Page 89 of Into the Fire: After
I sat up, donning a halfway serious expression. “Okay. Yes. Bonding. Us. Here. So…”
Red painted her cheeks. She held her hand out before her. “You spent two horrible weeks holding my hand. That’s where I want your scar.”
Fuck, who was cutting onions in the apartment at a time like this?
Utterly inappropriate.
I wiped my eyes and crossed my legs to mirror Brea. “I want yours right here,” I said as I pointed to the top of my bicep. “You’d fall asleep right here. Sitting there while you slept, not moving so I wouldn’t wake you up…it centered me, somehow. Like meditation in the middle of a sandstorm.”
Taryn, Lin, and Caine sat behind us on the sofa, still tangled together. Orange, blackberry, and sweet cream—a gorgeous medley.
A tear formed at the corner of Brea’s eye, and I caught it on my thumb before it would add to the stripes already sketched down her face. My thumb brushed over the apple of her cheek, and she turned to kiss my palm.
Heart full, I grabbed her hand and brought it toward my mouth as Brea adjusted so that she could roll up my t-shirt sleeve to reach my outer bicep.
Caine spoke up from the couch. “Count of three?” he asked. We both nodded, eyes on only each other.
“One…two…three.”
Brief, searing pain as he teeth tore through my skin. Tangy taste of iron on my tongue as mine tore through hers. Then a swell of emotion so strong it knocked the breath out of me like a giant wave. It was love, and joy, and grief, and relief, and on top of it all, hope.
She pulled back so we could look at each other. I grinned, my chest tight with my own emotions and the brand new ones now filtering to me through allthreeof my alphas.
Brea scrunched up her face in a chuckle. “Ew, you look like a cannibal.”
I could imagine. She’d wiped my blood from her lips and teeth, but I hadn’t gotten to that quite yet. Now, I was glad for it.
“Ah, see, you’ve done it now,” I said in a somber tone. “I’ve had the taste of human flesh. Now I must have more.” I dove for her again, trying to kiss her with my bloody lips while she squealed and pushed me away.
“Oh, no worries,” Taryn said from the couch. “You’ll get at least one more taste in your lifetime.”
Grinning like a fool, I stood, abandoning one quarry for another. Taryn leapt from the couch, running and laughing as I chased her with my bloody cannibal mouth.
We had battles ahead—some would be silly, some would be brutal. After months of pushing what felt like a whole damn planet up a hill so steep it was basically a wall, it felt like we’d finally reached a crest. Maybe notthecrest. But we’d continue on. Keep pushing. When one or more of us grew too tired, the others would pick up the slack until we could rejoin them.
A mini-climax, I guessed?
Though, if I had my way, a mega climax wasdefinitelyon the horizon.
Epilogue
Eight months later
Brea
Ourstuffsatinboxes. Most were already in the moving truck downstairs. Only a few stacks remained in the guys' apartment, towering by the door, waiting for one of us to tote it downstairs to the moving truck.
My omega stood among them, hand on her chest, looking around at this apartment that was never really evenours.It could've been, though, and that made letting go of it hard still.
She caught me watching her and gave a small smile. “Okay,onemore move, and this time I really mean it.”
I put my arm around her shoulders. “Yep. Just one more.”
She looked around the space. Through the bond, I felt that familiar aching sadness of leaving a place behind. “Walls don’t make a home,” she said.
“Nope,” I agreed. “But it’s okay to want a place that’s home too.”
“And the new place,” Brooks huffed as he reentered the apartment and approached us, “will be home forever because Irefuseto do this bullshit again.” Sweat darkened his red tee around the collar, and a few of his curls clung to his forehead, but his smile was radiant. Our beautiful beta.
