Page 13 of Thorns That Bloom
The moment I register a faint scent, I freeze.
Pheromones.Alpha pheromones.
I don’t even focus on the flavor of it, only the deep, innate knowledge that at least one of them is an alpha, and suddenly, my body comes undone in a completely new way. Fear—potent, rattling fear that makes my heart stop and my teeth chatter—takesover me, and no amount of reasoning myself out of it can overcome it.
My leg slips off the door because I lose all strength. It squeaks open slightly, and I freeze. I sit there, utterly powerless. Powerless to move, to fight against my fear and the memories. Powerless to come back from the distant place far from reality, where my conscience seems to linger to protect itself.
And on top of that, my damn body… Behind the chill of my fear persists that unbearable, intrusive heat.
The door flies open somewhere in the distance.
I hear more steps, but all I focus on is the crack in the door and the moving shadows behind it. They could easily push in—kick past the only measly protection I've been able to muster—and do whatever they want. Corner me, overpower me, take control like they have before.
“What the hell’s going on here?”
“I don’t know!”
“We just got here and he was…” The voice fades into the back of my mind as I take a ragged inhale. I’m going to pass out if I don’t breathe, if I don’t dosomething.
“You’re not back there,” I mutter to myself, tightening my grip on the toilet seat underneath. “Y-you’re not back there. You’re fine,” I keep saying, but all it does is make me want to cry and stop existing.
I don’t want to have to continue fighting to pull myself away from the abyss.
I’m tired. So fucking tired.
“Can you not sense how scared he is?” someone says, tone intense and high-strung. He sounds closer, probably right behind the door with the others.
“Should we call an ambulance?”
Oh, no! No, please, don’t.
“He looked pretty bad.”
“He’s pregnant. How about you give him some fucking space?”
I narrow my eyes. Why does the voice sound familiar? Where have I heard it?
The discussion past the door quickly turns into arguing. The two closest voices keep barking at each other, each word sharp and loaded. The scent of pheromones…grows louder. There’s more than one now. The first I recognize as something woody, like oak. With a hint of something else. The new one is stronger. Not in an intense way, but it still terrifies me how strong the scent of spiced coconut is. It’s aromatic and sweet and—
My breath hitches when someone pushes the door open. It gently swings toward me until I’m faced with the man carefully stepping into the stall, kneeling in front of me, staring at me with tentative blue eyes.
He’s…the alpha that appeared in my office a few days ago. Has the same messy, thick, dirty blond hair. The same chiseled face. This time, he looks even more unsure. Worried, really. He looksworried.
“It’s okay. You are okay,” he whispers softly. The moment I stop focusing on his long eyelashes, I realize how close to me his pheromones have drifted, and that he’s using them to calm me down—intentionally or not—while slowly reaching his hand out.
I let out some sort of yelp and shake my head, recoiling from him.
He blinks, retreating swiftly. He puts his other hand up as if he’s trying to show me he gets it. But his scent is already all around me. I’m trapped. I’m trapped in this tiny room with all these men staring at me, and I’m going to crumble into pieces if they don’t leave me fucking alone!
Smacking my hand over my mouth, I barely stop myself from throwing up. Too much. Everything is too much.
He widens his eyes even more, looking down at my other hand clenching my stomach. As if with a snap of a finger, his pheromones ease, but there’s no erasing them from the air around us or from my mind.
“The fuck are you doing?You’remaking it worse!” the other alpha says.
He turns to him with a scowl that appears on his face before he even faces away from me. Straightening his back and stepping away from the door, he measures up to the older man. “Maybe keep your voice down if you don’t want him to get even more freaked out,” he mutters through his teeth.
I see another guy poke between the two to look at me. “Hey. We should go and call someone.”
