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“Excellent. Your other men were just getting refreshments, but I will have them sent to you straight away.”
“Stay here, eyes open,” Aaron said to his guys. “I need everyone’s eyes on this building. We’ve got something we need to do in here, and I need to know we’re safe.”
“You got it, Moonie,” Johnno said.
Aaron nodded, and then we all followed Ralnor to another building.
Of course, now that we were in the safe environment Finn had asked for, I felt nervous being alone with my guys. I put my hand on the door handle and paused. This was different. Sanctuary seemed to revolve around men hanging around and women making the mating marks, and we were about to ignore that. I glanced over my shoulder at half my pack, standing there, waiting, and not just for me to open the door. Walking inside this private space had a meaning to it.
The room was light and airy, the windows covered with thin cotton curtains that had been hand embroidered. Tapestries showing scenes dominated by large white or black wolves were hung on the walls, but they weren’t what drew my eyes. It was a huge room, and in the middle was a massive bed that rivalled even the one in our home. This was pretty too, a four-poster with carved posts and filmy fabric hanging down to create what I bet would feel like a cocoon to hide away from the world. I moved towards it, instinctively searching for something to settle me after today’s insanity. Then I heard the rumble.
I froze with my knee on the bed, not feeling like me right now—clumsy, spent most of her life as a human, Jules. I didn’t even feel like the kind of girl who fucked two of her mates to put another in his place. Rather, when I turned to face the three of them, spread out evenly through the space of the room, Finn in front of the door and blocking my exit, I felt like prey.
Is this why they don’t allow men to mark women? I thought. They were so still, just standing there, their facial features partially obscured by the diffused light streaming through the windows. I couldn’t see the softness of Brandon’s eyes or the need to hold me in Aaron’s. They just watched and waited, like they had all the time in the world.
Then Slade, Hawk, and Jack found us, and seemed to sense the mood before they even got in the door, despite the rough glass bottles in their hands. A trill of fear slipped through me. How did they know? Why did they watch me with the same implacable look that seemed expressionless and hungry all at the same time? Were they communicating with each other without me?
“I—”
I didn’t get the sentence out. A low growl came from Finn as he took a step towards me, the others not far behind.
“Stop!” I said, my voice ringing out, my hand up, as if that would be enough to halt them, but it did. The weird mood didn’t dissipate though, they just stayed where they were, frozen like statues. I studied the lot of them, saw the greenish shine in all of their eyes, and swallowed hard.
“You think you’re the only one who feels these impulses?” Finn grated out.
“No, I—”
“Just let me get this out,” he said.
I sat down on the bed, something every single one of them noted. Bodies shifted, hands flexed, but they didn’t move closer.
“You want us to do something we’ve all been told is an anathema. It’s instant exile back home. Women make mating marks, not men. To ensure consent, to allow women to control the process.” Aaron’s stance faltered at that, his weight switching from one foot to another. “If we go through with what you’re proposing, it could mean we are all forced back through the gate the moment we get to Sanctuary.”
I blinked at that. Bring Buddy here? And what? Create some sort of home out here, where the rock crushers and meep meeps roam? I shook my head and then straightened my spine.
“Isn’t that already a done deal?” I jerked the collar of my shirt down, eyes instantly going to the skin revealed there. “At least for Aaron and me?”
That provoked a grumble from the man himself, and he took a step towards me, but Finn put a hand out.
“No, once one of us starts touching her, it’ll devolve pretty quickly. We hold this back until it’s all sorted.”
“Ooh, Prince Perfect is getting all dominant and growly,” Jack said, placing a theatrical hand on his chest. “My heart’s all a-flutter.” He flopped down into a nearby chair, hooked a leg over one arm, and then rubbed his palm down his zip. “Look at him, all mussed and hanging by a thread. Much more interesting than robot Finn, Jules. You can thank me later with lots of blowjobs, extra slobber.”
“Get fucked, Jack,” I snapped.
“Oh no, love,” he said, pulling out a packet of cigarettes and putting one to his lips. “That’s gonna be you.”
And it was. While there were other relationships in the pack, today was going to be all about theirs with me. I would walk out of here, bleeding, covered in their marks, indelibly branded by the lot of them. I would be as much theirs as they were mine, and that was terrifying.
Maybe it was my Tirian inside me, maybe it was just me
, never able to back down from a fight, but I felt a fluid strength in my spine as I stood up.
“You can’t sort this out, Finn,” I said, as my hands went to the hem of my shirt, the growl in his chest growing louder and louder as I inched it up over my stomach. “You have to just do it.”
“Stop, Jules…” he snarled, the guys behind him starting to move, his control over them slipping. I pulled it slowly higher, over my ribs. “We need to talk about…” His voice trailed away as he studied every inch of my revealed skin. “Jules…” he said, panting. “Jules, STOP!”
His will beat down upon me, but my fingers moved. It wasn’t that one of us was stronger than the other, it was that we were strong together, and he needed to know that.
