Page 154 of Queen of Diamonds

Finally, she settled on closing her fist in my shirt and dragging me across the room. I shot both Knight, and a very confused-looking Zed (who was rubbing his eyes of sleep) a huge grin before Glade had marched us to the cell door.

54

KNIGHT

“What in the ever-loving fuck is she doing?” Zed appeared at the door to the cell.

“She’s… nesting,” I said flatly.

Because there was no other way to describe the behaviour I was watching right now. Glade was taking every mat, pillow, and blanket Kyan was handing to her, and arranging them slowly in the cell.

“I mean… are we going to be able to move it?” Zed asked. He hadn’t spoken quietly enough. Glade went tense, her furious gaze snapping to him in a moment as she plumped a pillow in the corner.

It would be a lot more cute if she weren’t a foot away from the rutting, out-of-pack, evil Alpha chained to the wall.

I snorted. “That’s a no.”

Fucking Kyan.

Goddammit.

But it had worked—of course. Our Omega was truly, properly, nesting at last.

In the cell we’d kept her in. Still holding the Alpha we’d caught for her—which I was beginning to suspect was a pivotal feature to its conception.

But a nest made in heat was a thousand times more likely to stick than one begun any other week of the month.

Well, I supposed we’d done up a lot worse than the cell. We could make it respectable. Aside from Ace. But that was just temporary, right? She didn’t expect to keep him locked up in here forever.

He was gagged and chained and temporarily unconscious—which I was sure had taken a hell of a cocktail since he’d long gone into a rut. He was also in close proximity with an Omega in heat—one who hadn’t touched him, all while his body was still processing the vicious poison he’d inhaled.

Even from here, I could see the way his body trembled, pent-up energy with nowhere to go. Energy that, when he woke, would be eating him alive, and with every one of her movements, every new wave of her scent in the air, it would get more painful.

Of course, that had been a good thing, until she’d decided he was a nesting ornament.

Now I was just concerned.

Should we encourage this?

Once she was done with the pillows, blankets, and mats, she settled at Kyan’s side, crossing her legs and facing Ace.

I noticed that there was a semi-circle of un-pillowed concrete floor around where he was chained. As if it were the most normal thing in the world, Glade took the bouquet of roses from where Kyan had laid it down, and got to phase two of Glade nest making.

One by one, she plucked the petals of the roses and tossed them onto the concrete before Ace. Her scent eased, the need shifting to something peaceful, even if she was definitely still in heat.

It took a while, and none of us moved. Despite the insanity of it all, I could watch my girl nest all day.

Finally, the last petal had fallen, and there was barely a spot on the concrete around Ace that wasn’t covered in rose corpses. She tugged one of the stems from the bouquet, staring at it in a dazed way for a moment before frowning. She looked up at Kyan, but he was already producing a knife from his belt.

The frown smoothed out as she got to work, shaving every thorn from the stems and letting them scatter over the rose petals.

She was left with a bundle of thornless, green and white, shaved stems. Those, she gathered up and placed carefully in the corner before turning back to the nest and scouring it again. I thought we might be done, but she frowned.

Kyan followed her, drawing her close and cupping her face. “You’re getting hot, Oasis. Let me take care of you?”

She let out a frustrated little chirp, shoving him away, distress on her face.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

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