Chapter Twenty-Four
Halley
“You sneaky mother-fracker.”
Everlyn looks up from tapping on a digital medical chart, blinking at me with confusion. “Excuse me?”
I march forward and jab her in the chest. She steps back in alarm.
“You ambushed me!”
“Oh, yeah.” She tilts her head and smirks, her hands on her hips. “I did do that, didn't I?”
I stumble over my words, flustered by her admission. "Why? Why did you do it? I was going to talk to them, I was. But I was waiting for the right moment."
"Sweetie, you were never going to have a right moment. They deserved an explanation. They’re just as desperate for you as you are for them."
"It's complicated!"
She pokes me in the chest in retaliation, pushing me backwards.
"No. No, it's not. You're just making excuses. You needed to face them, and you weren't going to do it on your own. So I lit a fire under your ass,” she swats my behind with the tablet. “Besides, you needed to tell them that you need them to stay. You know, for your health… and your pussy."
I gloss over the last statement.
"How do you know about them staying?"
She smiles with a knowing glint of mischief. "Your friend Shade came to visit me."
I gape. Shade spoke to Everlyn?
"He told me everything that happened from their perspective, and that you were avoiding them, even Lieutenant Viper, who, if I remember correctly, knotted you silly in a basement."
My face heats up, I look away and mutter under my breath with a pout. “It wasn’t a basement. It was a cellar.”
“Yeah, well, that little romp in the cellar has jump started your Omega pheromones. I swear even with my Beta nose I can smell the amount of mate-me-harder-daddy perfume you’re pumping out. I’m actually surprised you haven’t gone into heat yet.”
“Heat?” I squeak.
She reaches out and presses the back of her hand to my forehead, checking my temperature, but shakes her head reassuringly.
“Didn’t have to worry about that little hiccup while you were in your depressed, sad Omega phase. You barely even needed suppressants or scent-canceling soap. But now the dragon has awoken and you’re on a ticking clock.”
It’s like I’ve been hibernating.
I’m awake now.
They woke me up.
“Please don’t refer to my inner Omega as a dragon,” I sigh.
“No? I thought that fit nicely. How about raging storm?”
I stare at her, unblinking and unimpressed.
“Horny rabbit?”
I frown.
I hadn’t thought about my heat since…
“Because you suppressed your last heat, this next one will be twice as intense.”
My last heat was excruciating. Not because it was too long, the suppressant stopped it within hours, but because my Pack was right within reach and completely untouchable.
I wonder how different everything would be if they’d joined me in my nest for my heat and claimed me.
“Your Omega has chosen those four soldiers as your mates, and you’ll need them when the time comes.”
I don’t need her to tell me what will happen when my heat hits.
Sometime soon, I’m going to be sucked under by my instincts with an unstoppable burning need to be bred. I’ll beg them to tear off my collar and mark every inch of my body, inside and out. By the end of my heat, their teeth will be buried in my mating gland and their knots stuffed in my cunt.
We’re not ready for that.
Not yet.
We have so much healing to do.
I sit down on the examination table and Everlyn performs her daily health checks on me. She takes blood samples and runs it through a strange machine on her desk. Data will appear on the chart in a few minutes.
"Shade’s a nice guy. I like him."
My eyes narrow.
"What do you mean you like him?"
I don’t mean for my voice to drop to a dangerous level, but I can’t stop it.
She shrugs. "I just think that he gets to the point and is very logical about the situation. Would've made a great doctor, if I'm honest."
I frown.
What does that mean exactly? Does she agree that Shade is incredible? Handsome? The most fuckable Beta to ever live?
Because he is!
But she shouldn’t think that.
She laughs and flicks a stray hair off my forehead. “Stand down, Omega. I don't like him that way.”
I bat her hand away, grumbling.
“I’m not about to throw myself between a hormonal Omega and her mates. That’s how you lose fingers. Besides, Jason is incredible, but trust me, one of him is more than enough to get the job done. Multiply him and I’d never walk straight again.”
I blink rapidly and the haze of irrational Omega possessiveness fades away as quickly as it arrived.
I fuss with my sleeve and give Everlyn an apologetic smile. “I guess I was a giant cockblock when I was staying with you, wasn’t I?”
A wicked glint flashes in her eyes. “Don't take it personally. You're a nice roommate, but I’m glad those soldiers spirited you away to their lair. Hearing you moaning for them in your sleep and smelling your slick wasn't really my cup of tea.”
I never thought too hard about the fact that my enhanced hearing didn’t pick up nighttime couple activities between my friends.
I mean, I’m glad I didn’t, but I also feel guilty for coming between them for so long.
It stands as a testament of how good of friends they are and I feel a rush of affection for my Beta companions.
I truly would have been lost without them this last few months.
Everlyn opens her mouth to say something else, only to suck in a breath through her teeth.
“What the fuck is that?”
She pushes my head to the side and peers down at my throat.
“Sweet rut. Looks like something tried to gnaw your neck off.”
I prod the sore flesh and cringe. When I looked in the cracked bathroom mirror this morning, the bite mark Blaze gave me was almost healed except for some bruising in the shape of his teeth. I assumed it would be gone by the time I got here. I guess it was worse than I thought.
“This is some freaky Alpha sex shit, isn’t it?”
I murmur, “It’s some freaky Blaze shit.”
“The crazy one, right?”
Just how much did Shade tell her? Does she know how far gone Blaze is these days? For some reason I feel protective of Blaze, and I don’t want Everlyn thinking badly of him.
“He just got a little carried away last night.”
“Mhm.” She straightens, giving my healing mark one last look over and seems to decide the mark doesn’t need any medical attention. Then a smirk slides over her features. “Carried away doing what exactly, Sparks?”
I peer at her through my lashes and give her a weak smile. “Team bonding?”
“Yay!” she claps her hands together and bounces on the balls of her feet. “My intervention worked. I’m like a match maker, but for fucked up Packs.”
“Oh gee, you have my undying thanks for throwing me into a pit of wolves.” I intone sarcastically.
She waves me off. “You know what I mean. Now tell me,” she flops down beside me, and gathers my hands in hers solemnly, “just how hard did you get railed?”
“Everlyn!”
“You can tell me, I’m a doctor.”
“I didn’t — I mean, we didn’t… it wasn’t like it was with Viper.”
“Ah yes, the infamous basement fuck when he knotted you silly and kicked started your dormant libido, go on.”
I sigh. She’s getting some kind of perverse joy out of teasing me about it.
“It was a cellar.”
“Yes, yes. A cellar makes it classier.” She pats my hand condescendingly.
Everlyn’s friendship makes my heart ache for my missing Omegas. There was a time not too long ago that every single second of my time with the squad would have been hashed out in excruciating detail. Every longing look examined. Each touch dissected.
Without their guidance, I feel lost.
“So if it wasn’t a fuck, then what did Blaze get carried away doing exactly?”
I mumble under my breath.
“Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
“We shared a bed and he finger-fucked me,” I say louder.
“Oh ho. And where exactly was the rest of your Pack?”
My cheeks heat.
“They were watching, weren’t they?” she asks with a cackle.
“…Yes.”
“No need to be embarrassed. This is what we’ve been talking about for months. Medically speaking, you need them close. Even better if they’re inside you.”
“No! I shouldn’t have done it with Viper… or Blaze. As a Pack, we’re a mess and we need to get to know each other better, build proper relationship foundations with words, not our genitals.”
“Uh huh. I don’t see why you can’t date your little harem and get railed. It’s called multitasking.”
Everlyn’s tablet pings. My test results are in.
She taps away at the screen for a moment, eyes darting as she reads the data. Her eyebrows raise.
“I’m not sure how much time for talking you’ll be getting, my friend.
” She turns her tablet towards me and points at a graph.
A line that was steadily falling down abruptly shoots up to double the height.
“I knew it, look at that pheromone spike. There is no suppressant I can prescribe that will stop what’s coming.
I hate to break it to you Sparks, but I think you’re going to be too busy having some seriously freaky sex with those super-soldiers of yours to talk about your childhood trauma.
All of you are about to be driven out of your minds by instinct. ”
I groan and scrub my face with my hands.
"Oh, come on, Sparks. It’s not that bad, the sex is going to be hotter than hot."
"They... it's just... we just got back together and I don't know what I'm doing."
"That's life, my friend. No one does. You just have to go with the flow."
"Flow?" I scoff. "I feel like I’ve been tossed into a hurricane featuring war, mysterious powers, and a troop of stupid sexy super-soldiers!"
She snorts at my alliteration and sits next to me, wrapping her arm around my shoulder. "Yeah, but you've got those four big, stupid sexy super-soldiers to protect you, right?"
"I think one of them would rather shove me into the hurricane than save me."
She looks down at the fading mark on my throat and winces.
“Well, I’d say you still have some time before your Omega takes control and you’re at the complete mercy of your instincts, so better go do some relationship repair work while you can.”
I nod. She’s right. I don’t have control over much in my life. Not my awakening body, not my Pack mates, not my new powers, not my ability to find my friends… but I can take what time I have and make the most of it.
“Go on, head on back to your Alphas and that sexy Beta."
I squint at my friend. “You really have a thing for smart, capable Beta soldiers, don’t you?”
She smiles down at the chart in her lap and bites her lip.
Oh yes, Jason is getting lucky tonight.