I watched him waver.
“You sure?” he asked. “I mean, after everything?”
“I’m sure,” I said. If nothing else, I wanted to see for myself that Heath was still in one piece.
“Okay,” Gage said reluctantly. Relief and worry warred across his broad features. “But you come get me when you need a break.”
“Of course,” I told him. “Really, Gage—I’m perfectly fine.”
“No, you’re not,” he said matter-of-factly... but he didn’t press the issue.
“Where are they?” I asked.
“Heath’s room,” he said. “She’s between peaks. I’m hoping she’s about done, but it just depends on what kind of shit they injected her with.”
I nodded my understanding and trudged toward the stairs. Getting to the second floor felt like climbing a mountain, but I managed it. I knocked on Heath’s door, but didn’t wait before opening it and slipping inside.
My packmate’s growl cut off abruptly as soon as he saw and smelled me. The gruff, flame-haired alpha was lounging naked on his bed, the unconscious waif of an omega curled half on his lap. They were both smeared from head to toe with streaks of dirt and dried blood, not to mention covered in bruises and bite marks.
Heath stiffened in place, easing his tiny burden off of his lap and onto the rumpled pile of bedding. In a flash, he was off the bed, stalking toward me and into my personal space. I stood still as he snuffled along the side of my throat. The tension went out of his body, and he rubbed a bearded cheek against mine. A purr vibrated up from his chest.
I couldn’t deny the release of tension in my own body in response to the confirmation that he truly was safe. Giving in to the temptation, I lifted a hand and ruffled through his shaggy hair, trying not to think too closely about what kind of bodily fluids had contributed to the tangled mats and tacky patches.
Jez made a little noise of discontent on the bed, and Heath straightened away from me. I shooed him back over to her, setting my misgivings aside for now. They were mated. It was already done. There was nothing more to do about it until they were both in their right mind.
Gage had pulled a comfortable chair into the far corner of the bedroom. I settled myself into it and let my mind drift, trying to ignore the magnetic pull toward the bed. Dampeners or no, Icould understand why Gage looked like he was one crack away from shattering after being stuck in here for days.
Several hours slid by in a languid haze. The shot Gage had given me filtered out the worst of the involuntary physical reactions to an omega’s heat-scent, but I still thought I could detect a gradual change in the tone of Jez’s pheromones. For that reason, it wasn’t a complete surprise when she groaned and stirred into awareness.
Heath paused in his obsessive stroking of her hair, but he still held the blank-eyed look of the artificial rut. Jez, on the other hand, whimpered and cringed as she tried to roll into a sitting position.
“Ow,” she said—a tiny little bleat of a word.
Omegas in heat didn’t say ‘ow.’ The aches and pains caused by days of often violent sex didn’t register until afterward. I watched impassively as she registered my presence and bolted upright, the pain in her overused muscles forgotten. She gasped and scrabbled for a blanket, yanking it over her torso to cover herself.
I smiled—not an ounce of humor in the expression. “Hello,Kit,” I said, purposely using the fake name she’d given me that night. “Looks like you’ve had a busy time of things the last few days. And now, you and I need to have a nice little talk.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Jez
I STARED OPEN-MOUTHEDat the ghost sitting in the far corner of the unfamiliar room. Everything was wrong, wrong,wrong. My body ached. Mybrainached, flooded with unfamiliar thoughts and feelings that didn’t make any sense.
I wouldneverthink things like this. Things like how amazing I was, and how important it was that I be protected at all costs. What the hell was wrong with me? I wasn’t amazing. I wasn’timportant. And why did everything hurt so bad?
