Chapter 31 – PLAGUE #2
He looks... unraveled. His hair is damp—he must have showered too—but sticking up in places like he's been running his hands through it repeatedly.
His pupils are dilated, the honey-brown of his irises reduced to a thin ring.
He's shirtless, wearing only low-slung gray sweatpants that hang off his hips.
The solid thickness of his torso and shoulders nearly fills my doorway.
"What?" I ask, keeping my tone neutral despite the sudden dryness in my throat.
Whiskey's eyes drag down my bare chest before snapping back up to my face. "You gonna invite me in, or are we having this conversation in the hallway?"
"That depends on what conversation we're having." I don't move from the doorway. "If it's about the omega, I think we've exhausted that topic for tonight."
His jaw tightens. "It's not about the omega."
I raise a skeptical eyebrow but step back, allowing him to enter. As he brushes past me, his scent intensifies. Arousal. Not surprising, given what's happening upstairs and the other scent saturating the house, but it still sends an unwelcome heat curling low in my stomach.
What the fuck is my problem?
I close the door and turn to find him standing in the center of my room, looking out of place among my minimalist furnishings.
His gaze sweeps over the space—the perfectly made bed now slightly rumpled from where I was sitting, the rows of books organized by subject and author, the lack of personal effects beyond a single framed photo on the dresser.
I feel judged.
Judged by a barbarian, of all things.
And it's pissing me off.
"So," I prompt when he doesn't immediately speak. "What's so important it couldn't wait until morning?"
Whiskey shifts his weight, uncharacteristically hesitant. "I want to clear the air."
"About?"
"About what happened in the shower room. In the tunnels."
The memory flashes vivid and unwelcome. His body pressing mine against the cold tile wall, his solid thigh between my legs, the heat of his breath against my ear. I force my expression to remain neutral.
"Nothing happened," I say flatly.
"Bullshit." Whiskey takes a step closer, and I resist the urge to step back. "You've been avoiding me since we got back."
"We've been cleaning up the destruction you caused. Hardly avoiding."
"You know what I mean," he insists, closing another few inches of the distance between us. "You won't look at me. Won't talk to me. Except to tell me what a fucking idiot I am."
"If the shoe fits," I reply coolly, but the attempt at detachment feels hollow even to my own ears.
Whiskey's eyes narrow. "Why are you like this?"
"Like what?"
"This." He gestures at me, frustration evident in the sharp movement. "Cold. Distant. Like nothing ever touches you."
"Perhaps because it doesn't."
He laughs, the sound brittle and humorless. "See, that's what I thought too. That you were just an ice prince who didn't feel anything. But then I felt you react when I pushed you against that wall."
My ears get hot. "It was a biological response to the omega's scent," I say through gritted teeth, rage prickling the back of my neck. "Nothing more."
"Sure." He steps closer still, near enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his body. "Tell yourself that if it helps you sleep at night."
"You're fucking delusional."
"Am I?" His voice drops lower, rougher.
Then he reaches for my face.
I catch his wrist before he can touch me, my fingers wrapping around the solid muscle of his forearm. "You're overstepping."
Something I can't read flashes in his eyes before he deliberately relaxes in my grip. "Am I?"
We stand frozen like this—my fingers around his wrist, our bodies inches apart, the air between us charged with energy that doesn't make any sense. I can feel his pulse hammering beneath my fingertips, matching the too-quick rhythm of my own heart.
This is madness. Complete, utter madness.
"It's the omega's heat," I say finally, releasing his wrist and taking a deliberate step back. "It's affecting all of us. Making us... irrational."
Whiskey doesn't follow, though his eyes track my movement. "Is that what you need to tell yourself?"
"It's the truth." I fold my arms across my chest. "Scent-matched omegas in heat trigger heightened responses in pack-bonded alphas. It's well-documented. It can manifest as..." I pause, searching for the most clinical term possible, "...displaced arousal."
He snorts. "Displaced arousal. Right. Good to know you're aroused."
"Would you fuck off?" I snarl.
He gives a low chuckle, moving to the door and opening it in clear dismissal. "Yeah. Sure." Then he pauses in the threshold, turning to look at me one more time. "For what it's worth, I think you're full of shit. But if that's how you need to play it, fine."
Before I can respond, he's gone, pulling the door shut behind him with enough force to make the frame rattle. I stand frozen for several heartbeats, listening to his footsteps fade down the hallway.
The silence that follows is deafening.
With a growl of frustration, I press the heels of my palms against my eyes until spots of light dance across my vision.
My body is still thrumming with arousal from both the omega's scent and Whiskey's proximity. The physical evidence is impossible to ignore, straining against the thin fabric.
I hate him.
I fucking hate Whiskey.
"Fuck," I mutter to the empty room.
I should meditate. Should take another cold shower. Should do anything except what my body is demanding.
But my hand is already sliding beneath the waistband of my pants, wrapping around my hard length. The initial touch sends a jolt up my spine, drawing a hiss between my clenched teeth.
I tell myself I'm just releasing tension. Dealing with the biological imperatives triggered by the omega's heat pheromones. Nothing more.
As I stroke myself, I try to keep my mind clear, but my traitorous brain fills in the blanks, conjuring images I've been desperately trying to suppress.
The omega from my dreams, with those aquamarine eyes and wild honeysuckle scent. Her slender frame beneath mine, those soft lips parting on a gasp as I enter her. The way she might look coming apart, crying out my name the way she cried out Wraith's.
The fantasy shifts without my permission. Suddenly it's Whiskey's weight pressing me into the mattress, his mouth hot on my throat, his hands pinning my wrists above my head. That cocky smile disappearing as his gaze meets mine and...
"God damn it," I growl, increasing the pace as heat builds at the base of my spine.
I shouldn't be thinking about this. About him. About either of them. It's inappropriate. Unprofessional. A complication I neither need nor want.
But my body doesn't care about should or shouldn't. It responds to the fantasy with a surge of pleasure so intense it borders on pain. My back arches off the bed as release crashes through me, vision whiting out at the edges as I spill over my hand.
For a few blissful moments, my mind is blank—no thought, no complication, just the endorphin rush of release. Then reality crashes back in, bringing with it a wave of irritation at my own weakness.
I clean up methodically, wiping away the physical evidence of my lapse in control, but the knowledge remains. The memory of what—of who—I just fantasized about.
This is exactly why I maintain distance. Why I guard myself. The moment you let someone in, you lose the ability to think clearly. To act rationally. To maintain the control necessary for survival.
I turn out the light and lie in darkness, listening to the occasional creak of the old house settling around me. From somewhere upstairs comes a muffled thump followed by a low growl.
Wraith and the omega, still lost in each other.
The thought sends another unwelcome pulse through me, followed immediately by intense frustration. This situation is rapidly becoming untenable. One omega in heat shouldn't be able to destabilize our entire pack dynamic so completely.
Yet here we are.
Thane retreated to his room with a migraine. Wraith fucking the omega senseless. Whiskey pacing the halls like a caged animal. And me, lying alone in the dark, my control slipping through my fingers like sand.
I roll onto my side, punching the pillow into a more comfortable shape. Tomorrow I'll need to be the rational one. The voice of reason. Someone will have to deal with Valek's arrival and the aftermath of tonight's revelations with a clear head.
That someone will be me. It always is.
Because I'm the only one who can be trusted to keep emotion out of the equation.
Even if it's a lie I'm starting to have trouble believing myself.