The questions hung in the air between them.
They weren’t really questions. They were statements of ownership. They were a declaration of what was about to happen regardless of her answer.
She didn’t say anything.
She just became quiet. Her body went slack in his arms. And she dropped her head, accepting whatever came next.
Lucian looked at his brothers.
"Well, you’ve both had your turns with her," he said, his golden eyes blazing with possession. "Now I get to keep her to myself."
He turned toward the door.
Nicholas’s voice stopped him before he could take more than a few steps.
"Just don’t fuck her in the morning, brother," Nicholas said quietly. His voice carried a warning. A weight of understanding. "You and I both know that you’re more animal than human in the morning. We wouldn’t want you to do something we’re not prepared for."
It was a loaded statement. A confession disguised as a warning.
Lucian didn’t turn around.
But a scoff came out of his mouth...harsh and condescending.
"Coming from someone who just fucked her ball deep like an animal minutes ago," Lucian said. "Your concern for her wellbeing is touching, brother."
He walked out of the office without another word, Lilith cradled in his arms like she was something precious. Something worth protecting. Something that belonged entirely to him.
The door closed behind them with a soft click.
For a long moment, there was silence in the office.
Then Sebastian collapsed into the chair like his legs had given out.
He made a sound, something between a satisfied groan and an animal growl. A sound of complete, utter satisfaction. His head fell back against the chair, and he breathed like he’d just run a marathon.
Nicholas stood by the window, looking out at nothing.
His expression was troubled. Dark. Like he was seeing something in the distance that frightened him.
"We really need to figure out what’s going on with this omega," Nicholas said quietly. His voice was controlled, but there was an undercurrent of something else. Fear, maybe. Or recognition.
Sebastian’s head came up.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"There’s something about her, brother," Nicholas continued, still not turning from the window. "Something I don’t understand yet. She affects us in ways that shouldn’t be possible. Our wolves don’t react like this to normal omegas. Kael doesn’t obsess like this. Rhen doesn’t need like this. And Zev..." He paused. "Zev goes absolutely insane around her."
Sebastian stood from the chair slowly.
He moved to stand beside his brother at the window. Together they looked out at the grounds, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows across the grass.
"Do you think she’s our...." Sebastian started, then stopped himself.
Nicholas cut him off before he could finish the thought.
"No," he said firmly. "She can’t be. She’s wolfless, so she can’t be ours. We both know what that means. We send her back in two weeks’ time, and everything will return to normal."
Sebastian almost laughed.
It came out as a harsh, bitter sound that echoed through the office.
She was wolfless.
Wasn’t she?
He pressed his forehead against the cool glass of the window and tried not to think about the way she’d looked at him when she came. The way her eyes had locked on his with an intensity that suggested she knew something about him that he didn’t know about himself.
The way her body had responded to all three of them like she was made specifically for them.
Like she belonged to them.
Like she always had.
Nicholas closed his eyes and pushed that thought away.
In two weeks, she’d be gone. Back to Shadowmere. Back to her old life. And the Blackwood brothers would return to the way they were before she arrived.
They would.
Even though something deep inside him, something that sounded suspiciously like Kael....was howling at the very idea of letting her go.
***
Across the estate, in Lucian’s room, something entirely different was happening.
Lucian laid Lilith on his bed carefully. Gently. With a tenderness that contrasted sharply with the brutality that had come before.
She was barely awake, her body completely spent, her mind barely functional. But her eyes opened when he pulled back, and she looked at him with confusion and fear and something else she couldn’t name.
"What are you going to do?" she whispered.

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