Page 88 of Pack Baines

“Agreed. Close those pretty eyes and sleep,” Lowie agrees, voice tinged with sleep, slightly slurred, and enough to make me smile softly.

I expected to wake up this morning feeling completely out of sorts after Peter and Josh tried to murder me. I anticipated crying, struggling to deal with the turn of events that landed me in the hospital with a broken arm, cuts and bruises, and a headache the size of all of North U.

As it was, I find myself relieved. I find myself protected, safe, and surrounded by the men I love. Of course, I don’t doubt I won’t escape completely unscathed, the nightmare that woke me still lingering in my mind, but for the first time in years, I’m not going to deal with it alone. I have my pack now, I have my family, and there’sno doubt that all five of my guys will make sure I don’t suffer any long term effects that could fuck my head up.

“I need to pee,” I whisper back, my bladder choosing that moment to wake up and scream at me.

I’m watching Lowie’s face when he opens his eyes, powder-blue eyes doing a quick once over before he quietly demands, “You can go pee, but then I was that pretty ass of yours right back here between us so you can sleep some more. Yesterday was fucked, for everyone but moreso you. You need to rest.”

Heart warming at his protectiveness, I promise, “I’ll be back as soon as I’m done.”

He eyes me for a long moment before he finally sighs and releases me, my palm damp with sweat from where my usually grumpy twin had held my hand through the night. Actually, I don’t think he’s let it go since we got into the ambulance yesterday. Not that I’m complaining, because I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t still be sane and coping the way I am had I not had the anchor of his touch keeping me grounded.

It takes some finagling, some expert maneuvering, and an apology to Leylan when I accidentally kick his shin, but I manage to escape the sweet confines of my nest, already missing it and the guys the moment I’m walking through the hallway and toward the bathroom. I’m still warm, so much so that I feel a bead of sweat slide down my back, my head a little foggy from the early wake-up and lack of sleep.

As soon as I shut the door to the bathroom, I go about my business quickly, sighing when my bladder stops raging at me. When I clean my hands, I sigh a different sigh, my eyes catching my reflection in the mirror above the sink. I wince at the gnarly bruises that cover my jaw and cheek, the cuts and scrapes that cover enough of my skin that I remember being a human boxing bag. I can see crusted bits of blood that I must have missed during my shower in the hospital, and a sudden urge to be clean washes over me.

Deciding the guys can wait a little longer for my return, my sweaty body demanding that I have a proper shower, I lean in and turn the nozzle on the shower and strip out of my borrowed clothes. I find a bin liner beneath the sink and wrap the cast that now adorns my arm before stepping into the shower, frowning when I grow irritated at the heat that only adds to the feverish warmth still plaguing my body.

Turning the dial to a cooler temperature, I stand beneath the spray, still groggy and sleep addled, growing increasingly irritable with every little thing. The shower isn't hot enough at one moment, but then not cold enough. I’m wet and suddenly too tired to shower, but I feel gross and still have dried blood staining my skin. I want to be independent and wash myself, but my cast is acting like a weapons-grade fuck-nugget and I’m struggling to lift the hefty weight of it without my shoulder growing tired. My head is foggy, but also alert, enough to realize that there might actually be something wrong with me. Maybe these are the effects of surviving a traumatic event in one’s life? Maybe these are delayed responses that will grow the longer I spend thinking about Peter and Josh and what they did?

But when I do think about it, all I feel is a hollow emptiness, nothing but a void where fear and paranoia once lived. They can’t hurt me anymore. They’re in prison and, from what the officer told me last night, they will be for a long, long time. There isn’t quite relief there, but a calm acceptance. They’ll rot in jail while I continue to live my life with my pack.

So, why am I still getting annoyed enough that I find myself glaring at my reflection in the glass door of the shower? And why is my body getting fucking hotter? What in the fresh hell is this shit? All I wanted was to pee and go back to sleep with my pack surrounding me, but now here I am with suds in my hair, full-body aches, and a prayer that my arm will heal quickly so I don’t have to suffer this irritating form of bathing ever again.

Huffing, I try to go about washing my hair and body, seriously struggling with only one arm, and I grow that little bit moreannoyed and frustrated, moreso as my body refuses to cool down even a smidge. Instead, I find myself getting warmer and warmer until I’m hot to the touch, and the steamy box of the shower fills with my scent—

“Oh, shit,” I blurt the moment my scent finally registers in my heat-addled brain.

Because there’s no doubt that’s what’s happening right now, that particular thought punctuated by a sucker punch to my stomach when a hard cramp of arousal has me doubling over, my good hand darting out just in time to save my face from plating itself into the glass.

“Angel? What are you doing in there, pissing an entire river?” Lowie calls from behind the door, and I whimper when just the sound of his voice turns me all the way on.

Whimpering, I clutch at my stomach, all too aware of the pools of slick forming between my legs, far more than I’ve produced during my heat spikes. My skin feels too tight and restricting, and yet not tight enough. It’s maddening, and through the foggy thoughts bogging my mind down, I realize I should probably get out of the shower and return to my guys.

Only, my body doesn’t cooperate, another cramp sending me to the floor of the shower, my pussy throbbing with a fierce need that floods me from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.

“Juno, you okay in there?” Lowie calls, a hint of concern finding its way into his voice.

“Uh, no? Yes?” I call back through my needy little pants, fighting the urge to plunge my own fingers into my cunt to relieve myself of the ache that pulses between my legs.

My arousal is so thick that my perfume fills the shower, sickly-sweet and spilling over the edge until the bathroom is bathed in it. There’s literally no escaping it, and I’m sure it won’t take long before Lowie smells it.

“You don’t know if you’re okay?” Lowie asks, concern doubling. “Fuck it. I’m coming in, Angel.”

Guess he’s going to discover the situation I’m in sooner than I anticipated. Not that I actually give a shit, because when another wave of arousal sucker punches my stomach and drags a long, thready whine from my throat, the least of my worries is Lowie stumbling into the bathroom and finding me incapacitated.

Of all the rotten fucking timing, why would my heat hit me now? I mean, sure, Aero said something about being on edge will screw with my hormones, but that surely I’m not relaxed enough to go through my first frigging heat already. Although, thinking that makes me pause, because I do feel strangely relaxed. Knowing what I know now about the Burtons sets me at ease, the information provided by the officer last night shocking but so painfully welcome. Knowing Mr. Burton is rotting in prison for killing his wife shortly after I left—Mrs. Burton becoming the replacement for my abuse—soothes the trauma they inflicted on my life at the young age of sixteen. Knowing the Burton brothers will join their father for a very, very long time after the police discovered they’d murdered not one, not two, but three other omegas who refused to accept their bonds, eerily relaxes me. Knowing they can’t hurt me or anyone else sets me completely at ease, even after the events of yesterday.

So, I guess it does make sense why I’m being rendered breathless and needy when my heat hits me at full force. I find myself deliriously giggling when I remember Creek calling Gabby to inform her that I won’t be in all week as I recover, and Leylan calling the school to inform them of our absence. I suppose my heat couldn’t have it at a better time, if I think of it like that.

I know the moment Lowie enters the bathroom, based on the swift inhale and deep, guttural groan that echoes through the room. “Fuck, Angel.”

I giggle again, fully entrapped by the loopy fog that clouds my mind, only growing thicker and thicker as my heat gradually sets in. That giggle promptly turns into another whine, a throaty mewl escaping me as another wave of arousal floods my system, my pussypulsing around nothing while a desperation for my guys pierces my skin.

The shower door opens and Lowie peers down at me with a look of pure hunger, something that does nothing to help my current predicament. In fact, it does the exact opposite, the sight of his gorgeous face and ridiculous body paired with his scent of sandalwood and coconut setting me off like a fresh lit firework.

My perfume grows heavier, sweetening so much that I could easily catch a cavity from it, and I can do nothing but helplessly watch as Lowie’s usually sky-blue eyes darken with his own arousal.

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