Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
RHETT
Several hard knocks pull me out of the dreamless sleep.
Carys sprawls across my chest, her hair tickling my nose as I carefully roll onto my side.
She whines, her brow furrowing, but doesn’t wake up, curling in on herself, her cheek pressed tight to my chest. My body aches like I’ve spent the entire night getting slammed into the boards instead of fucking my scent match.
How long has it even been since the last round?
It’ll be a miracle if either of us can walk when this is all done.
I blindly grab my phone, trailing my fingers through Carys’s hair.
11 pm.
Only an hour since she fell asleep against me again, her body releasing its tension before my knot had even deflated.
The knocking comes again.
“Carys bug? Are you in there?” Ares’s voice is muffled worry. My stomach twists.
Oh fuck.
“Baby girl?” I whisper against her temple. “You awake?”
She hums, but her eyes don’t flutter. Given how distraught she was this afternoon, I should be glad she’s managed to find a moment of deep sleep. Instead, I’m as nervous as a man headed to the gallows.
“Fuck, okay. Here we go, I guess.”
I climb out of bed and throw on a pair of her oversized sweats, not bothering with a shirt.
The bite mark she’d given me earlier is now a deep purple bruise, and there’s a few more bruised bites on my chest, but it can’t really be helped.
All of the shirts I brought up have blood on them at this point.
The handle on the door twists just as I’m crossing the threshold into the living room, the bright light of the hallway flooding the living room. I can’t help but squint at the sudden explosion of light, covering my eyes with an arm.
Jesus Christ, I’d forgotten to lock the door. I’ve never left a door unlocked when I know I’ll be fooling around—much less someone else’s apartment door.
Ares’s eyes catch on me, round with shock for a long, infinite moment. And then the anger sets in. His lips flatten, and his nostrils flare. A muscle feathers in his jaw as his eyes brighten with the promise of violence. He closes the door with a terrifying precision.
Ares has never been the type of man to hurl insults or scream until his face is red with it. No, his ire is much more shrewd than that, coiling like a snake, striking faster than you can blink. It fucking terrifies me.
“James,” he says.
It’s there in his voice, too, that prowling rage ready to flay like a whip, colder than ice.
I force my shoulders relaxed, clasping my hands behind my back so he can’t see them tremble.
The desire to catch a glance of Carys, to make sure she’s still asleep, rides me hard, but I don’t dare look away from her father.
“You care to tell me why you were scratched tonight because your scent match—whom we have never met and only Marilyn knew existed—went into heat, and now you’re in my daughter’s apartment? Or should I make some assumptions?”
Fuck, I have no idea what the best answer is. It’s one more thing Carys and I never got a chance to really talk about, not with how busy she’s been since Thanksgiving. I settle on the truth, too tired and stressed and worried to string together some halfway coherent blend of fiction and reality.
“My scent match did go into heat,” I respond, answering the implied question.
“She texted me saying she felt weird, and I realized what was happening. I rushed across town to her shop and found her entirely lost to it. With Ashton’s help, I got her back here.
And now I’ve spent the last five hours making sure she’s clean, fed, and as comfortable as possible given the nature of heats. ”
That muscle ticks in his jaw again as his hands fist at his sides. Emotions flash across his face, most too fast for me to name, but I recognize a few: anger, disbelief, and fear. It’s the fear and disbelief that win out over the anger.
“Scent match,” he mutters. He runs a hand over his bald head, his eyes unfocusing.
It’s a little too similar to the way Carys’s have been going in and out of focus for the last few hours.
A lump lodges in my throat. “Scent match that she never told me about, and now two of my players have seen my daughter at her most vulnerable.”
Three, I mentally correct him. The thought has that lump growing larger, threatening to make it impossible to breathe.
“Ashton did his best to not see her… like that.”
His eyes harden into shards of ice again. “Scent matched?” he asks. “Or just you?”
I have no idea what to say, if I should even say anything at all at this point. I can’t in good faith say it’s just me when my brother is probably sleeping off the rut in his apartment right this minute. I swallow the lump.
“Ashton isn’t matched, no.”
There’s a small movement from the bedroom, blonde hair flashing under the street light that filters in through the window.
“Rhett?” She sounds… like herself. Her voice is still rough from all the crying earlier, but she isn’t dazed. Blankets hit the ground. “Rhett, what’s going on?”
I turn toward her, holding out my hand to keep her from coming any closer. Her nipples harden under my gaze, and I have to swallow back a visceral reaction. She scents, but there’s no edge to it.
“You all right?” I ask when she stops, still kneeling on the bed. Her eyes are clear, too. Slowly, she nods.
There’s no possible way she’s out of her heat. This bit of normalcy won’t last. I need to get her fed so I can give her that medication before she sinks back into another round of needing to be knotted.
“Carys bug?” Ares asks, raising his voice.
Carys pales, flinching like she’s been physically struck.
Her breathing speeds, and her scent tinges with an edge of fear.
It’s impossible to keep my distance—to keep Ares from seeing her so vulnerable—with her scent doing that.
I cross back to her without thinking, palming her cheek.
My purr kicks up low in my chest. She trembles, and she perfumes.
This time there’s no fear, just that growing edge of desperation driven by the heat.
She’s only going to be lucid for a few more minutes.
I quickly guide one of my shirts she’s been hoarding over her head, blocking her body as Ares crowds the threshold, his arms crossed. I ease a half-step to the right so they can see each other.
“Carys?” Ares’s voice is softer now, the edge in his gaze tucked away somewhere with that coiled promise of violence.
Her wide eyes flick to him, and fear bleeds into her scent.
“Hey, it’s okay,” I whisper. I wrap a piece of her mostly-dry hair around my finger. “You’re safe.”
“Carys bug, are you all right?” Ares doesn’t come any closer.
Her gaze flicks from Ares to me, tears slowly lining her lashes. I palm the side of her throat, letting my thumb trace her jaw. She relaxes, her scent pulsing again. Her lucidity doesn’t change, though. Yet.
“I’m okay,” she whispers.
Ares nods.
“The shop?”
“Marilyn and I will take care of it,” Ares quickly assuages her worry. “Do you need anything?”
Her cheeks flush as she shakes her head quickly. Her hair spills over her shoulders with the movement, revealing a bruise just underneath the line of her jaw. Ares freezes, his hands fisting, but he doesn’t say anything.
He releases a heavy sigh. “Okay. I’ll talk to you in a few days.” His gaze shifts to me. “Do you have her shop key? And the alarm code?”
“We weren’t able to set the alarm. Let me grab her keychain.” I kiss Carys’s temple. “I’ll be right back. Don’t panic.”
Her eyes slowly glaze over. I run my thumb under her chin and down her throat, carefully marking her with my scent to try and buy us a few more minutes before she succumbs to the heat again. Ares is silent as he walks back to the apartment door, his frown etched deep enough to seem permanent.
“Paxton?” he asks as I drop the only keychain Carys had in her bag. “He helped you, too?”
The lie sits heavy in my throat. It tastes bitter as hell as it leaves my mouth.
“Yeah, he was there, too. He should be good to travel tomorrow, but Ashton will know better. None of us were all that great by the time I got her out of the shop.”
His throat moves with his swallow. “All right. Call Marilyn if you need something while we’re gone.”
He closes the door behind him after I give a quiet agreement.
I take a moment to stretch the tension from my neck, letting the adrenaline fade as best I can.
There’s a whimper from Carys. I’m running back to her, that adrenaline surging again.
She still kneels on the bed, her hair falling over one shoulder.
Her eyes are glassy, and she shivers every few seconds.
“Rhett,” she whispers. I cup her face, wiping a tear that falls. She sucks in a gasp and then collapses into me. “I feel… I can’t…”
“Hey, I know. I know.” I pull her into my chest, lifting her with an arm around her waist. Her knees bracket my hips, and she tucks her lips against the crook of my shoulder, a few tears sliding onto my skin. “Come eat, baby girl. It’ll help.”
I carry her to the tiny kitchen and set her on a bare portion of counter, one hand on her knee while I grab the medicine, a yogurt drink from her fridge, and the water bottle beside the sink.
She wordlessly opens her mouth and takes the medicine, swallowing it dry before sipping the water.
Her hands shake as she takes the yogurt, but she doesn’t object to eating it.
Her scent builds as the moments stretch on, gaining that desperate edge that has my mind scrambling while my body tries to take control.
“Warm,” she whispers, trying to rub her cheek against me.
“Finish your drink, baby girl,” I say, threading it with an Alpha bark.
She shivers, and her lips tremble, but she does, quickly finishing the yogurt and setting it on the counter beside her.
Her eyes are wholly unfocused, her hands scratching at my stomach, her knees squeezing my hips and trying to pull me closer to her.
But it’s not until she’s taken another few drinks of the water that I ease her to the edge of the counter and sink into her, capturing her gasp with my lips.