Page 120 of In Control

Gabriel

I liftmy head and peer down at the pretty little beta joined to my alpha, stare down at where she’s taken him. This strong, determined woman. Carrying my child in her belly. I’m overwhelmed with emotion, the force of it leaving me stunned.

Everything has been so messy and wrong for such a long time and now it’s as if it’s all falling into place. Rearranging to make room for this woman in our lives, this woman who was made for us.

“Yes,” I tell the others.

Liam kisses Sophia’s jaw. “We can’t bond you, Sophia, you know that, it doesn’t mean–”

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “I want my teeth marks in her neck anyway. A permanent reminder to everyone that she’s mine.”

Esra growls clearly liking the sound of that.

“It will hurt,” Roman says, stroking his fingers along her throat anyway.

“I don’t care,” Sophia says with defiance, her cheeks rosy, her eyes bright and her hair spread about her head on the cushion. She looks like a fucking angel, like something ethereal, too good, too precious, for us mere mortals. “Gabriel,” she says, meeting my eyes with hers and I wonder how it’s possible for one set of eyes to hold so many of the universe’s colours – blues and greys and silvers like the night sky floating in her irises.

I inhale the smell of her, the fragrance of her skin, the traces of her perfume. I drag my nose down her throat and rest my teeth on the sensitive spot where her neck meets her shoulder. I don’t own the sharp teeth of an alpha. But it’s another way Sophia and I are alike. We won’t let our designations stop us from being what we want, from having the people we love.

“Ready?” I breathe.

“Never more so.”

I lick my tongue over her flesh, tasting salt on her skin, and then I sink my teeth through the tissue. Coppery blood fills my mouth and she cries out, my mates shushing and comforting her.

I swallow her blood, my teeth plunging deeper into her neck. I close my eyes. Tasting her, hearing her breath and her heartbeat, feeling her pulse upon my lips. And then more. Deep in my gut. Pushing up against my mates’ bonds. Creating space for itself. Warm and electric.

Sophia gasps and I withdraw my blood-stained mouth, peering down at my stomach, resting my hand there.

“You … you feel it too?” I ask her.

“Yes, is it the baby?” she asks, alarm in her eyes.

“No, sweetheart, no, it’s …” I can hardly believe it. This can’t be. Can it? “It’s a bond.”

The others stare at us.

“That’s impossible,” Esra mutters, forever the scientist.

I laugh. “I have three bonds, Alpha. I think I know what one feels like.”

His gaze shifts to Sophia, her eyes wide with disbelief and then he’s diving in, adding his bite to the base of her neck. She cries out again as his teeth snap through her skin, but then the look of pain morphs to more astonishment. Esra laps at the wound, licking and kissing it.

“You feel it?” I ask him, my fingers tracing the scar of my teeth marks on his neck where I claimed him all those years ago.

“Yes,” he whispers, “I feel it. How is this possible?” He turns to Liam.

“I don’t know. I never heard of it happening before.” He kisses Sophia’s mouth as Esra continues to sweep his tongue over her fresh wound. “Can you take another, Sweetheart?”

“Yes.” She smiles up at him with love in her eyes. “Yes, I want you all to claim me.”

He rests his hand on her belly and Esra reluctantly lifts his head, making room for our packmate.

“I don’t know if this is some kind of biology gone wrong, or a miracle, but, fuck, Sophia, I want to feel your bond in my gut. I want to be linked to you, to feel you there forever.”

“Then bite me, Alpha.”

He does, his teeth sinking into her neck alongside the wounds we’ve already made. The bonds in my body hum, vibrating. I can feel the incredulity Liam experiences as Sophia’s bond nuzzles alongside the rest of the packs’ in his gut.

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