Chapter Ten – Secrets #2
In the evening, after we get our sleeping bags, she takes us for a walk around the neighborhood.
Her apartment is ten minutes on foot from Joseph Monson Hospital and she beams with pride as we pass in front of it.
She tells us about her work, Kacy and Jenna — her friends and nurses at the hospital — and Dr. Lindstrom, her supervisor, her eyes glowing the whole time.
We grab dinner at a restaurant she likes. Nothing fancy, just a cheap local place she goes to when she doesn’t want hospital food, but the meal is really good.
At night, back at her place, we sit in the living room to watch one of her shows. The couch doesn’t fit all of us, so Jay sits with her while Shane and I settle on the floor, one on each side.
At first, they’re side by side on the couch. But Jay’s no fool. Little by little, he shifts closer, adjusting his posture, wrapping his hands around her, until she ends up in his lap.
Soon enough, they’re not watching the show anymore. It starts with soft kisses, but quickly turns into full-on making out. One of his arms is around her waist; the other tangles in her hair, holding her firmly against him.
Her scent shifts, sharper now, with that merciless spice note. I notice Jay’s hand moving, trailing slow down her back, but he stops just before her ass, fingers twitching, uncertain.
When I glance at Shane on the other side, he’s watching them with raw hunger in his eyes, like a dog left out in the cold.
Yeah, I feel the same. I want to be there with her too. But we can’t overwhelm her, so I force myself to stay still. Shane doesn’t move either.
It feels like forever, but then, finally, she pulls back from Jay’s face and looks at us on the floor. Her cheeks are flushed deep pink, and she gives us a shy, embarrassed smile.
Shane reaches for her hand, and she takes it without hesitation, sliding off Jay and into Shane’s lap on the floor.
He kisses her immediately, and she melts into him.
Shane’s a little bolder than Jay, his hands tracing down her back, sliding all the way to the curve of her ass.
She shifts, wrapping her legs around him, and he takes a firm hold, both hands full.
I can’t hold back anymore. I move closer until I’m right there beside them.
When her lips part from Shane’s and she looks at me, I lean in and kiss her. It’s bliss. Just like the first time, right before I bit her. Her scent floods my senses as her tongue probes mine, sending a jolt of pleasure through my whole body.
Shane’s mouth is now trailing down her neck, but I need more; I need to feel her fully.
So I slide my arms between them, wrap around her waist, and pull her into my lap.
She hugs me with arms and legs, and I kiss her harder, pressing her into me.
I can feel every part of her: her fingers in my hair, her arms around my neck, the curve of her breasts beneath her clothes, her ass moving lightly against my lap, directly over my cock.
It’s so good it’s mind-blowing, but it’s definitely not enough.
My hands travel over her body, starting at her neck. When my fingers brush the wound from my bite, my abdomen tightens, and I feel my cock leaking. I press my palms into her back, then lower, until I’m cupping her ass.
I can’t help it; my hips shift, pressing her down harder against me.
But then, she pulls back.
She’s breathless. I’m panting. The thought of stopping makes my cock ache, but I stay still.
When she looks at me, her expression is serious, almost scared. “I’m sorry,” she says, glancing away. “I can’t. I’m not ready for this yet.”
“It’s okay,” I blurt. “It’s okay, Jo.”
It’s not. I want her so badly, right here and right now, but I bite it down. She has to be ready first.
She looks at me again, then at Shane and Jay. Her expression is still tense, her teeth tugging at her lower lip. “It’s not that I don’t want to. I really do. But I just… I’ve never… with more than one person, I… ”
“Jo, it’s really okay,” Jay says from the couch. He leans in and kisses her forehead. “We have all the time in the world. We’ll do this on your time.”
She stands. “It’s late. I think I want to go to bed now.”
We lay out our sleeping bags on the floor around her bed, Shane and I on either side, and Jay at the foot.
“I’m sorry, Jo,” I say after we lie down. “If anything I did was too much for you. I didn’t mean to.”
It takes a while for her to respond. “It’s not you, it’s me. I mean, I know we’re bonded and I shouldn’t feel this way, but... I need a little time to get used to everything.”
Shane’s voice comes softly from the other side of the bed. “You have all the time you need. We won’t pressure you.”
She sighs. “I know.”
We fall silent, long enough that I think she’s already asleep, until her voice breaks the stillness. “What’s your favorite food?”
“Mine and Shane’s is Brazilian food,” I say. “Jay’s favorite food is... all food.”
Jay chuckles. “Food is good. Doesn’t matter what kind.”
She laughs quietly too. “Mine is baked ziti.”
“I like baked ziti,” Jay answers.
“We just established you like all foods, Jay,” Shane replies.
“True,” Jay says back, dead serious.
For a moment, none of us speaks. Then Jo’s voice breaks the quiet. “How… how was it in the Stray Program? Bureau always brags about it in his books, but he never really says what methods he used to make packs.”
It’s not my favorite subject. I shift a little, my sleeping bag crackling under me.
“I don’t know the science behind it,” I tell her. “Had something to do with nyra’s synthetic pheromones. We had these devices on the walls of our pack house, pumping that shit into the air all the time. And then there were all the tests and tasks they made us do.”
Jay’s voice comes from where he’s stretched out across the foot of her bed.
“They called it behavioral training,” he says.
“They never really explained anything to us, but from what I overheard, the research team thought if they put us in extreme situations, we’d have no choice but to rely on each other, even if we weren’t blood. ”
Jo’s voice has this edge of doubt and curiosity that makes me picture her eyebrows drawn tight together even though I can’t see her. “Extreme? Like what?”
“Each test was different,” I reply. “It’s difficult to explain.”
“Tell me one of them,” she says.
We fall silent for a moment. Definitely not a comfortable conversation for any of us. I’m racking my brain trying to choose an easy one to tell her when Shane’s voice comes from the other side of her bed.
“There’s the one from the day we knew we’d become a pack,” he says. His voice is a little clipped, restrained enough for me to know he’s as uncomfortable as I am.
“Oh, that sounds interesting,” Jo says. “How old were you when you became a pack?”
“It was three days after my thirteenth birthday. Jay was thirteen too, and Shane was twelve,” I tell her.
We go quiet again.
“So? How was it?” she presses.
I hear Jay sigh before he answers her. “We were stuck with Melissa Meyer, the post-grad who had to watch us that day. We had these devices strapped to our arms, with needles jammed into the backs of our elbows pulling blood data in real time. The test was simple: walk barefoot across broken glass. Once we reached the other side, they’d patch us up and let us go back to the pack house to eat and play video games. ”
The bed creaks, and even in the dark I can see her silhouette shifting as she sits up. “Are you serious?”
“Well, yeah,” Jay says. “Why?”
Her voice is sharp now. “Are you telling me they tortured you in the Program?”
“Uh, no,” I say. “They didn’t torture us. The tests were hard, but that’s just how the Program worked. Everyone went through the same ones, it wasn’t just us.”
“Are you kidding me?” she snaps. “That only means they put all the kids in the Program through the same kind of abuse. I always knew Bureau was a bastard, but I never thought he’d be sadistic, hurting gregalis kids like that!”
“Maybe you’re right,” Jay says, his voice calm.
I can feel the subtle shift in the air from the soothing pheromones he’s releasing.
He’s so used to doing it when one of us gets agitated that he’s probably doing it for Jo out of habit, even though, as far as I know, it doesn’t work the same on nyras.
“But as hard as the tests were, they worked. That’s what matters most,” he goes on.
“Anyway, I don’t remember how long we were there that day, but it was hours.
Breakfast had been ages before, and I was hungry as hell again.
But we’d already done the same test once; we knew how bad it hurt, so we stalled. Until Shane snapped.”
“I didn’t snap,” Shane argues, sounding a little offended. “I was bored.”
“Whatever,” Jay replies. “The important part is, Shane stood up and ran across the glass. But when he reached the other side, instead of going through the door to the medical bay to get his feet patched up and head home, he stopped and looked at us, and it just happened.”
“I still remember it,” I say, my voice dropping.
“It was like getting struck by lightning. My whole body buzzed and I just ran without thinking. Only when I reached the other side did I realize Jay had followed too, and we’d crossed it together.
And then Melissa was squeaking like a mouse, and in no time half the research team was fussing over us.
Turns out, our pheromonal system had changed.
Shane was able to trigger a call strong enough to make us follow, and we were able to perceive and respond to it.
That was the first real sign we’d become a pack. ”
Jo’s voice is a little shaky when she speaks again. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea it was like that in the Program. I always thought a research compound wasn’t the best place for kids, but I never imagined they’d put you through this kind of thing.”
“It’s okay,” I say, trying to reassure her. “Jay’s right. All that matters is that it worked. The tests in the Program were nothing compared to what would’ve happened to us if we’d stayed solitary.”
I hear her take a deep breath, her silhouette shifting again as she lies back down. “I know. But there had to be another way to do it without putting kids through that.”
I have no idea if she’s right or not, so I don’t say anything. It’s useless to argue about it anyway, what’s done is done.
After another long silence, Jo’s voice floats up again. “This is going to sound really weird,” she says, “but I want each of you to tell me a secret. Something you’ve never told anyone else.”
It takes me by surprise, and I don’t know what to say. Jay and Shane don’t say anything either.
“I’m sorry. Too intense, I know,” Jo says in a small voice. “I just got this idea that it’d be easier for me to, you know, feel comfortable with you if I felt like I really knew you guys. But that’s stupid. It only happens over time. You don’t have to—”
“I had a huge crush on a dispatcher once,” Jay says, cutting her off. “Every time I heard her voice, I used to fantasize that she was secretly a nyra, and our scent-mate.”
“Jay,” Shane warns. “That’s not a secret.”
Jay’s voice comes back, defensive. “How? I never told you.”
I snort. “You got that dumb puppy face every time she called us on the radio.”
Jo makes a noise, half a scoff, half a breath.
“So let me get this straight,” Jo says. “While I was out there, miserable because I couldn’t fall in love with any man I tried to love, you were out there falling for a voice on the radio?”
Jay shifts in his sleeping bag; I can hear the nylon rustling faintly. “I didn’t say love.”
“You better think my voice is better than hers. ”
“Of course it is.”
“Good. Now the rest of you, spill.”