Chapter 14

There was coffee waiting on the countertop, bitter and hot, and the counter itself was a menagerie of breakfast ambition—spatulas and flecks of eggshell, a mountain of bacon, pancakes in wild asymmetrical stacks. The triplets moved around the kitchen with a practiced, almost military precision, bare torsos crisscrossed with bite marks and bruises, each sporting the cocky, sheepish smile of a man after a long, victorious war.

“Elena,” Damon called, as if half-expecting her to bolt, “eggs or bacon first?”

“Yes,” she replied, sliding onto the battered barstool, feeling every last glorious bruise. The floor was cold but the sunlight made up for it.

Devin set down a plate in front of her—a pile so generous it shamed the wintry rations she used to live on. “You need it,” he said softly, almost shy. “You earned it.”

Donovan slid onto the stool beside her, close but not too close, balanced on the edge of apology. “We were rough on you,” he said, the words like gravel, “for too long.”

She started to laugh; then saw that, for the first time, his brow was furrowed, not in anger but in something closer to regret.

“We mean it,” Damon said. He sprawled across the counter, chin on folded arms, eyes flicking up to hers.

“We didn’t know how to let you in,” Devin added. “Kept you out. Made everything about the challenge. Instead of…this.”

It would have been easy to let them squirm. To hold out, make them beg. But Elena had never been good at playing the victim, and besides, their awkward, tripping guilt kindled a sweeter fire in her now than any old wound.

“You want to make it up to me?” she asked. A drop of syrup slid down her finger. She licked it clean, saw all three pairs of eyes follow.

Donovan’s nostrils flared, hand clenching on the countertop. “Yes.”

The taste of promise was thick in the air. She drew her knees up, swinging her legs on the barstool, making the hem of Donovan’s shirt—her only clothing—ride up her thighs.

“You want to know what I want?” she said, letting the words trickle slow and sticky like the syrup. “All of you. Not just when you’re angry or rutting. I want you to be mine.”

Damon leaned across, putting his hand over hers. “We already are.”

It startled her, how much she believed it, how much she wanted to give it back. She grinned, wide and wild, and plucked a pancake from Devin’s plate, feeding a piece first to herself, then holding a bite up to his mouth in a gesture that made him glassy-eyed with need.

Donovan’s hand slid onto her knee under the table, slow and heavy, as if testing the weight of the future.

She could have drawn it out, but she was hungry. Not just for the food, but for the feel of them solid and real against her, the certainty of flesh and want replacing the old ache of uncertainty.

“After breakfast,” she said, “you can show me exactly how sorry you are.”

Damon’s cock was already springing to attention, concealed only by the slant of the counter. Devin’s cheeks burned with flush. Donovan watched her with the open, steady hunger of a man who’d already decided how the day would end.

She ate, and watched them eat, savoring every bite as if it was the only meal left in the world. When the plates were empty, she dragged a finger through the leftover syrup and smeared it across Damon’s collarbone, licking it off slow, savoring the sticky-sweet salt of his skin. Devin ducked in next, kissing her so deeply she nearly forgot who was initiating it; Donovan’s fingers tangled in her hair, his mouth hungry on her throat.

They carried her back to bed, this time with a reverence that made her shiver. She let herself be pressed down, not in surrender but in celebration—a queen on her feast day, a creature remade in her own choosing.

Damon opened her legs and knelt between them, spreading her wide enough that the ache was more want than pain. Devin held her hands above her head, kissing her knuckles and whispering her name each time she gasped or bucked. Donovan, last of all, just watched, eyes never leaving hers, until the tension in her body snapped and she came, hard and helpless, baring every nerve.

They didn’t stop. Damon licked her clean, gentle between the bouts of animal hunger. Devin curled around her side, letting his cock rest between her thighs, soft at first, then insistent. Donovan knotted himself in her, taking his time, as if memorizing the shape of her from the inside out.

When it was over, she drifted on a raft of limbs, every inch of skin branded by their mouths, every muscle trembling with the knowledge that this, finally, was what she’d been made for.

Hours later, when dusk came through the window, Elena found herself in the center of the bed, the four of them tangled and sticky, the pack at last and at peace. She closed her eyes and listened to the breath of her wolves, knowing that even if the world outside were to burn again, she could always rebuild it. As long as she had this—this ruinous, wonderful, impossible love—she would never go hungry again.

She reached out, her hand finding all three in one span, and held on.