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“Is the nest ready?”
Wait, what? A nest? Whose nest? Why do they need a nest?
“Vee?” A big, calloused hand slides along my cheek. “Shit, baby girl, please open your eyes.”
Lips press brush along my knuckles back and forth, back and forth. “It’s your nest, angel. That’s what we were talking about.”
I guess I said all of that out loud. Huh.
“My nest?” My voice comes out a croak as my eyes flutter open, only to close again. Jackson is too close, bent over me with his gray eyes damn near frantic.
“I’ll get the doctor,” Davis says.
I whimper. The doctor. Dr. Attersby. The leading omega doctor. The one that betrayed me.
“Fuck, pipsqueak,” Ford says from my other side. “You’re breaking my heart with that noise.”
“Baby girl, open your eyes.” There is no command in Jackson’s tone, only genuine pleading. I do as he asks, and look up at him, really taking him in this time. He looks rough. Dark circles under his gray eyes. His normally groomed stubble is longer and unkempt.
How long was I out?
“Tell us what happened,” Ford urges me.
What happened? My brows lower as I try to get my foggy brain to focus. It comes to me in flashes. The doctor’s office. Dr. Attersby saying she was going to take blood. The paralysis. The injection. The heat. Stealing my slick. Breaking out. Trying to find my alphas because I needed them… and then… and then… another woman in the middle of the four of them.
A whine keens out of my chest as I try to push their hands away. My heart rate picks up, my breathing labored. “Shit!” Asher snarls, scrambling up from his seat, coming to bend over me the same way Ford and Jackson are. It’s too much. It’s too fucking much.
“Hey!” a sharp voice snaps through the room, surprising the hell out of me. “Step the fuck back!”
My panicked gazes searches until I find the space between Jackson's and Ford’s bodies to meet a pair of familiar aqua eyes.
“Sorrel!” It comes out as a choked cry, and my friend rushes forward, pushing her way through the two alphas in her way. She doesn’t hesitate to scramble onto the bed, wrapping me in her arms and her gentle bergamot and vanilla scent. There are other scents there as well, cool winter pine, cut grass and sunshine, rain and petrichor, but they’re faint. There’s also something sweet, cinnamon and cream cheese frosting, an omega scent if I’ve ever smelled one. I bury my face in her shoulder, taking deep inhales of her while clutching at her like she’s my life raft, and I think she might be. Her cheek rests on the top of my head, and I can almost imagine her glare as she snarls.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? She’s obviously on the verge of a panic attack because of you. Now get the hell out of here.”
“We’re her alphas,” Ford snarls at her. “You’re the one who should leave.”
I can put up with a lot, but having Ford snap at my best friend when I need her is not one of them. “No,” I say, tightening my grip on Sorrel and not lifting my head. “I want her to stay and I want you to leave.”
“Baby girl.”
I shake my head, which really just rubs my face all over her shirt. “Not right now, Jacks. Please.”
I feel his big hand stroke down the back of my head before he sighs. “Okay. Okay, whatever you need, omega.”
Asher’s lips press into my palm, and then I feel him pulling away too. Until I know it’s just Ford left in the room with us. I lift my head enough to eye him. He looks as wrecked as Jackson did. Maybe more so.
He meets my eyes with his bright green gaze. “We were drugged. What you saw, pip… We were drugged. Okay?”
Drugged? Yeah, I can believe it. I mean, I was drugged too. I guess it makes sense that whatever they were trying to accomplish wouldn’t begin and end with me.
I nod. “Okay,” I whisper back. He eyes me like he’s making sure I really believe him, then he bends to press a kiss to my temple.
“We’ll be right outside, Vee. We aren’t going anywhere.”
He leaves us then. Sorrel waits for the door to click closed before she leans back and tips my face up to hers with a gently finger under my chin. “What the hell happened?”
It takes a while for me to tell the entire story, because I literally have to start from the beginning. Sorrel and Sadie know a lot of my past, but they don’t know everything. And she certainly didn’t know what’s been happening recently. I’ve been a shit friend when it comes to staying in contact with her, with them.
