I screamed to the crowd, cracked the whip, and brought the club to a fever pitch, aware my jewels gleamed under the shadows.
The otherworldly beauty that had plagued me my entire life was now a fucking boon. Because my kitten was obsessed with me.
I could taste it on my lips when she’d spat on me.
The crowd was enthralled by me.
But all I cared about was one woman.
I nodded at Jax as he smirked back, pushing Kitten down Xerxes’s cock, her head flung back in ecstasy.
Ascher knelt, spreading his legs impossibly wide behind Sadie so he was kneeling in a split, in the perfect position to nudge himself into her tight hole.
Kitten’s eyes glazed in euphoria as she trembled, speared atop Xerxes. He didn’t move, content to just lie there and watch as she flung her head back and purred.
From the expression of rapture on his face as he stared at her, he was as far gone as I was.
She was his savior.
I cracked the whip across his chest, rewarding his patience with our kitten.
He shuddered with pleasure.
I dragged my hand across Jax’s bicep as I stalked over to our woman.
He nodded at me, a smirk on his handsome lips as feelings of awe and gratitude flooded down a golden thread.
Emotions I’d never felt in my miserable life.
Standing in front of her luscious lips, I ignored the screams of the crowd as I focused on my redemption.
Tracing fingers across her lush ruby lips, I said, “I own you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I stared down at my kitten, begging her to comprehend what I meant.
It was impossible to put into words the all-consuming obsession I had with her. She was my everything, and I would raze the world for her.
I begged her to see that I was sorry for every time I lost my mind and made her angry, because no matter how much I wanted to be a gentleman for her and treat her right, I was still just a savage animal.
I wasn’t civil like other men. But that didn’t make what I felt any less real.
It only made it stronger.
More savage.
“You are mine, Sadie,” I snarled as I stared down at my redemption. Anger ignited in my soul at the thought of her caring about another man more than me.
“I don’t care what you tell other men.” I glanced down at Xerxes, whose dick was buried inside my cunt.
In the omega’s memories, I’d watched Sadie whisper, “I love you too,” back to him. It had shifted something inside me.
I didn’t want her to say those words to me.
No, I wanted her to say, You own me, Cobra, and I am fucking yours for all of eternity. That was what I wanted.
I whispered, “I don’t care if you tell them you love them. That doesn’t change that you were mine first.”
I dug my thumbnail into her bottom lip and wrenched her mouth open so I could see her pretty pink tongue. My tongue.
“Because, Kitten, what I feel for you is beyond love. Do you understand?”
You. Are. Mine.
I leaned closer as I promised her, “I fucking own your mind, body, and soul. Absolute ownership. You are my possession. My fucking everything.”
I. Am. Yours.
I begged her to see what I was saying with my eyes, as her pretty cunt and tight ass were fucked by my packmates.
“Do you understand what I am saying?”
Sadie’s ruby eyes widened as she stared up at me. Slowly, she nodded her pretty little head.
She mouthed, I love you too.
I’d been lying to myself; that was exactly what I needed to hear.
Something snapped inside me as I realized the implications of what she had just said to me. Kitten cares about me as much as I care for her.
It shattered me.
I plunged my cock deep down her throat and told her with each thrust of my hips that I loved her back. Tenderly holding her chin still, I fucked her throat.
Worshipped her.
Jax took me from behind, his warmth and impressive size a familiar weight that grounded me.
Endless pleasure burned through my senses as I was surrounded by those I cared about. Those I would do anything to protect.
They were the reason the void no longer tried to break me, the reason it welcomed me with open arms.
When Xerxes finally moved and Ascher wrapped his arms around Kitten and matched the pace, her eyes glazed over with pleasure.
Euphoria sparked across the gold thread.
We were complete.
When she screamed as she came, when I pulled back and coated my seed across her golden skin, the void whispered what I’d been unable to face all along.
I didn’t own my kitten.
My kitten owned me.
And it was everything.
When we’d all stop trembling from releases that brought us to an ungodly high, the lights switched on above us, and the announcer walked back out.
He yelled things to the crowd, and the entire club roared in response, but I didn’t hear what they said. I was too busy staring at Sadie. Her eyes widened with fear, and her breath caught.
Fuck. I screamed across the bond as we all realized at once that Sadie wasn’t okay.
It had been too much.
Too fast.
Just what we’d been so scared of.
I drowned in the void. I’d lost myself in my anger and allowed it to fuel me forward. Fuel my performance.
What woman would be okay after what we’d just done?
I was a monster.
Before I could do anything, Sadie turned and bolted, running away from us, down the stairs in the masses.
I shoved past the announcer and sprinted after her, breaking beta limbs as I followed the growing-fainter scent of cranberry wine.
This was our fault.
My fault.
I had to make it right.
The gold thread screamed with tension, fraying at the edges as desolation and anxiety streamed through it.
The highest highs had the lowest fucking lows.
Kitten deserved to be coddled after we’d all taken her for the first time. She deserved to be pampered and given soft kisses.
Gentle cuddles and warm sentiments.
I sent endless waves of love and warmth to my shadow snake, desperate to help calm her. But she sent nothing back.
Like she was too anxious to notice.
An orgy of nulls and betas fucking moved from one stairway to another, the flailing limbs blocking the scent of cranberry wine.
I whirred around, my nose overwhelmed by the stench of sex.
Unable to track where my kitten had gone.
I hissed and kicked a beta that blocked my way, stomped on fingers.
The fucking club was a massive maze of stairs.
My vision changed to heat signatures, but it didn’t make it any easier to find Sadie.
Jax growled behind me and Ascher swore as we realized we didn’t know where she’d gone.
I focused on my snake on her skin, which allowed me to get a general direction. She wasn’t on the stairs and was on the floor somewhere to the right.
Choosing a random stairway, I hurried down it. We needed to find her and reassure her, make sure she was okay.
Fuck. I snapped the arm of a beta that got in my way, slowing me down as I tried to get to my kitten.
Suddenly, my shadow snake screamed with terror as Sadie sent me images of her on the floor of a bathroom with a gun to her head.
Everything went silent.
The men stilled with terror as my emotions flooded through the gold thread that connected us.
I didn’t hesitate.
Grabbing the chain railing, I threw myself off the stairway, falling four stories to the ground and landing with a crunch as the floor broke beneath me.
My three mates followed.
Sadie screamed at me through the shadow snake.
The bathroom was across the club.
My jewels left my skin as I sent all my shadows streaming impossibly fast toward her.
Coalescing into one massive snake, they reached the bathroom in record time.
My shadow snakes tasted the air, sensing the world differently. But I could make out an unfamiliar alpha holding Sadie.
With a lunge, my fangs slammed into his neck, and I pumped him with my most potent toxins.
The distance to the bathroom was about a hundred yards, but it felt like forever. I sprinted with the other men, slamming open the door and stalking inside.
I wasn’t expecting what we walked in to.
Sadie had the much larger man pressed against the wall, and she was driving her fist into his face with so much force that blood sprayed across her.
Hunter was unrecognizable.
For a moment, my chest warmed with pride as my little kitten beat the fucker.
She shifted to the side and revealed his exposed dick.
He tried to rape her.
My mind blanked, and I saw red.
A few days ago, we’d visited Hunter and beaten him until he was mangled and begging on the ground. I’d promised him death if he ever hurt her again.
He hadn’t listened.
He tried to rape her repeated in my mind.
There were red marks on Sadie’s knees from where he’d made her kneel.
The void swallowed me whole.
He would die.
Ascher grabbed our snarling Sadie and pulled her away from Hunter. He whispered softly to her, tattooed body shaking as he held her.
The bond among us screamed with rage and fear.
We picked off where kitten had left off.
Jax held the fucker’s arms behind his back and ordered him not to shift, which made him stop convulsing.
The fucker said things, and I snarled back, but I wasn’t aware of anything other than the bloodlust blinding me.
Xerxes didn’t hesitate, his rage tantamount to mine.
He sliced the sex knife into the alpha from neck to navel.
The void welcomed me as I dug my hand into the fucker’s abdomen and unraveled his organs.
He screamed, but it wasn’t enough.
For what he’d done to Sadie, it would never be enough.
Everything was dark as I focused on hurting him. Breaking him. Pulling him apart at the seams till he understood what it truly meant to try to hurt what was mine. To fuck with one of my own.
He’d never make the mistake again.
Xerxes put a bullet through his head, but I couldn’t stop pulling. Couldn’t stop trying to hurt him.
He’d died too quickly.
It wasn’t enough.
But I’d threatened him, and he’d hurt her.
I dropped the organs and turned to where Ascher was comforting our kitten.
I reached for her but stopped when I realized I’d mark her with the horrors of what I’d just done.
FUCK! I screamed into my head.
She’d just seen me unravel; seen the violence I’d tried desperately to keep from her.
But Sadie didn’t look at me with horror. Instead, she gave me a small smile as she shook off the blood that was dripping down her knuckles.
Fuck, she’s magnificent. She would have handled him even if we hadn’t shown up.
I loved her.
The knowledge settled around me like a slow song, warm blanket, and toasty fire.
Jax explained how we’d threatened the alpha, although clearly we hadn’t done a good enough job, and I snarled about killing the fucker.
But my reactions felt detached from myself as all my attention was on my kitten.
The realization of what she truly meant to me brought the possessive need to own her to a newfound intensity.
She was my everything.
A combination of ferocity and softness that made me want to kneel at her feet.
Suddenly, the bouncer showed up and told us we’d been invited to the private room. But I could barely bring myself to care.
My attention was still enraptured.
Kitten leaned close and praised me for killing the fucker.
I saw it in her eyes, in the way she smiled up at me, not at all scared by the fact that I’d disemboweled Hunter in front of her.
She said she loves me.
Another piece of me shattered away, irrevocably gone, as I remade myself in her image, for the task I didn’t know I was born to provide.
I would be Sadie’s protector for the rest of my life.
Xerxes commented that he’d technically killed the fucker, and I swallowed down a hiss as I yanked on his leash.
The omega might also be mine, and Sadie might tolerate his masochist ass, but I was her main protector.
She loves me.
I would prove myself better than him.
Because even though I pretended to be civil, I was still nothing more than a beast, and Sadie was my possession to protect.
Just as I was hers to own.
