Page 37 of The Princess and the Pack

Not even Fiona, who only seeks to assist me in keeping my Ivy safe. With her in my arms—needing me, tasting my skin, and finding comfort from my closeness—I don’t want to give her up.

“You can accompany her, alpha. Your mate needs your scent in the nest to feel secure. Liam will go ahead to ensure the coast is clear. Then you and your packmates can take her there.”

Better. I like the sound of this much better. Taking her to the nest we built for her sparks pride within me. She’ll see we can care for her—treat her so well. Be it her heat or any other matter, we won’t let her down.

Standing to my feet, I cradle the queen of my heart tightly—as if I hold the whole world in my arms. Fiona steps nearer, her brown skin glowing like sun-warmed mahogany as she regards me with a knowing smirk upon her lips. My friend is proud of me and how well I’m protecting my omega. Just as her alphas do for her. At least in this way, I’m succeeding.

“Very good, alpha,” she says, a little placating but I don’t give a shite.

I preen under the praise of caring for my mate.

“Let’s get the queen comfortable and all will be well,” Tiernan says, wrapping an arm around his mate.

I look at my packmates, feeling less like a territorial bastard and more like I want to burst from my own skin with excitement. In each of their gazes I find a similar devotion to the darling omega in my arms. A realization settles over me then.

The road ahead may be difficult to traverse. But this love, this perfect gift we’ve been given, will be more than worth every trying second of the journey.

Delicious warmth radiates all around me. Not like the oppressive heat that had me clawing for comfort under the cover of Cillian’s desk—but of dozing off in the sun on a spring afternoon.

I’m so tired, my body lying limp like a damp, wrung-out cloth. Sweat has cooled on my clammy skin, and I would die for a bath right now, but that would mean leaving the cocoon of this blessed coziness.

I’m still dozing, dreaming the impossible dream of several alphas in my bed, tending to my every need. Their strong, massive bodies pressing me between them while they stroke and kiss wherever they please.

In this sleepy vignette, my nose rests against my husband’s throat. The scent of his salt and sea fills my nose, and his lips trace my temple while his chest rumbles a steady rhythm. He is so sweet, my alpha. Ever the gentleman and so wonderfully soft-hearted when it comes to me. I could spend hours in the safety of his embrace.

Visions conjured during slumber always include the striking Lord Rafferty. Now is no different. He rests at my back, curling his strong, lean body around me tightly. The weight of his eager longing is obvious against my backside, and I’m far too tempted to rub myself against him—to tempt him into letting me know the intimate press of him inside me.

Like Cillian, he dotes on me. Only instead of his lips, large hands pet my hair in long, drugging strokes intended to soothe and calm. He too purrs for me, letting comfort bleed from his chest straight into my soul. He smells of burning, of a warm fire on a cold winter’s night.

Perfect.

Between them I’m perfectly content. I’m safe and wanted in all the ways an omega should be. But then, in my dreams this is always the case. Reality is not quite so lovely as this. There I’m forced to suppress certain imperatives like the way my body craves not one—not even two—but three alphas. My heart knows them too, holds a special space for each to claim and settle into.

If I could accept my desires for what they are—fantasies—my life would be so much simpler. But when these dreams show me everything I could have, it’s simply impossible not to drag this pining into the real world.

I hope I don’t wake from this fantasy. Not this time. I want to stay here for as long as I can. All that’s missing from this perfection is the hulking alpha who smells like the soil after rain. He should be here, touching me, speaking in that slow, deep timbre of his. Watching over me like he does so well.

But fuzzy voices cut though my hazy dreamscape, bursting this bubble of incandescence.

“I’m afraid, Cillian,” a voice rasps, oddly reminiscent of a particular lord with the most beautiful emerald eyes. “Ivy won’t want me. I know it. I’ll fuck everything up for you and Sloan.”

Poor alpha with his heavy heart. So much sadness, so much pain and apprehension weigh down each of his words. If I could move, I would reach back and thread my fingers into his beautiful curls. I could comfort him so well—tell him how silly I would have to be not to want his attention. Any omega would be so lucky as to capture Oran Rafferty’s eye.

He may think his intensity, his brash, reactive nature wouldn’t entice, but he would be wrong. I’m positively intoxicated by his passion and the way he wears it like a badge of honor.

“Oran…No. Please don’t start this nonsense again. An hour ago you were ready to burn the world to ash before letting her go. Stop getting in your own way and give her a chance to know you.”

My alpha, my sweet king. He is so good at caring for me, and for others it seems.

The aroma of freshly fed fire swells then. The body at my back clutches me tightly, as though I could be torn from his arms if he relented even the slightest inch. He clings to me like I’m precious air, life-giving and vital.

The strength of his embrace raises the curtain of my consciousness higher. Becoming more aware of myself in increments, I no longer feel so weighed down by the heaviness of sleep. Every breath I take pushes my chest forward against another body. One familiar to the touch. My husband feels corporeal, sounlikea dream.

This is odd. So very odd my fantasy should take on such a vividness.

“Sloan needs to get his arse back here with those nesting blankets. What are we meant to say if she wakes and he’s gone?” Oran again.

He feels far more real than I’ve felt in any dream. It calls to mind the night we spent in Cillian’s study—of the way he touched me as though we belonged to each other.

---