Page 118 of All Packed Up

All she could think about was why he had to wear it, and all she saw were flashes of sharp teeth, the bite at her neck throbbing as if it knew she were thinking about it.

“I-I can’t,” Wendy whispered, and slid her leg off his lap. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”

Wendy sighed and dumped her head in her hands, groaning.

With Tate so close and his big blue eyes gazing up at her, she just wanted to kiss him. To feel him against her—but she couldn’t because of the mask. Which he couldn’t remove because of what her previous pack had done to her.

Slamming her eyes shut, she tried to block out the thoughts, the images and memories of the Sterling Pack. Lost girl.

“Wendy.” Nic’s voice cut through the montage, and she cracked her eyes open. He was behind Tate, who motioned for her to come close with his hands. Something was muffled behind the mask, but she imagined it was something along the lines of come here.

She folded right into his arms. In his gaze was nothing but awe and gentleness and patience.

Throat tight, she folded her arms around him, gripping the back of his shoulders with her fingers. He held her the same way, and in this position, chests pressed together, her legs tossed over the tops of his thighs, she felt every breath he took.

In moments, her panicked breathy gasps were normal as she evened out her pulse to match his, so each breath they took was together. Chests rising and falling in sync for so many moments she lost count.

With his heartbeat against hers and sharing the same breath with him… she didn’t have a worry on her mind. She only focused on their breathing. On his warmth and his scent and his heart beating strongly against her own.

Stupid, was her first thought.

She had run away from her pack because of the unwanted bond.

And now here she was cuddling the first alpha who’d crossed her path, like a…

Like an idiot.

But her following thoughts were more gentle.

Tate was clearly an alpha whom she trusted on some basic level.

Maybe because he was a good alpha? One who would never consider crossing such a line.

“You okay?” Nic asked softly, and Tate pulled back to stare down at her.

“What if we just make sure I can see you?” she asked. Someone said the eyes were a window into the soul, and Wendy didn’t know who that was, but maybe they knew what they were talking about.

Because as long as Wendy could keep those sapphiric pools in her line of sight, she thought she could do anything.

Tate blinked in surprise, and Nic seemed to put words to his thoughts.

“What? Wendy, we don’t have to—”

“But…” she interjected before trailing off. Her gaze flicked between alpha and beta as her mind raced.

Those fucking alphas had taken enough from her. They weren’t even here, Derek wasn’t even poking at the bond, and yet they still seemed to have some kind of power over her.

It made anger flare within her. Who were they to make her doubt herself like this? It was her own damned body, and they couldn’t tell her how to live in it.

They couldn’t tell her what to do anymore. They’d kept her under their spell for so long, she didn’t remember what it was like to be her own person. To listen to her own needs and wants.

And she wanted these two men who were here with her.

Wendy wasn’t going to let the Sterling Pack take this from her too. Nic had been right.

There wasn’t room for them here, and she refused to keep carving pieces out of herself to make it so.

“Please?” she asked, cheeks heating out of embarrassment. “I want to try again.”