Page 102 of Running on Empty

Scarlett’s sharp tone was all the warning I got as the quilt was torn away. Masculine groans filled the air but I was forced to scramble, my naked skin exposed to the cool air.

“What the fuck!” I snapped, grabbing for the quilt, then dragging a sheet over me when she jerked it out of my reach with a smile. But then her nose wrinkled.

“A shower first though. Damn girl, it's been a couple of weeks and you’re still wearing the blood of your enemies? I like the mental imagery of that, but the reality? It’s a whole lot smellier than I would’ve thought.”

“Fuck, Scar…” Ash groaned then opened his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“Borrowing your omega for the morning. Now, chop, chop. In the shower, now.”

“You sure you’re not an alpha?” I asked as I got up off the bed. My limbs felt weak and shaky, my stomach so hollow with hunger that it hurt. Her eyes narrowed when my hands slapped down over it. “That’s pretty close to an alpha bark.”

“And people usually pay me a thousand dollars an hour to use it on them, so take the win. Shower, omega, now,” she told me as I moved to do as she said.

But if walkingto the ensuite was a hard thing, so was being joined by my alphas. Each one of them padded in, Ollie at their heels, yawning and scratching their hands through their rumpled hair or across stubbled chins.

That tugged at me, the fucking bond that had throbbed between us since the moment we’d met. It’d been different when I was still a kid, evolving when I was a teenager and now as a woman. But it hit differently as I was crowded into the shower recess, the taps slapped on and the water tested, adjusted until it was deemed the right temperature. Then I was pushed under the water, jumping as it ran over my skin, the feeling strangely unfamiliar.

But if that was an alien thing, then there were the hands reaching for the soap bar. I watched it lather up in Ash’s hands, the alpha just staring at me steadily, daring me to say something, do something, but I didn’t. Not when he smoothed those soapy hands over my shoulders, nor when he turned me around to wash my back. Ronan took the bar from the shelf, doing the same with a wicked grin before washing the blood off my neck, chest and then my breasts. But before I could get too caught up in that, Jax had his turn, taking my hands and washing them until all evidence of what had happened was gone, taking a nail brush to try and remove the blood under my nails.

And that’s when I pulled back.

Didn’t they see that I didn’t want that? I didn’t want, need, to be washed clean, all my sins swirling around my feet before trickling away down the drain. I wanted to hold each and every part of it close, feeling it beat slowly, just like my heart.

“It’s just getting clean.” Jax watched me steadily. “Nothing more, nothing less. Scar is right. We are getting pretty ripe.”

“I’m not.” Ronan winked at me. “I’m pretty sure I smell like flowers.”

“Dead ones, maybe,” Ash said with an eye roll. “Ones that grow in dark, dank cracks in the rocks—”

“You say that like it's a bad thing.”

Ronan’s smile was always razor sharp, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when it cut into me right now. Because it reminded me of all the times he had before, all the times I’d ached to have it directed at me, then yet more times when I struggled to believe it was. My fingers twitched like the blood supply was only just returning and I guess that’s what it was. My whole body felt like it was filled with pins and needles and it ached for him, for all of them. Instead I just splayed my fingers out, holding them for Jax to clean. He nodded, bending his head to do just that meticulously until everything was clean.

“Well,that didn’t take as long as it would me if I was in the shower with a pack of hot triplets,” Scarlett said. My lips peeled back on reflex, flashing my fangs at her in warning. “Good energy.” She stabbed a scarlet nail in my direction. “Keep that for when you start shovelling horse shit.”

“Horse shit?” I blinked at her. “Why did I get all cleaned up if—?”

“Rituals.” She looked at me expectantly. “We create them, work with them in BDSM, but they are just more theatrical versions of the ones we do at home. You had a schedule before, when you woke up, how you woke up and what to do once you were on your feet. You had a whole life before and—”

“And they took it all away,” I snapped, squaring my shoulders as I stepped forward.

“They couldn’t take anything from you.” She placed her hands on my shoulders and gave them a squeeze. “That’s why they had to go to such extreme lengths, because deep down those pathetic little fucks knew they couldn’t touch you or me, not really. Now, come along—”

“We’re coming too,” Jax said. “Where the omega goes, we do too.”

“Looks like we’ll have some good little doggies in attendance then.” She reached down, the movement somehow completely elegant as she scratched Ollie on the chest, his plume of a tail wagging faster and faster. “Such a good boy.” Her eyes flicked up to take in my mates as she straightened up. “You should do the same.”

“This is Noddy,”she said, once we got to the stables. The bright sunlight, the smell of hay, horse and shit felt like it assaulted my body. But she leaned on the stall entrance of one horse, a smaller one with a grey merle pelt, stuck his head out. She scratched the flat space beneath his eyes and the horse chuffed in response. “He needs grooming.”

“I can’t—” It was my reflexive response, something my brain, my heart had been saying for some time, and it was only once… he was dead that I could listen to it. I felt a flush of shame as I felt tears prick at my eyes, but if Scarlett noticed them, she didn’t let on.

“Of course you can. Noddy’s a total sweetheart. He’s used with some of the soldier’s children when they come here with their parents for treatment.” She stared at me steadily, daring me to come up with more excuses. “I would never put you with an animal you couldn’t handle.”

“Perhaps right now, Stevie needs—” Ash started to say.

“And you.” Scarlett put her hands on her hips. “You need to learn to take orders before you can give the kinds of ones you’re dying to bark out.” She spun on her heel. “You’ll be grooming Midnight over here.”

He was a big, black horse, but he looked placid enough, bobbing his head with encouragement as the two of them approached. Scarlett handed him a brush.

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