“Traitor,” I whispered, my voice breaking as I glared down at my body. My fingers dug into the fabric, knuckles white with the effort not to inhale deeper. “This isn’t real. It’s just biology. Stupid, vicious, omega biology.”
My body disagreed completely. As I sat there, clutching pillows that smelled like the three alphas who had branded themselves onto my soul, heat pooled low in my belly, spreading outward rapidly. Not a heat cycle—something deeper, more primal, tied to the life now growing inside me.
“Seriously?” I hissed, pressing my thighs together as my body reacted traitorously, the scent of my own response mingling with theirs in a potent combination. “Now? You pick now for this? I just found out I’m carrying an alpha mafia lord’s baby, and your response is ‘let’s get horny’? Your timing is fucking criminal.”
But my body had always been the most treacherous part of me. The more I inhaled their scents, the worse it got—my cock hardening against my stomach, my entrance aching with emptiness, memories of the hands on my skin playing vividly behind my closed eyelids. I could almost feel Mr. Iceflare’s teeth against my neck, Mr. Enigma’s lips on my chest, Mr. Storm’s hands spreading my thighs.
I tried to resist. God, I tried. I conjured images of unpaid bills. The disappointment in my father’s eyes if he knew. The way they’d threatened to hunt me down, to make me pay. Nothing worked. My resistance crumbled completely.
“Fine,” I growled, shoving my pants down forcefully. “You win. But I’m not happy about it.”
I wrapped a hand around my cock, the first stroke sending electricity crackling up my spine, pulling a gasp from my throat that sounded like surrender. It wasn’t enough. Nowhere close to what I needed.
Keeping my face buried in the scents, I reached behind myself with my other hand, finding my entrance ready. I pushed two fingers inside, the stretch burning intensely. It had been months since I’d been filled, since I’d felt the exquisite agony of being claimed by an alpha. By three alphas.
“Fuck,” I moaned, the sound raw and broken in the quiet room. I stroked my cock in time with the thrust of my fingers, the wet sounds obscene in the silence. Tears of frustration gathered in my eyes as I chased a pleasure that remained just out of reach.
It wasn’t enough. My fingers weren’t long enough, thick enough to reach the spots inside me that throbbed with need. I needed more. Needed them. Needed to be held down and taken apart and put back together in the way only they knew how.
Before I could stop it, my mind conjured Mr. Iceflare above me, his ice-blue eyes boring into mine as he pushed inside me. I could feel the weight of him, the impossible stretch as he claimed me. His hands pinning my wrists above my head, his voice rough against my ear as he said, “Made for this. Made for me.”
And behind him, Mr. Enigma and Mr. Storm, their eyes dark with hunger as they watched, waited their turn. The fantasy was so vivid I could taste the salt on Mr. Enigma’s skin, feel the calluses on Mr. Storm’s palms as they mapped my body with possessive intent.
I remembered how it felt when Mr. Iceflare had knotted me—the burning fullness, the way my body had locked around him, keeping us joined as he pulsed inside me. How I’d sobbed from the intensity, my body taking what my mind refused to admit it craved. I remembered Mr. Enigma holding me afterward, hisarms a sanctuary I’d never expected to find in hell, his lips pressing kisses to my tear-stained cheeks. Remembered Mr. Storm’s surprising gentleness as he cleaned the evidence of their claiming from my thighs, his touch reverent despite the circumstances.
I added a third finger, fucking myself harder, faster, desperation making my movements erratic. My cock leaked pre-cum, making my strokes smoother, but something vital was missing. Some connection my body recognized even as my mind rejected it.
“Please,” I begged, the word torn from somewhere deep and broken inside me. My voice echoed off the walls of my empty apartment, a prayer with no one to answer it. “Please, I need?—”
What did I need? Them? Their touch? Their claim? The thought should have horrified me, should have killed my desire instantly. Instead, it pushed me closer to the edge, my body tightening around my fingers as if trying to keep them inside.
“Mr. Iceflare,” I gasped, imagining his ice-blue eyes watching me come undone, his strong hands guiding my movements. “Mr. Enigma. Mr. Storm.”
Their names, those ridiculous nicknames I had given them, on my lips was the final trigger. I came with a broken cry that might have been a sob, spilling over my hand as my body clenched rhythmically around my fingers. For one perfect moment, I was weightless, thoughtless, existing only in pure sensation.
Then reality crashed back, and with it, shame so intense it burned through me. I’d just masturbated to the thought of the alphas who had been captive with me. Had called their names as I came. Had imagined them claiming me again, making me theirs again.
And worst of all, part of me had wanted it. Still wanted it. Would always want it.
I curled into a ball. Tears leaked from my eyes, hot and humiliating, as the full weight of my situation crushed me beneath it.
I was pregnant. Alone. Craving alphas who had been forced into the same nightmare as me, who had threatened to hunt me down once they escaped. Who had marked me in ways that went beyond the physical, beyond the rational.
“I hate this,” I whispered, my voice breaking on each word. “I hate that I want them. I hate that my body betrays me. I hate that I’m so fucking weak.”
But even as I said it, another part of me, the omega part that I’d spent my life trying to silence, whispered that it wasn’t weakness. It was survival. It was my body recognizing what my mind refused to acknowledge: that I needed them. That my child needed them.
That despite everything, they were the only ones who could protect us now.
twenty-six
. . .
The next week passed in a blur of projectile vomiting, mind-numbing work shifts, and increasingly desperate attempts to plan my escape from this nightmare. I accepted Reynolds’ suspicious promotion at the restaurant because I needed the money.
The baking position was actually a relief, like reconnecting with an old friend who didn’t know I was now carrying the spawn of three mafia alphas. The familiar rhythm of measuring, mixing, and creating kept my hands busy and my mind temporarily distracted from the parasite—I mean, miracle of life—currently redecorating my internal organs.
But nights? Nights were a special kind of torture designed by someone who clearly hated omegas. My hormones had staged a military coup against my common sense, leaving me constantly aroused and craving alpha touch intensely. I found myself sleeping surrounded by all three scented pillows—one that smelled of Mr. Iceflare’s cedar and winter pine, one carrying Mr. Enigma’s cinnamon and vanilla, and one holding Mr. Storm’srain and ozone. It was pathetic, really. Like building a nest out of the t-shirts of guys who’d ghosted me after a one-night stand.