Chapter 8

They herded her past the gazes of the morning crowd, and she relished their scrutiny. Every step, every flounce of her ruined shirt—it was all a spectacle, a new script she authored with her hips and the heads of the three Alphas bowed in her orbit. They didn’t pause at the main house but swept her up the creaking stairwell, Damon at her flanks, Devin steady and silent ahead, Donovan forced to follow because she would not be last, not ever again.

The door to their room slammed shut, and silence fell, salt-sharp and expectant. All three men watched her, hunger naked behind their eyes, but it was Elena who set the pace. She flicked her tongue over split lips and shrugged Damon’s flannel to the floor. Naked, she sat on the edge of Dev’s stripped mattress, her thighs parted, arms open—a dare, not a plea.

Damon moved first, his hands in her hair, his mouth capturing hers. The kiss was deep, a promise and a theft all at once, and he tasted like sweat and feral joy. His tongue was everywhere, bruising her mouth, tracing the ragged line of her teeth—he wanted to be inside her before he was even inside her. Donovan’s hands found her shoulders, massaging warmth into her battered muscles, and his mouth, not to be outdone, grazed her neck, fangs scraping her pulse point in pure, slow torture.

She didn’t realize she was moaning until Devin, ever the quietest, bent to nuzzle the rise of her breast, his lips circling the nipple, tongue working it to a diamond-hard point. His hands—broad, careful—pinned her hips, controlling her only so she could resist, and she did; she gripped the waistband of his jeans and yanked him lower, her mouth catching his earlobe and biting, just enough to make him shudder.

Behind her, the twins crowded close, shedding their clothes in a tangle of heat and chest and thigh. Damon was thicker, his cock already flushed dark and bobbing, daring her, while Donovan’s was long, veined, almost angry in the way it jutted forward as if hungry for her. Elena wanted them both and she wanted them now, and she let them know by kneeling up, dragging her tongue from Damon’s base to tip and then grazing Donovan’s length, taking him down as far as she could until her throat rebelled.

Damon groaned, the sound all wolf, and cradled her jaw so she could look up at him, at the desperate glimmer in his eyes. He fucked her mouth slowly, letting her savor every inch, but Donovan, less patient, grasped her hair and plunged in, his hips setting a rhythm she could feel in her toes. Elena moaned around them, spit-slick and dizzy, and the chorus of male voices above her—the curses, the stutters, the gasping please—made her feel like twenty people all at once.

It was Devin who broke first, pulling her off her knees so he could lay her flat. His fingers found her cunt, already swollen and insistent, and he drew slow circles, teasing until she was bucking, then burying two fingers deep and curling them right against the spot that made her vision white out. She clawed at his back, pulling him down so his cock lined up with her lips, and she sucked him in, greedy and obscene, while Damon’s hands massaged her ass and Donovan’s tongue followed the sweat down her spine, mapping every vertebra with salt and heat.

She came hard from Devin’s fingers, everything going frantic and animal, and the others howled approval. But Devin was greedy, too; he hoisted her up, arms banded under her legs, and thrust home, his cock filling her so completely she saw stars. Damon was there, kissing her, gentled now, while Donovan pressed his cock between her breasts and forced her to squeeze, to lick the tip when it peeked up. The three of them worked as a pack, fucking her through her shudders, wringing climax after climax from her until she begged to stop and then begged for more.

Damon’s turn was next, and Donovan held her open for him, wide and wanton. Damon rammed in, his thrusts brutal, fucking her into the mattress until it squealed protest, and with every impact she felt the other cocks—one in her mouth, one slicked between her thighs, waiting for its chance. When she came for Damon, she bit down on Donovan’s cock, just shy of drawing blood, and that was his end, too; he spilled all over her face and chest, groaning her name as if it alone could bind him to earth. Damon finished inside her, his seed hot and furious, and she took every drop.

They didn’t pause. This was a marathon, not a sprint.

Donovan’s hands were rough as he positioned her, straddling his lap while the other two flanked her, touching everywhere at once—her nipples, her clit, the sweat-slick curve of her waist. Donovan’s cock was so deep she thought he might split her, and she rode him until her thighs went numb, the stretch so intense it bordered on pain but then circled back to pleasure, again and again. Devin kissed the tears from her cheeks and ran his palm over her belly, as if already worshiping the life they’d pour into her.

When Donovan marked her—literally, mercilessly—he bit her where neck met shoulder, just beneath the old scar, and heat bloomed outward like a second soul. Elena screamed, and the room shook with it. Her orgasm painted the world with bright, animal colors, and when Donovan came it was with a howl that silenced even the dawn birds.

They collapsed together, a shuddering tangle of bodies and breath. Her thighs were slick with every imaginable fluid; the sheets were destroyed. But Elena didn’t care. She’d never felt so alive, so claimed and claiming, so perfectly at home in the wreckage of herself.

After, they washed her gently, cleaning teeth marks and old wounds and new ones both, never letting her shiver, never letting her shrink. Damon licked the bite on her neck, over and over, grin smeared with pride. Donovan just held her, no words left. Devin wrapped her in his massive arms and pinned her to his chest, the only heartbeat steady enough to anchor her.

Elena slept for a day and a half, but she woke always in a circle of wolf, the scent of mates so hot and thick she thought she might drown in it. When she finally rose, stark naked and unashamed, three Alphas flanked her, ready to make her theirs again.

The next meeting of the Elders did not go as planned.

Elena entered the chamber, hair wild, bite still raw and red on her neck. She wore nothing but Damon’s shirt, buttoned with pure defiance. When she sat at the head of the table, no one challenged her.

Not a single goddamn soul.

She smiled, knowing there would be trouble again, that tradition didn’t die all at once. But for now, she would savor it: the taste of freedom, the rush of her own blood, the way her name—her true name—tremored the lips of every packmate.

Elena. Wolf. Alpha. Mate.

And the world could burn, or not. She would survive, either way.

She ran her tongue over her teeth, found them just a little sharper, and grinned at the night.