Page 23 of Pixel Perfect Pack

“You look particularly beautiful today,” he mutters. “I’m sorry if I’ve let you down.”

“No, I think I’ve let you down,” I rush to say, my hands resting on his broad shoulders. Absentmindedly, my fingers start toying with the ends of his golden hair. “I know it’s been full on and I’ve been needy and insatiable and…”

Adair cuts me off. “You’ve been more perfect than I ever could’ve imagined. I just…” He draws in a deep breath, puffing out his lips as he exhales. “I never told you about Katya. At least not the full story.”

I know immediately that this isn’t something Adair makes a habit of talking about. I’d figured something had happened to him during a heat but the other guys never have seen it as their place to tell me about it. And rightly so. If anyone is going to tell me about Adair’s past, it should be Adair.

“It’s dark, JJ. Really fucking dark and up until now I didn’t think I owed you an explanation. Seeing you with Orion and Kito, I think I do owe you. I see the way you look at me, even when you’re with them. These last few days, watching you watch me, it’s been hell. Seeing you in pain and knowing I could help but also knowing that I don’t have the strength, it’s been torturous.”

“Adair if you want to leave I’m sure the others will understand, you don’t have to stay here and I mean that in the nicest way possible. I’m not going to be mad, you’re one of my best friends.”

“I’m not leaving,” he snaps, hands lingering on my hips and gathering the material of Kito’s t-shirt in his hands. “But I need to tell you why this is hard for me.”

“Okay, I’ll listen.” So despite the heat, despite the cramps, despite the overwhelming need to jump someone’s bones, I shut the hell up and let Adair talk.

“Back when I was at uni, I met this girl. Katya. She was an exchange student, meant to be going back home after the year was out. We got close really fucking fast. Spent every day together, we were on the same course so we even sat next to each other in lectures. We were young but pretty sure we’d found our person in each other. She was loud and funny, gorgeous. Way too good for me. I was the cocky alpha who figured hey, this omega is going to be mine forever, this is it.” Adair’s voice trembles as he speaks and I want to climb into his lap and wrap my arms around him, but I stay where I am. This is his moment, his time to tell me everything he needs to get off his chest.

“Sounds pretty perfect to me,” I say with a sad smile, knowing this story is about to take a nosedive.

“Yeah well, it was. I’d love to say we just had a bad break up or we grew apart but the truth is we were great together. Her family wanted her to head home and finish uni there but she said no, she wanted to stay with me. It was ugly, her dad was furious. Their culture was that omegas needed to be courted by alphas and have permission from parents before pursuing an official relationship.” I understood the old fashioned way of doing things. Living in a tiny rural village most of the packs and pairings are approved or set up by parents or family members it wasn’t an entirely new concept to me. Disowning your own daughter because of it, though? That was new and brutal. I can’t even begin to imagine how Katya must have felt.

“Katya was sad about it. I knew she was. But I think to avoid hurting my feelings she ignored everything her family said and it ruined their relationship. They went from video calling every day to radio silence. Then, Katya’s first heat came around.” A pang of jealousy hits me square in the chest. The logical part of my brain knows I’m being ridiculous, but the omega inside me is too busy screaming mine to take much notice.

“Everything was fine at first. My instincts kicked in and so did hers, we figured things out as we went along. We decided halfway through the heat that we wanted to bond with each other. It was stupid, we should’ve agreed on these things when Katya was completely clear headed but we thought we were doing the right thing at the time.”

“She bit me first, when I knotted her for the first time.”

Adair lifts one hand to his t-shirt and pulls down the collar. Right there on his shoulder is the silvery outline of a mating bond mark. I gasp, somehow seeing the bonding mark right there on his skin but knowing he has no mate is shocking. It brings home everything he’s told me, sadness settling in my belly like a virus. Tears sting in the corners of my eyes but I do my best to sniff them back.

“I bit her next, as we were lying together. Right in the same place.” Tears fill his eyes, there’s this mournful expression on his face like the whole world is depending on him. All I want to do is steal all that pressure away, take away his hurt and tell him was an incredible, kind and caring person he is. I want to tell him what he means to me, that no matter what happened in the past, I’ll take care of him. But I feel like this isn’t my time to say anything, this is Adair’s chance.

“We fell asleep, only for a couple of hours and then when I woke up…” his voice cracks, his whole body starts to shudder and he folds like a foxglove in the wind.

I take him against me and hold him. I hold him so tight that his cries are my own. I feel every bit of sadness from him as it covers me like a dark blanket. Heavy and overbearing, almost too much to bear.

“They said she had a heart condition. She hadn’t known about it so there was no way she could’ve been prepared. Doctors just told me that the mating bond was too much for her body to handle and that it wasn’t...” he chokes on tears, holding me to him like he never ever wants to let go.

“It wasn’t your fault, Adair,” Orion says from the kitchen doorway. He’s fresh out of the shower, a towel wrapped haphazardly around his waist.

“I know,” Adair whimpers. “I know but it was at the same time, wasn’t it? Meeting me, being with me, it killed her.”

“If you’d known, things would’ve been different. You didn’t do this on purpose. Neither of you did. You just wanted to be together.” Kito adds, standing behind Orion as though they’re both too afraid to get close to us.

“But that’s what’s fucked me up, isn’t it?” he snaps, not angry at us but angry at the world. “This is why I’ve got this fucking a/b/o regression disorder, why my head and my body just won’t fucking work.”

I’d heard of a/b/o regression disorders in the news but I’m not an expert. I know it causes people to regress to the point where they lose their designation which can be fatal. How awful to be losing such a huge part of your biology and your personality, to fade away until you’re nothing more than an empty shell. I have so many questions, so many things I want to ask Adair. How serious is his a/b/o regression? Does it impact him physically, mentally? A little voice in the back of my head warns me that we could lose him forever if he succumbs to the disorder, but I have no choice but to stomp it down and beat it into silence. He’s here now, and he’s talking. I need him to know I’m here for him, no matter what.

Before I know it, Adair’s anger dissipates, his body visually relaxing and curling in on itself. The guys come forward and wrap their arms around both me and Adair, holding us so tight I can hardly breathe. Their scents swarm around me, heavy and delectable and oh-so comforting.

“I’m so sorry, Adair,” I weep, knowing there’s nothing I can do. “I’m so sorry there’s nothing I can do to take this pain away, to make you feel better. All I want to do is prove to you that you weren’t responsible, this was a tragedy. Just dumb, fucking luck.”

A few moments pass in silence before Adair speaks again. The guys back off, standing at our sides as if waiting for him to break. “There is something you can do.”

“Tell me,” I reply, placing my hands on either side of his angelic face. “Tell me and I’ll do it.”

“Let me figure out how to love you,” he says earnestly. “Let me prove to myself I’m capable of giving you everything you need and more.”

“What do you need to do?” I know what he’s about to say before he even says it and the chill that runs up my spine knocks me senseless. A wave of overwhelming need leaving me breathless and burning.

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