“You better now, baby girl?” Cam murmured in my ear, playing tenderly with my hair.
“All good with my alphas around me.”
I breathed them in as I drifted off to sleep.
ChapterForty-Five
Josie
Aringing jolted me awake.
“Shit, sorry,” Theo groaned, rolling over to grab his phone off the nightstand.
Ben’s arms tightened around me as I stirred. I was warm and comfortable and automatically hated whoever had called for interrupting our morning. I had no idea what time it was besidestoo early o’clock.
“Go back to sleep,” Theo murmured, brushing his hand along my face before getting out of bed to take the call. I whimpered, not wanting any of my alphas to leave. Cam shifted closer, throwing an arm and leg across me, sandwiching me between him and Ben. The warm pressure of their bodies against mine and their spiced apple and cinnamon roll scents settled me.
“How’re you feeling, precious?” Ben asked, his voice heavy with sleep.
“Good,” I responded, nuzzling into his neck.
“Not too sore?” His arms tightened around me, and I noticed a slightly worried edge to his scent.
“All good,” I murmured, pressing a kiss to Ben’s bare chest. I was lulled asleep by the soothing sound of his purr.
* * *
Iwoke to low voices. Theo was back, his scent bitter. My eyelids were too heavy to pry open, but I needed to touch him. I reached out my hand, flailing in his general direction until he grasped it and kissed my wrist.
“Good morning, angel,” Theo said softly.
“Morning,” I mumbled. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
My eyes popped open. “You lying to me?” I asked. Theo’s eyes were tight and his smile forced.
He sighed. “Nothing is wrong, but that was Amirah on the phone. She needs us for an Alliance job this evening.”
“What’s the job?” I asked. Ben still looked half asleep underneath me. Cam was wide awake, soothing his hand up and down my back.
“There’s a pharmaceutical development team working with the Alliance,” Cam said. “They’ve developed tablets for omegas that can incapacitate any alphas in close proximity.”
“What?” I gasped, trying to sit up.
Ben grunted and pulled me closer to him, pressing his face into my neck. “If we have to have a serious conversation this early, I need you on top of me, precious.”
I smiled as Cam and Theo rolled their eyes. Ben might even be more of a monster in the mornings than me.
“They’ve been in development for a while,” Theo said. “They found a way to infuse omega pheromones with a toxin that will render alphas helpless for up to thirty minutes. The omega just has to chew the tab to release it.”
My body tensed before I registered Theo’s words. Stinging pain shot through my arm, radiating from my scar. I breathed through it, knowing the pain wasn’t real—it was the cost of remembering what had happened to me.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Cam asked, his hand settling on the back of my neck in a firm, comforting hold. “Is your arm hurting you?”
Shit. I had reached out to grab my scar without thinking.
“No,” I said quickly, dropping my hand. I didn’t want to go there, wasn’t ready to tell them about my past.
