Page 111 of Scapegoat

“Something wrong with the bed?” Jayden asked, appearing in the doorway.

“Yes…!” As I whirled around I saw he had a pile of fabric in his hands. “What…? What’re those?”

“Cotton sheets,” he replied and then smiled as I threw myself at him with a kiss. “You said they were too expensive but—”

“Those ones scratch at my skin,” I said, pointing an imperious finger at the pile in the corner.

“OK, so try these.”

He handed me way more than one set of sheets. The fabric felt heavy in my arms, but somehow that was comforting. They’d been washed too. I could smell the lemon scent in my nose and the sun and somehow that made everything better. I tossed through the pile, picking some and discarding others, just throwing them on the floor as a small voice shouted inside my head that I’d have to pick them up afterwards, before I came to this set.

Soft sage green, the cotton felt well broken in, as if it was a linen blend. I held it against my chest, then buried my face in it. Something settled straight away as soon as I felt them.

“These ones.”

“Figured they might be the ones.”

Atlas walked into the room and my brows creased when I saw him, saw all of them. They were here, in my room, with me, and while that had happened every day since I defeated my mother, somehow it hit harder right now.

“You knew?” I asked in a thin voice.

“They’re softer,” he said, taking the sheets from me. “Thinner and while they might not last long—”

“They won’t?” What the fuck was wrong with me? Tears filled my eyes then.

“Good one, numbnuts,” Jay said, moving closer and focussing on me. “Don’t worry about that, OK? Just focus on this. You need the bed to be comfortable, to feel good when you lie on it, right?”

“Right.”

I nodded then, turning my attention back to the bed.

The cottage was lovely. As soon as we’d walked in I’d seen the white painted walls and the airy interior and said we’d take it, but right now my whole world was reduced down to this mattress. I thumbed the mattress protector speculatively, then moved to start spreading the sheets over the mattress. My fingers felt too thick and rubbery, and I struggled and that’s when the three of them stepped forward.

“Need some help?” Xavier asked.

I wanted to say no, some strange heat in my blood firing up the moment he got closer, but when he bent down to grab one corner, I could see it. If they listened to me, did exactly as I said, we could make this bed perfect.

We worked for far too long to create a perfectly smooth surface on the bed, every wrinkle smoothed away and consciously I knew that was stupid. It creased as soon as I crawled onto the bed, but somehow I couldn’t put my knee on it until I had. But while the fabric felt so much better on my skin, it wasn’t right. I started fucking whining again, like a beaten dog and that’s when Jayden picked up the discarded sheets off the floor.

“Maybe this will help,” he said.

I snatched them away. Why was I being such a raging fucking bitch? The thought was there and gone again, blown away by the swirl of emotion inside me.

Because something else was kicking in.

I could feel then, a link to my ancestresses, that they too had fussed over their beds, their nests, just like I was, perfecting them until—

Nests?

I blinked, and it was as if the red haze in my head cleared for a second, making me see the room, the guys clearly.

“I’m going into heat.”

It was so completely different to what Mum had tried to put me through, I hadn’t put two and two together.

“Yeah, you are.”

Jay tried to make that a light-hearted thing, but the heat in his eyes, in all of their eyes changed the intent. I moved them much more quickly, arranging the fabric then rearranging it. Somehow there was a clock ticking off every second as I moved. Probably because they were stripping down, then moving towards the bed.

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