Page 41 of Into the Fire: After
“Brea wouldn’t have left me in here this long,” she said around a sob. “They’re taking too long. What if they—we c-can’t—”
I pressed my lips to the back of her head, then to her temple. My arms tightened around her, like I could hold her mind together if I held her close enough. “Listen to me, sunshine,” I murmured into her ear. “Reach inside of you. Look for that bond—that beautiful, strong bond with Brea. Feel for it.”
Taryn swallowed, then breathed deep. Either to deal with a fresh wave of pain or to search for her mating bond.
Lin ran his hands up and down her arm. A touch so gentle my heart squeezed to witness it. “Can you feel it?” he asked.
Taryn pressed her lips together. “Too far away.”
“I know,” he said. “But does it feel gone? Or…or empty?”
She ran her teeth across her top lip, trembles growing in her body.
The lull was ending.
She gave a definitive, determined shake of her head. “No.”
Lin brushed her hair out of her face, tracing down the line of her temple to her jaw. “That alpha would burn the world for you, Omega,” he whispered.
“I bet they’re already laying the dynamite,” I said, a delighted smirk playing on my lips. “Lighting the torches, pouring gasoline.”
The image of Arsonist Brea must’ve been somewhat comforting for Taryn, as she gave a weak smile and a single wet chuckle. She let out a shaky breath. “What if the fire burns me up before she can get to me?”
Tears stung behind my eyes. I laced my fingers between hers, Lin doing the same with her other hand. My arm flexed around her, daring anyone to try and take her from me. “Then we’ll wrap ourselves around you, sunshine, until the fire dies.”
Lin kissed her temple. “We’re going home.”
“All of us,” I vowed.
Lin
Twoknocksonthedoor.
Taryn’s sweat merged with my own. She straddled my lap, coursing up and down my cock like it was the only thing keeping her alive. Damn, after four almost nonstop hours, maybe it was. Caine sat behind her, hands gripping her waist as he filled her ass. My fingers tangled in her hair. Caine’s dug valleys into her slick skin.
She was exhausted. I heard it in the frantic breaths that ripped from her as she bounced on our cocks. Felt it in the faint whine ever-present in the back of her throat. Our presence eased her pain, but the imprint of it remained, not so easily shaken off.
Her walls fluttered around my aching cock, and I groaned, leaning my forehead where her shoulder met her neck. She pulled me harder against her. She moved faster.
“Alpha,” she breathed into my ear. Fuck, she was so close to exploding. Her fingernails cut into my scalp as she sped her pace. “Need your bite, Alphas.”
My heart lurched in my chest. She’d already asked two or three times before, and each time it got harder and harder to resist. Crazed heat or not, my hindbrain didn’t care. All he heard was a desperate omega begging him to do what he was dying to.
I held him in tight reins as I kissed her cheek. “I’ve got you, Omega,” I choked out.
“No. Lin.” She sat up and met my eye. They were red-rimmed and bloodshot, but they were clear. “This is me. I need this. Please.”
My alpha pulled against its leash, a physical pulse in my chest.
“If you have to walk out that door”—Her eyelids fluttered as she spoke, like she was fighting to stay lucid enough to say her piece—“I need to have that piece of you with me.”
I rested my forehead back against her shoulder, so close to the tantalizing skin I wanted to taste. That I wanted to pierce. I swallowed. “Taryn…”
“Please, Lin,” she moaned. “Bond me. Claim me. Don’t leave me here alone when you’re gone.”
I tasted blood before I knew I’d moved. Her scent exploded in the room and she cried out as her pussy clamped around my cock. Quick as lightning, she pulled one of Caine’s arms forward and sank her teeth into the middle of his forearm. He hissed and fell forward against her back, and Taryn arched again as he sank his teeth into the skin beside her shoulder blade. My packmate’s blood still painted her teeth as she darted to the cap of my shoulder and sank her teeth in there.
Caine and I came, hard and loud. We all bled. We all panted. Locked together on two knots to the most incredible, perfect omega I’d give my life to save.
