Page 61 of Seducing Selena

Derek took the place I’d vacated. “We have to be very careful,” he said. “We don’t want to do anything that would accidentally make them follow through on their threats. While we still have a little time on your clock, we’re going to do some very quiet digging. But Anna is going to be just fine. We promise. No matter what happens, you’ll be free of them, and Anna will be safe.”

“Okay.”

We could offer her that relief, even if we couldn’t offer her anything else.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

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SELENA

Nick stood and came over to where I sat. He reached down and took one of my hands. No, one of mywrists. His fingers went to the leather cuff on it, beginning to undo it.

No.

I yanked my hand away from his, and he looked startled. “You don’t need to wear these right now,” he said.

There was no explanation for the way that cracked me in two. The cuffs told people I was theirs. They just said they loved me. So why were they taking away the one thing that claimed me?

“Please talk to us, sweetheart. I wish I could read your mind and answer all your fears, but I can’t if I don’t know them.”

I ran my finger along the inside of one cuff. “It’s probably fucked up.”

Derek huffed a laugh. “There’s nothing about this situation that isn’t.”

Fixing my eyes on the floor, I shivered. Surrounded by Nick’s scent on his clothes, it was even harder to admit, because saying it would hurt them, and I didn’t want that. I didn’t know what the fuck I wanted. “Taking them off makes me feel like you don’t want me.”

“Fuck, sweetheart.” Nick reached for me and stopped. I didn’t think there were any tears left in me, but I was wrong. When I held out my arms, he pulled me into his, lifting me off the chair and wrapping my legs around his hips. I clung to him like the anchor he was.

Derek was right. There wasn’t anything about this that wasn’t fucked up. Because they were the source of the problem and the source of my comfort.

We were moving, and I didn’t realize until the air grew quieter and darker that we were in the nest. We hadn’t been here since my heat ended.

Nick laid me down on the dark velvet, looking down at me. “Cuffs or no cuffs, dynamic or not, no matter how we came to this point, there isnoworld where I wouldn’t want you. You aremyOmega, and always will be, no matter what happens.”

Sebastian and Derek were at the edge of the nest. “Can we stay here tonight?” I asked. “I don’t… I don’t want to be alone.”

Nick rolled to the side and cuddled me into his chest. “Of course we can.”

Derek slid in behind me, and Sebastian sat at my feet, pulling them into his lap. I closed my eyes and breathed in the mixture of their scents I was so used to now. The idea of not having that—

“When this mission is over, what happens?”

“We haven’t really thought that far ahead,” Derek said. “It’s hard when you’re so deep in the middle of something, wishing you could be somewhere else.”

Sebastian ran his hands over my legs and ankles, seeming like he needed to touch me. “But as far as the three of us? We’re done. The agreement we made will take care of that. We knew going in, this assignment would take everything, and we agreed to do it, on the conditions that it would be the last mission we ever did, and that our every need and want would be taken care of for the rest of our lives.”

Nick’s lips brushed my temple. “We don’t have a house yet, but we want one. And it can be wherever we want. If—” He blew out a shaky breath. “It can be near you if that’s what you want. Or somewhere so far away that you never have to think about us again.”

“Stop it,” I hissed. “Stop talking like I—” My voice cracked, and I buried my face deeper in his shirt. Without looking at them, the words were easier. “How am I supposed to walk away from you when we’re scent matched?Everythingmatched? You know, the night I was taken, my Beta friend tried to get me to come toCatenaas a patron. He thought I would like it, and I told him no, not wanting to admit how right he was.

“But it’s not just that it’s… am I broken? Scent or no scent, falling in love with you while you trained me to be a slave. How do I explain it? How do I accept it? What kind of person likes that?” I shook my head. “You gave me the choice, and I took it. But everything still hurts.” Then, quieter. “I am broken.”

“No,gattina, you’re not broken,” Derek said, shifting and turning me so I faced him. “You are not broken. If anything, you’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. You did all this for your sister, knowing you were innocent.”

He pushed the hair off my face and ran his fingers through it. “There’s no black and white here. That’s why it’s so hard. But whatever you want is what we’ll do.”

“Tell me whatyouwant,” I said. “I’m tired of thinking about me. I just want to listen to anything until I fall asleep and wake up feeling… not like this.”

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