Page 21 of Bubblegum Pop

I’d lost. I was ruined.

And I had ten years of it. Ten contracted years of being fucked beyond my control, three times a year. I could already see how time would stretch out.

I made £25,000 in less than a week.

That was one thought that kept me going. How much could I earn if I kept at it? £25,000 a heat, for ten years, three times a year. I would never have to worry about how I was going to survive again.

I had to look at it that way. Instead of the empty horror pounding through me as I saw what it truly meant to lose control, I needed to focus on the future.

I just had to hold on and pray Apollo, Zeus, and Odin would still want me when it was over.

Idon’t know how long I’d been lying there before the smell hit me.

My body was numb, every part of me ached, and I wanted to sink into the mattress and disappear forever, but sleep wouldn’t come.

So they did instead.

Mangos—juicy, delicious, ripe, pulling me into sunny jungles, filled with singing birds and the humming of insects, humid heat surrounding my body with warmth and safety. It was enhanced by the heavy scent of lemon vodka, so hard and severe, taking me to frozen tundras and ice-capped mountains, cooling the fire in my veins that burnt my skin and dug into my flesh.

“Candy, darling, for fuck’s sake.” Odin’s strained voice cut through the dull buzz in my ears.

I moaned, swept away by their contrasting scents as I looked up to meet Odin’s eye, and the harsh scar that tore the right side of his face. The emptiness there was exactly like mine.

Perfume wafted from me as Apollo leaned towards me. The bed dipped, my left hip dropping as he crawled over.

“What did they do to you, sweetheart?” Apollo whispered so gently it nearly unhinged me. I was close to curling up and sobbing in his arms. I kept myself strong my whole life, but I wasn’t brave enough to stand losing control.

I was tougher than this. I might not have handled worse, but I wasn’t broken. Yet.

Apollo lifted a finger, brushing away a loose hair from my cheek, and I shuddered at his touch.

My gaze jumped to Odin towering above us, a dead fury emanating from him, his dark aura sweeping through me, setting me off again.

I wasn’t done yet.

My omega instincts awakened as my need for a knot reignited. I had to do something. I had to find a way to bring them inside me.

I whimpered as my back arched, looking pleadingly at Apollo. I didn’t even know if I could talk. I had spent so long either shouting or sucking that my throat had worn down.

Just seeing them again made accepting Michael’s offer worth it. If I hadn’t come here, if I hadn’t signed the contract, I wouldn’t have found my scent matches.

“Don’t worry. We’re here now.” Apollo’s voice was like a light in the darkness, chasing away the painful ache of my heat.

He lifted a thin blanket over my naked body, covering my chest and legs. His fingers caressed my right arm, and tingles scattered from the point of his touch.

With one brush of his finger, my hollow emptiness was already filling with love.

Apollo took my wrist, shifting my arm. He let out a deep sigh, and the bed creaked as he moved. I watched him, pain lacing my body as he placed a tender kiss to the soft skin of my wrist before lowering it to my stomach. That was why I rejected the post-heat treatment, because I couldn’t deal with kindness after the past three days.

I moaned as he bent forward, reaching for my other wrist. His scent washed over me as he eased my hand to join the other on my stomach. I drew in the largest breath I could, a twinge stinging my chest at the effort. I wished his ripe smell of mangos could be permanently etched into my skin so he would always be part of me.

I thought the first time they saw me naked would be a private show, where I’d wind them up with a strip tease until they were putty in my hands.

But never like this.

“Come on, darling,” Odin’s voice came from my right, low and heavy, and I could taste the fear in his scent. “Let’s get out of here.”

So quickly, his giant hands pressed against me, one feeding under my knees, the other at my lower back. Suddenly, I rose into the air, my body limp and lifeless as a wall of hard muscle covered in a tailored white shirt became my new pillow. “There we go. I’ve got you.”