12. Zeus

Candy was sleeping when the call came through. Fucking Benny almost woke her up. He was the on-floor manager at Club Heat, or basically, he was in charge of who got fucked, when, and where. He used to be a host, which is why he didn't take any shit from bodyguards like us.

I looked down at her, lips tight. I meant what I said before. I didn't give a shit about her contract. I'd do anything to keep her peaceful smile as she lay curled up on her bed.

She was ours. She was always going to be ours. It didn't matter if Odin and Apollo were scowling at me from across the room. They couldn't pretend to take the moral high ground when all three of us had fucked her. The only difference was I was willing to follow it up with some fucking action, like biting her.

Benny had called two times already, and each time Apollo had swiped it away. I wasn't giving her up, not yet. I'd keep our dream alive, even for a day.

Fuck the contract, fuck the risk, we could find a way around it. We just needed to think.

The three of us sat in the chairs surrounding the bed. They were mainly there because we liked to watch. Apollo was the most gorgeous alpha I'd ever met, and seeing his face as he stroked himself on the bed for both of us was such a turn on that I usually fucked him all night after his show.

We bent forward, elbows on thighs, examining her like fucking creeps as she slept. Brows creased, bodies tense, we were trying to figure out our next move.

"She wants a bite. Why not give her a bite?" I asked. "We'll deal with the consequences later."

"Because we don't know what Michael will do to us, or her, if we bite her." Apollo glared at me, obviously irritated. "What if Michael decides to make us disappear? I'd rather suffer being close to her than six feet under."

"So, we're just going to let her keep working?" I snarled. "Fucking random strangers while we stand outside the door like absolute tools, listening to her coming on every cock but ours?"

Apollo pursed his lips, clasping his hands in front of him, drawing in a deep breath as he stemmed his annoyance. "I can't lose you," he said in a measured tone.

"And what about her? Are we going to leave Candy to suffer?"

"Okay, fine. If you put it like that, then sure." He glowered at me. Yeah, he wanted me to accept it, but I couldn't, not without a fight. "That's what we're going to do," my mate continued. "Because I'm not having her thrown into the ‘bargain bin' because we're so eager to bite her."

Any omega who disobeyed the rules and let an alpha bite them was exiled to the bottom rung of the Club Heat hierarchy, where guests who couldn't afford the main omegas would hire them out for cheap. They were generally given to prisoners in rut or shared by an army barracks and the like. They knew the risk when they let themselves be bitten. Some of them were even whored out for bites, so alphas could do anything to them without consequences. Those specific omegas earned more than anyone at the Club, but also had the highest suicide rate because of all the unfulfilled bonds.

It was a totally different story for alphas who bit omegas without permission. It was one of the reasons at least three beta attendants stayed in the room with them during heats. We'd all heard the rumours of alphas in rut who went out of control and bit one of Michael's omegas. The omegas were taken care of, though we had no idea how because we never saw them again.

We weren't one hundred per cent sure what Michael did, but there was no fucking way Apollo would let us put ourselves in that kind of danger, no matter how much I needed to sink my teeth into her sweet neck and make her mine.

"I'm not giving her up," I growled at him.

Apollo pursed his lips, pain pulsing through the bond. He sat back, crossing his legs, one hand gripping the arm of the chair as the other wrapped around his phone. He bit his lip before he sighed. "I don't want to give her up either, but we can't—"

"We're not doing it," Odin snapped, glaring at me. "If you really cared for her, then you'd be with us on this."

"I can't take knowing that she's still going to be working." My voice broke as my gaze fell to the floor. Leg bouncing, hands trembling, I didn't want to think how bad it could be for us. The past three days were torture, so how were any of us supposed to deal with years of it? "I can't even take sitting here and not touching her."

"You'll have to," Apollo said softly. "We'll all have to. If we want to stay with her, we have to be strong."

"Hey." Our heads whipped up, our attention laser-focused on her as she pushed herself up on our bed with a scowl. "Don't I get a choice?"