Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Dax
By mid-afternoon, I’m ready to put my fist through a wall.
I’ve been pacing the living room for the past hour, unable to sit still, unable to focus on anything. The radio is on, and every sound grates on my nerves. And there’s this constant, overwhelming need to check on her, make sure she’s okay, make sure—
“You’re going to wear a hole in the floor,” Malik says without looking up from his phone.
“Shut up.”
“Just saying.”
I want to snap at him, but the effort of controlling my temper is already taking everything I have. Instead, I force myself to stop pacing and drop onto my set of cushions on the floor.
It doesn’t help.
Nothing helps.
I try to distract myself by checking my phone. There’s a text from my mom from this morning asking how we’re doing with the storm. I start to type a response three times and delete it each time because I can’t seem to form coherent sentences.
We’re fine. House is secure. Roads are flooded.
It takes me five minutes to write three basic sentences. I used to run tactical ops meetings. I’ve coordinated disaster response efforts across multiple states. Now I can’t string together a simple text message.
I toss my phone aside and scrub my hands over my face. The stubble on my jaw feels too sharp, too scratchy. When did I last shave? Feels like days ago, even though it was just yesterday. Time is becoming meaningless.
Cole is sprawled on his section of the couch across the room, scrolling through his phone with an intensity that suggests he’s not actually reading anything.
Every few seconds, he shifts position, crossing his legs, uncrossing them, sitting up, lying back down.
He’s usually the most relaxed person I know, the kind of guy who can fall asleep anywhere and wake up cheerful.
Right now, he looks like he’s about to vibrate out of his skin.
“You good?” I ask him, even though I know the answer.
“Peachy,” he mutters without looking up. “Just that every single thing is pissing me off today.”
“Same.”
Jalen is on the other couch, supposedly reading a book on his tablet. But I’ve been watching him for the past ten minutes, and he hasn’t turned a single page. He just keeps staring at the screen, his bandaged hand clenched and unclenched repeatedly against his thigh.
That’s not like him either. Jalen’s the steady one, the one who can focus through anything. I’ve seen him review mission briefs in the middle of a crowded bar, tune out shouting matches during unit drills, and stay locked in on a task even when chaos erupts around him.
Now he can’t even read a book.
“How’s your hand?” I ask him.
He startles slightly, as if he had forgotten anyone else was in the room. “What? Oh. Fine. Doesn’t hurt.”
“You keep clenching it.”
“Do I?” He looks down at his hand like he’s surprised to find it attached to his body. “Huh.”
The radio crackles with another weather update. “—storm warning remains in effect through tomorrow morning. Wind speeds sustained at forty-five miles per hour with gusts up to sixty—”
I tune it out. We’ve heard the same information every hour. Storm’s bad. Stay inside. Roads flooded. We get it.
The house creaks and settles around us. The storm shutters rattle. And underneath it all, soaking into everything, is that scent. Honeycomb and cherry syrup. Soaking into everything. It’s everywhere now. In the furniture, the walls, the air itself.
My body has been responding to it all day. Heat pooling low in my gut. Possessive thoughts that I keep having to shove down. The overwhelming urge to go to her room, break down the door if necessary, make sure she’s—
No. Stop. That’s not me thinking. That’s my alpha, and I need to get him under control.
But it’s getting harder.
I’ve always prided myself on my control. In the military, control was everything. Control your emotions, control your instincts, control the situation. I was good at it. Am good at it. I don’t lose my temper easily, and I don’t let my alpha override my better judgment.
Except right now, my better judgment is taking a backseat to some primal part of my brain that keeps insisting I need to check on the omega, protect the omega, claim the—
I shake my head violently, trying to clear it.
“Anyone else feel weird?” Cole asks suddenly, breaking the tense silence. “Like... wrong. Off. I feel like I’m going to jump out of my skin.”
I go very still. “Yeah. I feel that.”
Jalen nods slowly, setting down his tablet. “I can’t focus on anything. I’ve been on the same page for twenty minutes.”
“Same.” Malik finally looks up from his phone. “I’ve scrolled through a thousand feeds and retained none of them.”
We all look at each other, and I can see the same realization dawning on each face. The aggression. The lack of focus. The possessiveness I felt earlier when Cole got too close to the hallway.
“When was your last rut?” I ask Malik directly.
He frowns. “Two and a half months ago. Why?”
“I had one three months ago,” Cole says slowly, sitting up properly now.
“Same here,” Jalen adds. “Last one was early August. We shouldn’t be due for months.”
“We shouldn’t be,” I agree.
“It’s the suppressants,” Malik says, his voice tight. “They’re failing.”
“All of us? At the same time?” Cole frowns. “That’s statistically impossible.”
“Not impossible.” Malik shakes his head, his jaw tightening. “Just rare. It happens when a pack syncs up.”
“We’ve never synced before,” Jalen points out.
“We’ve never been exposed to this level of pheromones before,” I say, the truth settling heavy in my gut. “It requires exposure to a highly compatible omega in heat.”
The words hang in the air.
“Compatible…” Jalen whispers.
Because we all know what that means. Not just biologically compatible; that’s common enough. We’re all alphas, so we could probably respond to any omega’s heat pheromones to some degree. That’s just biology.
But compatible in the way that matters. Pack bonds.
Potential mates. The kind of deep, instinctual connection that can pull alphas and omegas together, whether or not they want it.
The kind of compatibility that makes your alpha sit up and take notice, that makes every protective instinct flare to life, that makes you want to build nests and bring food and guard the door and—
“No,” I say firmly, cutting off that line of thinking before it can go any further. “We’re not going there. We’re not even entertaining that possibility.”
“I’m just stating facts,” Malik says, but his voice has gone soft. Careful. The way he talks when he’s trying not to spook someone.
“Well, state them quieter,” I snap.
Jalen shifts on the couch, drawing our attention. “It would explain a lot, though,” he says thoughtfully. “The timing. The intensity. The fact that all four of us are experiencing the same symptoms simultaneously.”
“It would also explain why we’ve been so on edge around each other,” Cole adds reluctantly. “Rut makes alphas competitive. Especially around a potential—”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” I warn him.
He holds up his hands. “Just saying.”
Something crashes against the side of the house. Debris from the storm. Probably a tree branch. We all tense, our bodies coiling like springs, ready to respond to a threat that doesn’t actually exist.
Then we force ourselves to relax.
Mostly.
I can feel my heartbeat thundering in my ears. My hands are shaking slightly. And there’s this pressure building in my chest, this need to do something, fix something, protect—
“We need to get out of here,” I say suddenly. The decision crystallizes in my mind with perfect clarity, cutting through the fog of instinct and emotion. “We need to pack up and leave. Let Sierra have the house. We can brave the storm, find somewhere else to wait this out.”
“In that?” Cole gestures at the shuttered windows, where we can hear the hurricane-force winds rattling everything in their path. “We’d be insane.”
“We’d be insane to stay,” I counter, hearing the edge in my own voice. “If we are going into a rut—and I’m not saying we are, but if—then staying here is dangerous. For us, but especially for her. One alpha in rut is bad enough. But four?”
The thought of scaring Sierra, of making her uncomfortable, of losing control around her… it’s unacceptable. I’d rather face down any storm than risk that.
Malik is nodding slowly, his analytical brain clearly running through scenarios. “He’s right. Even if we’re just on edge from being cooped up during the storm, some distance wouldn’t hurt. We could find a hotel, wait it out there until the roads clear.”
“The storm—” Jalen starts, his voice heavy with concern. Because of course Jalen is thinking about the practical dangers, the logical reasons why this is a terrible idea.
“The storm is bad, but we’re alphas. We’ve faced worse in the military. We can handle it,” I interrupt. “What we can’t handle is—” I gesture vaguely at all of us, at the tension vibrating through the room like a live wire. “This.”
Cole runs his hand through his hair again. “What do we tell her?”
“The truth,” I say. “That we think we might be going into a rut, that it’s safer for everyone if we leave, that she can have the house to herself until her heat passes.”
“She’s going to argue,” Jalen points out. “She’s stubborn.”
“Then we argue back,” I say firmly. “But we’re leaving. That’s non-negotiable.”
They’re all quiet for a moment, and I can see them processing, weighing the options, running through the pros and cons.
Malik sets down his phone. “Okay. Let’s pack.”
We move with purpose then. I grab my duffel bag from beside the coffee table and start throwing clothes into it. My movements are a tad aggressive, fueled by the need to do something, anything, to feel like I’m taking action.
The whole time, my body is protesting. My instincts are raging against what we’re doing.
Don’t leave her. She needs protection. She needs care. She needs a pack around her while she’s vulnerable. What if something happens? What if she needs help? What if—