Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Wren
I sit there for a long moment after the door shuts.
My heart is still racing, but not as intensely as it was a few minutes ago. My body feels… looser like a rubber band that’s finally stopped pulling against itself. The heat’s still there, simmering under my skin, but the edge is dulled.
I can’t believe that just happened.
I lie back for a second, staring at the ceiling, my mind replaying every second in fragmented flashes—his hands, the press of his thigh, the way he smelled when he leaned over me.
I’ve spent years telling myself I’d never let an Alpha near me like that. Never blur that line. And yet…
It helped.
And that’s dangerous.
I stretch my legs out, feeling the pull in my calves, the way my muscles hum like they’ve just been worked. I force myself upright, bare feet touching the floorboards, and shuffle toward the bathroom.
The cold shower is brutal at first, a shock straight to my bones, but I make myself stand under it until my breathing evens out and my skin stops feeling like it’s vibrating.
The water slides over me, rinsing away sweat, slick, and whatever was left clinging to me from Beau’s presence. It doesn’t scrub him out of my head.
By the time I towel off and step back into the bedroom, my hair is damp, and my skin has that clean, over-washed tightness.
I slip into a pair of soft lounge pants and an old long-sleeved shirt, the kind with cuffs worn from years of use, and sit on the edge of the bed, wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do next.
That’s when my phone chimes.
The sound jolts me, a small spike of adrenaline. I reach for it, and the name on the screen makes my cheeks go warm.
Beau: I can call Simon. We’ll find a way to get you suppressants.
I stare at it for a while, thumb hovering. My brain runs through a hundred possible replies—some grateful, some sarcastic, some dangerously honest—but none feel safe.
I type thanks, delete it. Type don’t bother, delete that too. In the end, I settle for a single thumbs-up emoji, quick and impersonal, before tossing the phone onto the pillow.
I head downstairs, partly to escape the heat that’s already creeping back into my body, partly because Pancake is probably pacing by his food dish.
Sure enough, the second my bare feet hit the kitchen floor, he’s there—tail high, little chirp of greeting like he’s been personally offended by my absence.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I mutter, scooping kibble into his bowl. He digs in without ceremony.
I fill the kettle and set it on the stove, watching the blue flame catch. My hands are still a little shaky, so I focus on the motions—tea bag in the mug, honey jar uncapped, spoon ready.
The scent of chamomile rises, familiar and grounding.
Upstairs again, I curl back into bed with the mug between my palms. The warmth bleeds into my fingers, and I try to tell myself I’m fine. That I can manage this.
Eventually, I give in and call Norah.
She answers on the second ring. “Hey, you okay?”
I almost say yes, but the truth catches in my throat. “I’ve been better.” Then I explain everything to her.
There’s a pause, then her voice softens. “Alright. I’ll swing by Miss Thea’s first, then I’ll be there in a few.”
I murmur a thank you and hang up. For a little while, I let myself forget the tight coil in my stomach and the heat at the base of my spine. I close my eyes. Sleep catches me without warning.
When I wake, it’s to the sound of my front door opening. Pancake meows in greeting, and then I hear footsteps on the stairs.
“Wren?”
I blink against the dim light, my body heavy with that fever-like haze. “Up here,” I croak.
Norah appears in the doorway a moment later, holding a paper bag from the apothecary. Her gaze sweeps over me, and her smile tilts into concern.
“You look worse than you sounded on the phone.”
“This is bad,” I admit. My voice is thin, shaky.
She sets the bag down and sits beside me. “Then we’ll deal with it. I can take you to see Dr. Hale myself.”
I shake my head immediately. “No. No doctors. Not unless it’s… really bad.”
Her brow furrows, that tiny crease forming between her eyes the way it does when she’s trying not to lecture me. I know that look—half worry, half calculation—but she doesn’t push.
Instead, she reaches into the paper bag at her side, the soft rustle of tissue and cardboard filling the quiet.
When her hand comes out, she’s holding a small glass bottle, dark amber with a cork stopper, the label hand-lettered in Miss Thea’s elegant script. The faint scent of dried lavender and crushed mint drifts toward me.
In her other hand is a silver blister pack of pale-yellow pills, the foil catching the late afternoon light.
“Picked these up from Miss Thea,” she says, holding them out like a peace offering. “They’re herbal support and mild suppressants—not as strong as prescription, but enough to take the edge off. They won’t knock you out like Invisira, but they’ll at least tell your body to slow the hell down.”
My fingers brush hers as I take them, the cool glass smooth in my palm. “Thanks,” I murmur, my voice smaller than I mean for it to be.
She doesn’t say anything, twists open the cap on the bottle of water she brought and presses it into my hand. The condensation chills my skin.
I pop one of the pills free from the foil, drop it onto my tongue, and wash it down, the earthy aftertaste lingering at the back of my throat.
Her voice softens. “You’re not broken, Wren. You know that, right?”
Something in me stutters. My chest tightens like a fist is pressing against my sternum. I want to tell her I don’t feel broken—I feel… wrong. But the words knot up.
She keeps going, her tone steady in the way only Norah can manage. “Sometimes building a nest helps. Gives you something to focus on. Calms the instinct part of your brain that’s probably screaming at you right now.”
I huff a weak laugh. “I have no idea how to even start. I suppress it before it gets this far.”
“Then I’ll help,” she says simply, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “It’s all about making your room as comfortable as possible.”
And then she’s moving, efficient as always—pulling pillows off the couch downstairs, stacking them into my arms, then disappearing into the hallway closet for blankets.
She even digs out the quilt my grandmother made, the one with uneven stitches and a faint scent of cedar from the chest it’s been kept in.
I feel a pang in my chest as she spreads it over the pile, smoothing her hands across the fabric like she’s tucking in a child.
We work in quiet rhythm—her handing me things, me arranging them in the corner of the bed. Soft layers on top of soft layers until it feels like a cocoon.
The air around us grows warmer, heavier, like it’s holding us inside a bubble.
By the time she steps back, I’m half-curled in it already without meaning to. There’s something instinctively soothing about being surrounded, like my body’s answering to some ancient blueprint I’ve spent my whole adult life ignoring.
“The worst thing you can do right now is panic,” Norah says, tucking the last blanket into place with a firm hand. “Okay?”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
Then there’s a knock at the door downstairs—three quick raps.
“I’ll get it,” she says, already heading down.
I hear the creak of the old hinges, the muffled exchange of words I can’t make out. A minute later, she’s back, holding a small brown-paper package, folded at the top and sealed with a strip of white tape.
“From the clinic,” she says, handing it to me. “Looks like they heard from your fireman.”
My stomach twists. Of course they did.
I peel back the tape and find a labeled orange prescription bottle—Invisira, the familiar block font glaring at me—and a folded slip of paper.
It’s Dr. Hale’s number in his tidy, deliberate handwriting, with one line underlined twice: Call if anything changes.
I stare at the pills like they’re a live wire. “They make me groggy,” I admit, my voice low.
“I used Invisira once,” Norah says, sitting on the edge of the bed. “It wasn’t too bad. You just have to make sure you’ve eaten first.” She tips her head, studying me. “Speaking of which, can we order something?”
I nod. “Yeah. Thank you.”
“Pizza?”
I almost laugh, the sound catching in my throat. “Pizza.”
She grins and pulls her phone from her back pocket, ordering without asking my preference because she already knows it—pepperoni and mushrooms, extra cheese.
When it arrives, we eat cross-legged on the bed, balancing greasy boxes between us, the smell of oregano and melted mozzarella pushing back the sharp edge of my heat.
For the first time all day, the hum in my body feels… manageable.
When I’m done, she plucks the Invisira from the nightstand and presses it into my palm. “Now,” she says, like I’m a stubborn child she’s finally coaxed into taking medicine.
I take it with the last of my water. The pill slides down with a chalky bitterness that clings to the back of my tongue.
It doesn’t take long—ten minutes, maybe—before the room starts to blur at the edges. The knot low in my stomach loosens into something softer, less demanding.
Norah helps me settle deeper into the nest we’ve built, adjusting the blankets until I’m cocooned.
“I’ll take Pancake with me for the night,” she says, her voice quiet now. “I’ve got some flowers that need refrigeration anyway. I’ll check on you in the morning.”
I manage something that’s probably “thanks,” though it comes out more like a sigh.
She squeezes my shoulder, warm and steady, and her voice follows me down into the dark as the drowsiness pulls me under.
Warm hands on my hips, firm but careful. A low voice telling me I’m his, that I smell like the only thing he’s ever wanted—the heat in my belly pulses in time with the rhythm of his breath on my neck.
My body arches into him, not caring who he is or why it matters, only knowing that he fits. That I’m not empty anymore.