Gathering her hair at her nape, Wren drew the suds down, pulling the tangled locks over her shoulder so she might scrub what hung down to her waist.
It was too long. A constant reminder of another sad day in her life.
Maybe it was time to cut it… considering the reason she’d let it grow long.
A remembrance of someone special lost to her. The one who had pulled her out of the mud.
But not now. Not here with these men.
When it was over and she was home with Alec and Mikael, all of it would go.
Inching forward so she might lean back and dunk her hair, for a brief moment lavender eyes met green. Brief, because she immediately lowered her lashes and submerged. Underwater was a different place, with different rules and no males in it to spoil the whoosh in her ears.
Soap dissolving, years of dirt floating away on that wave of warmth, Wren indulged until a coming cough urged her to break the surface.
As air tore from ailing lungs, Wren ignored the sharp pains and foul taste of what came up. Those things were not allowed in this moment. Those things had to wait.
“Catch your breath.” The Alpha invaded her peace, coming over with a small square of clean towel. He held it up for her to spit into. He even looked at what came up. “No blood, that’s good.”
No. No blood. Not yet at least.
Considering his behavior from before, Wren jerked when the male began to push wet hanks of clean hair off her face. “Do well tonight and I’ll take you to the doctor in the morning. We’ll let him take a look at you, and… you can see your boy.”
She grabbed his wrist with a strength that made the Alpha’s eyes go wide. Tugging it to make sure he was paying attention, she nodded enthusiastically.
“I ain’t saying he’ll fix you. You don’t sound so good.”
Who cared if he fixed her? Shaking her head, squeezing his wrist all the tighter she mouthed the word, Mikael.
It seemed to dawn on him what this really was about. “You want to visit the child…”
Yes! More than anything.
He seemed to grasp the leverage the situation offered. “You’ll nest properly on the bed?”
Yes!
“You’ll greet me with a smile and kiss, the way a fancy Omega pleases her mate?”
Forever, if that’s what it took.
“I’ll make a bet with you. You play along with what we want to do to you tonight. Fuck Caspian like you did on the couch—I better see his eyes roll back.” Fingers splaying on the back of her skull, Kieran give her a winning smile. “Make no complaints when Toby takes his turn. You take everything he gives you with all the enthusiasm you can muster. Do that, sell it, and I’ll take you to see your kid.”
The men’s evening entertainment was going to happen either way, but the whole horrible scenario was made more palatable if there was some tangible reward. Wren pressed her wet forehead to where his hands rested on the lip of the tub and nodded.
He hadn’t mentioned what he wanted sexually for himself, and that made a slow creep of warning itch up her spine. Men like Kieran, didn’t just want to be smiled at and kissed. He was going to make a demand. And it was going to be something she would hate.
She would do it with a goddamn smile if it meant even five minutes with Mikael.
***
Clean, so clean that even her fingernails didn’t hide a trace of dirt, Wren played dress up. Her hair had been brushed free of snarls, left to hang like a waterfall of white down her back. Kieran had painted her mouth with shine, the slip on her lips strange and tasting of cherries.
It had been years since she’d had cherries.
“Stop rubbing them together, you’ll ruin the effect.”
She obeyed, stealing one last lick when the Alpha turned his back to grab another other oddity from the armoire.
The devilish glitter in his eyes when he turned let her know she’d been caught. “You’ll be punished for that later.”
Pressing her hands together in supplication, Wren took a step toward him, ready to beg.
“Our deal still stands.” The male smirked and stood his ground when she put her hands to his chest, pleading with her eyes. “I’ll take you to the doctor, if you win our bet.”
Before she might back away, he swooped down and tasted her lips, sucking them clean until every last molecule of cherry flavor had been stolen. Arms fixed around her middle, the purr he pressed into her was of a different nature than the ones he’d lavished upon Wren before. Nothing like the rattle after Caspian had wrung her neck or the hum when the Second had fucked her. Different than the irritated buzz that had filled the air in the nest and followed her about all day.