Chapter 11
Tessa
Iwake up warm.
That’s the first thing I notice. Not the unfamiliar bed or the gray morning light filtering through curtains I don’t recognize. Just warmth, bone-deep and heavy, like I’ve been wrapped in a cocoon.
The second thing I notice is the scent.
Leather and musk, everywhere. In the pillow my face is pressed into. In the sheets tangled around my legs. In the flannel I’m still wearing, soft and worn and drenched in Ben Wilson.
My body responds before my brain catches up.
Heat pools low in my belly. My skin prickles with awareness. I burrow deeper into the pillow without thinking, breathing him in, and a sound escapes my throat that I’d be embarrassed about if I were fully awake.
I am now.
My eyes snap open. The room comes into focus—small, simple, masculine. A dresser with a few framed photos. A closet door hanging open. Boots lined up neatly by the wall. Ben’s room. Ben’s bed.
I’m in Ben Wilson’s bed.
The memories flood back. The storm. The snowbank. Three figures emerging from the white. Being carried through the blizzard, passed between them like I mattered. Elijah wrapping my hands. Milo’s chili. Borrowed clothes and firelight and—
You walk into a room and I forget what I was saying. You laugh and I want to spend the rest of my life figuring out how to make you do it again.
I go still.
Milo said that. Last night, sitting on the floor beside me, firelight dancing in his eyes. He said he had feelings for me. Real feelings, not just flirting. And I... I reached for his hand. Squeezed it. Let him kiss my forehead while I drifted off to sleep.
What the hell was I thinking?
I wasn’t thinking. That’s the problem. I was exhausted and overwhelmed and surrounded by alphas who smelled too good and made me feel too safe, and I let my guard down. I let them in.
Then let us teach you.
My chest aches.
I push myself upright, shoving the covers back.
The cold air hits my bare legs—Ben’s sweatpants rode up in the night—and I shiver, but it’s not entirely from the temperature.
My whole body feels strange. Oversensitive.
Like my skin is too tight and my blood is running too hot and every nerve ending is dialed up to eleven.
My hands ache. I look down at the gauze Elijah wrapped around them last night, now slightly loosened from sleep. The scrapes underneath throb dully.
Pre-heat symptoms.
I know what this is. I’ve felt it before, years ago, before the suppressants locked everything down. The restlessness. The warmth that won’t fade. The way scents hit harder and touches linger longer and everything feels like too much and not enough at the same time.
It’s fine. I have suppressants. I just need to take one and this will settle down and everything will go back to normal.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand. The floor is cold under my bare feet—no socks, they must have come off in the night—and I pad toward the door, pulling the flannel tighter around me.
The cabin is quiet. Gray light filters through the windows, muted and soft. The power’s out—I can tell because the clock on the nightstand is dark and the hallway light switch does nothing when I flip it.
But it’s warm. The fire must still be going.
I follow the hallway toward the main room, and that’s when the scents hit me.
All three of them.
Ben’s leather and musk, familiar now, grounding. Elijah’s cedarwood and honey, warm and steady. And Milo’s dark chocolate and amber, rich and inviting, wrapping around me like a physical thing.
My knees actually wobble.
Get it together, Tessa.
I round the corner and find them in the kitchen. Ben’s at the stove, pushing eggs around in a cast iron pan. Elijah’s at the table, hands wrapped around a mug, steam curling up around his face. Milo’s leaning against the counter, and when he sees me, his whole face changes.
“Morning, trouble.” His voice is warm. Knowing. “Sleep okay?”
I don’t know how to answer that. I slept better than I have in months, wrapped in an alpha’s scent in an alpha’s bed while a blizzard raged outside. I slept like I was safe. Like I belonged there.
That terrifies me more than the storm did.
“Fine,” I manage. “What time is it?”
“Almost ten.” Ben glances over his shoulder. His eyes sweep over me—his clothes, his flannel, my bare feet and sleep-mussed hair—and heat flickers in his expression. “Power went out around three. We’ve been keeping the fire going.”
“The storm?”
“Still going.” Elijah nods toward the window. “Worse than last night.”
I move toward the window without thinking. What I see makes my stomach drop.
White. Nothing but white. The snow is piled halfway up the glass, and beyond that there’s just... nothing. No trees, no road, no sky. Just a wall of swirling white that goes on forever.
“How long?” My voice comes out smaller than I want it to.
“Radio says the system stalled over the valley.” Ben slides eggs onto a plate. “Could be a few more days before it clears enough to dig out.”
A few more days.
I’m going to be stuck here for a few more days. With three alphas. In a cabin with no power. While my body slowly loses its mind.
“Hungry?” Milo’s suddenly beside me, close enough that his scent wraps around me. “Ben makes a mean breakfast. Eggs, bacon, toast on the woodstove. Very pioneer chic.”
I should step away from him. I should put distance between us and pretend last night didn’t happen. But his scent is wrapping around my brain, making everything soft and fuzzy at the edges, and I can’t seem to make my feet move.
“I should...” I trail off. What should I do? I have no car, no control over anything. “I need to check my phone.”
“Might be dead,” Ben says. “No power to charge it.”
“I know. I just—I need to check.”
I retreat to the bedroom before anyone can stop me. My purse is on the floor by the dresser—one of them must have brought it in last night—and I grab it, digging for my phone with shaking hands.
Dead. Completely dead.
I stare at the black screen like it might magically light up if I will it hard enough.
My whole life is in this phone. My calendar, my contacts, my endless to-do lists.
Without it, I have no idea what’s happening with the fundraiser.
Whether the vendors are panicking. Whether everything I’ve worked for is falling apart while I’m stuck here.
Deep breath. It’s fine. I can’t do anything about the fundraiser from here anyway. The roads are impassable. No one expects me to be reachable in a blizzard.
But I can do something about this feeling in my body. This heat crawling under my skin. This ache that won’t go away.
I dig through my purse again, pushing past my wallet, my keys, a handful of receipts. Looking for the orange prescription bottle I always keep with me.
It’s not there.
I dump the whole bag out on the bed. Lip balm. A pen. My emergency granola bar. Hand sanitizer. A tampon. A hair tie.
No suppressants.
My hands are shaking as I paw through the scattered contents, checking every pocket, every zippered compartment. It has to be here. It has to be. I never go anywhere without—
The car.
The passenger seat. The water bottle. I left them on the passenger seat when I went into the meeting because my hands were shaking and I needed to take an extra dose and I meant to put them back in my bag but I was running late and I just left them there.
I left them in the car.
The car that’s buried in a snowbank somewhere on Ridge Road. Miles away. Completely unreachable.
“No.” The word comes out strangled. “No, no, no.”
I’m on my knees on the bed, surrounded by the contents of my purse, and I can feel the panic rising in my chest like a wave. My suppressants are gone. I’m stuck in a cabin with three alphas and my suppressants are gone and my body is already responding to them and I can’t—I can’t—
“Tessa?”
Ben’s voice. I look up and he’s standing in the doorway, brow furrowed, concern written all over his face.
“What’s wrong?”
I open my mouth to say nothing, I’m fine, the same lie I’ve told a thousand times. But the words won’t come. Because I’m not fine. I’m the opposite of fine. I’m kneeling on his bed in his clothes surrounded by the scattered contents of my life and I’m about to fall apart.
“Tessa.” He’s in the room now, crouching in front of me. His scent hits me full force and I have to close my eyes against the wave of want that crashes through me. Heat flares between my thighs. My hands curl into fists in the bedspread. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”
“My suppressants.” It comes out like a confession. Like a crime. “I left them in the car.”
He goes still. “Left them...”
“On the passenger seat. I took an extra dose before my meeting and I meant to put them back in my bag but I forgot and now they’re in the car and the car is—” My voice cracks. “The car is buried.”
Footsteps in the hallway. Milo appears in the doorway, Elijah right behind him.
“Everything okay?” Milo’s smile fades when he sees my face. “What happened?”
“Her suppressants,” Ben says, voice low. “They’re in her car.”
The silence that follows is deafening.
I watch the understanding dawn on their faces. Three alphas, processing what this means. An omega going off suppressants. Trapped together in a cabin. For days.
We all saw the storm this morning. We all know what’s out there.
“Ben.” My voice is barely a whisper. “Is there any way—”
“Tessa.” His voice is gentle, but firm. “You saw it. I can’t even see my truck, and it’s ten feet from the door. I’d never find the car. I’d get turned around in thirty seconds and freeze to death before I made it back.”
I know he’s right. I watched them walk through this storm last night, roped together so they wouldn’t lose each other. And it’s worse now. So much worse.
“It’s okay.” I force my voice to steady. “It’s fine. I can—heats usually take a few days to hit after stopping suppressants. Three days, maybe. The storm will clear by then and I can just—”