"I know," Mason replied, completely unbothered, his smile never wavering. "You'll get over it."
Caleb's arms released me, and I stood on shaky legs, my body feeling weak and hollow. The bond-separation symptoms were gone, contact with him had erased them completely, leaving me feeling almost normal. Almost human.
I walked out of the kitchen without looking back.
At dinner, I sat at the table without being asked. I ate everything on my plate without protest.
Caleb's voice echoed in my head:Eventually, it's easier to give in than to keep struggling.
I was starting to understand what he meant. And I hated myself for it.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
AVA
FIFTEEN YEARS OLD
I woke up wrong.
That was the only way to describe it, a wrongness that started deep in my bones and radiated outward until my entire body felt like it belonged to someone else. I was hot, burning hot, my skin slick with sweat despite the cool autumn air drifting through my cracked window. My stomach cramped, a deep, twisting ache that made me curl into myself with a whimper.
I was surrounded by softness.
I blinked, trying to clear the fog from my brain, and looked around my bedroom. Except it didn't look like my bedroom anymore. Sometime during the night, I had no memory of doing this—I had gathered every soft thing I owned and arranged them around me in a circle. Blankets. Pillows. Stuffed animals I hadn'ttouched in years. The throw from the living room. Sweaters pulled from my closet and wadded into cushions.
A nest. I had built a nest in my sleep.
No, I thought, panic rising in my chest. No, no, no.
I knew what this meant. My mother had explained it to me years ago, her voice tight with fear, her hands gripping mine too hard. "If you ever wake up like this—surrounded by soft things, feeling hot and strange—you come find me immediately. Don't let anyone else see you. Don't let anyone else smell you."
Smell me.
I lifted my arm to my nose and inhaled. Underneath the sweat and the sleep, there was something else. Something sweet and rich and completely foreign. Like burnt sugar and ripe peaches, with an undertone of something electric, something that made the hair on my arms stand up.
My scent. My Omega scent.
I had presented.
"Mom," I croaked, my voice coming out rough and strange. I tried again, louder. "Mom!"
Footsteps in the hallway. Fast. Urgent. My bedroom door flew open, and my mother stood in the doorway, her dark hair loose around her shoulders, her green eyes, so like mine, wide with fear.
"Oh god," Elena breathed, one hand flying to her mouth, her face going pale as she took in the nest, took in me huddled in the center of it. "Oh god, Ava, no."
"Mom, what's happening to me?" I asked, my voice cracking, tears burning in my eyes. "I feel so strange, I can't?—"
"Shh, shh, it's okay," my mother said, rushing to my side, climbing into the nest without hesitation. She gathered me into her arms, her hands stroking my sweat-damp hair, her scent—roses and something sad—wrapping around me like a shield. "It's okay, baby. I've got you."
"I built a nest," I whispered against her shoulder, shame burning through me. "I didn't mean to, I just woke up and it was here?—"
"I know. I know. It's not your fault." My mother pulled back, cupping my face in her hands, her eyes boring into mine with desperate intensity. "Listen to me, Ava. This is very important. We need to get you cleaned up and covered before anyone else in this house wakes up. Do you understand?"
"Before the boys smell me," I said, understanding dawning with sickening clarity.
"Yes." My mother's voice was hard as steel, her jaw set with determination. "Before the boys smell you." She pulled me out of the nest, and leaving it hurt, a physical ache in my chest that made me gasp and dragged me toward my en suite bathroom. The water was scalding when she turned it on, steam filling the small space within seconds.
"Get in," Elena ordered, her hands already reaching for bottles under the sink. "Scrub everywhere. Use this." She thrust a bottle of something medicinal-smelling into my hands. "It's a scent blocker. It won't last long, but it should buy us enough time to get suppressants."
