“This is a nest,” Tobias explained.
“Shut up,” Lucien snapped. “Can’t you see she’s had enough? She needs to rest, to recalibrate.”
“And who’s fault is that?” Tobias was trying to keep a lid on it, but by the set of his jaw, I could see he was losing that fight. I shifted on the bed, no longer able to relax as I saw the tension build.
“Get out.” Their heads jerked sideways, all three of them, looking Max up and down, but he stepped forward, fairly bristling with repressed anger. “All of you. Get the fuck out. You’d argue night was day and the sky was green if the other said it was blue. You’re making things worse, again.”
“And you’ll—” Lucien sneered.
“Shut the fuck up and get the fuck out.” Max’s hand jerked up and pointed to the door, not wavering for a second. He stared his brothers down until Beau and Lucien finally moved, doing as they were told, but not before a long look backwards my way.
“Find out what she needs,” Tobias told Max. “Get it all—all of it.” He glanced back at me. “As reparations, not as a courting gift.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Max said, not looking at his brother until he was gone.
He let out a long breath when the three of them had left, and oddly, I found myself doing the same. I watched him blink, as if he hadn’t expected his ploy to actually work, and that, that moment of vulnerability, was exactly what I needed right now.
I was fucking falling apart, hugging my blankie like a little kid and unable to stop myself. I felt…raw, like every nerve was jangling, smells and sights hitting me in ways I’d never felt before. I’d always been a bit on the sensitive end of things, unable to tolerate tags on my clothes or fabrics that were stiff and uncomfortable when I was a kid, but this? I closed my eyes then, snuggling down into the mattress, letting my breaths come slower and slower.
“I…” His voice was like a caress, not an insistent poke. “I’ve got a phone to replace the one you lost, and we need to go through the access protocols. No one can get in or out of this place, not without your express permission, but…”
I opened one eye, seeing him coming closer, slowly, so very slowly, like I was a wild animal.
Maybe I was.
Alphas, omegas, they had wolves, the other parts of their souls. I blinked at that idea.
“You’re feeling…sensitive, right?” I watched him move, listened to his words, and felt a strange kind of awareness as I did. It was like I could see so much more of him than before. I saw the muscles bunch on his forehead, the nervous flick of his eyes, the way his shoulders pulled up as they tightened. “I know I am. Your pain… It’s screaming at me.”
I moved then, sitting up slightly, peering closer at him.
“I…feel things more than the others. They miss so much, and when I point it out, they just snort and dismiss it. Can I sit down?” I nodded. He took up position on the end of mattress, not too far but not too close. “They don’t mean to set your teeth on edge all of the time.” He frowned then, those blue eyes clouding. “At least I don’t think they do. I just wanted to warn you, if you let them come in here or talk to them on the phone, they probably won’t notice that you’re hurting until it’s too late.”
“But you will?”
My voice cracked, sounded rusty with disuse.
“Maybe.” He smiled then, just a fleeting thing that came and went again. “Sometimes…it’s like I feel too damn much, and then I can’t work out what the hell I’m feeling. Like what everyone else feels is infectious.” He shook his head and then picked up the tablet he’d carried in with him. “But that’s just my shit. Let’s get you what you need. Name it, Sage, seriously. If there’s a teddy bear you had when you were a small child that got lost at daycare, you’ll find we’d do our level best to get Mr Snuggles back for you.”
“Mr Snuggles?” I asked with a little laugh, and that smile, it felt good to make.
“I may or may not have my old teddy bear sitting on my bed, waiting for me to join him after this,” he replied, shooting me a sideways smile. “But seriously. If you’re going to stay here, the anonymous interior will start to grate on you. You need to be soothed.” The tablet dropped down into his lap. “What is going to help you relax here?”
20
“Damn, bitch!”
I wasn’t sure if Nikki’s strident tones were exactly what was going to soothe me, but after the alphas had gone, I turned on my brand-new phone, finding somehow all of the contents of my SIM card had been transferred to it, and gave her a call. Getting her into the building was a whole other thing. Security stopped her in the lobby and then rang me to authorise entry, and she couldn’t get the lift to come up to my floor without a one-off code an app on my phone had generated. Max had talked me through the process. As I opened the door, now in a daggy pair of track pants and a jumper, she walked in, eyes wide.
“This place… And you…”
Her finger swung in the air, ready to point at me, the apartment, the swanky décor, everything, but not knowing where to start. I just smiled weakly and then went to the kitchen, ready to offer her a drink.
Except this wasn’t my fridge or my flat or my… I jerked open the fridge door and blinked when I saw it crammed full of food and drinks.
“Ah…what can I get you?” I asked, consulting the contents.
“It’s OK, I brought—Shit! Is that BLVD?” I found the heavy glass bottle she was pointing to and pulled it out. “That water is like thirty dollars a bottle.”