Page 88 of The Omega Lesson

I watch in fascination as his eyes hood, a flush climbs his cheeks, and a hungry smile lights up his beautiful face. “If you’re offering to do a study on it, I’m happy to get down and dirty with you, professor.”

No matter how many times I tell him, he still insists I spend all my time playing with dirt.

But I don’t argue with him now. “I’m game if you are, beautiful boy.”

My husky reply gets the attention of the whole pack. Or maybe it’s the throb of unadulterated lust through our bonds as Mattie takes my left hand and Lexi takes my right. I don’t know if I’m really on the edge of a switch, but designation aside, tonight I’m marking them both. I want them on my skin, under my teeth, and buried deep in my soul.

We leave by unspoken agreement, but as we get close to the door, Richard calls Lexi’s name, and she grudgingly turns in her ex’s direction. Moira sensibly hangs back, her mouth pressed into a small, bitter line, but Richard is trying to smile as he faces a wall of disapproval. “I just wanted to say congratulations on the bonding ceremony. I heard it was quite the event.”

I seriously doubt he knows anything other than the press statement we put out, since it was just us and the North Star crew, with the captain acting as our officiant. We exchanged our vows as the sun rose over a crystal-clear billabong in one of the most beautiful and remote places on the planet. When Mattie graduates in a few months, we’ll go on a packmoon to Europe and do it in style, but for now, we’re just happy sporting matching rings and bond bites.

Everyone has one who wants one, except for my mark on Mattie’s thick brown neck. I’ve touched and tasted every inch of his body, but my bite is long overdue while I’ve been waiting for my next switch to manifest. And now I’m so close, I almost snarl as Anton joins Richard between us and the door.

“No hard feelings, right?” Lexi’s brother says, barely glancing her way as he focuses on Travis. “We’re family now, after all.”

Maybe if there was even a wisp of apology in his voice, we’d just do the polite thing and move on by, but Lexi’s eyes narrow dangerously. “We were always family, Anton. You just didn’t seem to understand the meaning of the word.”

It’s pretty obvious there’s a cutting remark hovering on his tongue, but one glance at our stony faces and he swallows it back. “Well, you look like you’re doing alright,” he murmurs, shooting his pack a wink over his shoulder. “Guess it all worked out for the best.”

But Lexi grabs his arm, and I can tell by the way he winces that he’s surprised by her strength.Dickhead.And how sad for him that he’s only just now realising his sister is one of the strongest people he’s ever likely to meet.

“I think you really need to hear this, Anton. Family means nobody gets left behind.” She looks at Ben, a throb of gratitude radiating through the bond as she squeezes Mattie’s hand. “It also means nobody is forgotten.” Her gaze now passes over me, Noah, and Travis, and she doesn’t have to say it; we all know she’s thinking of Christian. We lost our brother too young, but Lexi has never really had a chance to bond with Anton, and there’s a wistful glimmer in her eyes as she looks at him now. “I really hope that someday you work that out.”

But I guess that’s too deep for Anton, who mutters something under his breath and retreats to his pack. Lexi’s shoulders dip inward for a moment, but then Travis is curling his fingers through her hair, his thumb strumming his bite mark on her throat. “You know what else they say about family, Lexi?”

She stares up at him like he’s every fantasy she’s ever had rolled into one. “What’s that, Travis?”

“The family that plays together stays together.”

Since they rarely get through a tennis match without ripping each other’s clothes off with their teeth, I’m not surprised at the way her pupils blow. “Did you have any particular game in mind?”

Travis smirks, but there’s something as hard as titanium in his eyes. “When your brother checks his email in the morning, he’s going to discover that Lyall Corp are the new owners of his law firm. And he’s been assigned the coveted job of fortnightly flights to our most remote and least glamorous holdings for the foreseeable future.”

“Cool,” Mattie laughs. “The don’t-piss-off-your-sister’s-uber-powerful-pack game. I like it.”

Noah is also cackling in glee as he claps our older brother’s shoulder. “Well done, bro. You’ve just been upgraded to Travis the Sadist.”

Lexi rolls her eyes at that, but Noah gives her butt a loving pinch and her perfume rises around us in a heady cloud as we head out into the night.

Epilogue – Lexi

“I’ve never felt so stuffed!” I moan as we drive away from the restaurant where we just celebrated Mattie’s high school graduation. With some dedicated homeschooling on my part, and a couple of excellent tutors who came highly recommended by Dr. Sarah Finchley, he graduated with flying colours. We’ve already used Jack’s university connections to tour the Marine Biology Department where Mattie hopes to be accepted into their bachelor program next year. Which makes perfect sense. My sunshine boy wants to save the ocean and all the fish in it.

Bree, of course, is ecstatic, and has such an obvious case of puppy love for Uncle Mattie, it melts my heart. As for me, every time I look at his glowing face, I want to kiss the hell out of him and bawl my head off at the same time.

How the fuck can I be suffering empty nest syndrome at twenty-freaking-four?

“Now you know that’s a blatant lie, sweet thing,” Noah drawls from my side, his hand slipping down to cup my mound through my sequined cocktail dress. His fingernails are currently painted azure blue to go with his newly dyed hawk. He resigned from Prendiville the same day I did, and he’s been working through the colours of the rainbow ever since, much to Bree’s delight. “Pretty sure we stuffed you twice as full right before dinner.”

Everyone groans, but I notice a tinge of arousal in the air that rises above the new car smell. Jack traded in his so-called fuck truck last week for an upgraded one. It has a sunroof, supersonic engine, and bench seats that don’t just lie down – they can be removed altogether.

The guys have been planning a road trip ever since he unveiled the feature, which, more importantly, accommodates Bree’s booster seat and her growing stuffed animal collection. She’s with Richard tonight, but this weekend she’s moving into the newly decorated Zoo Friends bedroom at Noah’s house. He’s had a brass plaque made for her door, and I’m a little worried she might pass out when she sees the life-sized baby giraffe sitting in her tree-top bunk bed.

“No funny business,” I say, slapping Noah’s hand off my thigh. “Or at least not until I get rid of this oversized food baby.”

He pouts, but settles for playing with my pink locks as we head across the city. We’re planning for a naked puppy pile later, given it’s our last night without Bree in the middle of our pack bed for a nice long while. But right now, we need to pop into Jack’s lab to finish preparations for its official opening tomorrow.

I’ve spent a fair bit of time helping him set up, which is code for nipping next door to the university library and visiting with Sarah. As I suspected, she’s a fascinating person to talk to, and she’s been a huge help as I try to make sense of my switch designation. Although, she thinks it’s more accurate to call it ashiftthan a switch, because our original designation doesn’t disappear; it just becomes less dominant to our triggered state. Jack thinks that might explain how I can be in my omega mode, but still lock the hell out of the guys. Given the PhDs hanging on their collective walls, I’m not going to argue with either of them. Besides, Jack and I get a kick out of telling the guys we are their sexy shifter mates.

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