you around like they’re on a leash.”

“Hey, someone told me that omegas need to crack the whip, and I can’t remember who it was,” I sang into the phone.

“Get your butt out here onto the terrace, or I am coming after you,” she said, and then she hung up.

I tossed the phone on the bed and sighed.

It was probably good that I was awake.

I did want to enjoy every moment of my little trip away with Ilse. Her son was three years old, and she had been lobbying for a getaway for some time. I had, of course, agreed to go with her, because she needed a little time to not be a mommy, and I needed a little time to not be an omega.

No, that wasn’t true.

I liked being an omega. I liked my pack. I liked my men. My husband was the picture of perfection, really. He was still dominant as all fuck, barking orders at four of us constantly. But now he also crawled on his knees and begged to lick my slick and regularly submitted to each of the rest of us.

He was actually a big labrador, I thought, Dmitri. He loved being loved. He loved being enjoyed. He was an alpha who deep-down wished he could be an omega and be universally adored.

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