by J. L. Wilder
He wasn’t afraid of it. He was afraid of believing it. He had been let down so many times.
“What do we do now?” he said.
“What do you mean?” Tom asked.
“Say it is true,” Jasper said. “Say you’re right. We’re all alphas, all three of us. She’s the omega who’s allowed us to become...this. What we were always meant to be.”
“It has to be true,” Tom said. “Nothing else makes sense.”
“Okay,” Jasper said. “But if it is, what do we do about it? Who gets to stay with her? Who becomes her mate? Because whoever it is, that person will retain his power. And the other two...”
“Will have no one to dominate,” Dean finished.
“Will go back to being betas,” Jasper said.
And lose everything.
The brothers looked at each other, each of them waiting for one of the others to speak.
It was Tom who broke the silence.
“We let Haley choose,” he said. “It’s the only thing that’s fair.”
TOM
“Wait a minute,” Haley protested. “I have to choose? I have to choose one of you?”
“We can’t choose for you,” Tom said. “It wouldn’t be right.”
“But why does there have to be any choosing at all?” Haley asked.
“I don’t understand,” Tom admitted. “What are you asking?”
“She wants to be with all three of us,” Dean said. “She wants to keep us all.”
“Don’t be an ass, Dean,” Jasper said.
But Haley was nodding. “Of course I want that,” she said. “I gave a piece of myself to each of you. I shared something with each of you. The imprint doesn’t just go one way. I feel tied to all of you now. I couldn’t let any of you go. Don’t you understand? It would hurt too much.”
“You can’t be with all three of us,” Tom said. “It...this doesn’t work like that. That’s not the way packs are formed. That’s not the way the bond between alphas and omegas is supposed to work.”
“Has any of this happened the way it’s supposed to, though?” she asked him. “Has any of it been like what school led us to expect?”
“She’s right about that,” Dean said. “It’s not the way they teach it in classes.”
“I spent four years waiting for an alpha to find me,” she said. “Waiting for an alpha to choose me. I spent four years thinking I was damaged or flawed or somehow not good enough. And then I met the three of you. And suddenly, the world made sense.”
Tom nodded. He had not expected to be chosen. He had known that Jasper was the most attached to the position of alpha and that he had the best chance of the three of them of winning the Alpha Games. Dean was certainly the most gregarious. What did Tom have to offer to Haley?
Only my love.
His brothers loved her too. That wouldn’t be enough.
But Haley was saying that it was enough. She was saying that she couldn’t separate from any of them, not even to build a stronger bond with another.
She wants me.
“Can we do this?” he asked his brothers. “Is it allowed?”
“We’re leaving school in a couple of weeks,” Dean pointed out. “Doesn’t matter what the Shifter Council has to say at this point, does it?”
“It does if we’re going to enter the Alpha Games,” Jasper said.
Tom shook his head. “Forget about the Games,” he said. “Just for today. This is bigger than the Games. This is the rest of our lives. All four of us. Can we really do this?”
He was clutching Haley to him, he realized, as if afraid to let her go.
Jasper walked over to them and put a hand on Haley’s shoulder.
“Can you do this?” he asked her. “Can you love us all?”
“I don’t think I have a choice,” she said softly.
“But is it what you want?” he asked.
“I want it,” she said. She extricated herself, not unkindly, from Tom’s embrace and moved into Jasper’s arms, allowing him to hold her.
And to Tom’s surprise, he felt no pangs of jealousy. He felt no discomfort at the knowledge that his brother was holding his mate.
There was only pleasure and security in the knowledge that someone so strong and so powerful was doing all he could to care for and protect her.
I want this too, Tom realized, with a jolt. I want her to belong to all of us.
It was something he had never expected to feel.
Now Dean approached and took her into his arms. The brothers formed a huddle, instinctively, without speaking, placing Haley at the center. Surrounded by them, she was small. She seemed helpless.
She closed her eyes. Tom felt her body relax, felt the way she was held upright only by the strength of the men surrounding her.
Our omega, he thought.
He would never have believed that something like this could happen. But he could feel the power of the alpha flowing through him. The duty he had to Haley, and to his brothers as well.
They were a pack now. Nothing could break that apart.
Chapter Fifteen
HALEY
“What are we going to do about the Alpha Games?” Dean asked.
Haley sighed. “I’m still not sure what we’re going to do about the fact that the three of you keep sneaking onto campus,” she said. “Do you know that Jasper was just here this morning?”
“I’m not surprised,” Dean said, peppering kisses along her jawline. “You’re irresistible. How do you expect anyone to be able to stay away?”
“It’s not a matter of what I expect—stop that,” she said, holding him at arm’s length. “I can’t concentrate when you do that.”
“Who says I want you to concentrate?”
“If you don’t want me to concentrate, then why are you asking me questions?” she asked.
“Because I like giving you a hard time,” he said. “Answer the question.” He lifted the hem of her shirt and traced his fingers over the sensitive skin of her stomach.
She shivered. It felt delicious. “I can’t remember what the question was.”
“Mmm.” He leaned in and pressed his lips against the side of her neck. “Try.”
“Dean...”
“Try.”
She wrapped her arms around him and lifted one leg, hooking it over his hip and pulling him as close as she possibly could.
He laughed. “You’re not trying.”
“It wasn’t an order,” she said. “You’re just bossing me around.”
“I asked about the Alpha Games,” Dean said. “What are we going to do about them?”
“We can’t enter,” Haley said. She had assumed that was obvious. She hadn’t honestly expected to hear about the Alpha Games again after everything that had happened between the four of them.
“Why not?” Dean asked. “We’re alphas now. Alphas are allowed to enter the games. I say we go for it.”
“What, you and me?”
“Why not?”
“Well, how do you think Jasper would take that?” she asked. “He’s the one who wanted to enter the Games since the very beginning. And I’m his omega too. If I enter with you, that means I can’t enter with him.”
“Okay,” Dean said agreeably. “Enter with him, then. I don’t mind.”
She pulled back from him a little bit. “Really,” she said skeptically. “You don’t mind at all if I enter the Alpha Games with Jasper and not with you.”
“You’re still my omega,” he said. “You wouldn’t belong to him any more than you do to me because of some dumb contest. And I only really care about the prize money. We should try to win it for our pack, so we’ll have something for after graduation.”
“What about Tom?” Haley asked. “You don’t think he’d care if I entered with Jasper?”
“I think we could ask him,” Dean said. “I doubt it would be a big deal, though. Tom never wanted to enter the Games.”
Haley shook her head. “It wouldn’t work, Dean.”
“Why not?” Dean asked.
“Because I couldn’t do it,” she said. “I don’t know how to explain it, exactly, but...I don’t belong to any one of you. I don’t belong to each of you separately. What we have...it only works when it’s all of us.”
“That doesn’t seem to be the case right now,” Dean said, slipping a hand up her skirt. “I like how you wear skirts all the time now, by the way. Very good thinking.”
Thinking went by the wayside momentarily as his fingers worked inside her. She dropped her forehead to his shoulder and breathed hard, trying to keep herself under control. “That’s different,” she murmured.
“Why is it different?” He stroked her gently, almost absently, with his thumb.
She gasped.
“Tell me why it’s different,” he urged.
“I can’t—”
She felt rather than saw the smile spread across his face. “Why not?” he asked.
She couldn’t even remember what he was asking her. The only thing she could think about was his body. Those big fingers moving inside her. His lips, his warm tongue, on the sensitive skin of her neck. The sheer size of him pressing her back against a tree.
She felt as if she were nothing but sensation. Nothing but feeling.
She heard the zipper of his pants. His fingers withdrew, and a moment later were replaced. She moaned in ecstasy as she sank onto him, taking him as deeply as she could, her legs lifting to wrap around his waist. He supported her with one arm and fisted the other hand in her hair, gently but firmly pulling her head back so he could gain better access to her neck.
“I want you to enter the Alpha Games,” he said, thrusting slowly, his voice slightly muffled by the fact that his mouth was still pressed against her. “I want you to enter with Jasper.”
“I can’t—”
He bent his head lower and took her nipple into his mouth, flicking it gently with his tongue.
She moaned desperately. He knew how sensitive she was there. He knew she wouldn’t be able to keep herself together if he did that. He was torturing her, and he was doing it on purpose.
“Say you’ll enter,” he said.
“I can’t.”
“Oh, you can,” he said. He lifted her hips and pulled her back down onto him, hard. It was just a little bit painful and agonizingly pleasurable, and she had to bite the inside of her cheek hard to keep from screaming.
“You’re going to get us caught,” she whimpered.
“We won’t get caught,” he said. “Just keep quiet.”
“Why are you doing this?” She tried to rock her hips against him, desperate to come, to put an end to the delicious torture, but he dug his fingers in and held her still, refusing to allow her to move.
“I want you in the Games,” he said. “I want our pack to have a team in the Games. We deserve a chance to win just as much as anyone else does.
She was shaking with need. Her thighs squeezed and released his waist, over and over, trying to bring him closer. “Just order me to do it,” she gasped. “You’re my alpha. Just order me.”
He bent and suckled at her nipple again, his thumb tracing over the other one. “This way’s more fun,” he murmured.
“You’re awful.”
“You love it.”
She couldn’t deny that. Still, it was driving her insane that he refused to give her what she needed. “Dean, please—”
“Say you’ll compete,” he said.
“I’ll do anything,” she said, amazed at how true it was, at how thoroughly he had laid claim to her body and how fully he controlled her already. “I’ll do anything you want. You know I will. You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to—oh—”
He had begun to fuck her in earnest, suckling hard at her nipple at the same time, and it only took a moment of that treatment before she shuddered and came in his arms.
He gave her no time at all to recuperate. He held her—he was so strong—and continued to fuck her even though she was limp and exhausted against him, even though it felt as though all the strength had fled from her body.
When he was finished, he eased her down to the ground. Her legs collapsed beneath her, and Dean laughed and helped her to lie down. He sank to the riverbank and lay down beside her.
“So you’ll compete,” he said. “You’ll enter the Games.”
“You manipulated me,” she accused.
“I could do it again,” he said.
She hoped he would. “I’ll enter the damn Games,” she said. “But I don’t think I’m going to win.”
“Why wouldn’t you win?”
“Because I won’t be with my alpha.”
“You’ll be with Jasper.”
“But not with you. And not with Tom. Don’t you understand that I need all of you?” she asked. “I don’t think I can win the Games with just one of you any more than I could choose just one of you to be mated to. This—what you’re asking me to do—it feels as wrong to me as if you asked me to run away with Jasper and leave you and Tom behind.”
“But it isn’t like that,” Dean protested. “Tom and I will be right there the whole time. We’ll be part of the team effort. We’ll be your cheering section.”
“It’s not the same,” Haley said.
“Well, it’s not like we can all enter,” Dean said, his exasperation evident in his voice.
I suppose it’s not. Haley lay back, staring at the canopy formed by the trees above her head.
And then, abruptly, she sat up.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “Why can’t we?”
“Why can’t we what?” Dean asked.
“Why can’t we all enter?” Haley asked.
“Because no one is going to let you enter three separate times with three different alphas,” Dean said, laughing. “Everyone would think it was unfair that you were getting three bites at the apple. And besides, you wouldn’t be able to compete effectively if you had to do every event three times. You’d completely wear yourself out.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Haley said. “I meant, what if we all entered as a single group? You and me and Jasper and Tom?”
“They’re not going to let us do that,” Dean said. “The Alpha Games are supposed to be for one alpha and one omega. It’s a partner competition. It’s not for groups.”
“Okay,” Haley said, “but we are a group. We imprinted that way, and it’s the way things are for us. And why should we be left out of the biggest event of the past five years because of something that was completely out of our control?”
“Look,” Dean said. “We’re going to have a hell of a time getting them to let you and Jasper enter. Jasper’s been registered with the Shifter Council as a beta for the past four years. It’s going to look suspicious when we go to them now and tell them he’s suddenly an alpha.”
“Won’t the fact that he has an omega prove it?”
“You can’t prove that you’re his, though,” Dean said. “It’s not like there’s a test for that. And it’s going to look suspicious that you two never registered as mates before now, too. We’ll have to say that you met each other at the last social and just never got around to it.”
“So we’ll say that,” Haley said. “We can say that about all three of us.”
Dean shook his head. “I’m not saying I don’t like the idea, Haley,” he said. “It actually sounds kind of perfect. But there’s no way anyone’s going to let us enter the Games that way. We’ll be lucky if they let you and Jasper in at all.”
“I think we should try,” Haley said.
He looked over at her. “You really don’t want to do this with only Jasper, do you?” he asked. “You really want it to be all of us?”
“It’s not going to feel right if it’s just Jasper and me,” she said. “We just imprinted, Dean. Our pack is brand new. And the Alpha Games are such a defining thing for an alpha and his omega. It wouldn’t be right to do it with just one of you. I want to do it with all of you, o
r with none.”
He sighed. “Nothing about this is ever going to be easy.”
“It’s worth it, though,” she said, leaning over to kiss him. “Think about it. Think about what it would feel like if we all entered together. If we all won together.”
“It would be pretty validating,” he admitted.
“And we’d have a better chance with all of us there,” Haley said. “You and your brothers are stronger when you’re together. You know you are.”
“I don’t know about that,” Dean said, smirking. “I’m pretty badass without them.”
“Yeah, you’re wild.” She rolled over so that she was on top of him, sitting astride his hips. She felt him starting to get hard again beneath her. “Can we at least try?” she asked.
“If we try and it doesn’t work, will you still enter the Games with Jasper?” he asked.
“If Jasper wants to,” she said. “I can’t agree without him.”
“You’re leaving yourself a loophole,” he said. “You’re leaving yourself a way out. You’ll tell him you don’t want to do it.”
“He can order me to do it,” she said.
“Haley, nobody wants to give you orders if you really don’t want to do something,” Dean said. “We love you. You know? We don’t want to jerk you around like that.”
Haley closed her eyes, feeling as warm and safe as she had the day her alphas had huddled around her. “I’ll do it for you,” she said. “If Jasper is willing, I’ll do it for you. I love you too.”
She felt the tension leave his body. She felt him relax.
“But I want to try it my way first,” she said. “I want to enter the Games with all of my alphas beside me. It’s the only way it would feel right. And I really think it’s the only way we’d stand a chance at winning.”
“We need to talk to the others, then,” Dean said. “We can’t make a decision until we’ve all discussed it.”
“You can discuss it without me,” Haley said. “It’s risky enough the way you’re all sneaking over here all the time. I don’t want you taking any unnecessary chances.”
“Seeing you isn’t unnecessary, Haley.”
“You know what I mean,” she said. “I worry about this. If I get caught, it’ll mean trouble. But if any of you are caught, you’ll be kicked out of school. You won’t be allowed to graduate with your class. And that would be such a waste, after four whole years at Shifter U. I don’t want that for you.”
