I sighed and closed my eyes. I didn’t know what that had been back at the club, but whatever it was, I didn’t want to discuss it with Rys, not here anyway.
Like Midnight, there were too many non-human scents lingering in the air. Some I recognised, a lot I didn’t, and it set me on edge in a way that I hated. Maybe this thing with Axel was making it ten times worse. Okay, there was nomaybeabout it.
I’d felt wound tight ever since we’d learnt about Vai Zh’alek and the possible threat to Axel’s safety. I wanted to protect him, keep him safe by keeping himwith me,and I couldn’t.
Because he’s not mine.
No matter how many times I repeated it, the words wouldn’t sink in.
I rubbed at my chest, forgetting I had an audience until Rys’s hands landed on my shoulders.
“Talis.”
“Don’t.” I shook my head. “It’s this place.” I waved a hand around us. “I don’t like it here. I don’t feel safe.”
“It’s the police station. No one can get in. It’s probably the safest place we can be.”
I looked at him,reallylooked, then at Sasha over near the far wall. To anyone else they might seem unconcerned and at ease, but I knew better. “Bollocks,” I hissed. “It might be locked up like a fortress, but it’s not our territory and they aren’t pack.” I shrugged Rys’s hands off me and paced, agitated in a way I knew was so fucking unreasonable because everyone in the room we’d just left would protect Axel with their lives.
But it wasn’t enough for me. Or my wolf.
“We need to get him back where we can protect him.” I growled, hands curling into fists. The sharp sting of claws against my palm made me hiss, but I ignored it, welcomed it, even. I got in Rys’s face, something I never did. “We need to take Axel home, and don’t tell me you and Sasha don’t feel the fucking same.”
I was panting by the time I finished speaking, chest rising and falling far too rapidly.
I was overreacting.
Even if I couldn’t recognise it myself, I saw it in Rys’s eyes, in the way Sasha came to stand next to me and grabbed my shoulder.
“Calm down.” Rys’s voice rumbled out of his chest, low and thick, full of the alpha power he very rarely used.
I shuddered, legs buckling under the weight of it as all the fight left me. “Fuck,” I mumbled, stumbling forwards.
Rys caught me, arms wrapping around my back, holding me upright. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, not letting go.
I sank into his hold, nose pressed into the base of his throat and breaths ragged as I slowly came back to myself with every lungful.
I needed it. Needed the familiar, comforting scent of alpha. Ofpack.
Goddess.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
“Everything all right?”
I glanced up to see Jake standing in the doorway, Nick alongside him.
And there was me, hugging Rys like I’d die if I let him go.
“Yeah,” I said, straightening.
Nick gave me a curious glance, but Jake shrugged like it was nothing. And to him it wasn’t. Packs were tactile.
“Good, because we need to join the others.” He lifted his phone. “Max says they have news.”
* * *
“They dowhat?”I stood so fast my chair shot back into the wall with a crash. Sasha groaned from beside me as everyone else fell silent. My body shook with the effort it took not to shift on the spot and howl out my frustrations, becausewhat the actual fuck?
