He sips on her coffee, eyes locked on her mouth and where my hand rests, before he comes closer. He settles his hand over mine, his own fingers dappling her skin as we collar her throat. “The Gulf Stream has a bed, Amore Mio. Seeing you with Hen’s hand wrapped around your throat… there’s no way we are not fucking.”
Simona’s pulse explodes, and the scent of her slick descends over us like a storm.
And it’s a storm that derails our plans.
As soon as we arrive at the airport, the pilots go into detail about the bad weather we’re going to be flying through. Then they leave us to decide if we still want to go. It’s an easy decision, and despite the sudden return of Simona’s pout, we settle into our seats in the main cabin of the Cessna Citation Latitude. Our aircraft selection changes like the tides, but this one is the industry leader for safety features.
The flight isn’t a long one, and it’s made shorter by the prevailing tail wind. Landing is bumpy and as soon as the pilot gives us the all clear, we switch on our devices. Simona is especially anxious.
She reads a few messages, and it’s easy to see she’s talking with the girls, but then she pales and her scent sours.
“What’s happened, sweetheart?” I reach over for her hand, but she pushes her phone into mine.
Her mother has left four messages. Each sent within minutes of the last.
Simona’s screen lights up, as her mother continues her harassment. My poor Omega starts spiralling. The colour in her eyes gets lost under the worry rising from within. Her anxiety strikes like a whip, hard and fast. Completely unaware, she draws her Alphas closer in their need to solve the source of her distress.
“It’s okay, Sin, we’re with you.” Ryder’s hand is on her thigh, mine is splayed across her stomach, hoping to stem her rising panic attack.
She nods but it’s also abundantly clear that she’s not wholly present with us. Simona refuses to look up, and she starts rocking back and forth, fighting not to fall further away. But because she has the most resilience I’ve seen in anyone, she accepts the call and flicks it to hands free.
“Wren?”
There’s an echo as Simona’s mother starts talking. Thehollow sound confirming Wren has her device on handsfree too which doesn’t bode well with me. If I’m honest, it makes me nearly disconnect the call because of the likelihood she’s recording this, not exactly what you would do in an emergency.
“You need to come home straight away. Lawson is in hospital.”
“What? What’s happened to Lawson?” Simona asks. The suspicion in her voice is as loud and as obvious as her worry for her father.
Her mother scoffs. She fucking tuts dismissively at my Omega, like Simona is inept at understanding basic fucking English.
“Don’t you question…” Wren shrieks, hissing like a wasp. She catches herself, pausing mid-way through. You can literally hear Wren becoming a different version of herself. “Simona, Lawson is at the hospital. He asked for you. Please come home and see your father.”
Her tone might have changed, but now she’s over polished her manners. My Alpha is going off his head. I want to reach through the phone and drag her here so she has to look her daughter in the eye when she lies. Instead, I focus on what I can fix. I pump our bond, letting Simona know she is not alone. I get a small smile, but she doesn’t look at me yet.
“Please, tell me what happened, Wren.”
Simona’s request falls on deaf ears. Wren cuts the call. My Omega can’t even take a shocked inhale, and a text arrives on her phone with the name of a hospital and a room number.
The message is a barbed jab and nothing more. It hits Simona right in the chest. She slumps forward, a long drawn out and pained moan spilling from our sweet girl.
Her shock and confusion take her away from us, and theonly way we can reach her is through our bond, although that too feels like it is just out of reach.
She isolates in her grief. It’s not something she set out to do, she’s simply slid back into a self-protective mode. Which is hard to witness as an Alpha but easy to understand as one of her soul mates. Simona has shared lots of stories about her father, and even now after what she has gone through, she idolises him. Losing Lawson is going to leave a deep scar.
“Simona.” Dominic’s voice is abrupt, like a bark. And it’s done as a way to cut through the panic stealing her away.
The rocking slows, and the pain in her scent softens. She doesn’t look at him, but her hand reaches out. Relief floods through our bond. And her knuckles turn white as she holds on to him for dear life.
Dominic sits on his heels so he can be on her level, since she can’t sit up just yet. His face is lined with concern, his eyes full of his love and compassion. There’s no bark or bite when he speaks, just his need to help, as well as his obvious love for her. “We will get you to Lawson and keep you safe from Wren. I need to know if you still want to go see Heidi though, Amore Mio.”
Tremors wrack her body. This perfect woman might be on the cusp of a panic attack, but her fortitude and resilience start to overtake the crushing fallout of her shock and worry for Lawson. With each minute, she reclaims more of her balance.
When she sits up, her eyes are glazed. She’s compartmentalised. Understandable given the circumstance, but she needs reminding she now has a safety net ready to catch her. I rub her shoulder until I get her attention. “Anything you need to happen, will happen. But I cannot allow you to bottle up all those emotions. They need to come out, sweetheart.”
Her eyes flare wide, I see her emotions colliding in her eyes. It’s hard to watch but I can’t let her suffer alone. Thestorm in her eyes continues to gather until her hold on it snaps, and loud sobs rip through her as she scrambles onto my lap. She curls into a ball, and I cover her with my body, trying to make her feel safer. Her hand reaches out and grabs whatever part of Ryder and Dominic she can. She holds on as they shield around her protectively, until she is engulfed on all sides by her pack.
We stay like that for what feels like a long time, but I refuse to push her away. There is no rush except for her to feel us with her and to remember she is ours.
