“But Edison was so sure that you were there. He could feel you—through your bond—I mean. It was bad timing, but I was so fucking jealous of him in that moment. To have the clarity and knowledge that you were alive and close by.”
Rhodes shook his head roughly as if to shake away the negative thoughts.
Reaching up I ran a hand through his brown hair, scratching at the spot on his scalp that I knew he liked and waited for the tension in his shoulders to ease a bit before speaking.
“That’s actually pretty fixable. You know that, right?”
Gently, I pulled his face into the spot on my neck that I always caught him staring at when we made love. They’d both explained to me that when alphas made a bond mark, where it was placed was all about instincts and his seemed to have him fixating on the place that was opposite of Edison’s.
“I can’t,” he murmured against my skin. “You won’t be able to hide it if I bite you here.”
“And what’s the problem with that?” Edison’s groggy voice cut into our conversation. His eyes were still closed when I looked over at him, but his brows were lifted as he continued. “Trust me to handle it, Rho, and just bite her already so I can get some sleep. I’m too old to be pulling all-nighters like this.”
“I sort-of need to be able to knot her in order to bond. To make sure that it takes,” Rhodes grumbled dryly as he lifted his face away from my neck to shoot Edison a look.
One golden eye opened. “And? We’ve already done what we needed to for Perrie’s heat, so I say go for it.”
It was my turn to frown at him. “What do you mean?”
With a sigh, Edison rolled onto his side and propped his head in one hand, resting on his elbow. “Pet, how many days has it been since your heat started?”
I thought about it for a moment, trying to remember how many times the sun had gone up and fallen in the sky. “Two—I think?”
“Exactly. It’s incredibly rare for an omega’s heat to only last two days unless…” He trailed off, waiting for me to make the connection.
I thought back to my lessons with the old matron omega. An omega’s estrus usually lasted, bare minimum, four days and could go anywhere from an entire week to two depending on the omega.
The only reason for an omega’s heat to stop was if the biological need behind it was fully satisfied.
A gasp left my lips as I sat up completely straight, my hands moving to my stomach. “Unless I’m pregnant. Holy shit, that was fast!”
“And you can thank your husband’s super sperm for that,” Edison purred smugly, clearly proud of himself. “I may be pushing forty, but I’ve still got it in me.”
I gave his shoulder a push, wrinkling my nose. “Gross.”
That meant that Edison had his heir. His legacy. And that he was on much more solid ground to truly take control of the Keane family.
As the implications of it all settled over me, a pair of strong arms wrapped around me from behind as Rhodes pressed a kiss to my lips, clearly realizing that all of his worries were gone now.
“Okay, you two have fun, I’m going to take a nap before Perrie tries to suck what little life I have left out of my body,” Edison joked as he reached out to give my leg an affectionate squeeze, his eyes shutting again.
Rhodes barely gave me a moment to adjust to all of the information that I’d just learned, already flipping me onto my back as his stiffening cock pressed to my swollen entrance.
“I love you,” he blurted, his dark eyes searching my face as he said it.
A rush of happiness filled me so quickly that it took me a moment to realize that it was a mixture of my own and Edison’s as he pretended to sleep in order to give us our moment.
Tears welled up in my eyes as I pulled him down to me, wrapping a leg around his waist and pulling him into me again.
I’d been giving him time, hoping he felt the same way, and now he’d said the words out loud and I was a bit worried I was in some kind of heat-induced coma dreaming about them.
“I love you too,” I murmured against his mouth, sucking in a sharp breath as his hips kicked forwards and he buried himself inside of me up to his knot.
My words seemed to spur him on because he set an almost too fast pace, his arms wrapping around me and pulling me up out of the nest and up to his chest forcing me to wrap my arms and legs around him and hang on for dear life.
It took longer than before for me to come, the rise of the orgasm much more steady than with my heat where it felt like even them just breathing on me was enough to get me going.
But when Rhodes began to push his knot inside on one of his last thrusts I found my toes curling as the warm fire was ignited.
“Bite me,” I managed, my lips pressed firmly to the skin of his neck where his pulse was the strongest, his chocolate scent blocking out almost all of my other senses as we came together. “Bond me.”
I came around Rhodes’ knot as it swelled, locking inside of me. With a throaty moan, Rhodes pressed my body back into the nest and came, his teeth digging into my neck.
Like before with Edison, my heartbeat slowed as whatever biological juice alphas had in their teeth worked its magic. Then, the heartbeat that I felt thrumming against my lips slowly became the one my own heart felt.
I knew that, if I pressed my ear to Edison’s chest, that his heartbeat would match ours as well. Three beats in tandem to represent our pack.
Where Edison oozed confidence in his emotions, feeling them as they came, Rhodes’ were almost shy as they filtered down the bond to me.
Exhaustion, affection, desire, and love trickled slowly down to me, presenting themselves like show dogs before receding to let the next one take a moment in the spotlight.
“You can let me feel them all at once, you know,” I whispered in his ear as he lapped at the fresh bond mark. “I’m strong. I can take it.”
With my words, the floodgates opened and all of the emotions he’d been showing me one-by-one all clamored to the surface like a tidal wave.
A little gasp left my lips, but I closed my eyes and let them wash over me, pleased when I felt Edison’s part of the bond light up to complete the circle.
“I can feel him too,” Edison, who’d never actually gone back to sleep, murmured as he stared at us with wonder.
