Page 75 of Shattered Omega: Part Two

But their scents were still here.

She’d slipped back into stillness. Her scent had settled, a bed of deadly petals rustling only slightly in the breeze.

“Come on,” I said quietly, holding out a hand.

I would get their scent off of her.

She didn’t move, fingers clutching her hair so tight I was sure she’d pulled some out.

“Get up.” I used my alpha bark again. She flinched, but then she shifted to her knees, fumbling with a shelf to stand. Her eyes were still distant, not meeting mine.

Her scent settled further, and I wasn’t sure why. It was far from calm, but instead of the vile sickness that had saturated it before, it had changed.

Fear?

It felt like it.

Of me?

I frowned.

She was disobedient at every possible moment, but right here she’d stood without argument.

“You’re safe,” I told her.

She didn’t look at me.

I noticed her cheeks were too pink, and a sweat glistened on her forehead. I pressed my palm to her cheek.

Far too hot.

It couldn’t be her heat again, could it? She said they were erratic.

I don’t know what we’d do if it was, but nothing in her scent gave that impression.

I slipped my hand in hers and tugged her forward a step. She came with me to the bathroom, expression still empty.

It took me a while in the bright lights of the bathroom to realise what was off. She looked wrong… her figure, even with the robe, was strangely shaped.

She fought me, but I tugged the robe open. It was then that I realised why she was so warm. And what I’d missed—even in the short time I’d been gone.

I should never have left her alone. Not for a second.

Beneath the robe, she was wearing a dozen layers of fabric, as if she’d put on every piece of clothing in the closet. There was a shirt wrapped around her neck, but when I reached for it, her breathing became desperate as she flattened herself harder against the bathroom wall.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I told her. Not this time. I couldn’t. She was overheating as it was, and if she’d lied and she was physically injured beneath it all, I needed to treat it.

I knelt, every movement feeling like lead as I realised how terrified she truly was. How much shame she was carrying.

I’d failed her, if she was still afraid of that.

I cupped her cheek. “I’m going to take some of these clothes off.”

She just shook her head, the slightest movement. A glittering tear tumbled down her cheek.

I shut my eyes for a moment, then reached out and undid the messy buttons of an outer shirt. Then the zipper of a hoodie beneath.

More tears began to leak down her cheeks, and her tremors became violent. Nightshade had lost all threat. It weighed in the air as heavily as it did on my soul, edged with fear.

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