Page 59 of Ruin Me Knot
Ronan holds Leah’s small body like she’s all the gravity left in the world. "When she’s alone, she drowns in her trauma but we’re her scent-matches. Her instincts show she trusts us. She called usmates, Jax. Part of her knows. We have to use that. Useusas her advantage."
Ronan’s right. Being her scent-matches might be the only lifeline she has. An idea cracks open inside me, and I say it before better sense stops me. "We could bond her." The words taste dangerous. As scent-matches, we don't have to wait until her full heat to bond. Sweet venom pools in my mouth at the mere thought. The temptation pulses under my skin and I have to pull myself from a very real edge. "If she was bonded, she wouldn’t doubt. She’d understand the truth of what we are to her. Sense it in her bones. She wouldn’t have to split herself into pieces to survive."
"And risk her hating us forever for it?" Ronan shakes his head. "If we force a bond while she’s like this, it could backfire in ways we can’t even begin to fix. Our Omega is so fucking delicate right now. We can’t risk breaking her any further."
Gabriel’s gaze locks on our sleeping Omega. "Then we use what we have. Our scents are the one weapon we have to pull her back. If we can keep her present, keep her here with us instead of spiraling, maybe that’s enough."
“Then we stick to her all the time. Skin to skin. Infuse her with our scents so thick in her senses there will be no room for her mind to fracture. We keep her tethered to the here and now until she makes a decision to bond us herself," Jax says.
Ronan tightens his hold around our precious Omega. "Agreed, brother. Giving her space isn’t working. She’s not just any Omega. She’s our scent-matched mate. We show her who we are to her when her mind is clear. Keep her anchored to our scents and our bodies. We’ll be her stability. We’ll overwrite the old lessons, create new pathways in her mind, until there’s nowhere left for her to fall."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Leah
Darkness lingers behind my eyelids. Not quite sleep and not quite waking. My muscles are molten, as if I’ve been melted down and forged anew. For a fleeting moment, I don’t know where I am. There is only pressure and warmth, a cocoon of flesh wound tight around me.
My heart stutters in panic until I manage a careful inhale and the world blurs into sensation. My back is pressed to burning skin, a thrumming heartbeat slow and steady behind me. Ronan’s sharp edge of green needles, softened by the hush of fresh rainfall, cocoon me in the safety a prime Alpha offers as he lies flattened at my back. Musked sugary-warmth in my nostrils tells me Jax isanchored against my front. My arm rises and falls where I’m tucked against his chest, and the bare brush of his thigh between mine coaxes a shudder out of me.
I crack open my eyes to make out the curve of Jax’s jaw dotted with stubble in my line of sight. His full lips are slack and soft, the line of his collarbone inviting. Gabriel is splayed behind Jax, his arm thrown over Jax’s waist to rest over my hip. All three of them are touching me. Cocooning me with their scents, bodies and intent. Their musk is a balm and a drug, filling every empty space inside me.
We are piled in my couch nest, but it’s wider now to allow for their massive bodies. The two couches are pushed together, framing us on all sides to barricade us inside. My limbs are tangled with theirs, warmth raiding off them in waves, swaddling me. The towels and throw cushions I’ve taken comfort in are threaded with t-shirts, soft sweatshirts and their clothing infused with amber musk, sweet vanilla, the heady snap of pine and sweat and salt.
Like home, if home could be built out of longing. And be entirely overwhelming.
My muscles go rigid. My breath begins to saw. No matter what this cobbled-together sanctuary is, I’m in a nest.
With Alphas.
Good Omegas don’t get nests. I’m not a good Omega. I’m a bad, bad Omega. Ruined Omega. I’m…
Low thunder rumbles along my spine as Ronan’s purr explodes to life, and a firm hand grips my chin. My gaze lands on his stern features as he rises over me, his broad, muscular shoulders blocking out the light. "Stop, Omega. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not real."
But itisreal. I was there, receiving the punishments. I was there when I was forced onto my knees. When my veins were filled with corrosive acid. When I was tied to a gurney as nothing more than meat.
Ronan steals my mouth with his. The kiss is not gentle. His lips brand mine as his tongue slides into my mouth. His purr grows louder, shaking my bones, and I’m thrust into a thick and loamy forest, the trees reaching to the sky. The world disintegrates around me, and I’m pinned beneath his body. His lips. His will.
The world narrows to nothing but the molten slide of his tongue against mine, and his steady purr pulsing through my bones. I’m weightless, suspended between heartbeats and anchored only by the certainty of him. There is no before, no after. Only here and now.
When he finally draws back, his gaze pins me as my own roams his face and the dark wildness in his eyes. The world spins slowly back into place, held together by the gravity of his stare, and I am nothing but a loose, trembling mess in his arms.
Ronan’s thumb traces my lower lip. "Good Omega."
His velvet voice slips under my skin, and the words sink so deep they wind around that deepest, darkest part of me, winding up the solid wall inside me. A brick topples, smashing to dust, letting a frigid wind crawl through the gap.
Bad Omega. Ruined…
Another Alpha growl resonates, dark and sharp, and goosebumps race over my skin. Long fingers tangle firmly through my hair, guiding my face away from Ronan’s gravity. I’m yanked into Jax’s orbit. His jaw is set, his lips slashed in a hungry line. The molten look in his gaze slashes right through me. Harsh, sculpted with want and ache, the heat rolling off him is violent.
"Going to kiss you too, Omega." Jax’s lips crash to mine. His kiss is as hungry as Ronan’s. And as consuming. His need explodes through me, with every scrape of his teeth and sweep of his tongue, and an answering ache thrums to life within me.
Ronan’s purr is a thunderous vibration behind me, grounding every frantic beat of my heart. His hands roam toward my waist, branding me with the heat of his palm. Jax devours my mouth, coaxing whimpers from my throat, until there’s nothing left of me but sweet, aching surrender.
There’s no resistance left. Not with them. Their mouths are a drug, kisses addicting in a way that’s dangerous. A necessary craving in my marrow. Jax tears his lips from mine and leaves me gasping.
His eyes burn as he looks down at me. I take in the harsh, beautiful lines of his face, the stubborn cut of his jaw dusted with stubble, his mouth swollen from kissing me so hard. His dark earthy eyes are fierce and steady, but there’s softnessthere too. A hunger gentled by awe. He’s painfully handsome and close enough that his breath ghosts over my lips.
The combination of charred vanilla and campfire washes over me, making the world spin. My palm tingles with the compulsion to touch him, so overwhelming I give in to it without any thought at all. I drag my thumb along his jaw, his stubble scratching beneath my skin.
