I’ll be there. Give me twenty, and I’ll be there. Don’t leave the shop.
The next pulse hits, and I drown in the pain and heat and fear, letting my phone drop to the floor as I curl in on myself.
PAXTON
I pull into one of two designated parking spots at the back of Blush & Bloom, the bucket of flowers stashed carefully on the passenger seat floor. I hadn’t known if I was supposed to pull them from the protective cardboard to check their condition before signing off on picking them up. I’ll just pay to replace them if I was, I guess. Closing my eyes, I tip my head back and breathe carefully through my nose, trying to center myself before walking into Carys’s shop. Myscent match’sshop while my fiancée is currently boarding a flight to the other side of the country.
“In and out, James,” I whisper. “Just enough to have her take the flowers, and then you’re off to the rink for warm-ups. Smile, be polite, and pray to God she’s wearing her lotion today.”
I blow out a breath and then get out of the car, tucking my keys and wallet into my pocket. The gray sky mutes the buildings, making it feel later than early afternoon. It’s so much cloudier than LA. I miss seeing the sun most days. I shake the thoughts away as my phone vibrates with a text from my brother.
Have you dropped those flowers?
Just got here.
I grab the bucket and shut the car door with my hip before crossing to the back entrance of the shop that the women only really use during deliveries. I ease the door open just as Rhett’s next text comes through.
Don’t go inside.
Why?
But then the perfume hits me, and I know exactly why. His text confirms it only a second later. I press it open even as rational thought slowly leaks away, leaving only the need to claim—to plunge and take and knot—behind.
She’s in heat.
I manage to set the bucket of flowers on the ground rather than letting them fall wherever. I breathe in the scent, letting it flow through my veins in a way I haven’t allowed myself these last eight weeks. Each inhale eats away my sanity, my ability to rationalize. The door closes with a heavy slam just as the rut takes hold. There are no names, no places, no jobs.
I’m nothing but instinct.
There’s a whimper deeper in the shop, and I follow it. My Omega’s hurting. She needs me, needs her Alpha to knot her and take away her pain. Her perfume calls to me, and I follow it.
“Alpha?” Her voice is hoarse, like she’s been crying.
Rage burns me, and I run to her.
She’s beencrying.
She’s curled over her knees near a table full of buckets and vases, tears staining her cheeks and her shirt. I run my thumb across her cheek and down her throat, giving her a bit of my scent to soothe the worst of all of this way.
“Shhh, Omega,” I croon. “I’ve got you.”
“Cypress,” she whispers. Her eyes are glassy, her pupils blown wide. I kiss away the tears that stream down her cheeks. “Cypress and lemongrass.”
I wrap my hand in her hair and guide her to the floor. She shivers in anticipation, her hands scrabbling at me, and I rumble a satisfied purr. Of course she knows her Alpha will help her. It’s what I’m made for, everything I’m wired to do is to please my Omega and make her happy. Her clothes get in both our ways. I grunt in triumph as the fabric rips under my hands, and then my mouth is on her, soothing her ache until I can knot her and fix all of this. She pushes up into me, and I drag my teeth down the soft swell of her hip.
She’sperfect.
But she’s in pain. I can’t let her be in pain.
“Alpha,” she gasps.
I trace her lips with my thumb, soothing her even as I prepare to ease her ache. Her teeth bite into the fleshy pad of my thumb a moment before I break her skin, biting into the delicious line of her hip bone. Her scream echoes through the shop for a heartbeat before her pain recedes temporarily.
I pull her into my arms, purring to keep her calm while I try to get us to a better place for me to care for her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
RHETT
