Page 92 of The Pack Next Door
“The only mistake we made was listening to the four of you.” He shoved his house keys into Ned’s hands. “Not one I’ll make again.” He turned to Jace and me. “Everyone ready?” I shook my head with a rueful smile at his bossy bullshit. “So what do we do next, Mads?”
Drive for hours in shifts, someone sleeping and someone sitting beside the driver, getting closer and closer to the city. Then someone navigating when we hit the city, all our eyes going wide at the sight of so many buildings, people, cars. No time for rubbernecking, though. We pulled up at the first petrol station, and while filling the car up, we worked out what to do next.
“We don’t know where Briar lives.” Jace’s finger moved across his screen, scrolling and scrolling as he tried to find her address.
“But we do know where Omega Core’s warehouse is.” The two of them stared at me. “She’s gotta turn up to work sometime, right? Or her employees will.”
With a nod, we paid for the petrol and grabbed a bunch of service station flowers and a box of chocolates. Wasn’t enough, but maybe it would go some way towards re-opening the conversation. That in mind, we got into the car, pulled up the address on the GPS, and made our way through the city streets.
Chapter 44
Briar
I’d made a very big mistake.
Leaving town in a rush without saying goodbye properly to my mother. The first was stopping into a chemist in the next town to fill the script for the heat suppressants Riley had sent me and popping a few on the drive. Anger got me halfway home before the cramps started. My body felt heavy and my hands clammy as I clung to the steering wheel. The empty fields and rolling hills changed colour as a red haze filled my field of vision.
Turn around, my body insisted, replaying the disastrous alpha trial and seeing it in a whole other light. Beta women apparently were more attracted to angular features and male aggression when they were ovulating. Well, I understood that on a cellular level right now. Every brutal takedown was evidence of just how savagely my mates would protect me and any young we might have. Those bright silver eyes, those snarls, would soften as they walked across a field littered with their enemies’ bodies and towards me.
Gods, hormones were stupid.
Home, I insisted, showing the wolf and my overheated brain my bed and my nest. Demonstrating just how carefully I’d rebuild my nest, ensuring only the softest fabrics touched my skin was enough to buy me a little time, but pulling up outside my apartment block had me staggering towards the lifts. Tapping my fob against the security system, the whirr of the elevator up to my floor, it all took way too long. My key tap, tap, tapped at my front door lock, before I shoved it in, the front door swinging open.
Home.
Clothes were torn off, the sweaty fabric sucking at my clammy skin like a lover that wouldn’t quit, but with a snarl, I tore them off. The air was warm, stale, close, and I slapped the air conditioner on before running into my room. With shaking hands, I dropped to my knees, pulling sex toys from the drawer beside my bed and setting them down by my nest.
Some beta had decided that people wanted their own version of big fluffy dog beds, and Candy had bought me one for a joke. It was actually the perfect thing, the plush surface caressing my skin, forcing me to hiss as I went to work. Nesting materials were kept in a basket beside it. They spilled out as I dragged it down. Butter soft cottons and jerseys, the silken slip of satins, I wove them into a circle within the fluffy bed’s confines, yet it didn’t give me the kind of relief it usually did.
Because every other heat, I conjured shadowy alphas that watched my every move, a smile of satisfaction on their lips. Now I had actual faces to put to them. That sandalwood and citrus scent of my candles reminded me of my mates, and that had my thighs rubbing together. Without even preliminaries, I grabbed a dildo, easing it inside with a hiss, the knot rubbing at my entrance. Usually it took me a few orgasms to get it in, but there was no time. A tide I didn’t understand rose inside me, forcing it in.
Only to have the world’s worst orgasm. Tears in my eyes, the pleasure hurt as much as it pleased. No, more. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The wolf noted the synthetic stink of the silicone, the way it wobbled completely unnaturally. She’d allowed me my substitutes before, but not now. As she panted inside my mind, she made clear what I actually needed.
And would never have.
I ground down, managing another orgasm, then another, and when I was panting through the aftermath, I found my phone in my clothes. Tapping out a quick message to Emma, I let her know I was home and would be MIA for a few days. That the launch was cancelled, but I’d talk to her about it when I was in a better mental space. I tossed the phone down again, feeling the aches start up again.
When I was this deep in my body’s responses, time seemed to stop. There was only now. The buzz of my phone felt like it came seconds later, the screen lighting up, but when I looked at it and saw a number I didn’t know, I noted it was the next morning. I didn’t mean to tap on it, my thumb sliding feverishly across the screen and hitting the green icon, not the red. Shame had my cheeks flushing. Whoever was on the other end would hear my frantic pants. I scrabbled for my phone, having dropped it into my nest, when a tinny voice had me going still.
“Briar.” The tiny speaker wasn’t up to the job of conveying the richness, the depth of Mads’ voice. “Sweetheart, there’s so much I need to tell you, but… Right now, it’s that we’re here to help you.” I made an inarticulate sound, the only one that could convey what I was going through. “We’re just downstairs. You let us up there and you don’t have to hurt anymore.”
There was so much to their words, a flicker of memories that rose up, insisting I consider them, but instead I forced myself to stagger over to the intercom. My finger pressed down on the button that allowed visitors inside the foyer.
“Have to take the stairs…” I groaned. “Floor 12, apartment 4.”
“On our way.”
My phone clattered across the floor as my heat bit harder. I thought I was suffering before, but now what was left of me was burned away. Instinct pummelled me like a prize-fighter, battering what was left of my defences, so when I heard a knock on the door, I wrenched it open completely naked.
“Fuck…”
Jace’s eyes on me, Mads standing in the doorway, then Gideon pushing past, closing it firmly, that was what I needed. His hand didn’t sweep down my body, provoking more and more pleasure. Instead, his hand went to my forehead, snatching it back when he felt it.
“Overheating,” he snapped. “Turn the temperature down, then we need to get her in a cold bath.”
“No!”
There was only one thing that would ease this heat, and it wasn’t what would come rushing out of my taps. Slick splattered my thighs, making sure I was ready, wet for this. My grip on Gideon was like iron as I dragged him over to the bed, then threw him down.
