Knocking on the door pulls me from my thoughts and I stand up, stretching. I’m bruised, badly, from the fight with Liam. That guy can hit...
When I open the door, it’s Spence. He’s looking stressed and I let him in. Maybe when he’s around I can make more sense of this. Spence is always the sensible one of us, the one who doesn’t just let his impulses control him.
Although... Not in that hallway and not when he held Cyra... That Spence... I definitely wouldn’t want to have to fight that Spence. He’d kill for her, even if it was me. That was more than obvious in how he moved, how he acted. He’d kill for her.
“This going to be your room?” Spence speaks and it takes me a moment to realise what he’s saying.
I grunt, shrugging. “How is she doing?”
It hadn’t taken long, after we’d all calmed down, for her to flee from the room, locking herself in the bathroom, her sobs audible through the door. That had definitely spoilt any good mood that was left and we sort of all drifted apart, not really sure what to do anymore. All needing to think for a moment, think about what just happened, where things will have to move to from here.
Spence lets out a slow sigh. “She hasn’t left the bathroom yet. Still locked inside.”
I nod, feeling like such an asshole right now. I wish I could turn back the time, keep myself under control, not let all of this happen. Not because I don’t want to have marked her, mated her, but because of how devastated she looked after. I want to turn it all back to stop her looking so sad, so broken. I don’t want her to look like that. I want her to be happy. But this isn’t something that I can fix with a crude joke or a fun present or something.
“What are you going to do?” Spence sits down in one of the chairs in the room, his eyes on me guarded.
“About?”
“Cyra. You mated her. You fulfilled what your parents wanted. You’ve got someone who you can show off during meetings...” His voice is almost cold, hostile. I barely recognise it. He never talks to me like that.
I spin to him, frowning. “We all mated her. Your parents... Your parents also wanted you to take a mate.” I’m not sure where his mind is going right now, but I do know that it can’t be good. “Spence. We all mated her. And until her parents... Until her parents sign off on it, none of this matters. Until her parents sign the agreement, we’ve all illegally mated her.” Rage crashes through me. It shouldn’t be this hard to just be with your mate. “Fuck.”
I slam my hand into the wall, the sudden surge of anger and helplessness overtaking me. “None of this fucking matters until it’s all made official. We ruined...”
Shaking my head, I stalk over to the big window at one side of the room, looking out over the forests, forcing myself to stay calm. “We ruined her life and it won’t make a fucking difference to the situation we’re in, it probably made it even worse. How does that make us any different from her parents? How are we any fucking different?”
That’s what been eating at me the whole time since we mated Cyra. All of this won’t make a difference when it comes to the mess we’re in with Cyra’s parents. We just ruined any chance she had of becoming independent, any chance for her to live her own life. We ruined it. She wanted her own life, but as things are now, she’ll probably never get it.
“We’re monsters. No better than her parents.” I put my hand against the window, looking out at the setting sun. “No better.”
Spence steps next to me, also looking out, his face pained, his voice broken. “I know.”
I stare at him, not expecting him to look or sound that defeated. I expected him to tell me to suck it up, act more like an Alpha, take control. I don’t know, something like that, but he looks devastated, broken, just like I feel.
Thinking of how easy our lives have been, how easy we’ve had it and how we just... “We’re bastards. We’re... the worst. We don’t deserve her.”
Spence shakes his head slowly. “No, we don’t. But she’s ours. She’s really ours now. Whatever the consequences of what happened today, we need to become worthy of her. And fast.”
I nod. The time for playing around, the time for just doing whatever suits us best, has officially ended.
We all marked Cyra. We had sex with her while she was in heat. There’s a good chance she’s pregnant, and we will have to become worthy of not just her, our shining phoenix Omega, but also of the lives about to grow inside her.
“Cyra?” I carefully knock on the bathroom door. Not wanting to anger her, but also needing to make sure she’s okay. “It’s time for dinner. It’s time to come out of the bath.”
It stays deadly quiet inside, worry flooding me. She’s been in the bathroom for hours now. What if something happened to her? What if she drowned... Or... Or...
“Cyra?!” I reach out to the doorknob, ready to barge in, but her voice calls out.
“Yeah, yeah. I heard you.” She moves inside, and opens the lock on the door, slowly opening it.
Her eyes are red
