When she catches me looking at them, her face hardens and she gives a quick shake of her head. “Don’t. Don’t say anything about them. I don’t want to hear it.” Her voice falters, but she pushes past me, into the bedroom, which still smells strongly of sex. I have no idea how she can just walk inside, probably because the meds dull her shifter senses.
Her meds. The ones she won’t be able to take anymore. Fuck.
It’s like someone punches me in my stomach and I swallow hard, pushing the bad thoughts down. “Cyra...” I step forward, reaching out to her, and while I expect her to pull away, she lets me pull her close. “I—”
“Don’t say anything.” Her voice is still hard and I nod carefully, trying to disturb her as little as possible.
She’s got a towel wrapped around her waist, but I can still see the bruises on her hips, on different parts of her body.
Fucking hell... It’s that shifters are sturdy, made for animalistic sex, but seeing the bruises we left on her still makes me uncomfortable. We marred her beautiful skin and it’s just another reminder of how we ruined her dreams, the life she’s always wanted to live...
She’s right to be upset. She’s right to be angry. She’s so right in acting like this, but that doesn’t make the bad feelings any better. It doesn’t make this crappy feeling any better.
I kiss the side of her head, anywhere where I can reach her. Soft kisses, trying to soothe any pain we caused. Though, the worst pain we’ve caused isn’t something that I can just kiss away.
Then I remember why I came up here. “You need to eat. Max made dinner. Pasta. It smells really good.”
“As good as I smelled this afternoon?” Her voice is harsh and I nearly flinch.
I let out a slow breath as I choose my words carefully, still confused about what happened. “I couldn’t smell your Omega scent. It wasn’t your scent that drove me... It was something else.”
She carefully looks up, trying to move her neck as little as possible. “What?”
“There was no scent. You were in heat. I could see it, you had all the signs of an Omega in heat, but there was no scent.”
She just stares at me, like she doesn’t understand it. “How?”
“I don’t know.” I carefully undo the towel she’s got around her waist.
She stops me, but a simple look from me makes her pull her hand back. Then I wrap the towel around her upper body, over her boobs, making more of a ‘dress’ for her. I glance around, finding a random hair tie that must have fallen out of her bag and I use it to secure the top of the towel better.
“I have no idea why today happened. We can figure that out tomorrow. But right now, you need to eat. You need to regain your strength.” I carefully tug her to the door, but she doesn’t move.
“Me too.” Her voice is soft now, barely audible, no longer angry. I turn around to her, confused. “I think I might love you too.”
Oh! I stare at her as my heart beats crazy fast. I take her back in my arms, kissing her face, kissing her lips.
I’d totally forgotten I’d blurted that out during sex... It kind of just came over me, and I couldn’t keep it inside.
Wrapping myself around her as much as I can, I know that no matter the mess, this is where I belong. I belong at her side, I belong with her. There’s no other place where I’d rather be, and I’m going to fight to make sure that I can stay with her.
Nobody is going to break up what we have.
It might be unconventional, but it’s ours. This relationship, this mating, it’s ours and nobody is going to take that away.
I’m going to fight, do whatever I need to do to protect this, protect us. Because even though I’ve met her only a few weeks ago, I can’t imagine a future without her.
40 Cyra
The guys won’t stop staring at me during dinner. I asked them to stop a couple of times, but then just gave up. There’s only so many times that I can glare or tell them off, but even if they look away, their eyes keep returning to me after a while. So I gave up trying.
Zack was right, the pasta smelled delicious when we walked into the kitchen and it tastes just as good. But with all of our plates empty, the guys all having taken a second serving, there isn’t much to keep us occupied anymore. The awkwardness is getting harder to deal with.
After we all calmed down, I fled to the bathroom, not able to be around them anymore after my mind had cleared. I’ve never experienced a heat this badly, it was too much.
When I stormed off, after Max chatted with his cousin and she offered to get us help, I didn’t get very far, my body going weird, and, in that moment, I knew that we were too late. That no matter what we’d try, we were too late. This is why Omegas usually take heat suppressants a few weeks early, but I’d been pushing it because I had no way to afford them yet. My heat came early and I had no way to suppress it.
Even though I knew that I didn’t want to mate anyone yet, that I really didn’t want it, when Liam found me in the forest my mind had gone blank, the only real thoughts of how I needed my Alphas. The sensible part of me, the part that had tried to stay in control
