Page 15 of Christmas Heat
"I know," she says, a small whine in her voice that she can't keep out. "I just... I woke up and... I really wanted to do this. It was just really bothering me that those blankets hadn't been washed."
She can feel his frown even if she can't see it. "Come back to bed, baby. I don't like it when you're down here. The place gives you the creeps. We can wash whatever blankets you want later."
Julius guides her up the ladder-like stairs back to the main house where she can see Tenor and Luke sleepily sitting up in the bed and looking at her with confusion.
"Eden? What were you doing down there?" Tenor asks, stifling a yawn.
There's barely even light outside and she can honestly say she has no idea what she was doing. The fierce wave that had gripped her and forced her to move, to clean everything and set it to rights, had dissipated, leaving her confused and with a massive pounding headache where her skull had made contact with the wood beam.
"I... don't know," she answers. They look at her with some concern, but they don't say anything, just pulling her back into bed and tucking her between Julius and Luke, who begin purring for her and immediately soothe her back to sleep.
???
When she wakes up at a more normal time later that morning, the tree is staring her in the face from across the room, still all wrong, lopsided and empty andmocking her.
She's never even had a fake tree before, hasn't had money to spend on something so frivolous. She doesn't know anything about decorating a Christmas tree or how it's supposed to be done, but she knows that this one iswrong.And she can't rest while it's sitting there with the garland and lights placed on them all crooked like this.
She's tucked between Luke and Julius, their arms wrapped around her like an octopus, which makes it nearly impossible to wiggle out of the nest. Both of them immediately tighten their grip on her when she tries to squirm out of their arms.
"Where do you think you're going?" Julius' voice is sleepy, his eyes still closed.
"The tree is–"
"Oh fuck," Tenor groans behind him. "Not the tree again, baby, please, I'm begging you."
"I told you we should burn it," Julius grumbles.
Eden growls at that, outraged. They werenotgoing to burnher nest.How dare they even say such a thing–
Wait. The tree wasn't her nest. Why did she think the tree was her nest?
Why was she fussing over everything being just right and experiencing mood swings? Why did she suddenly need everything to be clean and tidy?
Why was she suddenly acting like... an omega about to go into heat...?
Was this just part of her being sick...? She doesn't remember ever getting like this any of the other times she's been sick. Should she talk to her therapist about this?
Ever since they'd finished the EMDR portion of her treatment, she and her therapist had been meeting biweekly online to talk about everything from her childhood to the games she was currently playing to whatever was currently worrying her.
And the possibility of her being in pre-heat was definitely something that worried her. But she doesn't want to worry her mates, so instead of voicing this, she says, "I think it's in the wrong spot."
To Tenor and Julius' credit, they let her direct them in moving the tree into different parts of the cottage. Julius even helps Luke with maneuvering it, so they don't take out the light fixtures on the ceiling with the size of it.
They try putting it next to the dining table, next to the hutch, in the kitchen, even in the bathroom. Every place is wrong, and by the time they get it next to the toilet and look at her for approval, Eden is wringing her hands, anxiety roiling in her gut that they can't get it right.
Luke slits his eyes over to her in a contemplative side eye. "Let's try one more thing," he says.
When he puts it next to the bed, something inside her settles a little, for whatever reason. She's pretty sure that's not a normal place for a Christmas tree but there's no reasoning with these instincts, and they must feel it too through the bond because Luke just shrugs and straightens it in place.
"Sure baby, we can put it here," he says, like this isn't the weirdest request she's made of them, possibly ever?
But it feels so right to have the tree her mate got for her looming over her nest. The tree which her mate had chopped down with his own hands for her should definitely be near the nest that smells like her and her mates. With it sitting there, something inside her feels like it can finally settle.
And that's probably the only reason Julius lets it happen.
Eleven Days Until Christmas
Julius
