Chapter 9

They left Beau behind, though Devin peered over Rey’s shoulder as they left the office to see the tightening of the thin skin around Beau’s pale eyes, the twitch at the corner of his lips.

He expected an invitation.

Devin hid her frown against Rey’s neck, not wanting to start a fight. Not yet. This was… too much. It’d been overwhelming enough before, but the thought of both of them now that she was Rey’s mate soured something within her. She believed Beau cared for Rey, that they had something very real before she showed up on their dance floor. It was just as Rey had said, though. That was then, this was now.

“I know you were scared, sweetheart. What did he do,” Rey asked as he took her out into the frigid night.

Autumn was coming fast, the heat of day vanishing by the time the sun went down. She’d need to ask Rey for a real coat if she was going to be dragged everywhere with him. This nonsense of wearing his clothes was becoming tiresome.

Taking a deep breath, Devin gave her head a terse shake to gather her rambling thoughts and leaned back as Rey settled her into the passenger seat. Fingers running down his arm as he latched her belt, she allowed herself to feel a morsel of pleasure. “It scared me when I woke up and you weren’t there. I… I thought maybe you had… Maybe you got tired of me or, I don’t know, loaned me out.”

“You are mine,” Rey roared in hushed tones, inches from her face. His hands began to grab, pulling at the loose folds of his shirt around her. Baring her body to his gaze, he started to climb in after her.

“Rey! Please, not in a Gods’ damned parking lot,” Devin hissed, slapping at his shoulder when he shoved the seat back as far as it would go, and still there wasn’t enough room for all of him. “You let him do that to me, and I didn’t know what was going on, okay? I was scared that everything had changed again. Do you not get that? I like order and routine. I need things to be clear and everything since I stepped through those damned doors has been anything but!”

He’d paused during her tirade, too close for comfort but coming no further. Kneading at the swell of her hip, he considered her for a long moment before tugging the shirt back into place. He said nothing as he closed her door and got in on the driver’s side. The silence stretched in gooey strands as he pulled onto the street.

“Did you hate it,” he asked as they rounded a turn that sent his features into darkness. Hiding his expression from her, he gave no clues for the answer he expected of her.

“In the moment? Not after it all started. Now? I don’t know.”

“Do you hate him?”

“He loves you.” And there was the thing that grated at her. No matter what Beau said about Rey’s feelings for him, it was his love of Rey that bothered her most. All of that Alpha jealousy and protectiveness Rey heaped upon her shoulders was no different from what Beau felt for Rey.

“That isn’t what I asked.” Rey’s hand found her thigh, fingers digging deep as if he could squeeze the answer from her.

“He brutalized me. Hurt me, beat me, raped me. He let others do much of the same—”

“Stop.”

“You said you wanted an answer! Make up your mind.”

“I need you to tell me if he needs to be dealt with, Devin.”

Devin’s breath died in her chest. Nothing dared to even twitch as she played his words over and over in her mind. He’d called her by name, something he hadn’t done in far too long unless he was furious with her. A cautious touch to the fiery snake ensnaring her heart, and she let the held breath out in a hard puff.

A wealth of sensation and emotions crushed her under their weight, flooding her every sense until she scrambled for some physical handhold in the riptide of otherness. Rey’s hand caught hers, dragging Devin across the console until she was curled up tight between him and the steering wheel. Purring so loud the windows rattled, he clamped an arm around her to push that glorious sound into her body.

“Shh, sweetheart. It’s all right.”

“No, no, no,” Devin hissed through gritted teeth as fire licked at the base of her skull, twining around her spine until it pulled into a painful arch. It was too much, searing away layers of thought and flesh with wild, unrestrained glee. It ripped her apart from the inside out, decimating mere things as a sense of self. Clawing its way free of her chest, shattering ribs and gouging out her heart.

“Stop fighting it,” Rey snarled against her cheek, slamming on the brakes after jumping the curb. Both arms now around her, he tightened his hold. Crushing her into the deep resonance of his purr, trying to calm and soothe as the frenzy consumed her.

She wanted it. Needed it. It was the only thing holding her together as everything splintered into glittering shards. Slicing her open, flaying her alive as the intensity of him flooded through her. Devin sobbed as she writhed in his implacable hold. She twisted so she straddled him, legs jammed at awkward angles against the car as she settled on his thighs.

“Fuck, sweetheart,” Rey ground out from deep in his throat, though he helped her with the zipper on his pants, tugging his cock free for her.

Devin sat hard on him, head slamming back against the visor as the punishing length of him went too deep, too fast. Unable to stop as the cascade of sensations crashed together. She didn’t know what was her and what was him. Couldn’t extricate herself from the molten tide of Rey as the bond burrowed deeper than ever. Gnashing at her very soul, it sought to destroy her. Complete and utter decimation.

Screaming, she lunged forward, ripping his shirt away. The urge was primal. A dark and wet hunger that gleamed crimson with the shimmering layers of society stripped away. Without thought, she sunk her teeth deep into the stretch of flesh where neck and shoulder met. Her bite melted through the bulging muscle, blood flowing over her tongue and lips. It smeared between their bodies as Rey roared beneath her. Grabbing her hips, he worked her up and down his cock. Setting a brutal rhythm neither of them could withstand for long. He bucked up into her once, twice. The knot growing huge as he ground it deep inside of her.

Devin shrieked and jostled as overwrought nerves exploded. The strange, new sensations compounded the violent pleasure she could never have prepared for as she felt every thick surge wringing his spine. Squeezing him tight, she felt it all through him even as her own body convulsed with every desperate twist of muscle. The rippling contractions of her pussy pulling at the pulsating knot, the almost painful sensation as his come bathed her insides.

The snake twisted deeper, bathing her in fire and agonizing bliss as it lashed at her insides. It was different now. It didn’t seek to rend and tear. Knitting the fractured pieces of her soul back together, it sought to mend. The delicate golden warmth a tight seam over the shattered expanses of her mind. Binding him to her. Claiming the Alpha as hers.

Breaths ragged as he hit the ignition for the car, Rey eased back out onto the street. Both groaned as the car dipped and swayed as he came off the curb. One hand clutching her back, holding Devin to him as she gripped him with her teeth, he drove.

It seemed too long before Rey pulled into a dark drive surrounded by tall hedges and an abundance of flowers. Tearing her mouth free from his shoulder, she swallowed the thick taste of copper and earthy darkness before smearing it over her lips and chin with the back of her wrist.

“Where are we?”

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Rey said, quiet and calm as he climbed from the car with Devin still locked tight to him. The knot had yet to abate all through the lengthy trek, each feeding their need to the other. Joined in body and so much more, it refused to lessen.

Each slow stride bounced her against him so that she was breathless by the time Rey gained the door. A set of keys opened the locks, letting them inside the echoing foyer. Supporting her with one arm, helping her to grind his knot deeper with the helpless twitch of her hips, Rey went down a long hall to a bedroom bathed in shadows.

“Rey?” Devin whined low in her throat, her lips searching out the heady taste of him. Lapping at the thick rivulets of blood until her mouth covered the bite once more. It offered comfort and control as the world around her tried to work its way in, to drive away the intoxicating warmth.

“I was going to show it to you after I had it decorated, but…” Rey inhaled sharply, bringing his other hand to her hip. Bouncing her hard on his cock, he tugged the knot with a violence that had Devin crying out in pleasured agony. “I can’t do this in the apartment. Fuck, you don’t even know how dangerous you are, girl.”

With a throaty moan, Rey fell on to the bed, and it was only his crushing hold that kept the knot from tearing free. Rolling her under his weight, he ripped at the shirt that had fallen open long ago, baring every inch of her to his hungry gaze and ravenous hands. He wasn’t satisfied until they were both naked, bodies slick with sweat and his blood. His hands drawing her mouth to the ravaged patch of skin again and again, urging Devin to bite deeper.

It was as if she was in heat again. Neither could get enough, their shifting bodies coming together, his dark rumbles soaring through the empty rooms with her shrill cries and primal screams. It was so much more than anything that had come before it. Devin felt him all around her, cradling her heart in his strong, capable hands as his body moved over her with the fierce determination of an Alpha in his prime. Felt the trembling beat of his heart within her palms, deep inside of her where it made no sense. Something to handle with delicate care, the throbbing muscle not half as hardened as he would pretend it to be.

Dawn’s delicate light caressed the strange place he’d brought her to before they fell into the bare mattress, exhausted and sated. Devin’s head ached with a cruel, malignant thing jack hammering at the back of her eyes, but the swell of heat inside her chest assured safety as Rey arranged her limp body alongside his. The strange smells and the lack of a nest meant little as his arms caged her in against his strength. A wealth of promises blooming under her heart, suffusing her with the heat of a summer breeze as she let her lids drift shut on a contented hum.

* * *

Devin groaned as she shifted her sore body. The tacky pull at her cheek forced her to peel her face away from the soft weave of the bed. Bleary gaze tripping around her limited field of view, she saw brilliant streaks of crimson mixing with cloudy smears of come. His. Hers. Theirs.

Nothing registered as wrong for several long moments as she dragged her arm up, fingers gliding over the thick muscles encased in dark ochre skin to play with his hair. Noting every welt, every scratch she’d marked him with. The deep bites that matched the diminutive circle of her teeth. She liked the way he wore her pleasure. Devin also decided he needed a haircut, this too long length reminding her of the sultry heroes on the covers of the romance novels she used to indulge in. A smirk tugged at her lips, dying before it could turn into a true smile.

Cold rushed through her, twisting her stomach into knots before it curled tight around her chest. Draining every last vestige of warmth from her as she viewed his profile, serene and calm in the depths of sleep. Devin knew it was nothing more than the deep slumber of exhaustion, tangled memories of the intense sex they’d shared tumbling through her thoughts. His broad chest rose and fell with the evenness of his breaths.

What was wrong was the savage bite on his shoulder.

Her stomach dropped into a churning sea of ice. Pulling her double over the horrifying sensation as her blood ran cold, freezing her from the inside out. The ever-present warmth of Rey residing in her chest doused under a glacial wave.

That couldn’t be.

It was there, red and angry looking. Shaped to her mouth, just as the other bites littering his rich skin.

She felt him coming awake before his eyes snapped open. Heard the hammering of his heart, felt it slamming against the back of her ribs, a far too delicate thing to contain such power. Devin couldn’t even scream as he grabbed her, dragging her across the bed to huddle within his shadow as he crouched over her.

Eyes glittering with the depths of his rage, he scanned the room. Searching for what outside force dared to threaten his mate. When he realized no one else was within the echoing emptiness of the house, his brows knit as he turned to her. Rey didn’t understand why she flinched, the desperate note of her whine as he hauled her body against his. Devin felt his annoyance, the first hints of his anger, when she twisted away from the firm prodding of his cock against her hip.

Plunged into the unnerving cold, her every sense became mangled. A chaos of after images and ghostly touches. Smelling her sweetness with so much more nuance than she’d ever perceived it. Devin felt his touch twice, the firm pressure a chilling tingle long after his fingers curled over her wrist.

Shaking her head, Devin tried to pull away. Lurching back across the bed to put space between their bodies. The unnatural thrill of a need to chase zipped up her spine, wrenching a scream from deep within. An explosion of sparkling panic infused with the rich darkness of concern.

“Stop! Get away from me,” Devin shrieked as she tumbled off the side of the bed. She didn’t feel the bone-jarring thud as her head bounced against the floorboards, consumed with the constricting twist of a shirt wound around Rey’s ankle. She felt it as if it was on her own leg. Kicking and clawing at unburdened flesh did nothing to bring the misfiring of synapses to a stop.

“You’re all right, sweetheart,” Rey managed to get out in a rasping growl.

He prowled to edge of the bed, wavering as he watched Devin scramble across the smooth wood. Torn between giving her the space she cried out for and the instinctual need to drive that same fear from her.

“How do I know that?” Devin screamed, fisting her hair at the sides of her head. She yanked at the silken clumps, trying to tear the knowledge from her thoughts.

Decision made, he pounced. There was nothing stealthy about the way he vaulted from the bed, stalking strides bringing him to her before Devin could get her knees under her. Rey landed hard on her, knocking the breath from her lungs. Encasing her in the implacable strength of his limbs, his purr was loud, the perfect resonance, but it was too much. It slammed around her skull, bruising her quivering heart as he poured his molten heat deep inside her. Rey refused to give her even the idea of space. The full length of his body moved against hers. Grinding his scent into her. Grounding Devin as everything shattered and remade itself, only to break apart all over again.

It was the taste of his blood on her tongue, the virulent agony at her shoulder that brought her back from the edge of some black abyss.

A never-ending circuit seared its way through her, into him, and back. Both of them feeding it, making it grow in liquid surges until it spiraled high into the cold blackness of her turmoil. Lighting up her world with white-hot brilliance. Rey held her through it all. Purring for her, murmuring quiet words of encouragement as Devin shrieked and bucked beneath the onslaught. Praising her as she gulped down ragged breaths and fell into him.

Draped over his arm, Devin was boneless as her eyes strained to focus. The ghostly after images lessened, a hint of blurring color at the edges of everything that taunted her, but tolerable. While she felt his touch in ways she couldn’t understand, it didn’t crawl through her insides.

Each shift of his body made her tense. Terror at what would come if he let her go for even an instant, bringing her hands to his arms, clawing at his shoulders. Clutching him to her as if that frail grip alone could keep him there.

“Breathe through it, sweetheart.”

The distant rumble of his voice filtered through the chaos, a golden strand that she wound in her hands. Using it to drag herself back to him and all the vicious protection he offered. He would keep her safe. Keep all this hell from swallowing her up, if she just held on a little tighter.

“It’s harder on Omegas,” he whispered with a rough swipe of his palm down her back, the hard touch divine as it left no confusion in its wake. “You take too much of it, open yourself up too much.”

Whatever else he might have said became lost under her rattling growl. Tension clawed its way up her back. The patronizing shit, acting like her dynamic was so weak. Rage, pure and crimson, burst through her fingers. Coating her thoughts in violence and visions of blood as she bared her teeth at the hazy ether. Vision gone gray, clouded with too much information, she closed her eyes again and tried not to focus on the otherness continuing to invade her.

“Gods, you are beautiful,” Rey groaned against her neck, lowering her to the cold floor. Quick to warm her with his body, he nudged her thighs to open them. He dared to laugh when she didn’t spread for him, her muscles trembling to keep them tight together.

Not to be denied, he put more pressure on his knee. Prying her legs apart to his advances with ease despite his care not to hurt her. He smiled wide, showing her the white of his teeth as he pulled back.

“I don’t want to fuck,” Devin snarled, action preceding thought by a mile as the flat of her hand connected with the hard plane of his cheek.

She blinked once. Twice. Disbelief scrawled over his angular features, even the aquiline slope of his nose seeming perturbed. Rey did nothing for a long span of her careening heartbeats. As if she could make it better, she brushed the backs of her fingers against the pinkened skin, soothing away any imaginary sting. She marveled at the glorious roughness of his stubble, distracted by the almost leathery texture of the skin beneath it. Good leather, the expensive stuff, but not soft like hers.

“Gods,” she groaned and pulled herself up to him, mouth closing over the tensed line of his neck. Savoring the difference there, her tongue played over his flesh as if she could map out every inch of him by taste alone.

“You are…” Rey trailed off with a grunt. Curling his palms beneath her thighs, he pulled her up and guided her legs around his hips while instincts brought her arms to his neck. Secured against the gorgeous strength of him, he carried her back to the bed.

His dissatisfaction speared through her, stabbing into her belly. Her whine crawled over his skin, her arms strangling him as she tried to make it go away. Rey didn’t even try to dislodge her. Supporting her with an arm under her ass, he searched for his abandoned slacks, fishing through the pockets for his phone. The low murmur of his voice resonated against her ear, but she was too far gone in the change in his scent. Spicier somehow, smoky undercurrents layered the rich decadence of him.

Rey sprawled on the bed with unrestrained pride, letting her prowl over him. Arrogant with the knowledge that she was obsessed with him alone. And she was. As if she needed to learn the feel of him by taste and touch, she moved over his body with reverence. Tracing the firm hills and valleys of his torso, Devin didn’t even notice someone else entering the room. Not until the bond surged with something bright and pure, a fondness that didn’t meld with the intensity of Rey’s unbridled desire for her.

Blown gaze cutting to the side, she lifted her lip at Beau, showing him her teeth though Rey gripped the back of her neck. He eased the tension there with an almost painful massage that had a purr tripping over her lips.

“What in the name of the Gods did you let her do, Daniel?”

“What she needed. Did you bring everything?”

“I’m not a fucking idiot.”

Rey sighed and tried to push Devin’s face into his hip. She bit him for his trouble, digging the sharp edge of her teeth into the tender skin until he hissed and let her go. Scrambling up to all fours, she shuffled backwards and well out of his easy reach before she rose to her knees to squint at the pile of plastic bags at Beau’s feet.

He kicked one of them with a low snarl, sending the crinkling packages of sheets and a deep blue coverlet scattering across the floor.

She would never be able to explain why she did it. Didn’t understand her own actions in that moment at all. Devin squealed and jumped off the bed, barreling into Beau’s chest to smash her lips against the bottom of his jaw where she could reach on tiptoe. She dropped into a crouch, gathering the sticky plastic to her chest and bounding back onto the bed. Ripping through the thin film, she tugged the stale flatness free. Snapping sheets open, unrolling blankets, she growled and muttered at Rey to move him as the nest came alive under her fingers.

Devin understood the stunned silence on some level. She felt the tangling of that bright thread through the bond, Rey’s uncertainty as he watched her with hooded eyes. For his part, Beau stood stoic, the first hint of his fear turning the spice of his scent sour, a rank smell that bothered her more than the scorched taste of his violence.

“You can’t let anyone know, Rey,” Beau murmured.

Devin flopped down into her nest with a groan, sprawled naked in the fluffy construct with her head turned so she could watch both men. Beau avoided looking at her, keeping his eyes fixed somewhere far beyond the wall opposite. For some reason, she wasn’t afraid, and she didn’t understand why.

“I’m not some—”

“We’re already having problems because of Kahler’s bullshit, or did you forget the club being fucking attacked,” Beau shouted before he took a small step back, inhaling a ragged breath to calm himself, though it seemed to only make him more rigid. “They’ll see it as a weakness, and we’ll be dealing with even more of this shit.”

“It matters to her.” Rey smoothed his hand over Devin’s hair, matching her smile as he began scrubbing at her scalp the way she liked.

“So, what? You going to start wearing sleeveless outfits to show it off like those upscale bitches do?” Beau snorted at Rey’s frown, giving a shake of his head. “Yeah, didn’t think so.”

Beau turned on his heel and started for the door, but turned back and paced towards the corner of the bed. He folded his arms and fixed his eyes on the spot on the wall again. “I took care of the shipment he needed. Everything is on the way and there shouldn’t be any problems. If there are, the boys will take care of it.”

“Fuck,” Devin ground out, slapping Rey’s chest as something too heavy and muddled slammed into her. It pummeled her thoughts into submission until she was a sobbing wreck.

“The fuck is wrong with her?”

“She’s fine.”

Devin was anything but fine.