Page 48 of Knot Their Soldier: Part One
I mean, I love piping hot coffee first thing in the morning and I like spending time in the shooting range, but this is different.
Ineeda nest.
Without a safe place to center myself around, I’ll slowly go mad. Like full-on, lose touch with reality, scratch the eyes out of anyone who tries to interfere, insane.
Surely the squad knows that. It’s Omega-101.
There is a stack of spare, clean blankets in a crate of bedding supplies, and I figure if they’re there, they must be for me to use. So, I take three and do my best to make do. My new nest is sad, but it’s enough to keep me sane.
I shimmy down underneath the blankets and hug the limp pillow to my chest, and press my face into its neutral scent. It does nothing to stifle the smell of the squad. I feel like I’m swimming in a pheromone soup, and my body is confused. I’ve never spent this amount of time around an unmated Alpha before, let alone three and an extremely tempting Beta.
It’s not what I expected. I was half prepared to be crash tackled into the dirt and rutted right then and there.
Prime Asshole dissuaded that whole theory with his obvious disgust.
I wiggle further into my nest and let the weight of the day drag me under into a fitful sleep.
I wake up with a scream as someone mercilessly rips off my blankets. I thrash around in panic, grasping at the air.
“What do you think you’re doing, Omega?” A deep, seething voice cuts through my panic.
My eyes clap on Prime Alpha Knox, and whimper at the fire spitting from his eyes. His scent is tart and acrid, anger souring the usual ink and spice.
“W-what?!” I scramble upright, dazed and desperately confused. For a moment, I don’t know where I am, and terror thumps onto my chest like a heavy weight.
Standing over me is a furious Alpha.
I scoot back on the bed and cower against the headboard with my knees pulled to my chest, instinctively curling in on myself to ward against his harsh gaze.
“Who gave you permission to create… this?” he asks, gesturing at the mass of blankets and pillows now scattered on the rubber mats used for the bunkhouse floors.
I whimper at the sight of my destroyed nest, and curl even tighter in on myself. I slept in my underwear and crop top, because I didn’t have anything else to wear, and the frigid night air bites at my exposed skin.
He growls at me like my fear and lack of response has offended him personally.
“Are you so untrained that you steal supplies at the first opportunity to make a… what is this? A princess bed?”
The disgust glowing in his eyes is the catalyst for the first sob that spills from my lips. I’m so confused, frightened, and alone.
I swing my eyes to the rest of the bunkhouse, searching for Shade to protect me from the irrationally angry Alpha, but come up short.
There’s no one else in the tent. In fact, it looks like no one has slept here at all.
He rips his gaze away from me and bends over to scoop up one of the blankets, and he immediately drops it like he’s been burned, shaking his hand as if he can cast off the lingering traces of my scent.
He looks at me with revulsion.
“How can we make a soldier out of you if you can’t sleep on a standard issue regulation bed? A soldier makes do with the materials provided,” he snarls.
My body is reacting against my wishes, my inner Omega mourning the sight of her destroyed nest. She’s spitting and snarling, but it only manages to paralyze me more. I dig my nails into the thin mattress below.
“It’s… It’s my nest,” I finally respond, my voice weak and shaking.
Prime Asshole freezes, blinking rapidly with his breath held, and I swear I can see the cog turning in his head. The recognition of the word: nest.
If I suspected he’d never spent time with an Omega before, I now know for certain.
He rocks back on his heels, his eyes darting at the mess he made and back at my shivering form.
