status

Amber

JieMi was a restless sleeper.

Amber groaned as he snuggled up to her; his nose brushing against the nape of her sensitive neck. He sniffed and sighed; an adorable smile hooked at the edges of his puffy lips as he wrapped his arms around her middle.

She only knew that he wasn't doing it on purpose because when he was awake, JieMi had been stiff and awkward, his body curving away from hers despite his need for close contact. He'd only relaxed when he'd fallen asleep, his head lolling over her arm and his face turned towards hers. She'd spent the night with her eyes tracing his features—the long wispy lashes, the faint mole on his lip, the flush of sleep on his plump cheeks. She stroked his rabbit ears, ran her digits across the warm velvet, and he'd shivered, rubbing his cheek over her skin and making a face.

Cute.

She blew out a low breath, biting her lips. Something had changed last night between her and JieMi. Her fingers tightened over his, rubbing her thumb gently over the veins that popped over his beautiful skin. The hybrid soul bond had broken most of the tall barriers that he'd erected around himself; it had revealed his weakness. And in that weakness, Amber's heart had melted and broken for him. She'd decided to care for him, decided to loan him a piece of her heart, and treat him the way she wanted her soulmates to treat her.

She'd taken care of him as if they were the closest of friends, or maybe even lovers.

She'd taken care of him as if she were in love with him.

She'd taken care of him the way she wanted him to take care of her.

And now with her rabbit in her bed, there was a tenderness that blossomed in her heart for him. He was a worm that had wiggled its way into her apple, oxytocin forming in her body under his touch. She knew his limits; she knew that she couldn't have him. But she couldn't help giving JieMi a space in her heart, the space that believed all humans had a good and a bad side, and even the worse of men could be loved.

It helped that JieMi had apologised with sincerity; his cries had been genuine and honest, his sobs heartbreaking and filled with his pain. He didn't cry easily; her men had told her that when she'd waited for MinJae and Oliver to clean him up. Her soulmates had been grim, worry tight in their brows and tension thick in the air. Casper had pulled her to the kitchen into his warm, bear-like embrace, his expression pinched and sour with his concern.

"What happened?"

He knew most of it from her text, but she explained again, omitted the part on how JieMi had rubbed his cock against her clit. They wouldn't like that with the knowledge of how poisonous her relationship was with JieMi. She'd given them a simple 'he humped me' and a 'he acted on instinct'. Their jaws had clenched, eyes widened in disbelief.

"He was crying," Sieon had whispered, lips pursing together tightly, a hand through his curls. His jaws tight, muscle flexing from tension. "Crying." His words seemed to chill the air, raising the pulsating tension in the air. Amber watched as her men exchanged glances, and her brows furrowed.

"JieMi…He rarely cries," Casper had explained from above her, his foxy eyes bright with colours from their soul bond. They hadn't progressed enough for their bond to fully blossom, but the colours appeared sometimes when he was particularly emotional. "He doesn't express his emotions easily. This means that whatever he's hiding, whatever he's feeling, he can't cope with it. The soul bond is proof that he can't handle it."

"What do you think?" Sieon had chirped, nibbling on his lips as he glanced at Hikaru. "Do you think he's in trouble? Money? Blackmail? Drugs—"

"He's experiencing the side effects of the rejection," Ezra answered with a low raspy sigh as he dropped dollops of honey into a mug of water, stirring the spoon. He bristled, his knuckles turning white as he tightened his grip on the metal. "We knew this would happen. I warned him. I told him it would happen. We talked to him. And now he probably feels like shit from staying away from Amber." He dropped the spoon onto the counter with an almost angry slam. "We fucking told him so."

"I knew this would happen; we knew this would happen." Hikaru sighed, placing the stew on the tray. The hot broth steaming and creating a swirl of white in the cold air. "He didn't understand how much it hurts to wait; how much it hurts to not have your soulmate by your side the older you are." Her soulmate's lips trembled, and his wide pretty eyes grew watery with memory. "He didn't understand how torturous it was to—"

"Hikaru." Amber took his hand at the sight of tears in his eyes. His concern and frustration forming into the beginning of tears and he pulled her into a quick kiss. His lips hard with his need for comfort, his kiss chaste from his need to speak.

"Sorry," Hikaru mumbled, cupping her cheek. "I'm worried for my naughty little brother. I'm worried for you too; we're not as connected to JieMi as you are." The warm honey in his eyes grew hard with gold at his words. "Who knows what would happen to you if something ever happened to him? What would we do if you had to pay the price for his decisions? I won't be able to take it if your soul…"

The mood grew sombre with his words.

"Nothing will happen to him," Amber stated firmly. "I'm going to take care of JieMi. We're going to be friends and as his friend, I will help him." She exhaled, drumming her fingers against the tile. "But as someone who was hurt by him, someone who has the six of you to think about, I'm doing this because I want to live happily with the six of you. So, don't worry about me or my heart, I'm fine and I'll be fine as long as you help me and JieMi." There was finality in her voice, one that settled in the air, hard and heavy like the slam of a gavel in court.

"Promise us that you'll step away if it gets too much," Ezra growled, his eyes the colour of the darkest of skies. "Promise us that you'll place your safety above his. That you'll tell us everything you feel and everything you do with him so that we'll know if he's pushing it too far." He'd stalked up to her then, lips quirked into a wry expression as he tilted back his head. "That includes everything that happened in the locker room."

Ezra was always so damn intuitive.

She'd sighed, making a face, blew out another low breath. Amber had hoped to keep that to herself, but she did tell them, her cheeks bright with twin circles of red. And when she finished, they were angry. Their expressions filled with their annoyance, and concern had blossomed over their features, not for JieMi but for her. They didn't comment on it, and they did let her enter the room to see JieMi, but only because they knew they had to.

JieMi.

He really was the most adorable rabbit hybrid she'd ever seen, with those big, dewy eyes and sweet, pouty lips. His cheeks would turn into a violent crimson whenever he met her eyes. She'd suspected that it was only because he was sick, but recently his cheeks had been growing redder and redder by the minute. And his ears and tail were the fluffiest things she'd ever seen. They were softer than velvet and smoother than silk, and they trembled under her fingers, warm and alive.

Much like his cock which was already raring to go early that morning.

Amber gulped as his hips twisted and pressed tight against her side, the hard rod of his penis pushing against her skin. He was aroused from morning wood, needy from a dream she'd blurrily remembered hearing in the night; filled with his soft pants and sweet little moans. She barely managed to slip out of the bed escaping his tight sticky hold, but when she finally did, he'd resorted to humping her pillow, taking it between his thighs to rub against it lazily in his sleep.

She'd watched him blankly for a while, feeling strangely hot at the sight of twisting hips and a pert ass. His shirt was rising steadily to expose corded muscles and a taut belly, cut abs and glistened golden abs. A body she knew he'd worked hard to get. The dip V-line of his crotch revealing itself to her eyes as teasing winks of shadow and light. Her mouth went dry when it rode higher revealing the fuzz of hair that she knew would lead to his hard, swollen cock—hot, red and dripping with need. Oh, God.

She turned on her heels then, heading straight to the bathroom to splash some water over her cheeks. Damn, she was horny. She made a face at herself as she brushed her teeth. She hadn't achieved completion during JieMi's humping session, and the whole fiasco had left her tightly wound up and extremely needy.

She rubbed her thighs together, twisting her feet as the beat of her pulsating pleasure elicited goosebumps up her skin. She'd considered getting up and looking for one of her men that night. It wouldn't be anything new, her visiting their beds at night, them looking for a cuddle that would later turn into mindblowing fuckfest.

It'd been two weeks of exploration, bursting love and beautiful worship. Two weeks of them taking care of all her needs and wants, two weeks of experiencing pleasure that was so damn fucking good that she never wanted it to stop. But her men never strayed too far, always careful to give her everything and anything. Their plans for penetrative sex were meticulously calculated, a cycle that only occurred after she was, according to Oliver, properly rested and no longer limping about the house.

It was the only reason why her virgins in the group had yet to lose their status.