5. Dear Pervert

They lounged around Mikel’s office, silence permeating the room. They were all exhausted, talked out, and still a little shellshocked. Nobody had been expecting to hear that Charlie had died, and they were already on edge after the vision of Cian’s childhood from that afternoon.

There was an immense relief hanging about the room that they finally had a modicum of privacy back and that their safety seemed secure for the time being, but that relief felt dirty—like something they had stolen, or like they had traded the horrible events of the afternoon for it. It was hard to shake the feeling that they were expected to live in the shadow of trauma and hardship and that anything else was wrong or forbidden.

“I really fucking hope the bond doesn’t do me next,” Gabriel muttered from behind the rim of his glass. The statement came out of nowhere.

They were all drinking. It had been that kind of day.

The others didn’t laugh, and Isobel was pretty sure it wasn’t a joke.

She also hoped she wasn’t next.

“We were so careful,” Mikel murmured, apparently still thinking about Charlie as he stared into his glass, swirling the dark-red liquid around. They were drinking wine out of fancy whiskey glasses because that was all he had in his office.

They fell into silence again, and Isobel took a deep swallow of the rich, fragrant wine, trying her best to numb her frayed nerves. She was halfway through her third glass—because to hell with that two-drink clause—when her phone vibrated, and she had to blink a few times to focus on the screen.

Cooper: Your first dance in the Dahlia Room is in two nights. Have you finished the choreography? I need to approve it.

She groaned, her head falling back against the seat of the couch behind her, right between Kilian’s legs. She was stretched out along the floor, Theodore beside her, his arm thrown over his eyes. He could have been asleep for all she knew, but he moved his arm as they all glanced at her.

“I have to show Cooper my choreography,” she whined. “For the performance on Friday.”

“What have you got so far?” Mikel asked, still staring into his glass.

“I’ll show you.” She jumped up and stumbled over to the oak coffee table, stepping onto it and taking another sip of wine.

Moses, who was leaning against the wall beside the door, motioned to her glass. “You wanna put that down first?”

“Um.” She thought about it. “No. So anyway, I’ll start like this. No, like this. No …” She laughed, clicking her fingers. “That’s right. I don’t have a dance yet. I don’t do ‘provocative and entertaining, sensual but tasteful,’” she mocked, imitating Yulia’s accented voice. She flipped an imaginary, sleek ponytail over her shoulder for extra effect. Kalen smirked, and that was everything she needed because he was the one Yulia had been devouring with her thieving eyes.

Moses burst into laughter.

“Thieving eyes?” Theodore taunted from the floor, his teeth flashing in a brief show of humour.

“What?” She glanced around the room. “Did I say that out loud?”

“Didn’t you?” Cian looked confused.

“I don’t think so?” She froze, her hand gripping the whiskey glass even harder.

First Cian’s memory, and now … they were hearing her thoughts again?

“Oh boy,” Oscar groaned. “Please don’t think about Kalen’s dick again.”

“ Why would you bring that up right now ?” she seethed, spinning rapidly to face the dark-eyed agent of chaos. He was sitting against Mikel’s now-empty liquor cabinet with Niko, who was wincing as he stared at her feet, his entire body tensed like he thought she was about to topple off the table. “Why am I having side effects again?” she demanded. “We completed the bond.”

They were suddenly all very interested in their glasses.

It was Kalen who finally spoke up.

“We think Eve permanently damaged the bond. With Niko separated from us, taking on all the pain and trauma, the bond was almost perfect, like cutting off a dying limb to preserve the body. When he was brought back into the fold, he brought the poison back with him. So to speak.”

“H-how can you tell?” She frowned, glancing between Niko and Kalen.

“We can all feel it,” Kalen told her, approaching the coffee table. He held his hand out.

She guessed she was making them all nervous.

She didn’t take his hand, choosing to frown at him instead. “I can’t feel anything.”

“We didn’t want you to, so we somehow cut you off from it, just like how Niko did when the bond was damaged.”

“That’s not fair.” She folded her arms, glaring at him. Even standing on the coffee table, she still couldn’t look down on him. The low table just made them almost the same height.

“Ten against one says it is.” Moses sounded far too nonchalant.

“Can you all still hear my thoughts?” she asked.

Kalen nodded.

She imagined flicking Moses on the nose. In her imagination, she was standing on a bigger coffee table, so she was taller than him.

It was very emasculating.

Kilian spluttered out a laugh. Kalen’s warm, amber eyes shone in amusement, but he was too mature to laugh. So she imagined flicking him on the nose as well, just to knock him down a peg or two.

He dropped his hand, arching a calm, challenging brow at her, some of his influence briefly brushing up against her like a tiny swell of power that he quickly worked to rein back in. “If you won’t come down, then show us what you have so far. We can help.”

She gave him the finger. “This is what I have so far.”

“You’re pushing it, princess.”

She grinned, taking another swig of wine. It was so much better to be drunk than sad and afraid. They should do this every night. Or at least once a week. Wine party Wednesdays.

“We literally just signed a legal contract promising not to have more than two drinks at a time,” Gabriel drawled, though he was watching her with a tinge of amusement—though a tinge of anything was an absolute outpouring of emotion for him.

“Hey,” he protested. “I’m very expressive.” This was said with a completely blank face.

“How long is this going to last?” She groaned, knocking her fist against her head. “I’ll take requests,” she decided. “We can decide the dance that way.” She spun to face Cian, who was slumped back into the couch beside Kilian, his tattooed arms folded behind his head. “You first. Because trauma.”

“Hey,” Moses protested. “I have trauma.”

She imagined flicking him in the forehead.

“Do it one more time,” he threatened.

“Do what?” She played dumb, still facing Cian, who chuckled.

“Since you’re taking requests,” Cian drawled, his tone low.

Kilian shoved him before he could finish the sentence. “Don’t even.”

Cian hid his smile behind his hand as he rubbed along his mouth. “What, now you can hear my thoughts too?”

“We don’t need powers for that.” Kilian rolled his eyes.

“Fine.” Cian bit his lip, folding his arms behind his head again. “How about I pick the song, will that help?”

“Yeah!” Isobel gave him a thumbs-up, trying to drain the rest of her glass. It was empty. Disappointing.

Kalen cooly snatched it from her hand before returning to lean against the desk beside Mikel.

“Provocative and entertaining,” she muttered to herself as Cian scrolled through his playlist. “Sensual, but tasteful.” Like Kilian.

“Why, thank you.” Kilian smirked at her.

She waved him off, trying to focus. “Okay, I’ve got this.”

Cian started a song. She had no idea what it was, and she decided to try a spin, just to test how drunk she was before she started dancing. She wasn’t sure what went wrong, but she was suddenly tilting sideways, two strong arms catching her and smacking her against a broad, muscled chest hard enough to bruise.

“ Umph ,” she puffed out, clutching the shirt of the Alpha, who had apparently caught her mid-fall.

Niko.

“Damn, you’re fast,” she said, shocked.

“Damn, you’re drunk.” He set her on her feet, his hands anchored to her hips. His grip flexed before he released her, stumbling back to the cabinet and falling to the ground again.

He looked pretty drunk himself.

“Can confirm,” he drawled, picking up his glass to salute her.

She tried to salute him back, but realised her hand was empty. She tucked her hand behind her back. They probably didn’t see it.

“We saw,” Theodore countered.

She stalked over to him and flicked him in the head. He grabbed her wrist, and she stared at his long fingers wrapping her pale skin.

“Why would I imagine you catching me?” she complained.

“How are you this drunk from three glasses?” He peered into her face, tugging her a step closer.

“This has happened before.” Gabriel sounded like he was wincing, even though she couldn’t see his face since he and Elijah sat on the couches behind her. “Last time we all drank, she seemed to take on our inebriation.”

Theodore’s eyes had trailed from her face, his grip on her wrist slackening, his attention fixing to the hem of her dress, which he probably had a straight view up from his position on the floor.

“Oops, sorry.” She scooted back, smoothing down the material, which was a thick, ribbed cotton, so there was nothing to smooth. It was just a comfortable, lounge-around dress she had pulled on after her shower.

She returned to the coffee table and stepped back up, causing Niko to groan in frustration.

“It was so much easier to swing from some ropes.” She toed the table’s wooden surface with her socked feet, pouting and ignoring Niko. The slippery socks probably weren’t helping their nerves.

“I would argue it was harder,” Kalen murmured.

“Please don’t bring up your dick while we’re still in her head,” Moses griped.

Isobel ignored them because her phone had vibrated again. Cooper had sent her a link to a video.

Cooper: How about something like this?

“Why is that fuck texting you at midnight?” Oscar demanded roughly.

“Because we’re still in a ‘meeting,’” Elijah returned, though he also sounded pissed off. “So he knows she’s still awake.”

The video was a pole dance. There was nothing “sensual but tasteful” about it, though it had the provocative part down. Oscar was making a scary sound in the back of his throat. Isobel ignored them and all their alpha-ness as she studied the video with a frown. Physically , she could do it, but it was a little too restrictive for her tastes. There were only so many moves you could do on a pole.

“Don’t even think about it,” Oscar snapped. “You’re not grinding on a pole for that disgusting pervert.”

“It would be easier to think with wine,” she said, eyeing the bottle on Mikel’s desk. He shifted his position, blocking it from view.

She imagined flicking his cheek.

His hand flexed around his drink, and she quickly looked away. Except now she was staring at Oscar, and he had murder screaming from the depths of his dark eyes.

She swallowed again. “Jeez, okay, I’ll text him and tell him no.”

She tapped out a quick message.

“You sent that to me,” Cian stated dryly. “And you misspelled ‘asshole.’”

“She called Cooper an asshole?” Kilian sat up straighter.

Cian lifted his phone and read the message out loud. “Dear Pervent, the ashholes said I’m not allowed, but even if I was, I’d rather you shove that pole somewhere not sensual or tasteful.”

“Let’s just …” Kilian jumped up and plucked the phone out of her hand. “You can have this back later.” He slipped it into his pocket and returned to the couch.

Isobel folded her arms, scrunching up her face. “Anything else you all want to confiscate?”

“I can think of something,” Theodore rumbled, staring at the hem of her dress again, like he was still thinking about the peek he had gotten before.

She considered giving him another one.

He made a strangled sound in the back of his throat, his eyes dripping with heat.

“And you can stop that right the fuck now,” Moses snapped, his eyes darkening with fury, his voice taking on a sharp, unsteady edge.

Whoa .

She held up her hands to him because even in her inebriated state, she knew that look. She hadn’t seen it for a while, though, so it was confusing to have the hints of his ferality suddenly surging to the surface. She had thought he was gaining more control over it.

“I thought so too,” he gravelled out. “But it turns out it was just the settled bond—which is no longer fucking settled.”

“Shit.” She jumped down from the table, shifting from foot to foot, unsure what to do. “Sorry.”

“For what?” He dragged his hands down his face, forcing his chest to move with measured breaths. “You didn’t drag us into your head. We all know you’re fucking Theo. You guys aren’t quiet or discreet.”

“I thought we agreed it was my decision who I was intimate with,” she snapped, feeling the heat of shame briefly brush her cheeks.

“I figured you’d have meek, quiet Sigma sex.” He narrowed his eyes on her, seemingly regaining control of himself.

“Liar.” She glared back at him and then deliberately recalled the time he and Cian had pulled her into a classroom supply closet, where Moses himself had almost fucked her, before driving into the back of her throat to come.

“Oh my god, my eyes,” Theodore wailed, rolling onto his front and banging his head against the floor, punctuating each knock of his forehead with a muffled shout. “WHAT. THE. FUCK!”

Oscar strode over to the desk and snatched up the wine bottle, his hands shaking as he tipped it to his mouth, drowning what was left.

“I’m going for a run,” he announced, storming out of the room.

Mikel and Kalen were blank faced, but the rest of them looked like they wanted to tear out their own eyeballs.

Except for Moses and Cian. Cian’s eyes were heavy-lidded, his tongue poking out to play with his lip piercing. All the fight had drained out of Moses and a new heat was flaring to life, his throat working, his jaw clenched. He looked like he was about to toss her over his shoulder and drag her off to his room where they could finish their battle of wills.

“I’m considering it,” he rasped.

“Let’s call it,” Elijah suggested. “We’ve had too much to drink, and we have to be up in six hours.”

Isobel blinked, swivelling her head from side to side like she needed to shake out of a trance. She looked woefully at the empty wine bottle on Mikel’s desk before releasing a mournful, dramatic sigh. “I guess a wine party has to end when there’s no wine left.”

“Why don’t you leave first, Carter?” Mikel was suddenly beside her, steering her to the door, his hand hot against the curve of her spine. “I need a quick word with the others.”

“I thought I was the one stopping them from going feral,” she whispered to him beneath her breath. “I thought I was controlling it all with my ability. I thought I was getting stronger. Now I feel dumb.”

He paused at the door, and even though his fingers were light against her spine, the heat from his palm was spearing through her dress. “You help more than you know.”

She thumped her forehead against the door. It was nice and cool. Maybe she should just rest there for a little while. Mikel suddenly flattened his hand properly to her spine, the pressure of it amazing. Because of their morning sessions, her muscles twitched, automatically expecting him to work out their kinks, and she pressed back a little, waiting for his magic fingers to go to work.

“Go to bed, pet.” The words were whispered against her hairline. “Before you get yourself into trouble.”

“I’ll flick you,” she threatened feebly.

His hand flashed up, gathering her hair into a ponytail and tugging her head from the door, and back, and back, until she could see the silent, stony command in his mismatched eyes. She swallowed hard, and then squeaked, “Goodnight.”

He released her immediately and she raced off to her room.

Oscar ran until he was soaked through with sweat, ignoring the barrage of notifications that began to blow up his phone until he was almost home. He pulled the device from his pocket, breathing hard, and swiped into the string of messages. It was the group chat without Isobel. He frowned, scrolling back to the start of the drama.

Kilian: Fuck.

Kilian: She doesn’t know we’re still in her head.

Kilian: And I still have her phone.

Kilian: Someone has to tell her.

Oscar frowned harder. He hadn’t realised they were all still in her head—he had been freed from that torture after running some distance from the dorm, but now that he was climbing back up the hill, he could definitely feel something niggling at his brain, trying to get back inside.

Kilian: She’s going to be so embarrassed.

Kilian: Guys?

Kilian: STOP WATCHING.

Oscar froze, the phone clattering out of his hand as image after image assaulted his mind. Pale, wet skin. Short, sharp breaths. Water droplets on pretty pink nipples, painted nails dragging over skin. Pleasure. Guilt. Sadness. Dizziness.

At some point, hearing her thoughts had turned into simply seeing what she was seeing, and now the little Sigma was touching herself in the shower, trying to distract herself from the hellish day she had endured.

He groaned, snatching his phone back up and trying to read the rest of the messages, doing his best to block out the images.

Kalen (admin): Just stop fucking watching.

Moses: Can’t tell her. She’ll freak out.

Niko: Let’s just pretend it never happened.

Kilian: I’m going to pull the fire alarm.

Oscar felt dizzy. He groaned, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes before texting the group.

Oscar: Don’t bother. I’ll go knock on the door and say some asshole thing and put her right out of the mood.

He tucked his phone away, not waiting for a reply, and stormed into her room, knocking on the bathroom door. Now that he was there, he realised he didn’t have a single thing to say, and it was too hard to think of anything while fighting back images of her touching herself, so he did the next best thing and barged inside.

Isobel screamed, whipping around and falling against the wall of the shower before creeping to the opening and peeking out, her heart pounding in her chest.

Oscar stood in the middle of her bathroom, releasing a loud groan of relief. “All you needed was the shit scared out of you,” he said, looking right at her.

Her mouth was opening and closing, the edge of her orgasm ebbing away. This was exactly what she deserved for trying to distract herself from stress and misery for a single evening. A ruined orgasm, a heart attack, and a stubbed toe.

“W-what?” she stuttered.

“We were seeing everything you were seeing,” Oscar told her, pulling out his phone and sending a text before tossing it to the counter. And then he kicked off his shoes. “It’s over now.” He dragged his shirt over his head.

She just stared.

Heart still pounding.

Toe still aching.

Body still screaming for the release he had ripped out of her grip.

“What are you doing?” she asked dumbly because she couldn’t quite compute the truck-sized wall of embarrassment that had just slammed into her.

She was never leaving her room again.

“Saving time,” he said roughly, dropping his shirt to the floor and ripping off his socks. “I would demand you undress me, but it’ll take you too long with how badly you’re shaking.”

She was momentarily hypnotised by the ridges of sweat-slicked muscles he was revealing, so she still hadn’t absorbed his words, even as he shoved his workout pants down his legs, revealing his cock, heavy and swollen. He was beautiful , and his penis was no less fascinating—long and thick, a darkly blushing head and thick, prominent veins, a drop of moisture already forming at the tip.

“Y-you must really like running,” she squeaked, unable to tear her eyes away.

His erection twitched, and he gripped it, apparently enjoying the attention. He stalked toward her.

She backed away immediately, but he only followed, step by step, until her back was against the wet, tiled wall and he was stabbing into her stomach. He gripped her waist and dragged her up the wall like she weighed nothing.

From the moment he entered the bathroom, it felt like his stare hadn’t dropped from hers, but it did now, dragging down over her wet skin, following the droplets of water that clung to her nipples. He leaned back slightly, his gaze dropping between her legs before he hiked her up higher, his head falling to hers.

“I need you,” he groaned, the roughness of his voice gaining a desperate edge. “I’m going to claw out my skin if I don’t have you.”

There was something wrong .

She knew it, but just as it had been all day, the strange tension danced just out of the reach of her comprehension. It was like a ringing sound in the distance, the register so high she was constantly second-guessing it.

Oscar’s lips crashed over hers, his tongue thrusting into her mouth. The sudden, forceful movement ripped a surprised groan from her throat. He tasted like wine and sweet, smoky nectar.

“You’re so fucking cute , it makes me sick,” he growled, palming her ass and squeezing, rocking his hardness against her until she was squirming and panting, trying to get more friction.

“You don’t f—” She broke off on a moan as his lips latched onto her nipple, sucking roughly “—feel sick.”

To reach her breast, he had pulled her up high enough that the tip of him was straining for the heat of her sex, notched into her warm, welcoming entrance like he had been fucking her for years, and their bodies knew exactly how to come together.

He didn’t push forward, and he kneaded her ass, grinding her over his swollen head as she marvelled at their bodies moulding together like puzzle pieces despite their height and size difference. She felt like a magnet, her other half snapping into place, and when he paused for the barest second, pulling his head back to stare at her lips, she mouthed the word he needed to hear.

“ Green .”

She mouthed it because her voice was lost. Her mind was lost.

He fed himself into her. She was already soaked from her earlier ministrations, but he still had to inch into her, his mouth falling over hers with every one of her hitched breaths or whimpers, like he needed to taste them. Halfway into her, he paused to breathe, like he needed a break. Like he was struggling for control.

“You’re so tight.” He groaned, voice low and rough. “I just want to force my way in. I want you bent and b-broken …” He trailed off when she clenched around him, sucking in a sharp breath. She wasn’t used to hearing Oscar stutter.

“I want to be so deep inside you, you won’t be able to breathe for days without thinking about how I filled you, fucked you, forced my way inside you.”

He drove in another inch, pulling back, his dark eyes catching hers. She loved feeling him flexing inside her, trying to push all the way in. She loved the way he was holding her up against the wall like he didn’t even notice how much she weighed. It felt like he could keep her up there for hours while he took everything he needed from her body.

But more than anything, she loved the tiniest glimmer of unsteadiness in his eyes. She liked that she had been the one to tip this powerful Alpha past the point of his own control. Even though Oscar wasn’t typically a man she associated with good self-control, he had displayed it to her in spades when it came to the physical aspect of their relationship. She was a little scared of the ramifications, but if these were the only consequences of Oscar losing control, then she would welcome them again and again until she couldn’t stand anymore, and then she would ask him to hold her up again just like he was doing now and force his way inside her one more time.

“You’re mine,” Oscar snarled, suddenly shoving all the way into her and slapping her back against the wall. He paused as she hiccupped in shock, kissing her lips until they felt bruised, and she was desperately squirming for him to move.

“Mine,” he repeated, nudging her head back. He licked her neck, pulling out and stabbing into her in another brutal movement. “Mine,” he growled, gripping her thighs so tightly she felt a pinch of pain.

She liked it, but that ringing was getting louder.

She could hear it through a tunnel now. A tunnel that connected her and Oscar. She tried to say something, but he suddenly pulled out of her and carried her away from the wall, turning off the shower and snatching up a towel. He picked her up, wrapping her legs back around his waist as he stalked back into her room. He haphazardly flicked out the towel over her bed and fell back onto it, sitting her upright on his lap, his cock trapped between them.