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“Will you oblige me?” he asked, holding out a large hand. What?
She stared at his hand, and then peered up into his face, trying to figure out what he wanted. The stone? She flicked up the hem of her shirt, pulling it from her shorts—the sudden stillness in the room wasn’t lost on her, but the narrowing of Kalen’s eyes had her attention caught. “No,” he rumbled, giving the artefact a rapid flicker of his attention before his eyes were boring into hers again. “You, Carter.” Oh. Oh.
They all seemed to have grown, except for Mikel and Kalen, who must have already reached the end of the mysterious Alpha growth cycle that she still didn’t understand. But other than that obvious sign of vitality, they looked … almost haggard. Dark circles were smudged beneath their eyes. Elijah’s pointed, streamlined features were more pronounced, as though he hadn’t been eating properly, despite his swelling size. Gabriel’s hair was more than just messy from the ministrations of his hands—he had outgrown his cut, the strands uneven as they brushed his neck and ears. Cian had fierce frown
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Kalen squeezed her hand before releasing her … and she was moving before she could even think it through, passing the room to the couch where Gabriel and Elijah sat, plopping herself between them and setting her drink on the coffee table. They both shifted closer—the movement more of a reflex than anything—while glaring at each other over her head.
“Just don’t let him touch you, or look at you, or go any-fucking-where near you.”
“Goddamn,” he groaned, inhaling deeply. “Have you always smelled this good?” “Have you always spoken your intrusive thoughts out loud?” Theodore demanded. “Pretty much, yeah,” Moses drawled, squeezing Isobel.
“We have his life in our hands.” Oscar spoke like his own words were leaving a bad taste in his mouth.
“Dead how?” she asked, cutting Oscar a suspicious look. “Dead like a corpse.” He didn’t even hesitate. She winced. “Oscar.” “Isobel.”
“Threats are for people who don’t intend to follow through,” he snarled.
Niko’s second stress ball popped, making her jump. He sighed, tossing it to the coffee table. She approached him cautiously, holding out her hand. “I am not a tennis ball,” she warned him, hesitant to put her ligaments into his flexing grip.
Oh god. Kalen was too big. He would destroy her.
“Oh my god, you can’t be the one to try and calm me down right now,” she wailed, pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes.
She hadn’t ever tried to think about why she found the more savage beauty of Mikel and Oscar appealing, but she also didn’t care to analyse it further. Not with them listening to her thoughts.
Elijah wasn’t about to admit it, but he stared at her like every flutter of her long, dark brown lashes was the most fascinating thing he had ever seen—which was a dangerous thing for her, but she didn’t seem to realise it. Gabriel looked at her like she was one of his precious notebooks and he was barely controlling the urge to stack her onto his desk where she belonged, erecting a ten-foot wall around her so that nobody else could contaminate her.
A mask Theodore and Oscar didn’t even bother with and hadn’t bothered with since the Sigma waltzed into their lives. Both of them would tear apart anyone who so much as blinked wrong at Isobel, including the members of their own group.
Because the urge to ask her if she was also off limits was too strong.
“It would mean that touching you lights me on fire,” Moses growled, advancing on her, his eyes flashing black. “It would mean I would crawl out of my own skin to get inside you. Hypothetically,”
“Sure did, demon boy.” Isobel winked at Moses, who narrowed his eyes on her, catching her arm before she could skip away from him to sit at the table with Maya and Luis.
Moses tugged Isobel to the table, pulling out a chair for her and settling his arms on her shoulders when she sank down.
Theodore pulled a chair beside hers, sitting close and laying a large, possessive hand over her thigh.
It wasn’t like Niko to insist on touching her, and this wasn’t a show of surrogacy for Maya, because Niko wasn’t supposed to be one of her surrogates and she doubted Maya could even see where his hand was resting beneath the table. Isobel subtly slipped her hand from her lap to cover his, and he immediately turned his palm, twisting their fingers together tightly. So tightly it was almost painful.
The bonded were always thought to be their chosen, but if you want my honest opinion? Whoever decided Carter would be bonded to so many Alphas was fucking with us—excuse the language.”
Mikel (admin): Now we narrow it down, assuming you aren’t going to pick your favourite Alpha. Isobel: I’d rather impale myself on one of the thousand pillars or iron gates around here.
Isobel: Last year nobody wanted a bond and now it’s a prize?
“We are definitely rubbing off on you,” Moses muttered low.
“I want more.” He spoke calmly. “I want you.”
“If you don’t feel this”—he captured her hand, pressing it over the erratic beat of his heart, the only part of him betraying his calm exterior—“I’m taking you back to Dorm A and giving this opportunity to someone else. I don’t know what’s going to happen when we bond, but some people say they feel each other’s feelings and hear each other’s thoughts and if I have to feel that your heart doesn’t speed up for me the way mine does for you, I don’t think I’ll handle it well.”
“I can be very very—” His lips brushed hers, both of them inhaling deeply. “—very stubborn, Illy.”
“Make it a heart, mate.” This time it was a growled order, and she fell back to her heels, staring up at him. He blinked, wincing. “I mean … please?” His voice was strangled now.
“I’ll stay,” she promised quietly, hugging herself tightly against him. “I’m sorry, Niko.” He nuzzled his mark. “I’m sorry, mate.”
Oscar laughed, the sound husky, as though he didn’t do it often enough. And he really didn’t, because he was beautiful when he laughed, those dark curls tickling his neck as he tilted his head back, his sharp incisors flashing.
Elijah: I see you chose chaos, tonight.
