12. Twisted

12

Twisted

Isobel stood before the mirror, nerves twisting through her body. She would allow it for this brief moment only and then the anxiety would have to go. It had been over a month of gruelling practise—with extra hours thrown in over Thanksgiving break—but Mikel had finally given her the green light to change up her Dahlia Room performance, and now it was time to prove she was every bit as confident as she had claimed.

In the other room, the curtains were gone. New lights had been installed, and she had coordinated directly with Ethan for her new stage, bypassing Cooper completely—though he had still insisted on approving her outfits each week. She sucked in a shaky breath, brushing a hand over her stomach. The black leotard had cutouts at the waist and hips and a wet look to the material that clung to her skin. She stepped back from the mirror, bringing her legs into focus. The fishnet stockings had been picked at very carefully in all the right places. When the silks tugged and rubbed against her legs, the stockings would tear. The black silks would also dig into the exposed skin of her waist and hips.

Her hair hung in a carefully curated, fretful tangle, and her make-up had been smudged just the right amount with Kilian’s help. The longer she had planned for this day, the more her determination grew. It wasn’t enough to make this show hers. It wasn’t enough to fly above them and force them to watch her with awe instead of assessment and calculation.

She wanted to say something, even if they couldn’t hear it.

She wanted them to feel dirty for clapping.

She wanted them to feel guilty for looking.

Slowly, her mismatched gaze in the mirror hardened. The nerves fluttered away, pushed down beneath a steel trap door. She shoved her bag beneath the sink and walked back into the Dahlia Room, nodding to Ethan behind the bar. Mikel, Oscar, Niko, Moses, and Theodore had all taken the night off from their fights to watch her first aerial performance, and she felt strangely invincible knowing all ten of her mates were scattered around the shadowed room. She couldn’t see any of them because Ethan had pulled back the servers and dimmed the lights as she had instructed him to. They usually stopped for her performances anyway, but she wanted the addition of them all being in darkness. She would likely change it again for her next performance—there was an aerial hoop performance she had been thinking about that she was eager to create an environment for—but this one was all about her looking exposed and vulnerable—used and abused, even—while they hid in the shadows.

Ethan started her song as she stepped onto the stage, and the first notes of “Twisted” by Mia Vaile echoed eerily through the otherwise silent space. The song was slow and almost soft, more of a background sound to keep the focus on her movements. She had picked it because it shared a name with the first single on their album. It was a private little puzzle piece that people might only fit together later.

She gripped the silks in one hand, walking around the edge of the small, circular stage as the song crooned in a vast echo all around her. She could hear people whispering softly, so softly, unwilling to talk over the music. They were wondering what she would do. She kept walking slowly, kept them wondering. The whole time, she subtly twisted the silks, winding them around and around as she walked, and then she took off in several leaping strides, kicking off the stage and using the momentum to flick out her body, still only holding on with one arm as she flew in a slow circle above the closest gathered tables, the twisted silks unravelling to spin her body in tight spirals as she flew over their heads.

She didn’t attempt to hide the pain or the effort from her face. She didn’t bother to make her movements look effortless. She exaggerated the strain.

This dance was a story of servitude. The silks were chains, the stage was her cage, and she was just a bird on show. They had paid to look upon her, but she had trapped them in their seats, leaving them to wonder if she was posturing or agitated, performing or fluttering against her bars in an attempt at freedom.

Her movement was continuous. She didn’t pause to catch her breath or steady herself. Her transitions weren’t moments of rest; they were seamlessly threaded with drops and spins that required every inch of strength in her body and impeccable timing. Her first drop was from twenty feet in the air, the rough rock ceiling close enough that she could clearly make out the individual little lights set into the stone to look like glittering stars. She paused at the top, her legs locked into a double split, her core like iron as she tightly controlled the tension in her body—and then, utterly without warning, she sent herself into a free-falling split drop, pulling herself back up mid-air into a controlled catch, her body arching backwards into a full suspended backbend. It was a dangerous move that required absolute precision, setting the tone for how demanding and shocking her performance would be.

This wasn’t the type of routine she should be able to pull off with just over a month of practise, but defying expectations had become something that drew her from bed before the sun had even breached the sky every morning and set her teeth together in determination every evening when she stepped into the gym with Mikel. The drive to do better had been replaced by the absolute burning need to be the best . The best they had ever seen. That would be her power.

She was halfway through a sissonne, pushing herself explosively off the silks with enough force to send her body into a graceful jump-like movement in the air, when the lights glowed gently back to life beneath her, illuminating the faces below her just enough to drag them suddenly into her performance. She hadn’t simply pulled off the sissonne, but had combined it with a controlled rotation, spinning herself around before landing back in the silks, so it took her a moment to focus on one of the faces below her. Oscar and Theodore sat side by side in a booth close to the stage, a woman either side of them. She recognised the women immediately. The one clutching Theodore’s thigh and staring up at Isobel with wide blue eyes was a famous American actress, only a few years older than Isobel. Her hair was a long, lustrous golden tangle, her eyes like glittering gems lined by thick lashes, her lips open in a perfect little bow of surprise and excitement. The woman beside Oscar wasn’t touching him, but she was sitting close and edging closer still, her white-blonde hair a slide of shining silk as she tucked it behind her ear. She was a famous American singer, her tanned skin shimmering just as much as her shimmering black dress, her dark eyes wide and smoky, her features etched with sensuality.

Isobel paused for a moment too long, her focus wavering.

Her breaths were short, and not just from the exertion. There was a horrible monster rearing up inside her, demanding she rip those painted nails from Theodore’s strong thigh. She wanted to break them one by one. Wanted that girl to scream .

It was hard to breathe.

Focus . Mikel’s voice shot through her mind, cool as a river of silver blanketing her thoughts.

He had seen her falter, and the edge of command in his tone was unwavering.

Release your foot , he ordered coldly, the ice in his voice dripping inside her head, helping her to hone and sharpen her attention back onto the silks. That was the voice of her coach, her trainer, and he was furious that she was putting herself in danger right now.

She obeyed him immediately, as he had trained her to do, just like Kalen had trained her to do. It was a power the two of them had carefully woven over her with weeks of practice under threat of injury, plucking at her guard until her trust was stitched so completely into their interactions that a single look, a single barked word was all it took for her body to snap into compliance. Luckily, it was a power they didn’t hold over her. They hung it up at the door to her training room, a leash dangling from a hook, curling down to the floor in sensuous promise for next time. But Mikel had just plucked it up. He had closed that collar around her neck and forced her mind to snap to his.

Close your eyes was his whispered instruction.

So she did.

Now release , he said.

She did, and the audience gasped. She was still spinning from her sissonne, but had released one of her legs, so when she performed the drop, it was with only one foot held secure. She swung downward, her leg extended in a perfect arabesque, holding the position. She knew this routine. She had practised it to perfection, but her control had slipped, throwing her off balance. She couldn’t stop thinking about Theodore and Oscar below and the hands that might wander across their thighs, their chests, their arms.

And then she was thinking of Gabriel and the dark-haired beauty who had paid to see him undress, who kept coming back for him, who might be sitting with him right now.

Why her mind had chosen this moment, this crucial fucking moment to splinter her wall of focus with these needling insecurities, she wasn’t sure. Perhaps because for the first time, all ten of her mates were serving in the Dahlia Room together. Perhaps because this wasn’t the Icon Café. This room wasn’t brightly lit and stringently bound by rules. This place was more shadowed, more decadent. There was nothing casual about the meetings taking place in those booths, no giggling teenagers trying to get the Alphas to pay them some attention.

These people were some of the most important and influential in the world. They weren’t to be rejected, disrespected, or insulted. They were the board members, the presidents, the politicians, directors, and superstars.

Double inversion , Mikel’s voice was a frigid breeze, an icy balm, freezing her rioting thoughts into place.

She twisted into the inversion without thinking, her body as pliant as a tangle of string toying with the silks, taut and twisted in all the right ways to create a stunning pattern of black silk and pale, contorted limbs. She was spinning at high speed, the silks locked around her arms and legs, a little fly caught in a sparkling web, the intense burn in her core a welcome distraction as she held the inversion—but she didn’t hold it long, shocking the audience once again when she dropped. Another dangerous manoeuvre that she should have completed with steady lungs and a focused gaze.

She released the silks from her legs, using only her arms, and she fell freely, her legs spread wide in a perfect split as she plummeted downward. Instead of calm, she was rioting inside. She caught herself at the lowest point, using both hands to pull herself back up with a burst of force. The mid-air catch had been flawless, a breath-stealing display of pure control and power, but the further she climbed, whispered praise spattering about below her like delicate raindrops, the more she cracked inside.

Use it, Mikel instructed sternly. Her mate would have caught her chin and lifted her shattering gaze to his. Her mate would have torn apart whoever had made her hurt like that. Her friend would have spoken to her softly and protected her. But both she and Mikel knew that she didn’t need her friend or a mate right now. She needed her manager. She needed the man who held that leash to grip it tightly now and turn her in the right direction. She needed to hand over control of this performance to someone she trusted, because she could no longer trust herself, and without trust, she would fall.

So, she used it. She dragged out that cracking sensation from deep inside the cavern of her chest and spread it across her face and skin.

Good girl, Mikel crooned softly, that slide of silver whispering against her anguish. Make a web .

She spun and spun, locking the silks around her limbs in a complex, visually intricate spiral. The faster she spun, the tighter the web constricted around her.

Now , Mikel prompted, and she released her legs from the fabric, spinning even faster as she performed a flexibility drop, her torso curving backward in a deep backbend that seemed to defy gravity, her legs still suspended, fully extended, making her limbs appear that they were bent at an almost impossible angle. The bottom of the drop snapped her into a whip-like release that jerked her body back into an upright position, the fabric spiralling below with her movement.

Beautiful . Mikel’s cool breath misted over her mind, that collar around her neck squeezing tighter until her audience dropped away. Her eyes drifted closed, and it was just her and him. He bent her, twisted her, dropped her, and issued cold orders for her to climb higher, spin faster, and stretch wider. She began to burn with each whispered breath of praise, her limbs trembling with more than exertion as she neared the end of her routine. She could almost feel his hands on her hips, pressing her deeper into the split she performed as he growled softly for her to stretch further, to sink deeper.

When her feet hit the stage again and applause broke out—louder than she had ever received—she finally opened her eyes, her fingers reluctantly releasing the silks, her chest heaving, her body burning.

She tried not to look at any of the other tables as she stepped from the stage, but on her last bow, she found her eyes slamming into a stormy, dark grey gaze. Moses’ attention was crawling back up from her legs, his tongue sweeping across his lip as their eyes collided. He didn’t seem to realise that the woman beside him was touching him, but she realised that his attention was elsewhere, ensnared. Her lips, painted a dark mauve to match her long, silk dress, pressed to his cheek, leaving a purplish smudge there against his tanned skin. His jaw flexed—he had noticed her; he was just trying to ignore her—and her hand slipped down over his chest. He caught her wrist before it reached his belt, flinging it back to her lap, but she only smirked, whispering something in his ear, her lips brushing his skin again.

Acid burned in Isobel’s throat, and she quickly stepped from the stage, keeping her back straight and her head up as she pushed into the bathroom, retrieved her bag from under the sinks, and disappeared into a stall to switch out her clothes. The silk dress she had worn into the Stone Dahlia that evening was similar to the mauve dress Moses’ companion was wearing. It made the acid roil even more, her skin burning impossibly hot as the silk slid down her body, settling against the floor. She stepped into her heels, ignored the disarray of her hair, and marched back into the room. Now that she was finished, so were they. Those were the rules.

She stalked toward the exit, barely waiting for them to detangle themselves from their companions and their tables before she stepped into the hallway beyond the room. They were quiet as they moved through the club, and that silence seemed to swell as they walked back to the dorm. Usually, they took the golf carts, but she needed the exercise to clear her head, even though her muscles were still tight and aching. She would have killed for Mikel’s skilled hands to dig into her shoulders—or Elijah’s, for that matter, but she was too hot. Still burning. Only growing hotter the longer she walked.

When she reached the dorm, she stalked straight upstairs and slammed into her bedroom, ignoring them all. Her anger was misplaced, she knew that, but she couldn’t seem to stop it climbing. Her skin felt like it was on fire, a twinge of pain sparking to life deep in her belly. She began to pace, a sob inexplicably building in the back of her throat. She didn’t expect her door to open so soon. Usually, they gave her at least a little space.

She definitely didn’t expect all of them to spill into her room. They were carrying pillows and blankets and must have looped the cameras. They didn’t have any snacks, so apparently, they could tell that her body was too tightly wound to eat.

“Who do you want in your bed?” Elijah asked, almost clinically, his eyes dropping over the front of her dress, his throat bobbing.

She glanced down, realising she had forgotten her bra. Her breasts were perfectly outlined by the silk dress, nipples pressed tightly to the fabric. He tore eyes that weren’t as cold as they usually were back up to hers, pupils expanded as he raised a perfect brow in question.

“T-Theo and Oscar.” She spoke without thinking, her voice thready, wavering and fragile, her breaths becoming laboured.

Elijah’s eyes narrowed on her, sweeping over her again, but this time in an assessing way. “Maybe we shouldn’t all be in here.”

“Don’t,” she gasped, sudden pain shooting through her abdomen, her hand reaching out as he began to turn. “I need you all here.”

She sought out Moses. She needed to see him. He had already begun to stride from the room, possibly scenting her desperation and realising what would happen when she got Theodore and Oscar into her bed. He paused, examining her face, a little spark of realisation flaring in his before he tucked it away behind impassive features. He stalked the rest of the way to the door, but instead of walking through it, he leaned back against it, crossing his muscled arms and notching a boot up against the back of the door.

Guarding it.

Indulging her insanity.

Her bond purred in a brief satisfaction that they must have all felt, because it seemed to spur them into action. They moved differently, eyeing her carefully, a deliberateness to their movements as they set themselves up along the couches and the floor, spreading out in feigned relaxation. It wasn’t until Oscar and Theodore were sprawled onto her bed and she had finished reassuring herself that the others weren’t going anywhere, her eyes resting on Gabriel, that she realised what was happening.

She had felt this burning before. She had felt this pang of pain before.

In the shower, with Gabriel on the phone, whispering silky orders into her ear. He knew it as well. His eyes were hooded and wary, dipping into the heat of his memory while teetering along the precariousness of their present moment.

The pain intensified, forcing a small gasp past her lips as her skin tingled in awareness.

“Someone get the lights,” Niko barked. “I don’t want to watch this.”

“No,” she croaked, her eyes flickering to Moses against the door.

She needed to see him.

He was hers .

She could still see the lipstick mark against his cheek, and it made everything inside her boil over, but she forced it all down, forced a lid onto the bubbling eagerness to reclaim her mates as she dragged her attention to Niko. He was sitting against the base of the couch Kalen had claimed, eyes digging hotly into her. Despite his words, he was making no effort to turn away. Kalen faced the roof, arm thrown over his eyes, body unnaturally still. Mikel had angled his armchair just slightly away, turning his eyes to the wall. The others were all watching.

She tried to will her voice to speak, but her throat was too tight, a whimper threatening at her lips instead.

Colour? She managed to burst into his head.

“In that dress?” His eyes dropped to her nipples, a low growling sound grating up from his throat. He didn’t bother to speak through the bond, or maybe he didn’t realise she had asked through the bond. “Keep it on, and I’ll stay green.”

The lid over her feelings shook, the pot threatening to bubble over. She needed one of them inside her body and she needed it now , but she held it off a moment longer, forcing her voice into all their heads.

Everyone else?

After a moment of silence, Kalen answered, “Do what you need to do.” His voice was strained and deep, a low warning riding the words that she had the impression he had tried to smother. She waited a moment longer for someone else to object and then spun to the bed. Theodore watched her with burning eyes, like he could feel the side effect as much as she could. Oscar was tightly coiled, veins pulsing in his arms as he clenched his fists, nostrils flaring. She didn’t know what her scent was doing to them, but she approved. She gathered the silk of her dress up to her thighs, and quickly straddled Oscar, facing away from him, her eyes snapping back to Moses like a magnet.

Moses swallowed, darkening gaze dropping to Oscar’s hands as they anchored to her hips. The thick hardness between her legs was an immediate balm to the pain spidering through her midsection. It slithered away as Oscar’s fingers tightened in a bruising grip, dragging her over his length, a throaty moan vibrating out of his chest. She squirmed at the way the sound seemed to shudder right through her body from her core, her hands fluttering to his strong thighs as he moved her again, back and forth, tight and fast.

“Fuck, Carter.” Oscar’s growl had her eyelids fluttering, but she forced them back open, fixed to Moses, whose mouth was open slightly, his breath sawing.

This was dangerous, what she was doing.

It wasn’t her usual game of testing their control. This time, she didn’t want them to break. She wanted them to hold strong, to take part in this like prisoners while she settled the bond, so that they could go back to normal tomorrow as though nothing had happened and no lines had been blurred.

She desperately needed them to maintain control.

Theodore’s hand slid around her waist, dragging dark silk through his fingers, and she could feel that line of danger trembling between them all. Theodore and Oscar generally didn’t play well together. She sucked in a breath as Theodore’s big hand brushed up along the bottom swell of her breasts, Oscar swearing behind her as a rush of desire spilled from her body, dampening her panties and his pants. She didn’t like the barrier between them but didn’t have time to do anything about it because Oscar was already pushing up her hips, dragging down his zipper, shoving at his pants. His rough fingers tore at her panties, tossing them from the bed.

Distantly, she realised someone had tipped forward and caught them, and she managed to tear her gaze from Moses long enough to see Gabriel twisting the abused lace between his fingers, brows dipped low in contemplation. His eyes flicked up to her as Oscar dragged her hips back down, both of them moaning as his cock brushed up along her slippery heat. There was something in Gabriel’s expression that would have given her pause if the fire inside her body wasn’t already pushing her to find the delicious friction she needed.

It wasn’t just Gabriel, she realised, taking in the others. Niko and Elijah had the same look. A warning, almost. Or a darkly whispered promise sent down the connection they had to her soul. Kilian and Cian watched her with pure, liquid heat, managing to wrangle their Alpha instincts back behind memories of them digging their claim into her body and her lips crying out their names. She wasn’t sure how long it would tide them over. They would be claiming her in the next few nights, forcing her to say their names over and over and painting her in their claim until the ragged edges of their possessiveness had been appeased.

With Niko, Gabriel, and Elijah, it was different. They were adding something to a tally, silently counting all the ways they would make her atone for this.

Mikel and Kalen were still refusing to watch, their bodies tight and stiff as stone.

She flicked her attention back to Moses, who had been watching the way the silk bunched around her hips with Oscar’s tightening grip, threatening to show him a peek with every shift of her hips, but his eyes settled back on hers when he felt her attention return to him. He seemed to understand why he was there, the centre of her attention, and he even seemed to understand why he wasn’t the one in her bed.

They all seemed to understand. Perhaps they had seen her staring at Oscar, Theodore, and Moses while she performed. Perhaps they had felt it through the bond. Whatever the reason, she hoped that understanding would extend to forgiveness as she tipped her head back, arched her back in pleasure, and moaned. Oscar was running out of patience, his grip flexing on her hips as she slipped over him, control wavering in the tight grasp. He usually would have turned them by now, spilling her to the mattress as he shoved her legs wide and stabbed into her.

Theodore seemed to be growing impatient, too, his fingers dancing around her curves, dragging the silk against her skin as she rocked on top of Oscar. He was sitting upright beside them, looming over her, his eyes a dark storm, burning and roiling as he tried to wait his turn. When Theodore’s hand finally closed over one breast, his mouth falling to her other, licking a nipple through the silk of her dress and causing a strangled sound to rip from her throat, Oscar’s patience finally snapped. He yanked up her hips and tilted his swollen head to her entrance, his girth a threatening stretch before he slammed her hips down in one motion. He growled low. Her channel was soaked enough to allow the movement, even though the shock of the sudden invasion had her shuddering and bracing her hands on his thighs.

Anyone else would have waited for her to adjust, but Oscar liked to make her hiccup in shock or wriggle with uneasiness as she wondered how far he would push her. He liked to dance along that line, and maybe that was why he was shoving himself into her with a slight edge to his movements. Because they were already in danger. They were already experimenting with explosives, having sex in a room full of territorial, unsettled Alphas. He liked it. She could tell, even though she couldn’t see his face. His noises were guttural, the song of slight fear and anxiety in her blood urging him on. He lifted her body and slammed it down to meet the sharp tilt of his hips like she weighed nothing at all, taking full control as she clung to his flexing thighs for balance, whimpering at the drag of his cock inside her, feeling like it was rubbing and stoking the fire that burned her from the inside out. It was strangely erotic to have the slide of her silk dress still covering her body and the material of Oscar’s pants still wrapping his strong legs.

“Fucker is getting off on this.” That had come from Moses, of course. Still ready with a sarcastic quip even now, with burning eyes drifting over her rosy face, heaving chest, rocking hips, and exposed thighs. There was something slightly pained in his eyes, something that rioted across his features until his eyes met hers again and he managed to tuck it away.

She wondered at that look and what it was supposed to mean, but then Theodore’s hand slipped over her taut stomach and gripped her breast again, squeezing tightly, teeth worrying his lower lip.

“Your tits are fucking divine, bouncing in this dress,” he explained, voice rough as she turned to him.

She strained toward him and his hand flashed up to capture her jaw, his lips crashing down on hers. His tongue slipped into her mouth, both of them breathing raggedly. Oscar gathered her hair into his hand, tugging her head back and forcing her to arch, her hands flying to her stomach and pressing against where she could feel him holding himself too deep inside her.

“None of that,” Oscar whispered menacingly. “He’ll get his turn. They can fucking watch.”

One of the other Alphas swore. She wasn’t sure who. It sounded a little concerned, but her bond preened at the rough claiming, her own hands cupping her heavy breasts through the dress as she ground down against Oscar. Her orgasm was right there , just out of reach, but then Oscar’s touch slid around to her clit, cruelly pinching where she was most desperate for attention, and she exploded with a broken moan, writhing on top of him and clasping herself helplessly.

Another Alpha swore, this time the sound more breathless and less cautious. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but Mikel was watching now. She knew it as surely as she knew that Kalen wasn’t watching. A dark, selfish little beast inside her insisted that she wanted all their attention, even if it pained them or caused them trouble. Even if it sent the entire dorm into chaos. Even if it snapped someone’s control. Oscar let her ride out the rest of her orgasm by grinding down on him and then suddenly, he was tipping her forward, sending her tumbling to her elbows as he rose up behind her. He flipped up her dress, the silk spilling over her spine, and gripped her ass tightly, his solid, twitching length never leaving her. Someone hissed—someone on the other side of the room, and Oscar thrust into her in earnest.

She wasn’t sure what drew Moses forward—some sort of silent invitation from Oscar over her head, or her own begging eyes as she looked up at him, but suddenly he was there, and her hand was gliding over the stiffness straining against the material of his pants. He groaned, his hands slipping into her tousled hair as she palmed him. She could feel Theodore’s eyes on her ass as he leaned back, almost like he was trying to block out Moses.

“Say thank you before I change my mind,” Oscar snarled, his hand coming down hard on her ass.

Her head jerked back on instinct, looking over her shoulder, her fingers trying to close around Moses’ cock through his pants as she clenched around Oscar. His eyes were a glittering black, his thrusts slowing slightly as their eyes met.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

His jaw clenched and he throbbed inside her. Her mate was such a contradiction, getting off on punishing her just as much as he got off on pleasing her. She smiled at him, and he breathed deeply, swelling inside her.

“Suck your fucking present before I come, Carter.” The words were expelled harshly from his chest, but she only let out a breathless laugh, high on the power she had over him, that her smile alone was enough to almost send him over the edge.

Moses flexed beneath her hand, demanding her attention, and she turned around again, her forehead pressing against his thigh as Oscar did his best to distract her from the “present” he had given her. He distracted her so well that she found herself fumbling to free Moses’ erection in a desperation, embarrassed about the breathless whimpers and moans tumbling from her lips and thickening the air in the room. Moses growled, taking over from her shaking fingers, freeing his cock and feeding it into her eager, waiting mouth. She groaned in relief, her noises quietened.

“Greedy girl.” The dark whisper slipped through the room like a slither of dark smoke, peeling into her ears and making her squirm.

It had been Mikel’s voice. Deep, velvety, and full of menace. She closed her lips around Moses as he slid to the back of her throat before pulling halfway out again to drag the tip of his cock across her tongue, back and forth, back and forth, his dark eyes fixed to her face, his grip tight in her hair. Neither of them allowed her control over her own movements, no matter how much she wiggled and squirmed. Moses was somehow keeping up a slow and deliberate pace as he fucked her mouth while Oscar’s pace quickened, even though he should have been jolting her against the other Alpha. They were both oddly in sync with their different rhythms.

When one of her hands slipped between her thighs, both Alphas seemed to vibrate with approval. Sweat dusted her skin and the fire inside her burned hotter. All memories of pain had faded away, replaced by the delicious bruising pressure of Oscar’s grip and the tightness in her chest when Moses buried himself deep in her throat, his hand drifting down to cup her neck as he held himself there and blocked off her airway. Her fingers turned slippery with arousal as she touched herself, her body beginning to bow with pleasure. She was crying when she finally came again, both of them growing jerky in their movements, Moses tugging on her hair until her watery eyes flitted up to him, his growl a feral rattle in his chest as he thickened and stilled, pushing as deep as he could and pulsing there, sending his release down her throat. As soon as he was done, Oscar released that final thread of his control, yanking her back by the hair until she was curved against his chest, her dress falling back to cover her ass.

“Lift it,” someone snarled—Elijah, she thought. She quickly pulled her dress back up, and there were several gravelled hums of sound that bounced through the room.

It wasn’t that they wanted to see Oscar pounding into her, chasing his release, she thought. It was because they didn’t want Oscar seeing something they couldn’t—not when all they could do was watch. Their possession pressed in on her from all sides, a heavy wall of it that she sensed with her Sigma power, which meant that it was twisting into a negative thing, growing too vast and ugly for them to swallow back. Oscar’s fingers found her clit, pressing and rubbing until she was gasping and clenching around him again, and then he followed her over, his teeth sinking into her neck as he grunted, cock twitching, emptying into her.

Mine , he claimed, having the good sense to say it in her head.

She writhed on him, loving the claiming, and he gave her a light slap. “Do enough of that and your golden boy will never get a turn.”

She eyed Theodore as Oscar laid back down, his hands caressing her ass as her dress fluttered down to cover where they were joined. He was still hard inside her, and she knew from the occasions where he had slipped into her bed over the last few weeks that if she stayed there any longer, he would turn three orgasms into six … especially if he was touching her ass, which he seemed to have a particular fondness for.

Theodore was laying back, one arm stretched behind his head, his eyes carefully masked, and a small, tight smirk on his face. She quickly lifted herself from Oscar’s lap, twisting to kneel on the bed between them. Almost as soon as her pussy was unoccupied, the pain returned, stronger than before. She groaned, doubling over, her arm wrapped around her stomach, the burn inside her turning feverish.

“Shit, are you okay?” Theodore asked, both he and Oscar straightening and reaching for her.

“One of you better do something about that,” Gabriel snarled. “Fucking now.”

Isobel was already moving, already reaching for Theodore, her hands gripping his shirt, tearing the buttons as she tried to pull him on top of her.

“Fuck me,” she gasped. “Hurry, please.”

He moved so fast, she didn’t even see him unzip his fly. He was on top of her in a blink, pressing one of her legs out, anchoring her bent leg to the mattress as he thrust into her. The pressure was perfect, the length of him scorching her insides, long and thick and familiar.

“You okay?” he asked, even as he pulled out and pressed himself deep again, drawing a strangled moan from her throat.

“Just don’t stop,” she begged, clutching his torn shirt.

“Fuck, Illy.” His eyes darkened, his lips tightening, his hips stuttering. He pulled back just enough to flip her over, and then he was driving into her hard and fast, sensing how she needed it.

She mewled and thrashed against the bed, gripping the tangled sheet in one fist and a soft blanket in the other, neither helping to anchor her as Theodore twisted another climax from her body, and then another, until she was limp, and he was pulsing inside her, yanking her hips up to hold himself deep, warmth washing her core.

When he pulled out of her exhausted body, it was cautiously, as though waiting for her yelp of pain, but it didn’t come. She was boneless. Exhausted—not just from the sex, but from her taxing performance, the pain of the bond side effect, and the weight of her emotions. It all crashed down on her in that moment, and she felt a real sob bubbling up her throat.

She knew one of the three Alphas she had just been with was about to scoop her up and into the shower, but she lifted her eyes to the one she needed in that moment. Kilian was already standing, already striding for her.

“Come on, baby.” He held out his arms and she weakly clamoured into them, wrapping her arms and legs around him. “The bond was mean to you tonight, hm?”

She shook with a silent sob and could feel the pain pinging at her from every direction, aching and sharp.

“It’s n-not that,” she quickly hiccupped. “Just overwhelmed.”

The needling of pain eased as they sensed the truth of her words through the bond. She picked at the heaviest thread, finding her eyes drawn to Moses, leaning back up against the door as though he’d never moved from it. She wasn’t sure where they stood, now. He gave her a tight smile. “It was just a side effect, Carter. I understand.”

She frowned, trying to figure out if there was some kind of hidden meaning in his words, but Kilian was already stealing her into the bathroom.

He stripped both of them, carrying her into the shower and sitting her on the bench inside as he fiddled with the faucet. He was half hard, his beautiful dick curving out from his thigh.

“Ignore it,” he said, following the direction of her gaze. “It’s having a hard time going down after that … performance.”

“Which one?” She grinned at him, obviously joking, but his eyes only flared.

“Both,” he rasped, before sucking in a deep breath. “Don’t worry about the others. Nobody surged. Nobody went feral. Nobody’s been castrated. Yet.”

She rolled her eyes. “I feel so much better.”

“We’re in this together,” he said sternly, catching her chin, his thumb stroking softly along her jaw. “We’ll settle the bond however we have to—it’s our bond. We share the responsibility. I promise nobody is going to hold this against you, and everything will go back to normal tomorrow.”