So, that was... a thing that rich people did, apparently. And me? Yeah, I’d never even been on a plane before. It was probably bad that flying to St. Louis and back was the part of the trip I was most excited about.
I was also feeling increasingly nervous and out of sorts. I still couldn’t seem to sleep when I was supposed to. Instead, I slept late into the morning and dragged for during the rest of the day, feeling itchy and uncomfortable in my own skin.
It got worse and worse until finally coming to a head on Thursday morning, when Gage and Heath cornered me in my nest to ask me what was wrong. My temper snapped, and I yelled at them, snarling in their faces until they both beat a hasty retreat. After which, I ran into the bathroom and burst into hysterical tears, curled up in the tiny space between the toilet and the wall.
My head ached. My sinuses hurt. I felt feverish and twitchy. But most of all, I was overcome by the sudden obsessive belief that everything about my nest waswrong.
When a tentative knock came, maybe an hour later, I was halfway through piling every single cushion and blanket in the room into a messy mountain of soft furnishings. I froze, realizing abruptly how insane I probably looked. It wasn’t Gage or Heath, though—they’d both slunk off to the far end of the massive house. Knox wouldn’t have tapped on the door like that. He’d have knocked properly a couple of times and announced himself.
That left Tony. And for some reason, the idea of Tony being here didn’t make me want to scratch furrows into my own skin. I stilled, a blanket clasped in one hand and a fur-covered cushion in the other.
“Can I come in, Jez?” Tony called softly, his voice muffled by wood.
I hesitated... but I knew something was wrong—badly wrong—and maybe Tony could help.
“Yes,” I said.
The door opened slowly, revealing Tony standing in the opening, holding a bundle of cloth.
“Gage and Heath said you wouldn’t let them come in, or talk to them,” he said, not moving.
I looked up helplessly. “They can’t be here right now. The nest isn’t right!”
The nest was so, so wrong. Everything waswrong.
Tony looked around at the carnage, his eyes falling on Soft Mountain in the center of the room. His breath whistled out in a slow exhale.
“Hoo-boy,” he mumbled. Then he stepped forward and held out the bundle. “Here, take these. See if it helps.”
“What?” I asked, bewildered... but I accepted the mass of crumpled cloth.
Immediately, the smell of sweat mixed with cedar, woodsmoke, oak, whiskey, orange peel, and baking bread wafted upward like a cloud of bliss, enveloping me. I shoved the handful of clothing against my face and breathed in like an addict taking a hit—not giving a second thought to how I must look.
“Um...” Tony said.
I flushed in embarrassment and yanked the fabric away from my nose.
“Jez,” Tony went on. “I think we’re going to need to postpone the trip this weekend. You’re coming into heat.”
Every thought in my brain froze and clattered to the ground like icicles falling from the edge of a roof. “What?”
Tony shrugged, shooting me a helpless expression.
“No,” I said slowly. “But that’s not right. It won’t be three months since the silos for another... two-and-a-half weeks?”
I’d always used suppressants during my heats, even if it took my last dollar to buy them on the streets. But my heats came like clockwork—every ninety days. No surprises.
“That wasn’t a natural heat,” Tony pointed out. “You were drugged. Who knows what that did to your cycle.”
I looked down at the dirty laundry in my hands... then at the huge pile of disassembled nesting materials.
“Shit,” I said brilliantly.
Tony gave me a sympathetic smile. “I’ll just go and let the others know, shall I?”
