Page 43 of Fight or Fly

FIFTEEN

Kam

IN THE END, my lifehad ended up far better than I could ever have expected. Mere hours ago, I’d thought I was about to join Leo and Jax as the first official victims of an experimental nerve gas. Even after waking up, the most likely scenario had seemed to involve a fate far less pleasant than being locked in a comfortable room with my packmate and a friendly alpha.

Jax was in some ways a very straightforward man, and in others, a difficult one to read. He’d kept his distance with me, at least compared to Alex and Flynn. I wasn’t at all sure how our edges were supposed to fit together in the complicated puzzle of this pack-that-might-have-been.

Right now, I was desperately glad for his chapped lips sliding over mine, and his heavy-muscled arm pulling me against him almost painfully hard. As far as I was concerned,not thinkingwas the name of the game—for tonight, at least. I hadn’t been exaggerating earlier. The other two would have spent a sleepless night treading and retreading the same limited set of facts in hopes of feeling more in control of events, and I would have spent a sleepless night watching them do it.

We’d have more answers tomorrow, even if they weren’t answers we liked. Tonight, comfort and oblivion sounded like much more appealing options.

If nothing else, this was shaping up to be a much more civilized exit from life than the cave in Romania... so far, at least.

Jax let me up for air, and I took the chance to lean across his broad chest and catch Leo in a kiss. Her normally silky lips were chapped as well—the victim of hours of unconsciousness and the dry, recycled atmosphere in the airplane cabin. After a few moments, she pulled away and met my gaze with dark, dilated eyes.

“I want him to knot me,” she said. “On a scale of one to ten, how crazy is that?”

I considered it for a moment. “It’s a risk—but only if Irina lied. Though there could be hidden cameras or microphones for surveillance, I suppose.”

Jax was looking between us like we werebothcrazy, which at least meant he’d stopped obsessing about Irina and Nikolayev for the moment. “If they came for us, we’d be totally vulnerable.”

A stubborn gleam entered Leo’s hazel eyes. “It’d be worth it to see the shock on their faces. If they hate us so damned much, they can get an eyeful of exactly what offends their fragile beta sensibilities. Fuck them all.”

Maybe it was an odd thing for me to be proud about, but in that moment, I was proud of my freshly liberatedodama. Jax let out a sharp breath and pressed his forehead against her temple for a long moment.

“Kam?” he asked. “Are you all right with this? What do you need from us?”

I tucked a strand of Leo’s wild hair behind her ear. “Just let me kiss you both. That’s all I want tonight.”

It was the simple truth. Maybe it was the fact that I finally knew what lay on the other side of my body’s capricious sexual arousal. Or maybe it was that I now knew exactly how much work was involved in getting to climax, given my body’s particular...limitations. Whatever the case, it felt easier now to simply dwell in a low level of arousal and appreciate the feeling on its own merits. It was reminiscent of the way Leo and I used to share gentle intimacy, before this pack of alphas had come into our lives. Only, it wasmoresomehow.

I could be part of this without needing to perform. My presence, accepted and desired by both of my bedmates, was enough.

Leo kissed me again, and then broke away to kiss Jax. He made a low noise and tangled his hand in her hair, taking control of her mouth while she took control of the fastenings of his trousers. I settled back to watch for a bit, breathing in the scent of aroused alpha while missing Leo’s honey and orange blossom perfume—still masked beneath the pheromone suppressors Beckett had acquired for her.

She broke away with a gasp, whispering, “I love you both.”

“We love you, too,” I answered without hesitation.

God, how I loved her. Fiery and sweet, determined to make our fucked-up world bend to her will—even if that meant the petty defiance of taking a knot from our alpha lover in a Committee cell on the eve of our ultimate fate.

I wanted to live in the world she envisioned, where we could mate a pack of noble, adoring alphas and live together in a giant house with a cozy nest, our pups running and playing in the hallways, shrieking with happiness.

“Love you,” Jax echoed quietly. “I’m sorry things couldn’t be different.”

“We made a difference,” Leo said fiercely. “We might not have won the war, but wedidmake a difference. And we’ll keep trying to make a difference until we can’t anymore.”

She untangled from us, but only long enough to slip off the simple sweater and leggings she’d been wearing when Nikolayev’s men had taken us. Her underwear followed, exposing her petite, softly curved frame to our appreciative gazes.

Jax made a low noise, deep in his chest—and it was clear that a few days spent in Leo’s heat nest had trained my body to respond to that noise. Something inside me grew soft and pliant, uncoiling from its usual tense knot.

Leo didn’t waste time on foreplay. She freed Jax’s cock and straddled him, sinking down on his length. He growled, the sound mellowing a moment later to a rumbling alpha purr. A whimper of pleasure escaped her in response.

“So gorgeous,” Jax said. “The both of you. Kam... lose the shirt, please. I want to see more of you.”

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