Page 66 of Knot Their Soldier: Part Three

I rub at the still stinging place where the bootlaces whipped my face and decide against a warning.

It's only fair. Their stupid, possessive Alpha instincts caused the mess that made Halley wait. Viper may have been the one who snapped the General’s neck, but I'm not stupid enough to believe Knox and Blaze weren't seconds away from doing it themselves.

Now they get to deal with the consequences.

I wish them luck. They’re going to need it.

Chapter Seventeen

Halley

Heat makes time cruel.

It stretches seconds into whole eternities, then snaps them back with a single sharp breath that leaves me shaking.

My nest is heavy with my Pack’s scent, and it should soothe me. It doesn’t. It makes my mouth water and my skin ache with a wanting that has nowhere to go.

Right now, it’s me, alone with my body, my hormones, and an emptiness that keeps getting worse. My discarded clothes lie in a damp heap beside the nest. I’m naked beneath the blanket, though even the thin fabric against my overheated skin is becoming unbearable.

My last heat, the one Knox dragged to a halt by a syringe full of suppressants, has nothing on this. My belly cramps low and deep, gripping and releasing until my whole body feels punished for being alone. My thighs are slick and twinging, and my skin feels too tight over my bones.

Despite the mindless roll of my hips, I keep my hands clutched in the fabric of the nest and away from where I need them most. I won't touch myself. I can't risk making my heat worse before they can get here.

I know I'm being stubborn, I know, but with every pulse of need, I'm reminded that I’m supposed to have hands on me. And teeth. Frack, I'm supposed to have four pairs of teeth biting down on my mating gland, finally sealing us together for life. This is what we have been waiting for, so how can I start without them?

I try to hold on to the facts because facts are solid and my heat-addled brain is leaking out of my ears like brain soup.

Right. The facts.

Viper killed the General.

The motherfracker had it coming.

The Pack had to fix the mess before anyone panicked, retaliated, or decided my Pack were monsters and put a few hundred bullets in them for it. They had to deal with a dead body and face the consequences of toppling the leadership of a resistance on a whim.

All of that takes time, and with significant effort, I can come to understand the situation.

My Omega, however, does not give a flying frack.

She only knows that I’m in my nest, in heat, and my Alphas are not here.

Shade is here. My loyal, sweet, perfect Beta is sitting across the room… but if I let him in, I’ll lose what little control I still have. I’ll gorge myself on him with no hope of coming up for air.

The bond tugs at me, distant but pulsating with awareness. They keep checking in on me, pulling at our connection, looking for attention and acknowledgment. But I can't indulge them because the more I let myself feel them, the harder it is to be without them.

My hands claw at the surrounding fabric until I find one of Knox’s shirts. I fist it, drag it to my face, burrow my nose in it, and inhale like it's a drug that can soothe the fire in my core.

It doesn’t help.

It makes it worse because it smells like my Prime Alpha, and he's not here. It makes my stomach ache and my eyes sting.

Frack, I want him. I want his body on mine and his cock inside me, to see him lose his mind and take me the way he's always wanted to.

I am a quivering pile of want.

Irrational anger flares.

They made me wait.