Time loses all meaning as we trek across campus at a snail’s pace with me having to stop for labored breaths every dozen feet or so, but Lainey is patient and viciously glares at anyone who so much as looks at me sideways.
I’m not sure how long it takes us to get there, but it feels like only a slow blink passes before we’re standing in front of my second-floor apartment. Lainey says something, but I’m too foggy to catch it. Her hand moves up to grip my chin, and my eyes immediately snap to hers. “Keys?”
I lift my bag silently, grateful when she takes it as the invitation I meant it to be and digs through the mess for my house keys. “I won’t come in, but you go get settled in your nest and I’ll be back in a bit with food and supplies, okay? Maybe you’ll get lucky and a few rounds with a battery operated boyfriend will knock you out of this wave before it becomes a full blownheat.” She aims a side eye look my way. “You do have at least one of those, right?”
I nod, words escaping me once again. There’s a smoldering heat creeping under my skin, and my core clenches painfully as I let loose another whimper. My friend gives me a gentle shove towards my nest and smiles calmly. “I’ll bring your keys with me and leave everything on the counter. And I’ll lock up before I go. If you need anything, call me or send an SOS text. I’ll come running.”
Before I can think about how my scent might be affecting her, I throw my arms around Lainey and squeeze, hoping the action conveys how grateful I am for her friendship. She hugs me back even tighter and pats me on the head before she leaves. If I were more coherent, I might laugh. But as it stands, my mind is solely focused on one thing and one thing only.
Knot.
I need a knotnow. It’s a test in coordination trying to strip my clothes off while stumbling down the hallway, but somehow I manage with only a couple of bumps.
The soothing effect of the twinkle lights in my nest is immediate, my muscles unclenching and breath escaping in a heavy whoosh even as a new wave of cramps wracks my abdomen. I only make it a few steps in to the dark room before collapsing into my nest, and the moment my omega senses we’re safe the haze fully takes over.
Me
What are we doing for dinner tonight?
Mack
How is it that you think about food more than I do when I’m the one training like a professional athlete?
Pax
I literally watched you do a keg stand last night and then vomit in a shrub
Mack
*shrugging emoji*
My eyes roll so hard they hurt and I sigh, tapping the keyboard aggressively as irritation simmers in my veins.
Me
Dinner. Are we going out? Is someone cooking? I’m starving.
Pax
I’m stuck in lab until 5, so go eat a snack or something and chill.
A growl rumbles in my chest, making me rub my hand over it in frustration. My alpha has been even more irritable than usual for the lastweek since we got back to campus, and I can’t pinpoint the reason why. I’m not the most pleasant person on a good day, but eight days ago a switch flipped, and my alpha has been driving me insane since.
I walk to the kitchen with a heavy sigh and my spirits lift the tiniest bit when I find a box of donuts on the counter. Jude probably brought them home after his run this morning. God knows he has the extra time since he’s often running at four a.m. Something has been different with our pack lead since this summer, but he won’t stop moving long enough to talk to any of us about it. If it goes on much longer we’ll have to confront him, which is going to suck.
But better he be angry with us for staging an intervention than run himself into the ground and get sick or worse.
Grabbing an apple fritter, I stalk back to my room, determined to get a nap in before my shift tonight. Between Mack’s family and his trust fund, none of ushaveto work, and I really didn’t go looking for the job I have now. It just sort of fell into my lap one day.
I have insomnia and on the nights it got really bad, I would end up at our school’s library so I didn’t wake the guys. It’s open twenty-four hours and I was almost always the only student there, so eventually the overnight security guard made it his mission to befriend me. Harold is sixty years old and funny as hell, so I didn’t mind too much.
At least until he fell and broke his leg on shift one night. I was the one to take him to the campus clinic and then the hospital, and that sneaky old bastard used his condition to guilt me into taking over for him while he recuperated. That was a year ago, and now he schedules me to cover him whenever he damn well feels like it.
Which is exactly why I’m trying to sleep in the middle of the morning. My school schedule is a breeze with only having in-person classes on Wednesday. Even still I would normally never be in bed at this time, but it seems like the only time I can actually manage to catch some solid sleep is during theday when everyone else is in class. Every other time I’ve tried to do this, it was just a few minutes before I fell into a deep, albeit short, sleep, but today my alpha is restless. He’s raging in my mind, desperately trying to get me to understand something I am just not getting.
And then I smell it. My jaw drops as the most mouthwatering scent I’ve ever encountered permeates the air.
Where the fuck is that coming from?
