Chapter 37
Ash
My phone lights up on the counter. Bram’s face, live. Bram never video calls...
I thumb it green. “What’s going on?”
He’s somewhere dark, plank walls behind him, face flushed and damp at the hairline.
Is that the... cider barn?
“We’ve got a situation.”
A second square drops in next to his. Reed, hair stuck flat to his head, the loading bay glaring white behind him, still catching his breath.
“What’s wrong.” It stops being a question halfway out.
Bram turns the phone around.
The picture swings, blurs, stops on Luna.
She’s on the barn floor, on a folded tarp, his shirt sliding off one shoulder, hair pasted across her cheek. Her knees are up and open, her head dropped back.
“Alphas.” Thin out of the little speaker. “Knots. Now.”
I’m standing. I don’t remember standing. My hand’s flat on the counter and I’m already turned toward the door, toward a mile of orchard and a barn at the end of it, my alpha ready to run to her.
Go. Get to her. Now.
“Holy shit.” Reed, from his own square. “Bram, what’s happening?”
“Heat spike. Almost sure of it,” he says, lower, rough. “She needs us.”
“Okay. Okay.” Reed’s moving, his picture pitching, something metal banging out of frame. “I’m at the bay and will be there asap. Bram, get her up to the cottage. The master bedroom.”
The master bedroom. We haven’t turned the key in that lock since the day of our parents’ funeral. Three years ago, the three of us swore we would only open it again for the one. The omega who would complete our pack. Our fated mate.
“I’m already at the cottage,” I say simply. Level. It surprises me, how level. “I’ll get the room ready.”
“Hurry.” The word splits on him. “Please. Both of you. She needs us.”
The call drops, and I stand there with a dead phone in my hand, my head going straight to the math.
A heat spike lasts hours. A real heat is days.
How are we going to manage that with Holt counting on 1,000 bottles by winter? If we lose a week right now, we risk being super late.
Panic spikes, cold and sharp behind my ribs.
Then my Alpha shuts it down.
We’ll make it.
We will, even if we need to work multiple nights to make up for it. Her body is spiking for us now. She’s deciding we’re hers. It’s the only job we’ve got. The rest of it can wait its turn.
It’s a true honor, being the ones she needs.
My jaw unlocks.
I set the phone down and move. There’s a bed to strip and remake, water to haul up, the heavy blankets out of the cedar chest.
I take the brass key from the top shelf of the hall closet. The lock turns hard, yielding with a heavy metallic click. I leave it standing wide so Bram can carry her straight through.