The Triplet Alphas' Regret

"No," Soren said. He sounded like a kicked puppy, desperate for a morsel of attention. "If I let go, you’ll just leave again."

I could feel his lips trailing against the side of my neck when he moved. His hot breath was fanning against my skin, and my lips naturally parted, exhaling as my eyes started to roll back. Even just the gentleness of his breath against me was causing my eyes to flutter close.

For some reason, I could feel my mind starting to turn light and fuzzy the more I remained in contact with Soren.

"Briar..." Soren muttered, the deep rumble of his voice pulsing against my skin. "Look at me. Please?"

He kissed my shoulder before gently turning my head slightly backward. I felt like a pliable puppet in his hand, my head moving along with his fingers as he guided me into position.

Soren’s eyes dropped to my lips before he leaned in close. Then, without another word, he kissed me.

***

[SOREN POV]

There were barely any thoughts left in my head. The room was starting to fill up with Briar’s scent, and all I could think about was tasting her soft lips.

She stiffened upon first contact, and I could feel her reluctance and hesitance to kiss me back. Her hands raised almost immediately, resting against my chest with the clear intention of pushing me back. However, for some reason, she didn’t go through with the action.

Instead, Briar almost melted in my arms. My body moved instinctively, deepening the kiss the moment she gave in.

A part of my head had alarm bells blaring at maximum volume. I knew that this wasn’t right. Technically, Briar hadn’t forgiven me completely yet. She had every right to be angry about everything that I had done. I had unimaginably hurt her, playing and toying with her emotions without a care as to how she would possibly feel about it.

The right thing to do would be to remove myself from her vicinity until she calmed down enough for me to actually make another, proper attempt at an apology.

However, I couldn’t control myself.

She was the golden apple in the Garden of Eden, tempting me to sin. Every second that I spent with her made me feel less in control of myself, and before I knew it, I had pressed my body against hers and deepened the kiss.

My hands were on her waist, drawing her as closely to my body as possible, desperate for more.

I knew that I should let go, but my hands were no longer mine to command. An insatiable heat slowly crawled through my body, and when we finally parted for air, I finally allowed myself a small reprieve.

Only, I hadn’t expected the sight that I was greeted with. Briar’s lips were slightly parted, red and swollen from our kiss, and she was panting heavily in an attempt to catch her breath. Her eyes were barely open, still a little misty with desire, and her cheeks were also blushing a faint scarlet.

The sight of her unraveled instantly made my lower body rise to attention. I could feel my member pressing against the fabric of my jeans, and I had to swallow heavily to prevent myself from pinning her down instantly, ravaging her like a savage beast that had been starved for days.

She was already disappointed in me. If I went any further than a kiss, when Briar finally came to, she would merely pin yet another blame on my head.

This was wrong. I shouldn’t. I should step away. I sucked in a breath and prepared to endure the herculean torture of stepping away from Briar. I could do this much for her, after all the hurt I had done to her.

"Soren..."

However, the moment my name leaked past Briar’s lips, the last bit of rationality snapped in me. I lunged forward like a man possessed, and perhaps I was, for I was nothing but a being of want and desire for Briar, barely restrained by my human skin. I pressed my lips to hers again. I could feel Briar gasp, possibly surprised by the fervour of my kiss.

Briar gasped, nearly falling over due to the force. I backed her against the edge of the bed, my hands trailing down her back until I found the edge of her shirt. Lifting it, my hands slipped in. When my fingertips grazed past the smooth skin of her back, I gasped. Likewise, Briar shivered at the contact, her breath fanning lightly across my lips as her body trembled.

"Soren..." Briar gasped again. I could see bits of her rationality flickering through her eyes, battling for control over her actions. She choked out the words with much difficulty, "We... can’t―"

I captured her lips once more, cutting her off abruptly.

"Why not?" I asked with my lips still pressed against hers, before following up with yet another deeper kiss.

"I’ll make it up to you," I said. "I won’t push you away. Not again. I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you if I need to."

Briar moaned against my lips, and my body instantly took it as a sign. She clung to the bedframe for dear life, while I held the rest of her body weight up carefully, preventing her from falling over like a house of cards.

I could feel every animal instinct in me screaming at me to mark her. My canines extended, and I hissed slightly in pain, trying to hold them back. However, it was more difficult said than done. They still nicked Briar’s lip, and I could taste her blood spreading across my tongue.

Yet, she didn’t seem to feel the pain. If anything, she merely gasped but hadn’t shoved me away. Each kiss seemed to further light up a fire in her, and likewise, my mind was filled with smoke. I could barely see clearly.

Her scent was intoxicatingly sweet, but more than that, it was never enough. I needed to feel her closer to me. I needed more.

My lips began to trail down to her chin, her neck, and finally stopped at the base. There, I could see Rowan’s mark faintly lying across her skin. The skin there was slightly discolored, but enough for any male wolf to see that she had been marked by another.

The sight of it made me see red. Rowan’s mark didn’t belong there. It should’ve been me. Just because Rowan was the oldest didn’t mean that he had the right to mark her first. He didn’t even look at her properly before he realized that she was his mate. While I...

I gritted my teeth.

No. I couldn’t. Briar would never forgive me.

She...

When I lifted my gaze to meet her clouded eyes, equally hazy with desire, my mind blanked out. I didn’t know what was happening until I tasted iron on my tongue, followed by a burst of pleasure that practically exploded through my body. I could faintly hear Briar’s gasp of pleasure ringing in my ears, mixed with my own groans of ecstasy. I felt like I was floating on cloud nine.

However, it didn’t last for long before a hand clamped down on my shoulder, forcibly pulling me back and away from Briar, disconnecting us.

Briar hissed in pain. At the same time, a fist connected with my cheekbone, and I stumbled to the side, my hands clawing on the walls for support.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

***

[BRIAR POV]

When Soren’s canines sunk into my flesh, there was an initial prick of pain before pleasure instantly overtook everything else.

I gasped, my back arching as I fisted the fabric of his shirt. I wanted to cling to him forever, giddy with the pleasure he was giving me. The juncture between my legs throbbed with want, and I was so close to moving my thighs so that I could climb Soren like a tree.

However, before I could make a move, Soren backed off. A hiss of pain tore through my throat as I instinctively reached for my shoulder, cautiously cupping my hand over the area where Soren’s mark was. I could feel the wetness of my own blood on my fingers, its coppery scent filling the air.

I couldn’t believe Soren would move away now, but when I opened my bleary eyes and looked through the miasma of longing, I managed to make out the presence of another person.

It must have been this person who pulled him away.

It was as though a cold bucket of water had been dunked over my head. My body quickly registered what happened.

Someone had seen Soren marking me.

My vision was still mainly cloudy, but after blinking a few times, the two hazy figures before me slowly morphed into clarity. There, Soren was against the wall, panting heavily. His lips were bleeding, and he held a hand up against the wound. His cheek was also red, while his eyes were a brilliant golden color.

Now that my eyes had regained their function, I knew all too well who the intruder was.

A few steps away stood Cassian, whose face had turned ruby with fury. He was breathing heavily as well, but his expression seemed more murderous than anything else.

Cassian stared at his brother, his veins practically popping against his skin at the side of his neck, looking ready to burst at any second.