Digging my feet into the ground sent electricity through me, and I worked her instead, jerking my ass up, making sure that we stayed connected, so that every time I thrust up, it went higher than usual. My thumb was on her clit as I controlled the pace, wanting to make it easier for her as she took Austin’s dick into her mouth.

Catching his eye with mine, I released a shaky breath as I saw him watching her from above. I could only imagine what he was seeing. Tits swaying, tawny hair curling around them, dancing over her shoulders. Fingers clawing into her thighs, lips wet and rosy, cheeks pink and eyes needy.

He grabbed a hold of his dick at the base, then stepped closer, and she let him—let him feed his shaft into her mouth.

The sight had me growling, and I grabbed her hips, grinding her down into me, even as I worked us higher, hotter. Harder. She moaned around his shaft, and Austin groaned, his head falling back as she took him, all of him, swallowing him whole.

I swear, it was like watching porn mid-sex, because I could switch myself with Austin, and think of her sucking me even as she was fucking me.

Talk about a mindfuck.

Tweaking her clit, I reached up with my other hand and cupped her breast. I was careful because I knew she was sensitive still, but I had no choice but to rear up, which made her shriek, and to make tiny nibbling bites around her nipple. She wiggled on me, like that was too much, and the desire to bite her, for her to see my mark in the morning was too strong to deny.

I tucked my face into her throat, where her scent was deepest, and sucked on her there. We rarely bit each other during sex, not unless we were angry, which I wasn’t, or overwhelmed, which I was.

Right now, I just needed the reminder in the morning. I needed to see her wear my claim.

Stupid, sure, but stupidity was something I was having to come to terms with at the moment.

My emotions weren’t rational, which in my mind, made them dumb.

“You could never be dumb,” she whispered, her hands moving to my shoulders, keeping me close, her nails digging in. “You’re perfect as you are. The battle hurt you, as it should. No one should go through something like that without being affected. And that’s why you’re here. Why you need me. I’ll remind you of how perfect you are. How exactly right you are for me, and for Knight.”

“I’m being irrational.”

“We all are from time to time.” Her thoughts dissolved so that the level of communication between us faded away, and I knew why. She was coming. Even as her concentration had split in two with my own headspace invading her moment, she sought and found the peak of her pleasure, and her pussy pulsed around my cock.

As I locked into her, like I always would, I let my teeth dig into her throat, let her feel the pressure, and wasn’t surprised when she gagged on Austin’s dick in her surprise at my ‘attack.’ She creamed around me though, growing wetter, which made the knot’s fix on her even more perfect, because she couldn’t go anywhere.

“Fuck, quick!” Austin garbled, and he pulled free of her, watching with hooded eyes as she opened her mouth, tongue fully out as his knot forged into being and he fed her his cum while he milked it out of his shaft.

She swallowed, her eyes on his, and all the while, I kept my teeth buried in her throat, my hands on her ass, my body pressed to hers, and somehow, it felt like I’d never been closer to her than at this moment.

It wasn’t the first time Austin had come in my presence, wasn’t the first time we’d fucked at the totem.

But it was the first time since her milk moon, and since the battle too.

I’d always needed her before. She was my mate. I was born needing her. I was born wanting her. But equally, I’d never needed her like this.

As my cum slalomed out of my body, filling her womb, I released my hold on her throat and burrowed my face there instead. She felt the tears that came, slipped her hand through my hair, gripping it tightly as she turned into me too, kissing the side of my face as she did so.

Austin staggered back a half-step, then dropped to the ground at my side. I felt him watching, but not judging, staying silent for once in his life as he let me have this moment.

Let me have this release.

She hummed a song I didn’t recognize as she held me, as the knot tied us together forever, and whispered, “Let it out, baby. Let it out.”

There was nothing to let out.

Nothing.

So why was I this fucked up over what had gone down?

“Because, and you guys forget this too much, you’re part human. You’re not all beast.” She kissed me again. “I love you.”

The words were whispered in my ear, and not my mind. “I love you too.”

Austin shuffled closer, and when his thigh pressed against mine, I knew he was too close for comfort, but close where we were concerned was neither here nor there. He was my twin. My wombmate.

His words were muffled, telling me he’d pressed his face into some part of her body, as he mumbled, “I love you.”

“And I love you.”

So many ‘I love yous’ and all of them needed right about now.

How long we sat there like that, our limbs entangled, our bodies connected, I’d never know. But then her scent changed, turning deeper, richer. Fuller. Like a full-bodied red wine that was blossoming as it aerated, developing a million more essences, tangs, and perfumes.

I pulled my face away from her throat to stare up at her, seeing a future in her eyes I could never have imagined, that I would never have dared to dream of.

So, smiling at her, I whispered, “Sabina, I have something to tell you.”

Eighteen

Austin

I hated saying goodbye. Even if it was only goodbye for now, I fucking hated it.

And I hated even more that we were bidding farewell to Daniel to save that prick kid, Seth.

Giving him a squeeze one last time, I muttered, “Daniel?”

“Yeah, Austin?” He peered up at me with shining eyes that seemed to see all my guilt and shame and distress, because he grinned at me. “Don’t be sad. I’ll be home again one day.”

My jaw worked at that. “You know this is home, though, don’t you?”

He nodded. “Sure do.”

I squeezed his shoulder. “You’re my kid, yeah?”

His smile beamed at me. “Yep.”

My throat felt a little too choked, so when Eli grabbed him, hauled him into his arms for a tight hug, I let him, and watched when Ethan did the same.

All of us had fallen for the kid. Over math lessons that none of us really understood, except for Ethan, boring Civil War stories that were for history class, and trying to undo the shit his father had put into his head, he’d become ours.

And we were sending him away.

It felt so fucking wrong, I couldn’t stand it.

My hands balled into fists as I watched Ethan whispering something in his ear, and I twisted around to look at the SUV that was going to take him and Seth to the airport so they could catch a plane to Miami.

Seth was already in there. Staring straight ahead like he didn’t give a fuck about leaving home, and maybe he didn’t. We hadn’t dared let Maribel see him, just in case he did something crazy like try to kill her again, and whether or not he’d recognize he was leaving his father behind was something we hadn’t asked. Leon was driving them both to the airport, so they’d have their goodbye there, I guessed. But I couldn’t see it.