30

aurelie

FREEDOM.

IT WAS strange that I found it there, in that nest, in the middle of the most intense heat I'd ever experienced in my life.

It shouldn't have seemed like freedom. I was tied down to four men, now, bitten and bonded to them, quite entirely possessed in a way that people without designations never could quite experience.

And besides all that, I was subjugated to my own body. My heat had dominion over me. I must feed my insatiable sexual desires.

But they—my mates—were subjugated to it, too. We were all tied together here, all working in concert together as a unit to soothe the ragged fervor that had overtaken us.

I was in heat for nearly a week.

Everyone ended up chafed.

Every surface in the nest ended up spattered with slick and come.

We emerged, days and days later, sore and sleepy.

But we were us .

And that was freedom.

We had some moments, here and there, through the interminable haze of the heat, periods of time when we could speak or rest before waves of desire took us all by the throat again.

Moments where we all just lay in each other's arms (and legs—a tangle of limbs and beating hearts as if we'd all merged into one many-headed creature). Where Dmitri told us that he used to want to be a magician and travel the world doing illusions for audiences.

"But you've never even shown me so much as a card trick," yawned Nikolai.

"I don't know any card tricks," Dmitri laughed. His face was buried in Johannes's armpit at this point, a little muffled.

Corentin was knotted into my pussy, lying diagonally against me, his cheek on Nikolai's stomach. "He just wanted to do it so that people would clap for him."

Dmitri laughed helplessly. "Maybe?"

I reached over to touch his face, to toy with his curls. "You know we all think the world of you, don't you, Dmitri?"

"I wanted to be free," he said with a little laugh. "Everything was decided for me—who I was going to marry, what I was going to do for a profession, all these responsibilities, and none of it was even my choice, and it was the most rebellious thing I could think to do. I told my mother and she was appalled."

"You know, I always wanted to marry you," I said primly.

Dmitri groaned into Johannes's armpit. "It wasn't about that, my love. It was about—"

"She knows what it was about," said Corentin. "I was that for her."

"What?" I snorted. "No, you weren't."

He shifted a little, which made his still-hard knot move in a delicious way, and I let out a breathy noise.

"Don't do that, Corentin," Dmitri said firmly. "We all need to rest."

"I didn't do anything," said Corentin.

But we all felt Dmitri's directive like a soft blanket, encasing us in drowsy relaxation. I could tell we felt it, because it tugged on each and every one of my bites. I could feel them all, and they could feel each other, too. That was wonderful. And Dmitri was good at leading us. We needed him.

"I was exactly that, love," said Corentin, smiling lazily from where he was pillowed on Nikolai's flesh. "Your escape. Your freedom. Your rebellion."

"But not anymore," I said. "Because now we're this ."

"I never wanted to be free," said Corentin. "I was drowning in freedom. I was untethered and lost and drifting. I just wanted connection. I didn't rebel to get free, I rebelled to get someone to look at me."

"I looked at you," I said.

"I know," he said, shutting his eyes.

"Funny," said Nikolai, "how you can want things that seem like opposites, but they're the same things in the end."

We all sighed with that, as if it made sense, because it did.

But I couldn't have explained why at that point.

Later, after more sex, more knots, alpha secretions drying on my skin, the bright taste of them mingled on my tongue, later, I realized that freedom isn't about having no one and nothing.

It's about feeling free to do anything , and knowing you have the safety of love and acceptance regardless.

This was why Nikolai said that I should stop reading the comments on social media—because those people's opinions were not the opinions that mattered. And the opinions of my mates were supportive. They gave me the ability to spread my wings and to be confident, because I could trust that they would accept me, always.

That was why the pack was freedom.

For each of us.

Later, in Dmitri's lap, his knot buried in my ass, lounging spent and sweaty against his broad chest, one of his hands idly tracing the outline of my curves, he said, "About this schedule, you guys."

"Seriously?" said Johannes and hurled a pillow at him.

It hit me. "Ouch," I said.

"That didn't hurt," countered Nikolai.

"You like it, anyway," said Corentin, who was face down on the nest with Johannes knotted in his ass.

"Look," said Dmitri, "I'm not forcing this on you guys. I get it, okay? I thought that if I told everyone what to do, I'd be free, because I'd be in charge, but it's not like that. Being in charge, it's like this anchor around my neck, weighing me down. There's freedom in surrender."

"So, why even bring it up?" said Nikolai.

"What if we fight?" said Dmitri. "What if we get jealous and possessive? What if these bites, it's not a cure-all, what if after she's not in heat and we're not all focused single-mindedly on pleasing her—"

"The schedule does not solve any of those problems," muttered Corentin.

"I think it's just about connections," said Johannes. "We're, you know, all in love with each other, so, it won't be like that."

I smiled, feeling the way that washed through the marks on my chest.

Suddenly, they were all moving forward, even Johannes and Corentin, even though they were connected, and then they were all there, licking their bites, and I was writhing and sighing into them, and we were all kissing each other and everyone was saying it, lots of murmured hasty words into each other's lips.

I love you I love you fuck I love you all so much I didn't even know I could feel this kind of love

"We'll still fight," I said. "You fight with people you love, but you can , because you have the freedom to fight with them, because you know you're safe with them, because you know they'll always be there, because you have each other. Always."