28. Chapter 28
Emotions
All night long, I toss and turn, my body feeling achy and uncomfortable.
Everytime I turn, one of my mates sits up to check on me.
After the fourth time Hutch asks if I want to go somewhere else, I get aggravated.
I already answered that damn question! Why does he keep asking?
Feeling fed up and irritable, I jump off the couch and storm to my room without answering Hutch.
I feel the rest of my mates spring awake as I leave, but I don’t want to talk to any of them while I feel so damn grouchy.
When I get to my room, I lock the door behind me and crawl under the covers to try to get some sleep without all my mates breathing down my neck.
My wolf is so restless that by the time I finally get to sleep, the dark night sky is fading into a predawn pink.
A pounding at my door has me grumbling. I kick a foot out, hoping that one of my mates will get up to get the door, but all I feel around me is empty space.
My heart starts racing and my palms start to sweat.
I’m alone, all alone without my mates and that breaks my fucking heart.
Tears well in my eyes, but I try to hold them back as I wrap myself in a fuzzy blanket that smells like my missing mates and go to answer the door.
August is standing there smiling at me and for some reason, seeing him and not one of my mates has my heart sinking lower in my chest. I can’t hold back the tears anymore.
Huge racking sobs heave from my chest and my whole body is shaking.
Why would they leave me? What did I do to make them leave?
August panics, his arms wrap around my shoulders and he holds me as I cry. A distressed sound slips from between his lips as he pets my hair and tries to soothe me. He looks so lost and the fact that I don’t understand what is wrong with me paired with the look on his face, just makes me cry more.
“Mandy! Guys! Someone, anyone! I need help.” August calls out into the hallway as my knees give out and he gently sits on the floor with me in his lap.
His comforting wintergreen and rose scent does very little to soothe me.
He smells like family, but it’s not the scent I need right now.
If anything, scenting his and Mandy’s essence wrapped so closely together just makes it all worse.
I’ve been abandoned while he still has his mate.
Jumbled words try to squeak out of my chest between the sobs, but I don’t even recognize what I’m saying, so I know he doesn’t.
“Shh, it’s okay, Little Wolf. Whatever it is that has you so upset, we’ll fix it.”
Heavy foot falls pound up the stairs and Mandy, Charles, and James are there. Seeing them calms me a bit, but I still can’t stop crying. They aren’t here, my mates didn’t come.
“Auggie, what is going on?” Mandy falls to her knees next to us and one of her hands cups my cheeks while the other one takes over petting my hair why August’s moves to rubbing circles on my back.
“I don’t know. I came to get her so we can go shopping, like we planned to yesterday, and when she opened the door, this happened.”
“Okay, Becca. It’s okay. Just take some deep breaths with me.
” Mandy forces me to look into her eyes as she takes deep exaggerated breaths.
Watching her calm soft eyes does wonders to calm my turbulent emotions and before long, I don’t even really know why I was so upset to begin with.
“Good job, Becca. That’s it. One breath at a time. Feel better now?”
When I nod my head, all the Alphas let out a deep breath and Mandy smiles so sweetly.
She doesn’t let me go, neither does August. In fact, Charles and James even sit on the floor in the doorway and rub my calves.
All of them are trying to soothe me and keep me calm and I can’t even begin to tell them how grateful I am to them for it.
“I’m glad you’re better, Becca. Do you think you can tell us what happened?”
“I woke up alone. I thought the guys would be here, but they weren’t and I felt so sad and alone. I’m not sure what happened, but I feel much better now.” That is the best explanation I have for them.
My emotions are all over the place, and my wolf is no help.
She is growling, upset that my mates still haven’t shown up.
Where could they possibly be but right here by us.
She has locked down the connection between us completely in a fit of rage.
Her sassy display of emotion has me giggling and the sound of my quiet laughter makes the wolves around me smile and share a look.
“I’m sorry, Little Wolf.” Charles’s gentle squeeze on my calf brings my attention to him. “The guys have to go to football practice today. A couple of their teammates got into some trouble last night so the whole team has to run drills all day.”
I guess that does make sense, and knowing that my mates had to leave has my emotions leveling out a bit. I still feel very strange though. I want to ask Mandy about it, but James speaks up and his words send the thought out of my head.
“Why don’t you get dressed and we can all go shopping. By the time we get back, the guys should be home.”
That sounds like fun, so I smile and nod and get up to get ready for the day.
I’m still off kilter, but it’s probably because I didn’t get much sleep and had a really long day yesterday.
I decide that I want to feel close to my mates, since they can’t be with me right now, so I get Erik’s shirt out of my nest and wear it with some leggings and a pair of tennis shoes.
A big belt wrapped just under my breast transforms the outfit from a too large shirt to a cute T-shirt dress.
I feel cute and Erik’s chocolatey scent surrounding me has me feeling a bit more normal.
We all load up and head to the mall. The Alphas and Mandy don’t bring up my meltdown from earlier.
We spent a pleasant day shopping and I got a lot of comfortable items for my secret room.
For some reason, my wolf keeps pushing me to get stuff, pillows and blankets, a big rug, even a giant floor cushion that has high walls.
Reading the label, I laugh when I see it’s called the Nest.
When we get home, the boys are there, just like James said they’d be.
I can’t even begin to explain the rush of excitement and joy that floods my system at seeing them all there in the kitchen.
Dropping everything in my hands, I rush towards them and jump.
I don’t care who catches me, I just need to be held by them.
Erik is the one who plucks me out of the air and holds me to his chest. His face nuzzles into my hair a deep purr rumbles in the air around us.
Hutch leans in against my back, purring just as much as Erik and the knot that’s been in my chest all day starts to ease, bit by bit.
“Boys, Becca has quite a bit of stuff in the car. Why don't you go get it and take it to her room?” Hutch and Erik both whine at Mandy’s words, but I laugh. I’m very happy that they don’t want to let me go.
The boys bring in all my stuff and put it in my room before coming back to the kitchen to eat dinner.
All of them make it a point to touch me, and my wolf is purring everytime their scent mingles with mine.
The conversation is light and friendly. The parents don’t mention this morning and the boys bitch about having to go do a day of conditioning on the week off of school.
We all hang out with Mandy and her Alphas in the living room, watching movies and eating snacks, but as the night grows later, a deep itching starts under my skin.
I really need to get to my room and start organizing my stuff where it goes.
My mates notice me wiggling and ask me about it, but I brush it off.
After a really adorable movie about gnomes, I head up to my room.
Hutch tries to follow, but I tell him I’m just organizing some stuff and he lets me know that they will be in the Den if I want to come.
He watches me walk up the stairs with a strange look in his eyes, but the thought of all the stuff in my room pushes that look out of my mind.
It takes hours to organize all of my stuff.
Most of what is in my secret room gets tossed out into the hall as I meticulously place every item I bought today in that one tiny room.
When the last pillow is gently placed, I look around the room.
I want to feel satisfied with it, but something is missing.
Looking around, I realize that I only have my stuff here.
This room is supposed to be a surprise for my mates, to show them a piece of me that no one else knows about, but they aren’t represented.
With that in mind, I head down the hall.
The guys each have a room in this hall, so I open all the doors and explore each space.
Skylar’s room is the most organized. He has everything put just so, and I feel bad when I start moving things to find something to go in my little space.
The other guys have stuff thrown all over their rooms, so finding a sweatshirt or pillow, or in Hutch’s room, a soft blanket, to go in my room is much easier.
When I feel like I have enough, I go back to my room and place each item in the perfect spot.
When I put the last item down, I finally feel less restless, the room is perfect.
Now I’m so tired I barely make it back to my bed before I fall asleep.
Before the world fades to black, I think about the day.
Something is definitely wrong with me, but what is it?