My smirk was the size of a planet. Yeah, I was gonna decimate the whole nest and drive her wild doing it. She issued a cute growl as my knee connected with the nearest cushion.

“What?” I said, torn by indecision. “Sloane, I need to get in somehow.” She’d made a fucking fort around herself. I waded in and gathered her up to her squeal of outrage. “I’m here now.”

I rolled, taking her under, fingers tangling in her hair, lips on her throat, seeking and finding the claiming mark. The moment I sucked on it, she turned wild, nails clawing at my arse, wet pussy rubbing against my thigh. I felt everything from her like an echo inside me—her rioting emotions, the rushing pleasure that felt too big for her body to contain.

“This is going to be hard and fast,” I said, lips trailing down her collarbone, finding her lush tit and feasting. Her back arched, fingers in my hair pulling me closer, and that need to connect demanded its dues. My hand shook as it skimmed over her shoulder, down her back, over her arse, my thigh pressing up against her drenched pussy that she was rubbing against me.

“I’ll make it up to you after, baby,” I mumbled against her tit, working my way back up, pushing my other knee between hers, spreading her open for me. “I need to get you good and bred.”

“Yes, please, Jace.”

She didn’t need to ask me twice. My cock found the entrance to her without help, and that was it—I was gone. My hips snapped, dick driving straight into the hot, wet, clenching heaven of her cunt. Rising, I took her hips in hand and hammered into her like my life depended on us being one.

The nest collapsed around us, but I couldn’t give a fuck. I just needed to get my seed in her womb. I needed to claim her, and my beast wasn’t going to be happy until she was completely tied to me.

“I’m going to come,” I said. Watching her face contort in pleasure was driving me straight for the end.

Then she came, pussy fisting my cock, pounding at the burgeoning knot, gripping me up and demanding I give her what she needed.

He growled his approval as she gushed cum, my knot blooming to the point of no return as my teeth gritted, then I pushed past her tight, slippery entrance and locked into place. My lips were at her throat again, teeth sinking into the flesh, tasting blood.

Her cry was guttural, her pussy choking out the first heady shot of cum. I growled against her throat, hips jerking as more and more cum was dumped deep where it needed to go.

Breed.

She wasn’t leaving this nest until she was bred—that was a given.

Her fingers were on my arse, pulling me closer, legs and arms clinging with the same fierce need I felt. Inside my chest, the awareness blossomed into life.

Love.

Rich, deep, complex, the vortex swirled around us. Her pleasure hit me like a fucking avalanche, and my balls reached for more and found nothing, yet I still felt the dizzying sensations, the shuddering bliss.

“Jace!”

“I’ve got you, baby.”

Jesus, what the fuck had been wrong with me to leave her like that? It terrified me how I might have lost her. It pained me that I’d hurt her and caused her to doubt.

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay now. I can feel you—all of you.”

And she could. There was nothing I could hide from her, not any more. I was exposed. It should have frightened me, but it was comforting.

It was right.

My cock jerked. Damn, I wanted her again. I needed her again. I rocked my hips, testing the knot, stirring a growl from my mate when I tried to pull out.

Her arms and legs wrapped around me, tightened.

I grinned.

She shook her head in warning, trying to be stern and failing.

“What?” I said, all fake innocence.

“Don’t you dare.”

“Dare what, baby?” My cock jerked again. He was on board with round two.

A sudden thudding on the bedroom door brought a genuine growl to my lips.

“Jace! Sloane’s sister is here! She’s starting some fucking bullshit, demanding to see her sister.”

I glanced down at Sloane.

“Is she okay?” she asked.

“Handle her!” I hollered back. “She is now, baby. Ryder will take good care of her. Now, I’m going to take good care of your pussy.”

Chapter 16

Ryder

‘Handle her,’ he said. How the fuck was I supposed to handle a bratty beta who was now officially under Jace’s protection? He hadn’t said that part, but it was kind of an unwritten rule. Just like neither Dane nor me put our hands on Ella, touching Em felt much the same.

But as I exited the elevator…and was assaulted by a sharp bony finger in the centre of my chest, all that went out the window.

“Where’s Sloane?” Emma demanded. “You said you were fetching her.”

“I said I was going to check on her,” I replied, feeling that calm settle over me, the kind that usually foreshadowed someone getting fucked up…or a brat getting the spanking of their life. “And she was pretty busy.”

I didn’t point out that Jace had sounded like he would rearrange my face if I didn’t fuck off.

“It was implied,” she practically growled, giving another sharp poke.

“For fuck’s sake, Em, stop poking me in the damn chest!”

“Don’t ‘Em’ me, tough guy. I’m not afraid of you.”

On the other side of the room, the full crew was in attendance—omegas poised with food halfway to their lips, the guys looking on with amusement. Dane chuckled, the fucker.

Why exactly had I let Emma in the gates again?

Yeah, that was right—she’d been shaking the mesh like a madwoman, looking straight up at the surveillance camera, demanding to speak to the manager.

The fucking manager?! Like this was some kind of holiday resort.

She was batshit crazy. It was either bring her in, or have another damn riot on our hands when the rest of the deadbeats in this zone roused themselves to come and check what the fuck was going on.

“Are you even listening to me?” I asked. “You get your sister is newly mated, right? And from the sounds of things, they were busy alleviating their newly mated needs.”

The frown faded, her eyes went round, and she opened and closed her mouth a couple of times before spluttering, “Newly mated needs!” Her scowl was back in an instant, little chin tipping in defiance that might as well have been a red flag to the alpha side of me. “I demand to see my sister, this instant, before your ‘brother’” —she put air quotes on the word with an exaggerated roll of her eyes— “gets notions of breeding her.”

I rubbed my jaw as though pondering this. I was confident Jace was already balls deep and well into the process of breeding her formerly sensible sister, so I offered Emma a fake smile. “How about no.”

Then she poked me one time too fucking many.

“Oh!”

Her screech accompanied me tossing her over my shoulder. Small fists beat against my back, while she cursed me out like a pro.

And just like that, all the tension left me, because handling brats was a personal forte of mine. All alphas had a beast and all had a weakness. My beast’s weakness was taming querulous women, and this one needed a firm but loving lesson in boundaries and respect applied to her arse via my hand.

“Quiet down, princess.” I landed the first swat against her backside, chuckling when it roused an outraged squeal. I nodded my head to Dane, who was watching with a shit-eating grin. “If Jace and Sloane surface, tell them I’m going to be” —I gestured toward the wriggling spitfire hanging over my shoulder— “handling this little problem.”

I didn’t wait for a reply, just punched the button on the elevator, and with Emma still wailing about her rights, exited the room.

Epilogue

Sloane

If I thought waking up mated was a deliriously gorgeous feeling, waking up bred was something else. My body sang with pleasure, but not so much an intense, grasping, sexual one. I woke up, heard the heavy sounds of Jace’s breath, stared at the ceiling, and felt it. I’d never wanted to have kids before, feeling like I had my hands full with Em and the estate but… My hand dropped down to my flat stomach, the palm stroking over the smooth surface, and I felt it. Just a pinprick of…life, I guessed. No consciousness yet, no existence beyond a few multiplying cells, I knew that academically, but in reality, it was as if someone had gone all out to give me the perfect gift, one I hadn’t even known I wanted until I had it. My eyes pricked with tears, sensitive bloody omega, but I didn’t care. I let them come, because with them came a rush of the most perfect, all encompassing love.