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She had gifted me an incredibly soft cashmere throw a few months ago, and I had slept with it every night since.
A pitiful whine that was pure omega distress slipped out at the thought of that throw. Shit, did I need more comfort items? I couldn’t exactly ask for more, could I?
What about something with the guys scent on it?I stilled. Their dark, rich scents were just what I needed. The whisky and leather of Gage and Kane, the sweet brown sugar of Archer, and the crisp clean pine of Theo. All their scents together, wrapping me up in safety and warmth.
I needed it. My body screamed with the desire for those items, my heart rate skyrocketing as my temperature went haywire.
I needed it like I needed air.
But there was no way in hell I was going to ask for it.
ChapterSixteen
Archer
She hadn’t left her room indays. I was trying to give her space to process and come to terms with her situation, but it had been almost three days since I had last seen her when she threw yetanotherpack of candy at me. She was avoiding me, it was obvious. Hell, she was closer to Kane than me at this point, and it was eating me up inside. I wanted to crawl to her on hand and knees, for her forgiveness.
There was only so much waiting I could do. With Gage grounding me and telling me to avoid her I had been pacing my office constantly instead of getting any actual work done. We had found another seller, and we would be meeting them in two weeks. Apparently Julius had been ‘waylaid’—a fancy term for ‘likely murdered’ because of his line of work. Now we were just waiting to hear from the new seller to arrange a sale date.
Slamming my laptop closed just a touch too hard, I rose, determined to deal with the issue. She couldn’t avoid me forever, and Gage would just have to deal with it if she got cranky.
Three days of silence was unbearable. Heading for the kitchen I nuked some leftovers from the night before and plated them up. She hadn’t left her room for food—I had been watching. Even Kane had mentioned it at dinner the previous night as we ate our noodles.
Food in hand I made my way up the stairs, her familiar floral scent filling my nose. As exciting as the scent was, it also soothed me, I could feel my shoulder muscles relaxing as I made my way to her door.
“Lavender?” I knocked on the door with one hand, leaning in to listen for any reply. “I have food. You’ve not been out in a while.” I leaned closer, but there was no reply. “C’mon, Lavvy. Let me know you’re okay.” Still no reply. “I’ll come in if you don’t at least reply.”
Concerned now, I knocked once more. Turning the door handle, I called out another warning before entering the room.
Lavender had closed all the curtains and windows, making it dark. The room was stuffy, and up close to her the smell of singed lavender thick in the air.Burnt. She wasn’t happy. The smell was like a blow to my stomach, physically painful. Resisting the urge to whine, I followed my nose to the walk-in wardrobe. When had she done that? A wardrobe wasn’t good enough for her, she deserved better. Kane had refused to let us give her the omega room with a nest, and this was what it resulted in. She had acquired even more bedding since I had last been there. My bet would have been Kane had been sneaking it in, I had seen him picking up several packages recently and I doubted that Lavender was brave enough to ask for them herself. Even though he hardly spoke to the omega, and disliked her presence here, he must have been ordering things and leaving them for her. Kane didn’t see himself as part of our pack, he would go his own way once we found Juniper no matter how attached to the moody bastard we were. When he went his own way like he seemed determined to do, would he consider finding an omega for himself? He could join a pack that could afford the fees. Perhaps having Lavender around was good for him in a way. Or painful, possibly both.
Walking over to the nest I knocked on the wardrobe, waiting a second before poking my head in. It felt like I was invading her space. I hadn’t been invited here. The scent alone was cloying, it was so potent, so sweet, but twisted. It hurt my stomach and made me feel sick. In the back of my mind I reminded myself that this was Lavender,myLavender who traded true crime recommendations with me and debated the merits of each gummy bear flavour.
Shit. She was pale, sweaty, and curled up in a ball in the far corner of the nest. She hardly seemed lucid, like she was feverish. Her eyes were glazed over, looking at the wall blankly as she panted like she couldn’t quite catch her breath. Cursing I put the food down on the first surface I could find and clambered over the mountain of pillows and blankets to her. Placing a hand on her neck gently, I was dismayed to find her boiling hot and coated in a thin sheen of sweat.
She groaned and closed her eyes at the contact.
“Hey hey hey, Lav, look at me.” I gently lifted her across my lap, trying to get her to open her eyes, but she was limp.
“Arch?” she whined quietly.
“Yeah, it’s me. What’s wrong?”
She groaned, “Feel wrong.”
“It’s not your heat, is it? This doesn’t smell like a heat.” Not that I really knew what a heat smelt like, but from the little I understood of our biology I knew the scent of an omega’s heat should be a mind boggling aphrodisiac. Lavender’s floral smell had a slightly sour undertone, and it wasn’t making me horny, it was making me panic. Everything told my instincts this scent waswrong.
Omega needs help.
I must provide help.
Grabbing my phone from my pocket with one hand while I held Lavender to my chest, I dialled Kane’s number. My first thought was to call Gage, but he and Theo were out working on the trucks and probably wouldn’t answer if they were distracted, so Kane it was.
“Yeah,” he answered in his usual, gruff tone.
“Somethings wrong with Lavender—get Gage. Maybe the doc.” I didn’t wait for a reply, hanging up and throwing the phone onto a random pile of pillows and turning my attention back to Lavender, who was nestling into my chest. Her eyes were hazy, unable to focus on anything. I could see she wasn’t fully lucid, her hair stuck to her face, and I gently brushed it away.
The thundering of footfalls alerted me to Kane’s arrival. He burst into the room, a look of panic on his face. Wearing nothing but a pair of gym shorts, his abs on prominent display, it was clear he had just stopped in the middle of a workout to rush up here. I had joked many times that Kane must love steroids, because that was the only way he could have gainedthatmuch muscle mass and that many abs. He spotted the pair of us and his eyes honed in on Lavender's pale face.
