Page 33 of Wild Omegas
He chuckles dryly—relief, not amusement. “Agreed. I’ll go get wood tomorrow and start that project, you have my word.”
Luke still hasn’t let me down.
“I’m okay, Luke,” I say. “Are you?”
Luke swallows hard then sets me down on the ground. He doesn’t let go until it’s clear I’m okay enough to stand on my own. “I am now that you’re safe.”
I smile gratefully up at him and test out my bad ankle. It’s healed mostly from twisting it in the driveway, but every now and then it aches some. “Thank you for catching me.”
Luke smiles back. “I’ll always catch you when you fall, Josie.” And then his face hardens. “That’s actually what I was coming out here to talk to you about.”
My heart leaps. He wants to know everything. “What do you mean?”
Guilt swims in his eyes. Maybe he doesn’t want to pry, but I sense we’re at a point where they can no longer ignore it. Neither can I.
“What’s going on, Josie?”
I bite my lip. I can’t keep lying to them. But are they ready for the full story? I’m still not sure I’m ready to tell it. But they’re my pack and they’re the people my grandparents entrusted Wild Skies Ranch to while they’re gone. They deserve to know.
But Damien’s threats still haunt my mind, along with the things I’ve heard that he’s done to others. He’s not just a well-connected crime lord running drugs and blood money. Damien traffics omegas.
Luke places a finger under my chin and gently lifts my brown gaze to his cool chocolate one. His whisky and leather scent is so strong today. It’s all around me, soothing my persistent dizziness. “We can help you with anything, Josie. Just tell us.”
For a moment I see the Luke I knew as a child. Caring, devoted to family, innocent. Things I’ve definitively not been over the last few years.
I nod a little. “I got in trouble, that’s all. It involved my bakery burning down and how it wasn’tjustmy bakery that went down. Obviously some people were upset about that.”
Luke’s brow crinkles. “The calls and texts. Those aren’t from your friends back in the city, are they?”
An icy shame washes through me. “No, they’re not. I’m sorry I’ve kept this to myself and lied. I just…” I look past him to the horses in the distance. The foal has rejoined its mother and they’re farther out toward the pasture now. “I don’t want to put you all in the crosshairs of this if there’s no reason to. The calls are just calls. Same with the texts. No one’s going to actually follow me, least of all here.”
Luke takes in my words but he doesn’t speak right away. The silence is filled by the way his scent sort of throbs around my existence. It’s so enticing. Even despite what we’re talking about, I want to reach out and touch him, and it’s becoming hard not to.
I sway where I stand, dizzy again as I imagine running my hands down his chest toward his hips…
Luke catches me. Concern wrinkles his eyes. “Josie?”
“Just a little dizzy.”
His jaw locks. “From the fall?”
Oh no.I laugh. “No, not from the fall.”
Luke presses the back of his hand to my forehead. I know what he finds. I’m hot—burning up, really, as I stand here—and it’s not a fever. “You’re in heat.”
I nod. “And it’s starting quite fiercely, honestly.” But that’s also a little bit of a lie. I have been dizzy for the last two days and I knew, timing wise, this heat was coming. But hell if Wild Skies Pack didn’t draw it out. Now, standing here in front of Luke, I’m turning into an inferno.
I want to reach out to touch him but I have no idea if I’ll be able to let go. My core clenches tight at the thought of him just sweeping me away back to my nest. I want it. Crave it.
Luke glances down to my shaking hands. “I’ll take you back to the house.” He grabs my hand and my body ignites with excitement from that single, simple touch.
I sway again and grab on to his shirt. “Luke.”
He wraps an arm around me. In the space of a few minutes I’ve gone from functional to a quivering omega in heat. Everywhere his arm touches becomes a contact point drawing my heat to a fever pitch.
Ineedhim.
I need all of them.
