Page 14 of Christmas Heat
Tenor glances at Luke, who just shrugs, and then Julius, who sighs and gives the tree another wary shake. As always, the bastards never offered him any clear answers.
He and Luke try stringing the garland up, making sure it's not 'crooked,' whatever that means on a goddamn Christmas tree, and then standing back so she can look at it.
"It just… doesn't look right," she murmurs, barely loud enough for them to hear.
For some reason, Tenor feels a desperation in his chest, tugging at him tomake things right for his omega.Why the fuck didhe care about the Christmas tree? He didn't know. But for some reason, this was of paramount importance.
Tenor crouches beside her, placing gentle hands on her hips. She always settled better with physical touch. "Doesn’t look right how, baby?"
She shrugs, hugging herself tightly around her middle. "I don't know. The lights are all... uneven. The garland is... droopy. And these ornaments don't match at all." She throws a glance down to the tub at her feet and the pile of felted reindeer and stars in the other package.
Luke straightens, brushing pine needles off his hands. "We can fix this, baby. Why don't you just show us where you want them?"
Eden shakes her head quickly. "It’s not just that, it's just… something iswrong."
Julius softens, kneeling down on her other side too so they're closer to her eye level and she doesn't have to crane her neck. "Hey," he says quietly. "It's okay, baby. It doesn't have to be perfect."
She tenses under his hands, squirming uncomfortably like she wants to break away and go fix whatever is wrong but isn't sure how. "It does," she practically wails, and to his great horror, he can see tears welling in her eyes. "It has to be perfect.I can feel it.And I don't know how!"
Ah, fuck.Abort mission! Abort mission! System failure!
"Aw, baby, it's going to be okay. It's just a stupid tree. We could burn it if you want. You want me to burn it? Will that make it allbetter?" Julius sounds way too damn hopeful about that option and Luke's purr briefly turns to a growl before softening again.
She cries even harder at that. "Nooo," she wails. "I love the tree, I just want tofix it."
NEST. It's time for her nest. Something was catastrophically wrong, but Tenor wassurea nest would fix it.
"You want to go back to your nest, baby?" He looks up at her in time to watch Luke wipe away her tears and snot with his sleeve. Okay that was a little gross but whatever. "We can call this one a day and tomorrow we can have another go at it if you want. Or not. It could just be a plain tree. I bet Martha Stewart loves undecorated trees. It's rustic or something."
"Okay," she says through her sobs.
He wastes no time in lifting her and running her to the nest, tucking both of them into the layers of blankets. When she finally calms, he looks over at Luke where he's resting behind her and mouths out 'I will kill you' to the dumbass and his dumbass tree.
Twelve Days Until Christmas
Eden
She wakes up feeling prickly and wrong. Everything is wrong. The nest is wrong, the tree is wrong, and the laundry piled in the corner of the bathroom is definitely wrong. She inches out of the nest, for once succeeding in keeping her alphas sleeping as she does it.
Good, this isn't about them. She doesn't want them awake and interfering. They're just going to make things worse with their alpha pheromones and growly voices and big bodies getting in her way. This is somethingsheneeds to doby herself.She can just feel it.
She plucks a few of the blankets from the nest without waking her mates and gathers the pile of laundry from the bathroom and then takes the mess to the trap door into the crawl space where the laundry machines were.
Technically speaking, she had been banned from going down there because she hatedthe space so much and they didn't like it when she was uncomfortable.
She's pretty sure it used to be a cold storage space for root vegetables and not actually meant to be used regularly. It was damp, made out of river stone and packed dirt, with spiders and creepy crawly things that made her skin itch.
Plus, the space was so cramped even she had to bend at the waist to get down there and maneuver over to where the laundry machines were pressed against the wall. She had no idea how her alphas managed it.
But apparently it was the only space in the cottage where they could put the water hookup and fit the washer and dryer, so this was where it went. And she hadn't had to deal with it very much since living here since her mates had been the ones who did the laundry.
She tosses everything in the wash along with some borax and vinegar, hoping that will get it clean enough. Everything feels so dirty. She suddenly wants to clean the entire crawl space. Could she get the vacuum down here? Or maybe... a pressure washer? Or... a flame thrower?
She's so shocked when she hears a voice behind her that she straightens up without thinking, smashing her head into the wood crossbeam above her.
Lights flash before her eyes and she swears, but then Julius is next to her, his hand cupping her head and purring soothingly for her.
"What are you doing down here, baby? You know you don't have to do this. We can take care of the laundry for you."
