Page 43 of Knot That Delicate

“What flavour are you thinking?” Asher asked.

“Honey and pecan? Or if you have any maple syrup, maple syrup and pecan?”

Asher hummed in agreement, his eyes lighting up. “That does sound amazing. But I’ll warn you now, if you make it, you’ll have to hide it from Dylan. That man loves pecan pie so badly that, if you make a load of bread that tastes like it, he’ll steal it and hoard it.”

“Wait, I thought Dylan didn’t like sweets?” I said, surprised.

“Not usually, but he makes an exception for pecan pie.”

A smile broke out across my face. If there was a flavour of sweet things that Dylan would actually eat, I was definitely making it. Because, up until now, all the sweets I had been making had been for myself, Carter, and Asher. Dylan would take a nibble every now and again, if I offered him a bite. But he clearly wasn’t obsessed with the idea of sweet foods. Which was kind of baffling, considering all he had been drinking for the last few days were strawberry-flavoured protein shakes. When I asked why he wasn’t drinking the caramel or chocolate ones, he’d simply said he had a taste for the strawberry ones at the moment. Also, he knew I preferred caramel, and I still needed to be drinking at least one protein shake a day, so it was better all around.

Too bad it was the dead of winter; otherwise, I’d have tried something fresh, like lemon-strawberry bread or scones. Those would be amazing.

“Hey, Asher, do we have everything to make scones? I was considering making fruit scones, but of course, it’s the middle of winter. I used to make them with my mom,” I said, smiling at the memory of baking with my mum.

Asher cocked his head. “We have, actually. Plus, we’ve got bags of frozen fruit in the deep freezer in the back.”

“Can we go take a look before we head to the greenhouse?” I asked.

“Sure. Raid it and take whatever you want. Make whatever you want. I’d personally love some scones. We have chocolate chips, for sure.”

I nodded. “Chocolate chips are always a good bet, but I feel like we need something with fruit in it.”

Asher agreed. “Yeah, I understand that. We haven’t had much fruit while we’ve been up here. We tend to eat more veggies while we are here for the winter and have a lot more fruits in the summer in the city.”

I dried my hands and followed Asher out the back. There was a large outer shed or possibly a small garage where several chest freezers stood. I had been in there once or twice before, but I’d never taken the time to search through it.

Flicking on the light, Asher pointed to one of the large white chest freezers. “That one should have the fruit in it.”

I trotted over to the freezer and pulled it open. I was met with a myriad of foods, but after a moment or two of digging through bags of ground beef and potatoes, I found the fruit, including strawberries. If Dylan was such a fan of strawberry-flavoured food at the moment, strawberry scones it was. At the last moment, I also grabbed a bag of the blueberries. “How muchof this stuff do we have?” I asked, holding the two bags up. “I don’t want to use it all up if it has to last a long time.”

Asher chuckled and shook his head. “We’ve got plenty to last us a while. Don’t worry about that.”

“Perfect,” I said. “In that case, I saw a recipe in the cookbook. I'm thinking we can make some blueberry muffins and some strawberry scones.”

Asher’s grin spread wide. “That sounds perfect, and as your personal taste tester, I heartily agree that you should make them.”

“You can have as much as you want,” I said, closing the chest freezer, “but you’ll have to share with your pack mates.”

He pouted. “That’s not fair,” he whined as I walked past him, handing him the bags of fruit as we headed towards the back of the greenhouse.

“You're going to have to tell me which one is the rosemary plant?” I asked, frowning at the rows of green herbs. I couldn’t decipher which was which, they all looked the same to me. Little pots with green things growing out of them.

Asher laughed. “Here, hold these,” he said, returning the bags of fruit to me. “I’ll get the rosemary for the bread.”

“Thank you,” I said, flashing him a smile.

Something was wrong. I didn't quite know what, but my stomach was cramping almost non-stop, and my skin was on fire, like there was an itch I couldn't scratch. I had spent my evening cuddling with the guys on the sofa, watching old TV shows, but I just couldn’t get comfortable. My entire body ached in this weird way I didn’t quite understand, and eventually, I just wanted to get away from them so I could try and figure out what was going on with my body.

I left them watching a movie, saying I was going to bed early—alone. They all looked a bit shocked, since I usually curled up in bed with them. We hadn’t really spoken about the nighttime snuggles, but when the urge hit me, I had started crawling intotheir beds with them. When Dylan asked if I was sure, I nodded, insisting I was fine.

I was not fine. I was falling apart.

Once I was back in my room—which was Carter's old room that still smelled strongly of him—I paced up and down. I couldn’t stand still. I couldn’t be still. I needed to keep moving. My body was craving something, though I couldn’t tell what. Another intense cramp hit my stomach, so strong I doubled over, and I felt a sudden rush of wetness.

What the hell just happened?Had I just wet myself? The thought flashed through my mind as I looked around the room in surprise. My body had done weird things before, but that definitely took the cake. Quickly rushing off to the bathroom, I stripped naked and stepped into the shower, rinsing off my body. I came to a startling realisation as I felt between my legs. I definitely hadn’t wet myself—I was producing slick.

Shit. Fuck. Shit. Fuck.What was I going to do? What could I do? This was a sign I was about to go into heat. I didn’t know much about heats, but I knew that slick was a sign. Now that I thought about it, I remembered that my mother had once mentioned stomach cramps, but she told me that her cramps never got worse because her pack was there to ease her pain. But my cramps had been building for days, and they were only getting worse.

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