Chapter 4
“ D on’t look at it, little dove.”
I dragged my gaze away from the needle the nurse was bringing closer.
“Hey.” Kai took my face in both of his hands. “Look at me. I’ve got you.”
I’d much rather look at him than a needle, so I let myself focus on the warmth of his golden brown eyes, the sweep of straight lashes, the fullness of his lips that I had decided were kissable the moment I saw them. It seemed rude to drop my gaze further, even though he wasn’t wearing a shirt and the lean, muscled planes of his body practically begged to be admired.
They’d already administered the medication to reverse the scent blockers—which would take a little while to take full effect—and I’d immediately burst into tears. I’d always been like that with needles. I whimpered as the heat serum was injected under my skin, the burning tingle slowly spreading up my arm, followed immediately by a dose of birth control. They’d put me through one of the rapid-test clinics dotted around the city to make sure I didn’t have anything that required extra precautions, and luckily Jerry hadn’t brought anything to our bed.
“Well done,” the nurse praised. “You’ll have about an hour before it kicks in fully, but you’ll start feeling the effects in a few minutes. I’m sorry to say that it can make you a bit emotional, so don’t worry about that too much when it happens. You’ll settle quickly once you’re out on stage.”
“Deep breaths.” Kai stroked my cheeks with his thumbs, before sweeping one over my wobbling bottom lip. He pulled me onto his lap. The hyperventilation started almost immediately, panic galloping through my system, setting my heart to racing, and making my head feel like it was going to float away into the stratosphere. I clung to him, desperate for an anchor. His grip tightened until it bordered on pain and I felt like his arms were the only thing keeping me together.
This wasn’t fucking fair. Not twenty-four hours ago I’d been engaged and now…
Fuck.
I wiped the tears streaking down my face.
“She can’t cry on stage,” Diego murmured, sitting next to us with his shirt off too.
“Sure she can,” Amir said. “Tons of those rich bitches have a crying kink.”
“Don’t be dicks,” Kai snapped.
“Rude,” Amir said with a laugh. “That’s literally all we’re here for. It’s just the serum wigging her out, not a big deal.”
Maybe it wasn’t a big deal for him, but he wasn’t experiencing it. I buried my face against Kai’s chest with a soft whine, that omega sound of distress ratcheting tension through him. “Where’s Miles?”
“Right here, sweetheart.” Miles stroked a hand over my hair. “I know it’s a lot. The drugs will settle soon.”
I sniffled miserably. “I hate it.”
Kai nuzzled the top of my head. “You’re doing great.”
“Mhmm,” Miles agreed. “And your first twenty-thousand was just deposited in your account.”
I popped my head up. “Really?”
Fuck. That already made me feel better, knowing those dollars were sitting there waiting for me on the other side of this.
“When do I get more?”
“Another twenty on each day of the heat, and the rest once it’s all over.”
I settled against Kai, still sniffling, but holding on to the knowledge that everything would be okay when this was over. But then my mind wandered to why I wasn’t okay in the first place and the sobs came in soul-crushing waves.
God, I couldn’t do this. But I would be even more fucked than before if I backed out now. Right back to square one, abandoned and broke, but with a heat on the way.
Fucking Jerry.
My life before today hadn’t been great , but it had been mine. It had been…comfortable, predictable, if nothing else. I just wanted to go back. If only there were something to go back to.
Kai continued to hold me, purring away until I got my sobs down to a manageable level. He nudged me to lean back far enough to see my face, his eyes flickering over the hair and makeup they had done for me before I had gotten the injection. I thought I looked ridiculous. I never wore this much makeup, but the artist had said something about the audience liking to be able to see the tear tracks from the mascara and I’d almost thrown up on the spot.
“I think we have to run you through makeup again real quick,” Kai said.
“I’ll probably just cry it off again.”
“Probably,” he agreed, “but try to keep that to when we’re on stage.”
I squirmed in his lap, the faintest hint of something tweaking the back of my brain. It crept in molecule by molecule, the scent blockers dissolving by the second.
Cinnamon.
Warm, like cinnamon rolls fresh out of the oven, and spicy like those candy hearts I ate every Valentine’s until my tongue went numb.
I bucked and shuddered like I’d stuck a fork into an electric socket, shoving my face against Kai’s throat. Sweet fuckity fuck. My tongue swept over his skin, soaking up that flavor, and suddenly I was in the air.
“Whoa there, sweetheart. It’s not time to start yet.”
I whined as Miles hauled me away and onto his lap.
“Miles… I—I think we might have a problem,” Kai said slowly, staring at me like he had no idea what to make of me. All I wanted was to climb back into his lap and breathe him in.
“Miles, please, I need .” I fought against his grip, trying to get back to Kai and suddenly Diego and Amir were there too.
“Calm down.” Amir’s voice was firm, but did absolutely nothing to temper my desire to get to Kai, or at least it didn’t until I caught a whiff of him . Rich, sunbaked cedar, all sticky and sweet in the height of summer. Fuck me sideways. I grabbed onto him and dragged him closer, whining as I got my face up to his throat.
Yes.
Perfect.
“This feels like more than a heat, Miles.” Diego did his best to extract me from Amir, but then he was close enough to scent too. Warm clove and nutmeg, like my favorite chai and the most delicious cookies.
A whine rocked through my chest, a whispered chorus of oh, fuck moving through the men around me. Heat sat like embers in my belly. I needed all of them all over me . Immediately.
“Okay, sweetness, don’t worry.” Miles opened a drawer and forced a respirator over my face so I could get a breath that wasn’t laden with alpha deliciousness. The others very quickly donned their own, followed by scent-blocking patches. I didn’t want those scents to go away, but with every clear breath it was easier to think and keep some semblance of control over myself.
My whine rang in my ears.
“Deep breaths,” Miles crooned, pulling me away from Amir and into his arms. “You’re okay.”
I clutched the front of his suit, letting him comfort me, his hands smoothing down my back as I clawed my way back to sanity. When my shoulders finally relaxed, I looked up at Miles, my mind full of questions. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s going to be okay, sweetness. Rest for a minute. We just need to figure out a few things.” His voice soothed me, sliding over me like velvet and untangling some of the knots of panic in my chest.
“Miles, we can’t take her out there,” said Diego. “We can’t let people see her.”
“If you don’t do the show, none of you are getting paid. All four of you are under contract. If Callie backs out now, she has to give back everything she’s been paid so far and still go through a heat, just not on stage. We can’t turn off the heat now that she’s been given the serum.”
“I don’t want that. I don’t…”
Miles stroked a soft hand over my hair. “She’s already agreed to the show and it kills two birds with one stone. We owe her. Where else is she supposed to find heat partners this close to the start? You have to. You know she doesn’t get paid if you back out.”
“What?!” It came out as a muffled shriek through the respirator. “I don’t get paid if they back out? That’s not fair. Why is anyone backing out? What’s going on?”
Fucking hell. Could my day get any worse? I was broker than broke, stranded in Sin City, and about to go into heat.
“Please.”
The simple word had all four of them softening. I had played by all of their rules and they could ruin it for me anyway. Men were not very high on my list today. They always got so damn creative finding new and exciting ways to ruin my life. I supposed that blocking a payday wasn’t as bad as what my fiancé had done, but still.
Without their scents to distract me, I had only my own nerves and the serum coursing through my blood turning me into a basket case. I didn’t know what was going on, but the tension in the group was setting off an instinctual panic. The alphas were mad about something. Maybe they didn’t want me now that my scent had come in? Maybe they couldn’t bear to go through a heat with me?
“If you don’t want me…” I began.
“Don’t,” said Kai. “That’s not what this is about.”
“But no one’s telling me what it is about. What else am I supposed to think?”
Kai gathered me up and even though I couldn’t smell him anymore, the contact smoothed off the rough edge of my worries.
“Miles, this is fucked up,” said Amir. “What are we supposed to do?”
“I already told you. We have to do the show.”
“I am not letting those people see her,” Amir hissed.
“Why do you get to decide who sees me?” I snapped. “You’re not the one with an empty bank account. You’re not the one who got abandoned by your fucking fiancé in Las Vegas after he drunk-married someone else, or the one who has to face their goddamn family who told you not to date that asshole to begin with. You don’t get to make this choice for me. You can’t trigger my heat and then deny me everything I need to get my fucking life back on track.”
Amir’s growl sent a ripple of fear and desire through me, like my brain couldn’t make up its mind if he was growling at me, or at the injustices done to me.
“Let’s get through the show,” Miles said softly. “We can figure out everything afterward. Everyone will get paid and we won’t book anything new. Callie’s right that this is her choice and not yours.”
Amir looked so pissed that I shrank against Kai.
“If you give me a good reason, I’ll consider it,” I said. “But so far you’re all just being cryptic weirdos.”
Amir growled again. “We can’t go out there and fuck our mate in front of a goddamn audience.”
I stared at him, trying to process the words through the rapidly rising stew of heat hormones in my brain. Then it clicked. “Your what ?!”
Mates. The alphas I was about to fuck for three days in front of a room full of people were my mates .