I glance up, already knowing what it says.
There was a sound,I'd written.Rattling. Thin and metallic, like something small hitting the inside of something hollow.
I can practically hear the sound right now.
Tnk. Tnk. Tnk.
The weird rhythm of it, thin and irregular. Almost like a rattle.
Tnk. Tnk. Tnk.
“What was the rattling?” Perrin asks.
I shrug and Raff’s arms come around my middle. "I never figured it out. I wrote it down because I wrote everything down. But I could never connect it to anything."
"We'll figure it out," Raff says with a quiet certainty that I desperately want to believe.
Something warm moves through my bond a second later. Cliff sends me soft, sweet reassurance, the emotional equivalent of a hand pressed between my shoulder blades. My body responds to his comfort, the tension I've been carrying all afternoon loosening its grip one muscle at a time.
I pull in a deep breath as Raff pulls me a little closer, his thumb tracing a slow circle against my hip. I sink back into his big body. He's so solid and warm against my back, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm that my own breathing starts to match without me deciding to.
The combined scent of my pack wraps around me like a blanket, and I suddenly realize how tired I am.
It’s obvious we aren't going to find anything today.
"Really?" Adam's head snaps up, glaring at Raff.
Raff goes completely still behind me, his hand freezing on my hip. "What?"
"Stop it," Adam says firmly.
Raff blinks. "I'm not doing anything."
"Youabsolutely are," Adam says, pointing at him. “And I don’t need to hear that.”
The room goes completely still.
Perrin looks up from the notebook. Cliff looks at Adam. I look up at Raff, who is looking at Adam with the expression of a man who has no idea what is happening.
"I didn't say anything," Raff says, his tone matching Adam's.
“Yes, you?—”
Adam completely freezes, his big brown eyes staring directly at Raff’s face.
Moving slowly, Adam turns his head to look at Perrin. The omega’s expression shifts wildly, landing somewhere between horrified and absolutely delighted.
"Raff wants to plow you in your glasses," Adam says.
Perrin's head comes up so fast that his reading glasses nearly fly off his face.
"He's been thinking about it for the last ten minutes." Adam's voice lifts higher, caught between wild laughter and shock. "He wants to fuck you so bad!" The omega is practically vibrating, his whole body leaning forward, his eyes bright and glassy with happy tears. "I have never been so freaking happy and disgusted in my whole life!"
I laugh as my hands fly to my mouth.
Cliff tips his head back and laughs too. The kind that shakes his whole chest.
And Perrin, who has gone the color of a fire truck from his ears to his collar, ducks his head and smiles. His reading glasses sliding down his nose as his shoulders shake with a laugh he's trying very hard to keep quiet.
