Chapter 24
BIANCA
In my dream, I’m warm.
My cheek rests on hot skin. A heartbeat knocks beneath my ear, and a heavy arm lies across my middle, holding me against another body curled along my back.
Soft blankets cover us. They’re tucked around my feet and pulled up to my chin, full of teakwood and burnt amber and the softer traces of cedar and blackcurrant.
I breathe it in because my body wants more.
Weller’s hand moves over my hair, his fingers working carefully through the knots. Teakwood, warm skin beneath my cheek, the fine drag of hair under my palm when I spread my hand across his side.
“Hey,” he murmurs.
Tristan is fitted along my back, his legs tangled with mine and one hand spread over my stomach.
Weller is staring at me, his face close to mine, his hair dried crooked over his forehead. There’s a scratch along his throat and a grain of sand stuck near his collarbone. His hand stays cradled around the back of my head.
I look at his mouth because it’s easier than his eyes.
“Hi,” I whisper. “Did you get sand in my nest?” My voice is strained and scratchy.
His lips press together before he bends and kisses the corner of my forehead, barely touching me.
A phone lights up in the dark room, and my brother’s voice comes through it. “Is she awake?”
“No,” I say.
Clara laughs softly in the background.
“Good enough,” Winston says. “Keep watching her breathing, and call me if she gets harder to wake. Go back to sleep, B.”
The call ends, and Tristan’s face pushes into the back of my neck. I kick one foot free from the blankets, immediately hate the cool air, and hook my heel around his calf.
He pulls the blanket back over all of us.
That’s much better.
I push closer to Weller until my nose brushes his chest and drag Tristan’s arm tighter around my waist. I can feel nothing but skin all around me.
I’m so tired my bones feel loose inside me.
Cedar and blackcurrant linger in the blankets, but not fresh.
“Owen? Freddie?”
“They’ll be here soon,” Weller says as Tristan’s fingers fold between mine.
I nod against Weller, though I’m not sure either of them can feel it. My eyes close again.
The next time I come up, somebody’s heart is beating too fast right next to my ear.
I listen to it for a while without opening my eyes. A warm hand is spread wide across my back, holding me so close that every breath I take has to make room.
Honey. Cedar.
Freddie.
My nose drags over his chest when I breathe him in. His skin is bare, smooth heat with the faint scratch of hair against my cheek.
There’s another body fitted along my back.
Owen is naked behind me, his chest stuck to the damp fabric between my shoulders and one bare leg wedged between mine. His face is buried in my hair with his mouth against the hot skin at the back of my neck. His arm circles my waist, his hand fisted in the front of my shirt.
Tristan and Weller are still in the blankets, but only in the scent left behind.
I move my foot an inch. Owen’s leg tightens around it.
“Princess.”
The word is mostly breath. I don’t think he’s awake. His nose pushes deeper into my hair, and the hand at my waist opens long enough to slide beneath the hem of the shirt. His palm settles over my stomach, hot skin against hot skin.
I cover his hand with mine.
He goes loose behind me all at once, his next breath leaving against my neck. Then he curls closer until there isn’t any space left along my back.
Freddie makes a rough little noise in his sleep and drags me toward him.
My arm has ended up around him too, my hand resting between his shoulder blades.
His shoulder jerks beneath my palm, and his grip loosens for half a second before his arm locks around my ribs again.
His other arm is trapped beneath my neck, and his fingers have tangled in my hair.
I should probably fix that before he wakes up with no feeling in his hand.
His mouth presses into the top of my head.
“I’m so fucking sorry.”
My fingers freeze against his back. Freddie stops breathing too.
I slide my hand down and wrap it around his waist, pulling him closer. His chest presses into my sore ribs, but I don’t stop until his breath shudders out and his body folds around mine again.
For a while, the only sound is all three of us breathing.
“Your mom?”
“Your brother and his pack took her in. They made sure she was going to be okay, and then they dropped her off where she wanted to go. She’s been seeing someone.”
His lips move against my hair. My body gets heavier against his.
“Stay.” Owen’s mouth brushes the nape of my neck. “Please.”
I ease back into him, slowly, until his forehead settles against the back of my neck. They’re both too hot. Sweat gathers where our bodies touch, and the blanket has worked its way down around our legs.
The next time I wake, my bladder hurts. But I can already tell both of them are going to take it personally when I leave.
Freddie makes a soft, unhappy sound.
“Shh.” I rub my wrist against his neck until his face loosens again. “Go back to sleep.”
Owen is harder. The second I ease our last inch of touching skin apart, his fingers reach and grab the shirt.
“No.” I hold the inside of my wrist beneath his nose and smooth his eyebrows down, but then my bladder squeezes again.
“I’ll be back,” I whisper, though I don’t know if he can hear me.
I peel his fingers loose one at a time, and then shuffle into the bathroom. There are voices coming from down the hall.
Ocean air comes through the open doors, but beneath it is the faint, tightly held scent of an omega who learned a long time ago not to let too much of herself escape.
It brushes the back of my throat before herbs thread through it. The scents tangle so completely I can’t find where one ends and the other begins.
Together, they’re as familiar as the path between my old cabin and the gardens. I could walk it in my sleep, without light or signs or anybody telling me where to step. Megan. Ezra. I can’t move fast enough.
Weller sees me first. He’s sitting forward in one of the chairs with his elbows on his knees, his gaze moving from my bare feet to my face. Tristan stands near the end of the couch, one hand braced on the back cushion. His fingers press into it.
Weller starts to rise, but Megan turns at the movement. Her copper-red hair swings around, and she gets to me first.
Her hair is half out of its knot. There are freckles across her nose and a little cut in one eyebrow, but her green eyes are the same, and when they go wide, tears spring to my eyes. Ezra is already getting up beside her.
They’re here.
Megan’s mouth pulls into a shaky smile as she wraps her arms around my neck, squeezing the life out of me. “Bitch, did you jump into a rip tide?” Ezra wraps his arms around us both.
I laugh. “Not on purpose.”
“Next time you want everybody’s attention, send a titty picture like a normal person.”
“Would you have gotten here faster?”
I needed this so fucking badly.
I miss Megan’s knock on my cabin door every morning before we’d walk to breakfast together. She helped get me through the only crisis that ever really mattered. Losing myself after losing them.
“You little asshole,” she whispers into my hair. Her breath shakes even though the rest of her doesn’t. “I missed you so much it’s disgusting.”
“Ditto. You have no idea. I’ve been dying for girl talk.”
“Ezra said the crazy girl came back to life?”
“Even if I killed her again, she’d come back to haunt me. I’m positive.”
“Oh. She totally has a Bianca voodoo doll.”
“That would explain a lot of things.”
Ezra clears his throat, but the chuckle gets out anyway. “Girls.”
“Missed you too, Ez.”
“Hi, Bianca,” he says. “It truly hasn’t been the same without you around.”
Megan shifts, and I notice the gauze from her tracker is tucked beneath her hair, while the other side of her neck is covered in deep purple... hickeys.
I pull back far enough to look at her. Then Ezra. Then her again, even though their scents already told me everything.
“Holy shit. Are y’all fucking?”
“Bianca,” Weller says behind us.
Megan looks over my shoulder at him. “Oh, he’s gonna be fun.”
“Don’t change the subject.” I hook a finger into her collar and pull it down another inch. “Your neck looks like Ezra tried to eat you.”
“You smell like four alphas had a territorial pissing contest on you.”
“That sums it up well.”
Ezra closes his eyes. “Yes, Bianca. We’re together.”
I look up at him. “You’re together.”
I grab both of them into a hug and squeeze. “Oh my god, best news ever. Two of my favorite people in loveeee.”
“I’m going back to the van,” Ezra mutters.
“No, you’re not,” Megan and I say together.
We look at each other and lose it. Tristan’s mouth twitches. Weller rubs a hand over his face.
Megan leans in while the guys are chatting and whispers, “You’re not upset with me, are you? I didn’t think you would be, but?—”
“God, no. I’ve always loved Ezra like a brother. Shit. That came out wrong. You know what I mean.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m so happy you’re both here. It’s been weird.”
“I want to know every detail.”
I laugh, and she drags me back into her arms. When we finally let go, it’s only enough for her to catch my hand and lead me toward the couches. I make it as far as Weller’s chair. His arm circles my waist as I pass, and I come down sideways in his lap with a startled noise.
He draws the blanket Tristan is holding around my bare legs and tucks it beneath my knees.
“I like him,” Megan says.
“He’s bossy.”
Weller doesn’t even bother defending himself.
“Is the emergency line still working?”
Ezra leans forward with his forearms on his thighs. “It’s been rerouted. Someone has it day and night, and we haven’t missed a call.”
“Did everybody make it out?”
“Everybody. We counted at both locations before we left. No one followed either route.”
“Medicine?”
“All required prescriptions and most of the field kits. We lost some of the bulk supplies.”
“Marc and Anna are still with the larger group?”
“At the ranger station,” he says. “Marc had perimeter shifts assigned before they finished unloading.”