Chapter Eighteen

Funny how even a limo could feel small to Ashley once all three alphas piled in.

Torrin spoke on his phone, his gaze out of the window on a call he’d been on for the past ten minutes.

He always worked, rarely ever taking a break from it. She’d had to almost pull him at times from the work to get him into bed for the evening. Not that she minded, and despite him almost never smiling, she could see the tightened muscles in his cheeks as she did so, as he gave in to her. He’d never admit it, but she knew he enjoyed her fussing over him.

Erik sat to her left, his arm pressed to hers. He didn’t often speak, but seemed to like contact, as if that small touch were enough for him to know she was there despite them not talking.

Liam, on the other hand, behaved like a little brother most often, teasing her and forever acting out for her attention.

It had been easy to fall into that routine. The trips to work and back had become a cherished part of her day, and fears of Gregory had faded into the background.

The alphas had assured her they were working on the problem, and the added security remained a welcome constant in her life.

Still, she felt settled and safe in a way she hadn’t in so long. She slept through the night, pressed up against one or more of them. Concerns of the man who had plagued her life were so far removed, she went days without a single thought of him.

She would visit with Kara from time to time, and had grown to enjoy the woman’s company, as odd as she might be.

It was an honest life, one she’d never thought she’d have.

A sting in her ear drew her attention back to Liam. “You’re ignoring me.”

“So you flick my ear?”

He shrugged. “I would have preferred fucking you until you paid attention, but there isn’t a lot of room in here.” That grin of his, the one so full of mischief that she shuddered when it appeared, spread across his lips. “But we could test that out. I mean, I’ve been wrong before.”

He reached for her, but before he could touch her, the limo jerked to the left hard enough that she fell into Erik. A sound caught her attention, and it took a moment for her to realize it was the limo.

The driver spoke up from the intercom once the vehicle came to a stop. “Flat tire.”

Erik got out of the car first, with Liam, Ashley and Torrin exiting after. No doubt they’d call for a new car, and Ashley wasn’t going to sit in the limo to wait.

They were in a deserted parking lot Ashley didn’t recognize. She’d grown used to the surrounding areas, at least the parts they traveled. This didn’t seem familiar at all.

“Where are we?” Erik asked.

Liam slid a hand behind him, keeping Ashley pressed to his back.

“There was traffic,” the driver said. “We had to go around.”

That didn’t seem to ease any of the alphas.

Liam’s voice came out pleasant, but his grip on Ashley didn’t loosen. “Traffic always gets to us. So, should we call for another car? I’d rather get home quicker and not wait for the tire to get changed.”

“Already called,” the driver said. “New car will be here any moment.”

Sure enough, the roar of another engine tore through the silence, and a black town car—so much like the ones they normally used—pulled into the parking lot.

She might not have the senses they did, but her past of running from Gregory had given her a good ability to recognize when something was wrong.

There was something very wrong.

The town car stopped, and from inside, four men poured out. She could only see feet from her spot, hidden behind Liam, but so many people couldn’t mean anything good.

Erik turned a vicious look on the driver. “How much were you paid?”

“Enough,” the man said.

“I assure you, it wasn’t.” The coldness of Erik’s voice and the simmering violence terrified Ashley.

Liam shifted her more, pressed her further behind him, to shield her more with his body.

“We were set to meet in a few days,” Torrin said.

“I don’t like leaving things to chance. People tend to be more honest when surprised, so I moved up the schedule of our hand-off.” That voice, the one carved into her psyche. Gregory.

She couldn’t see him, and she wasn’t sure if that was better or not. The idea of having him out of sight terrified her, yet she wasn’t sure she was ready to face him, not after so many years. There was a safety in being tucked behind Liam.

But what hand-off was he talking about?

“You show up with armed men. Why should we trust you’ll keep your word?” Torrin asked.

“Because you lack choices and thus leverage. I’m still willing to keep my word, though. Hand Ashley over to me and you’ll have what I promised you. No one needs to die here today.”

Ashley’s stomach dropped. Gregory negotiated with the alphas and they didn’t tell me?

Sickness gnawed at her, at the idea they’d kept it from her, that she’d been so out of the loop, and with fear that they really intended to hand her over. How could she be in the same spot again? Why hadn’t she learned her lesson?

Violence swirled, thick like smoke, enough to choke on. Liam’s hand was strong against her, holding her tightly. Despite how she couldn’t breathe when she realized they’d lied, that grip said one thing at least—they aren’t going to hand me over.

Ashley expected some quip, for the alphas to say something before moving. That was how it always happened in the movies. Violence never just occurred. It was softened with funny words and lessons, and yet none of that happened.

There was nothing to prepare her for the ugliness of it.

Erik moved first, taking the gun from the holster at his hip and firing, impossibly fast and without a moment of hesitation. Liam did the same, just as Torrin yanked her back, trapping her between the limo and his body. Still, she couldn’t see anything, and that was worse. Only the grunts of pain and the loud blasts of the guns told her what happened.

The alphas moved backward, Ashley pushed along with them, until they crouched behind the back of the limo.

“You could have made this easy,” Gregory shouted above the noise.

Torrin gripped the back of her shirt to keep her down, behind the cover. “You aren’t getting her,” he called back.

“I heard a rumor you had a meeting with a mutual friend. I knew he’d been looking for someone to take me out for years, but imagine my surprise when I heard it was you. I didn’t believe it.”

Ashley turned her gaze to Torrin, confusion making it hard to make sense of the words. Why would anyone ask Torrin and his cousins to kill someone? Businessmen didn’t do that.

Gregory wouldn’t stop his tirade, though. “I mean, from everything you three have done, maybe it shouldn’t have surprised me. I just thought of you as more run-of-the-mill criminals, not the sort who would dare take a shot at someone like me. You’ll kill other drug dealers and break kneecaps for business, but killing me? That’s a whole different league.”

Bile crept up Ashley’s throat, burning as things fitted into place.

The security, the way the alphas had been so vague about what they did, the respect—no, fear—she’d seen in some of their clients.

They weren’t at all what she’d thought, were they? It was like learning about Gregory all over again.

“Until next time,” Gregory called before the slam of a door and squealing tires said he’d left.

It wasn’t over, though. Rocks crunched beneath running feet, and Liam took off.

Ashley rose, finding bodies of three men she didn’t recognize on the pavement, red leaking from them as they didn’t move.

Liam overtook the driver, who had tried to run, then hauled him back with a grip on the back of his neck, a grip Liam had used on her before but which had never seemed so sinister.

Torrin took a moment to check Ashley over, but he said nothing to her directly. It was for the best, because she had no idea what to say back.

Erik walked up to the driver, his expression that distant, cold one Ashley hated. It was what she’d seen in him before, but never had it taken up so much of him. “You betrayed us,” he said.

The driver trembled, all his bravery from earlier having fled. “I’m sorry,” he pleaded. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“You had a choice,” Torrin said. “You could have come to us if they threatened you, but instead you took the money happily, willing to see us all killed.”

Erik didn’t snarl, and that was even more frightening. If he’d been enraged, she’d have understood, but he spoke coolly, as though none of what happened was any more meaningful than tying his shoes. “If you had only betrayed us, I might have let it go. However, you were trusted with her. You were tasked with driving her on her own before. That I can’t let slide.”

What little color remained in the man’s face drained away when he saw the expression on Erik’s face. When Erik moved, it was with a speed that had Ashley stumbling backward. His hand was nothing but a blur, a flash of silver at the end.

Red poured from the driver’s throat, and Ashley covered her mouth as his body fell in a heap.

Blood spread from him, a sickening gurgle that caused her to lose the fight with her stomach.

She twisted away and hunched over, one hand on the limo, and vomited. Each time she stopped heaving, the memory of it came back to her. Not just the blood, but Erik’s calm face, the way Liam and Torrin had looked on as if it were entirely normal.

It all became clear.

I fell in love with monsters.

* * * *

Erik paced the safehouse, missing the apartment. It wasn’t the stuff, but rather the feeling.

He turned his gaze to Ashley before having to admit that it wasn’t the apartment he missed—it was the way she’d brought the place to life.

She stared out of the window, her face pale, refusing to talk or look at any of them.

All their secrets were out now. Everything they’d tried to hide was on the table, and she’d not reacted well.

Then again, what had he expected? She was sweet, innocent, naive. She wouldn’t have reacted well to finding out the males she’d bonded to were at best criminals, at worst murderers.

They hadn’t bothered to try to speak to her on the way to the safehouse. What was there to say?

Once she’d finished throwing up, they’d given her a water as Torrin had called someone they trusted for a car, one that couldn’t be traced.

Not that he was certain how to deal with any of it.

“I want to leave,” Ashley said, her voice wavering around the words.

Erik turned to face her, Liam and Torrin doing the same.

Liam answered. “It’s not safe anywhere else right now.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want to be here, not with you.”

Erik took a step toward her, wanting to brush her hair from her face, to remind her that she knew them. Even if she hadn’t known everything, she still knew them, and if he could only touch her, she’d remember.

Except she jumped back a step as if he were the largest danger there.

Pain clawed at his chest, the memories of his old mate walking out on him, of the fear in her face. There it was again, his old friend, that terror on the face of a loved one, the one he’d known he would see eventually on Ashley’s.

“You can’t leave,” Liam said again, voice soft. “It’s too dangerous out there.”

She shook her head. “I’m not so sure it’s safe here, either.”

“We’d never let anything happen to you,” he tried again.

“And I’m supposed to believe that?”

“Haven’t we proven it?” Torrin asked.

She seemed to snap then, all that gentle demeanor that Erik knew draining away until hurt and anger took over. “No, you haven’t proven it. I trusted you! I told you how often I’d been betrayed, lied to, used, and now I find out you were doing the same. After I told you how much it mattered to me to not be lied to, you did the exact thing to me everyone else always has.”

“We weren’t using you,” Torrin argued.

“Of course you were! You were using my stupidity to make me fall for you, knowing I never would have if I’d realized what sort of people you really were. And what about the hand-off?”

“We were buying time. I was never going to give you to him,” Torrin said.

“You could have talked to me, told me about it.”

“You didn’t need to know.”

Even Erik winced at the stupidity of that answer.

She lifted her chin, anger dancing in her deep blue eyes. “I didn’t need to know? It’s my life.”

“And this is our world. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”

“You’ll do whatever you want to keep you safe. You didn’t lie to me because you were worried about me—you lied because you knew I’d never accept it. You all knew I couldn’t live with this, so you decided to keep me in the dark for your own benefit. Don’t you dare pretend it was for me. And his friend’s offer? You’re planning on doing his dirty work? What, so you can become omega slavers, too?”

“It wasn’t like that.” No matter how much Torrin tried to explain, her harsh look said she refused to hear any of it. “His associates gave us a good deal. If we get rid of him, you’ll be safe.”

“And you’ll have new associates? It wasn’t about me. It was about you getting what you want, like always.”

Sure, Erik and Liam had said the same thing, but hearing it from Ashley made it worse.

Still, Torrin persisted. “More allies would keep you safer.”

“You just want power and you don’t care what you have to do or who you have to walk over to get it. You didn’t need to be this person. You’re smart enough to do business without it, but you are so desperate to have people look past your limp that you’ll mow down anyone in your way to get there. I knew that—I guess I just didn’t realize that included me.”

The jab silenced them all, even more so because Erik wasn’t sure there was a response it. Was there a way to explain to her that wasn’t true? That she mattered to them?

But…did she matter more than their business? Than Torrin’s power? Than the life they’d spent so long cultivating? It was easy to make a choice when it seemed to be the same benefit, but if they were truly put head to head?

“Everything I did was for your benefit. I will not watch you get slaughtered like my last mate!”

“And I won’t be with males who think so little of me that they lie to me, right to my face. This was never for me. You could have gone to the police instead. I can’t believe with your contacts, you don’t have someone you could reach who wasn’t connected to him.”

“That would have labeled us snitches and ruined all the contacts we have. We’d lose everything.”

“Exactly,” she said. “It’s easy to say you did this for me when you think the choice that is best for me is also best for you. When you pit them against one another, though, when you have to pick, you’ll always pick yourself. I’m just a possession for you, something for you to own along with everything else you have.”

Erik opened his mouth to rebut her statement, but her next words came out so soft, so sad, they stole his breath.

“You’re just like Gregory.”

He couldn’t even argue with her on that point.

* * * *

Ashley hurt. It was a pain so deep, she had no idea how to handle it.

It was as though all that happiness that she’d cultivated in her weeks with the alphas had collapsed in on itself and left a hollow ache instead.

She’d walked out on the alphas after their argument, retreating to one of the rooms. They hadn’t bothered her since, and each moment without them grew that clawing, tearing pain inside her.

Everything she’d thought she found was fake. That was the worst part of it, that she’d been happy, that she’d been so damned content, then discovered it was as lie. It made her recognize that it was gone.

She’d never get it back.

That loss broke her, shattering her heart into pieces so small, she thought she could scatter them like glitter.

The night dragged on and sleep wouldn’t come. It wasn’t fear of Gregory. She wasn’t sure she feared him anymore.

The hurt was so deep, and she’d realized that all men weren’t honest no matter what, so why fear Gregory?

It was like realizing the game was always rigged, so why worry about playing?

She’d lose in the end. Whether it was by loving men who had betrayed her or living her life under Gregory’s thumb, did it really matter?

She got out of the bed, frustration tearing at her, feelings too large to even understand coursing through her.

The alphas had done this to her, had made her want things—need things—they couldn’t give to her.

She left her room, dressed in nothing. She knew damned well why she was seeking them out.

The fewer clothes, the better.

She found the alphas in the guest bedroom, with Liam and Torrin asleep on the bed and Erik stretched out in a chair, his feet up on the end of the bed.

They didn’t look all that peaceful, even asleep, as if they couldn’t settle fully.

I will not feel guilty about that.

Liam’s bare chest drew her in. The alphas had made her feel out of control and helpless and stupid. They could damned well help her deal with it.

Liam woke the moment she slid over him, the blanket keeping her from touching him directly. He drew in a surprised breath, but she ignored it and leaned down to kiss his jawline.

She wasn’t gentle when she traced his strong jaw. She wanted to bite at his skin, to draw blood, to make him hurt like she was.

But…that wasn’t her. So instead, she rolled her hips, his cock hardening so she could feel it even with the blanket between them.

The chair creaked, telling her Erik had woken, and a hand on her back said Torrin was aware, too.

“Dove,” Torrin whispered. “What are you doing?”

Ashley didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to bare her soul anymore to men she didn’t trust. They’d seen more of her than they deserved, so she’d guard anything else.

She tried to keep her focus on where her lips met Liam’s throat, but when she reached out to stroke up Torrin’s leg, over the sweats he wore, a hand slid into her hair and pulled, tearing her from what she wanted most.

Erik was the one who had done it, she realized as he forced her to meet his dark gaze, to stare into the eyes she’d thought she’d known so well. “You’re still angry. You don’t want this.”

“I do,” she argued.

“You think we can’t see it? Can’t smell the hurt and anger on you?” His grip didn’t relent, and even the sting in her scalp was familiar.

It only hurt more, the way she liked it, the way she remembered how sweetly they’d taken her, that they’d used a grip in her hair to control her.

She’d felt safe when they did it before. She felt that safety again, and she hated it.

I know they’re liars now. I should know better than to fall for this.

“You made me feel this way,” she spat. “You did this to me.”

“And you think this will help? You think having sex with us now, feeling the way you do, is a good idea?”

She dug her nails into Torrin’s leg and rocked her hips, grinding her cunt against Liam’s erection. “I don’t care. Are you happy now? I don’t care about anything. I don’t care if Gregory finds me, I don’t care if I have to start over, I don’t care if I just disintegrate into nothing here with you. I just don’t care. I thought I had something—you made me think I had something—then you took it away. Are you going to take this away, too?”

He dragged his finger below her eye, catching a tear. She hated that she was crying, but she couldn’t help it. It was all too much.

He exchanged a look with the others, as if he needed to know what they thought.

The idea of having sex with them was horrible, but the idea of them turning her away was worse.

“We’ll give you whatever you need,” he said, his voice soft, as if he were trying so hard to not be the man she’d seen take that driver’s life. He leaned in for a kiss, but she turned her head. It was too familiar, too painful.

She pulled at the blanket, rewarded by it shifting out of the way, only to find Liam naked.

She shifted up to her knees, her anger and hurt driving her as she grasped his cock and pressed it to her. She didn’t toy with him, didn’t get off on the sweet exploration that she had before. Instead, it felt mechanical, like a means to an end.

Before she could slide down, Torrin caught her hip. “You’re not ready.”

“I don’t care.”

Torrin offered a kiss to her shoulder before he found her clit with his fingers. “I care. We’ve done enough damage. We won’t hurt you like this, not ever.”

A little painful sex was nothing compared to having her heart ripped out.

Still, the stroke of Torrin’s agile fingers to her clit turned her body against her. No matter what she felt, she knew she’d never be able to resist them. Why? How can I still want them after I know what they are?

Liam reached up her body to cup her breast, teasing the nipple. It mixed pleasure with the pain, and that was what she wanted.

She needed to feel something else, to do anything to break the tension inside her.

It didn’t take long before she was moaning, before her pussy was drenched and she rode that impossible high they always gave to her.

Ashley grasped his cock, and this time no one stopped her when she fitted Liam against her cunt, when she slid his thick shaft into her.

A thin whine left her lips, but she didn’t stop. The stretching of her body was just another sensation warring inside her, and she took it, used it to push away the day, the truth, all of it.

When her body met his, when she’d taken every inch of him, she set her hands on his chest and rode him, going up slowly before coming down hard, letting him plunge in as deep as possible.

Liam caught the back of her neck and pulled her down to his lips, but she turned her face. She didn’t want his kiss.

It meant too much.

He pressed his lips to her jaw instead. “You mean everything to me, sweet. You have to know that, to believe that.”

She pressed her eyes tightly shut, trying to block them out. She couldn’t let his voice creep in.

He cupped her cheeks and pressed her forehead to his. “What do you need? Tell me, and I’ll give it to you.”

“I need more.”

“More what?”

She whimpered and rolled her hips. “I need to not hurt anymore. Just for a little while, give me enough so I won’t hurt.”

His groan wasn’t one of pleasure, but was saturated in regret.

He only regretted getting caught, though, not what had happened, not what he had done to her. If he cared about those things, he’d never have done it in the first place.

Torrin spoke instead. “We’ll give you everything, dove, always.” A tightness in her hair said he’d gripped it, pulling until she angled to the side. Warmth at her lips had her darting her tongue out. Salty precum was her reward, and she relaxed into the grasp of Torrin’s hand. He rubbed his cock against her lips, a teasing touch that said he’d do what he wanted.

Which was exactly what she needed.

After a moment—far too long, really—he pulled softly at her hair until she parted her lips and took his thick, hard cock into her mouth.

Ashley kept her eyes closed while she worshipped his shaft, and she hated herself and him for it. How could she be so angry and yet fall so easily for this? How could he hurt her so much, and yet she melted for him?

The answers mattered less than the questions, and she pushed them aside, trying to lose herself in the feeling, in his taste, in his scent. He controlled the action, never going deep, letting her twist her tongue around the tip of his cock and hollow her cheeks to suck, to lick the precum from the slit at the head.

“Enough?” he asked.

No. She shook her head, or tried the best she could.

Large, warm hands ran over her hips.

Erik. She shuddered as she remembered what those hands had done earlier, how easily they’d taken a life.

His voice rose above the groans in the room, above her own broken whines. “If you want to be overwhelmed, I can do it.” His lips pressed back to her in a kiss that was too gentle, too sweet. “Do you trust me?”

No.

She didn’t need to respond, or maybe she had and she hadn’t realized it. Whatever the truth, they heard her answer loud and clear.

He dragged his tongue up her spine, the wetness left behind from it catching a chill from the air. “I won’t hurt you, not like this. Do you want more? Because I’ll give you more, but you have to tell me yes.”

Torrin tugged at her hair until she released his cock, until she had to answer, had to participate.

“I want everything you can give me,” she answered honestly.

“Good girl,” Torrin praised but didn’t return her to his cock. Instead, he slid his thumb past her lips, allowing her to suck on that, to wrap her tongue along the digit in some parody of what she wanted.

She didn’t ask why—the answer clear when Erik grasped her ass cheeks, spread her and slid his finger until he pressed against a spot on her that was untouched.

Ashley tensed, unsure.

“If you don’t want to, either tell us or tap twice with your hand. This is still your choice,” Torrin told her.

Even without an answer, Erik continued to tease, not trying to press into her but ghosting over her ass with clear intent.

And Ashley knew she wouldn’t tell them no.

This was what she’d wanted. She needed them to take away the hurt they’d caused, at least for a little while, and that meant this. It meant them pushing her past her boundaries, past what she’d had before, until she couldn’t think, couldn’t remember, could only catch a glimpse of what she’d thought she had found.

When she didn’t tell them no, Erik pressed another kiss to her lower back. Something cold and wet dripped on her. It took her a second to realize it must have been lube, and she knew she was right when Erik set a slick finger against her ass.

He didn’t tease anymore, instead pressing hard enough to sink that single finger into her to the first knuckle.

She cried out, shifting her hips, the foreign intrusion feeling strange.

Not bad, not painful, just odd.

“Relax for us, sweet,” Liam whispered.

But his sweet words and pet name weren’t what she wanted to hear. Those things forced her to think about their connection, about the bond between them. She needed this to be just bodies.

She released Torrin’s thumb. “I need…” She couldn’t bring herself to say it.

How could she tell him that she needed his commanding voice? That she didn’t need them to be gentle, or careful, or sweet. She needed them to hold her down, to rumble out the commands she couldn’t resist and to force her so she didn’t have to think.

Leave it to Torrin to understand, though. He stroked his fingers over her cheek. “You’re sure? I didn’t think you’d want that, not with how you’re feeling.”

“Please,” she begged.

He slid his thumb over her bottom lip. “Anything.” He paused for a moment, and when he spoke again, it held that edge of demand she needed, the one that never failed to force her body to obey. “Relax. Let him in, omega.”

She almost sobbed in relief when she could ease into that order, when she could let everything go. She took a breath and relaxed, loosening her muscles.

Erik took advantage, delving even farther into her. When she wasn’t tense, the sensation went from strange to good. It teased nerve endings that had never been toyed with before.

It added to the feeling of fullness caused by Liam’s cock, which seemed impossibly larger since she couldn’t move.

One finger turned into two, and the stretch had her whimpering.

Torrin’s thumb slipped past her lips again. “Suck.”

Ashley did as he said, and just as he’d planned, no doubt, it distracted her.

Erik loosened her, working his fingers into her with slow and determined thrusts. He twisted his wrist, stroking all the nerve endings in her untrained ass.

Too soon, he withdrew, and she whined at both the loss and the knowledge of what would come next.

He stroked her ass, grasping a cheek in his strong hand. The blunt head of his cock pushed against her, the cool wetness telling her he’d added more lube.

She shifted, her nerves getting the better of her.

“Be still,” Torrin ordered. “You will let him fuck your ass.”

The crude words melted her resolve, and Ashley went lax against Liam. She focused on not fighting, on wrapping her tongue around Torrin’s thumb.

The burn was exquisite as Erik sank into her. His cock was thick and hot and her body gave for it in a way she’d never experienced.

Between him and Liam’s dick, she felt impossibly full, and it only increased with each rock of his hips forward, each inch he took.

She panted hard, Torrin’s thumb forgotten, the distraction not nearly enough to keep her from focusing on that full sensation, on how she stretched to accommodate Erik’s girth.

“You can do it,” Liam coaxed, his words too sweet.

Erik didn’t speak, but the grasping of his hands and the rub of his thumbs against her skin were caresses of their own.

She was moaning, sweat on her brow by the time Erik’s body met hers, when she’d taken all of him, when she felt trapped and fully fucked.

Torrin rubbed his thumb against her tongue, an odd but surprisingly welcome touch. “Such a good girl. Now, you’ll let us fuck you, taking you exactly as we want to. We will own every inch of your body, every hole, and you’ll love it, won’t you?” He pulled his thumb free of her.

She wasn’t sure if he expected an answer, but she gave one anyway, unable to help it. “Yes.”

“You’ll do that because you know we wouldn’t hurt you, because you trust us.” He said it like a fact even as he waited for her to respond, for her to agree.

But she couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come.

He sighed softly before replacing his finger with his cock again, and this time, he didn’t hold back. He didn’t fuck into her mouth, but rather controlled the depth and speed by using her hair like a leash.

They all did that. Liam teased her sensitive nipples while Erik grasped her hips and used that to control her movements. He would pull her up, causing her to fuck herself on Liam’s cock while he thrust into her ass. He set an opposite rhythm, so she was never fully empty—when he retreated, Liam advanced. It kept her on that edge, made her desperate for more.

Yet, as much as she enjoyed it, she fought against her release.

She didn’t want to come. She didn’t want to fall down that hole with them, to lose the tension. When it was over, she’d feel as hopeless as before, except she’d be knotted and faced with the alphas who had caused it.

So even as they toyed with her body, even as they fucked her so expertly, she gave in to everything except her own orgasm.

Torrin growled softly, as if he knew she was denying them. Even still, when she took him as deep as possible, when a tremble in his thighs proved how close he was, he came. His seed was thick and warm, and she swallowed as quickly as she could, licking him clean afterward for any speck she might have missed.

Still, she resisted the boiling passion inside her, held tight to it so it wouldn’t snap.

Erik’s silence broke on a snarl, which oddly enough pleased her. His silence frightened her, that feelingless thing he could become, but the snarl? The animalistic side? That she liked. That she understood. He plunged in so his body was flush to hers when he came deep in her ass. Each twitch of his cock from his release again tempted the orgasm she’d held at bay. Her entire body felt electric, as though sparks of energy coursed through it, lighting up each spot inside her.

She curled her fingers into Liam’s chest to hold off, to fight against the crashing waves of pleasure.

When Erik pulled out, she felt empty, and an embarrassing moan left her.

Liam moved fast, flipping them once Erik had shifted away. Liam grasped her thigh, hiking it up like a man possessed, like a man who had been pushed too far.

He fucked her with hard, deep thrusts. “I fucking love you,” he snarled into her ear. “We all do. You know it even if you don’t want to, even if you fight it. We’ll prove it to you.”

Ashley buried her face in his throat, not wanting to hear it. What was worse was that it was true.

She knew they loved her. She loved them. None of that changed anything, though.

His knot grew, and he jerked her closer as he locked in place.

That was what she couldn’t fight, though. No matter how she tried, her body ran on instincts too deep, and she shattered.

Somehow, that hurt the most. It was the fact she’d tried to ignore, to hide from.

Even knowing the truth, even finding out they’d lied to her and who they really were didn’t matter.

She loved them and there was no way to fight that.