Page 129 of Down Knot Out
His free hand strokes the hair back from my forehead. “How do you feel?”
The question requires more self-assessment than my foggy brain can manage. My body is a collection of pleasant aches and tender spots, while I float on a sea of contentment so deep I can’t see the bottom.
“Complete,” I whisper, the word encompassing everything I somehow lack the vocabulary to express.
Holden’s smile deepens. “Good. That’s how it should be.”
Blake’s breathing pattern changes as he wakes fully, his nose nuzzling the nape of my neck as he inhales my scent.
“Morning,” he rumbles, voice thick with sleep.
His palm slides up from my stomach to rest over my chest, my heartbeat a steady rhythm beneath his hand. Through our bond, I sense his satisfaction, his relief that my Heat has broken without complications.
Holden gestures to the plate of food. “Hungry?”
My stomach rumbles in response, loud enoughto wake Nathaniel. His eyes open, instantly alert in that way only he manages, taking in the scene before him in one glance.
His palm lifts to rest on my forehead. “Her temperature’s down. Heat’s broken.”
Holden reaches for the plate. “She needs to eat.”
Nathaniel sits up, back propped on the bed frame, and gently pulls me into his lap. The movement dislodges Blake, who grumbles but helps arrange me so that I sit upright, supported by Nathaniel’s chest.
The shift wakes Dominic, who lifts his head with a sleepy blink. His hand squeezes my ankle in greeting, his thumb circling the bone in a gentle caress.
“Hey, beautiful,” he rasps. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”
Holden passes small pieces of food to Nathaniel, who feeds them to me one by one. Fresh bread spread with honey, slices of apple, cubes of cheese, all offered with careful attention to what I can manage. Each bite revives me a little more, energy returning to my leaden limbs.
Blake rises to fetch a damp cloth from the bathroom, returning to wipe the sweat and other evidence of our marathon from my skin.
“The Marks are healing well.” He caresses the bites. “They’ll scar beautifully.”
I reach up to touch the raised edges of the Marks where each Alpha claimed me. Four distinct patterns that are visible proof of the hum of connection inside me.
“Can you sense us?” Dominic moves to sit cross-legged and draws my feet into his lap. “All of us, I mean. The bonds.”
I focus inward to the place where the connections live. Four distinct presences, each with its own texture in my mind.
“I can.” My head lifts to find all four Alphas watching me with identical expressions of contentment. “All of you. You’re all so attuned to each other.”
Holden’s expression softens as he crowds in next to Blake to take my hand in his. “That’s how it should be. A harmony, not a competition.”
I lean into Nathaniel’s chest, letting my head rest in the curve of his shoulder. His arms wrap around me, secure without confining.
“No regrets?” he asks, his tone casual but the question carrying unmistakable weight.
I turn my face into his neck, breathing in the scent of leather and clove that has become asessential to me as oxygen. “None.” A pulse of joy threads down the bonds from me to them.
With a thrum of satisfaction, Blake settles beside us, his hand finding mine where it rests on Nathaniel’s arm. “The Sinclairs can go fuck themselves. You’re ours now.”
The crude declaration startles a laugh from me. “Eloquent as always.”
“But accurate.” Dominic picks up my foot and starts to massage it. “No court in the country can override a true pack bond. Not even Gregory Sinclair can touch you now.”
The mention of my biological father should sting, but the pain is distant, muted by the warmth of four bonds pulsing inside me.
“I never thought I’d have this,” I confess, my shoulders pulling inward. “After the Sinclairs rejected me, and everything my mother put me through, I convinced myself I didn’t need a pack. That I could be whole on my own.”
