Page 43 of Ruffled Feathers

Edison

I’d never felt so exhausted and exhilarated at the same time. Tillie and Strat’s combined heat had lasted five days, and without Lance bringing us sustenance, I wasn’t sure we all would have survived. It had been a blur of sex and knots and so many bodily fluids, it was basically the inside of a teenage boy’s tube sock.

The whole place would have to be deep cleaned, and I suspected the mattress would probably have to go. They had special nest mattresses that were fluid-proof, but we’d had no warning to get one of those.

Next time Tillie’s heat hit, she’d have a perfect nest, and this would be an amazing experience, not one that came with a heavy dose ofwhat the fuck?

I had her on her side, promising her all these things as we made love gently. Truett was covering Strat beside us, fucking him with a dominance he seemed to crave. They were so goddamn hot, and Tillie panted as she watched them. I could feel the frenzy of the heat lessening with every hour, and as much as I wanted to stay in this room forever, there was going to be a world of problems that would arise from this.

Truett had said Buck and my mom were coming home next week, and I was tempted to claim Tillie now so they couldn’t take her from me. I would never steal her choice from her, but my Alpha was frantic that perhaps she’d change her mind and we’d lose her forever.

Her fib tightened around me as she came, engaging my knot, and we locked together. I wasn’t sure how I knew it was for the final time in this heat; I just did. I held her extra close, nuzzled my nose into her nape, and just breathed her in.

She laced her fingers with mine, her body relaxing for the first time in days. This moment was perfect, and as Truett came along with Strat, sealing it with a dirty kiss, I wondered where we would all go from here.

I hadn’t even realized I’d fallen asleep until a gently nuzzling against my chest woke me. The skin beneath my palms felt cool, and I knew Tillie’s heat had officially broken. I looked down at the woman in my arms, at the face I’d loved for so many years.

“Hey there,” I said softly, not sure how this was supposed to go. Would she want us without the heat driving her? Did we go back to that tentative progress from before?

As if she could see the uncertainty in my mind, she leaned up and kissed me. “Thank you.”

I scoffed.Thank me?“Don’t thank me, Tillie. That was… unbelievable. Something I won’t ever forget. Thankyou.” I brushed my lips across hers. I knew the shape of those lips better than my own now. I knew what they looked like as they screamed my name, the shape they made as she came, their stretch when she was in pain. How they looked wrapped around my cock.

She rolled her eyes at me, and as much as I loved Omega Tillie, I loved this one more. The one who called me on my shit, who sparred with Truett, who had such a big heart. “I meanthank you for stepping up and not hesitating, I guess. If I had to go to a heat house, I’m not sure…”

I growled deep in my chest. There was no way a strange Alpha would have taken care of my Omega through her heat. I would have gone in there, taken her back by force if I had to. I didn’t care if that made me sound like a barbarian.

She grinned up at me. “At least you aren’t settling on an Unshown now.”

Shock made me blink. I gripped her shoulders and tugged her up, until we were nose-to-nose. “Otillie-James Baler, I loved you before you were an Omega. I’ve loved you every day since you stood in front of me, all defiant and fresh from the damn mountains, and the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. Before this, before you were an Omega, there was only one Pack for you, and it was ours. The fact you’re an Omega now just means that we get to have a hot-as-fuck orgy a couple of times a year, but it changes nothing else. Not the way I want you, or the way I love you.”

Her eyes were glassy as she rested her head on my chest, right over my heart. “I love you too,” she whispered and I held her tight, this woman who held my whole heart. “Dad is going to kill us.”

Yeah, that he is.

Dressed and showered, we all reconvened in the living room. There was a high chance that this was going to be awkward. Strat and I had basically been strangers before this week, and now I knew what his cock tasted like.

Lance had been dragged into the heat. Not against his will—because if he’d said no, I would have enforced it, no matter how much I loved Tillie—but maybe against his better judgment. I mean, his judgment was way off on this, but it still had the potential to get weird.

As if all this wasn’t bullshit enough, our parents would be back next week, and we had a house full of pets, a guest room that was now a permanent aviary, and my mother’s garden had seen better days.

That wasn’t long to set everything to rights and find places for all the animals. Buck and Mom had been pretty tolerant of Tillie’s rescues over the years; we’d had everything from baby birds to mangy foxes. But they had a strict rule of only one at a time, and only as long as it needed a home. She was supposed to be actively trying to reintroduce them to their natural habitat or finding them a home. Buck believed that wild animals should be returned to their own ecosystem, and that if you didn’t try and rehome the domestic animals, that was one less animal you could save.

I was fairly sure the only thing they’d been actively saving was their sanity.

I looked at the dogs sitting in a huddle with Akio. Let’s just say, she’d passed the “only one” rule quite a few animals ago.

Drinking Gatorade, Tillie flopped down on the couch beside Strat, snuggling into his side. Okay, so they were definitely still feeling each other without the heat hormones. That was good. Because I was also feeling Strat without the heat hormones.

I frowned a little. Could we evenhavetwo Omegas? Was there a rule against that?

Fuck it. Rules are meant to be broken.

Truett sat watching them hungrily, and I cleared my throat. Shaking his head, he put on what I liked to call his business face. It was the one he’d used around Tillie for years, so she never knew that he was secretly in love with her. “So, no point dancing around it. Your dad and Citrine will be back next week. They called while you were deep in your heat, and I had to tell them. Otherwise, Buck was going to send around the cops and make sure we didn’t have you tied up in the basement or something.”

He was exaggerating. Buck trusted us. But helovedhis daughter, and he wasn’t about to take our word that everything was okay, when we couldn’t give any details.

Truett looked guilty. “I know you probably wanted to tell them, but honestly, your dad scares the absolute shit out of me. Then Citrine got on the phone…”

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