Heat built inside my body. Doctor Moorehead told his students during my last treatment that nothing could truly replace an Omega bond when it came to healing an Alpha who was suffering from advancing stages of ferality. And the terminal stage still had a slim chance of recovery with a strong enough scent match. A dull throb began in my head, as if thinking of ferality and its worsening stages was enough to induce one of the prolonged, miserable headaches I often suffered from nowadays. I prayed it wouldn’t get so bad that I needed to retreat to a dark room. The doctor had offered an occipital nerve block last visit to counteract the clinically debilitating migraines. I’d declined. Slicing my ass and stripping my skin raw was enough pain at once, I really didn’t feel like adding shots to the base of my skull.
“Mac, are you in the house?” Catalina’s cool collected voice floated to me. I shook myself back to life, wincing as a stabbing pain hit my right temple. Nausea tried to creep in, but I swallowed it down.
“Yeah, coming.” I didn’t manage to sound relaxed.Fuck, I sounded like a dying man.
I moved slowly, shuffling my feet across the damp floor before stepping down into the living room and surveying the situation. Cat was standing by the coffee table holding the package. The other guys had distanced themselves from one another around the room. Beneath where each of them stood, a puddle had formed. We were going to need to callthe cleaners after this. The hardwoods couldn’t handle all the moisture. I frowned. At this moment in time, my future dangling in front of me, I was worried about the damn floors. I hated myself sometimes. Always being sensible. Always thinking about the things that needed doing, instead of enjoying the moment.
Nothing was more important than the mailer in Cat’s grip.
Nothing was more important than Tessa.
She was the answer. The end to torturous treatments that made me feel exposed and pathetic.
I was supposed to go to the clinic next week for another round of painful scent stripping. I’d been debating canceling. Quitting it all—the blockers, the stripping, the therapeutic soothing tactics that did nothing except grate my nerves. Tessa's arrival could stop it all. No, it would stop it all. I had to believe that she’d make it all better.She had to be the cure. I didn’t have an alternative anymore. There were times I was low enough that I didn’t want to face the day anymore.
“I’m going to open the package. Are you guys ready?” Cat’s voice broke into my mental anguish. “If you can’t talk, at least nod for me.” She glanced around the room, waiting for a sign from each of us that we weren’t going to lose our shit the second she ripped open the mailer. Shallow, quick nods were her answer from three of us. Tray gave a double thumbs up, forcing a strained smile.
Catalina ripped the mailer so slowly that I wanted to hell at her to hurry the fuck up, but I bit my tongue. Tessa’s smell stayed a steady presence in the air, sweet and woodsy. Cat extracted a second inner bag, vacuum sealed. The sight of the medical gown hit me hard.Why did I smell Tessa’s fear more strongly now that I could see the telltale hospital dress?I was sucked into a black hole of memory.Why was my brain assaulting me with memories of that first brutal clinic session?
Invasive. Naked. Every part of me touched.
I thought I’d known what to expect. The staff had made it all very clear in theory.
A long day of bloodwork, an echocardiogram to make sure my heart could take the stress of the stripping tank, a vein study to ensure I didn’thave clots that might prove lethal during pressure changes, and then, finally, a round of blockers and that introductory journey into the tank. I’d thought pain couldn’t get worse than that. Then, I’d gone for the second round of the ‘miracle’ remedy. And then the third. I was pretty sure the physicians who’d created the regiment were fans of this one eighties flick that had something called the Pit of Despair. The hero got strapped to a machine that drained years of his life away. I was the same. All I could do was grin and bear it as they turned up the dial and stripped away my vitality.
Tessa’s hospital dress brought back the agony. It also elicited anger that my Omega,our Omega,might have been subjected to something as dehumanizing as the treatments I’d gone through. I’d chosen the torture.Had she?
“Well, at least Eros packaged this well. No rain damage.” Catalina was examining the sealed bag, lips pursed.How could she act so casually when she held the entire world in her hands?
Tray looked more serious than I’d ever seen him. He wasn’t cracking jokes or breaking the pack anxiety with innuendo. If anything, he was adding to the suffocating, testosterone heady atmosphere. Usually, he was our comic relief or the guy validating our identities and desires. Yet even he seemed to be ready for war right now.
Ryder had gone ashen, a haunted look muting his usual confidence. It was as if being around Tessa’s scent again was too much for him to bear. Two years of searching, and failing, had left him more fragile than he’d ever let on. Only now did he let his walls truly fall. Damn, I knew how that felt. I wasn’t sure I was brave enough to wear my heart on my sleeve like him. I couldn’t even tell my Alpha pack the truth about the treatments.
Dixon looked like he was about to punch his way through anything blocking him from his mate. I was pretty sure he’d take a few swings at the rest of us if his fists began flying. Wouldn’t be the first time since ferality began taking hold of him... Only, right now, the aura surrounding Dixon along with the pungent, choking pheromones wafting from his glands, were clearly murderous.
We were all in the way. We were all barriers for one another. We all wanted the same thing in this moment—Tessa. There was no immunity against her scent. No immunity against the snarling, howling Alpha inside that recognized it’s fated partner.
Desire was going to ruin us.
We were going to tear each other apart.
To have her.
The room was beginning to vibrate. The world shook ever-so-slightly beneath us. Of course, it wasn’t the world.It was us.Our Alphas were gearing up for war. Each low-pitched growl seemed to say,‘I’m willing to fight and claim what is mine’. We were challenging each other.
Fuck, I never wanted to fight these guys.I loved them.
But I also hated them right now.
Down to my goddamn bones.
I didn’t think I’d ever actually hated someone. I’d grown up believing that you couldn’t truly hate any of God’s creatures, even the ones that damaged you. Hate? No, I could never hate my pack brothers.I just didn’t want them to exist.
Fuck, that wasn’t me either. These guys had saved me from my childhood’s brand of salvation, which had, long ago, decided my future was filled with damnation simply because I broke the rules once or twice.
But losing Tessa to any of them wasn’t an option. None of us could survive losing her, even though we knew losing wasn’t part of the deal. She wasourmate. Not mine or Ryder’s or Dixon’s or Tray’s. Closing my eyes, I shook my head hard. After, I slapped myself brutally. I heard Catalina gasp in surprise, and maybe Dix go ‘what the fuck?’ Ignoring the noise, I focused on fighting back to my rational self.
Dammit, we were about to have everything we needed, everything we wanted. We had to remember why we’d contacted The Institute in the first place—to find one Omega mate. Tessa was supposed to belong to all of us and keep us close-knit.
