Page 178 of Unmarked

I shift slightly and immediately regret it. There's slick everywhere. I’m sore in places I didn’t know had nerve endings, since Lucian’s knot apparently decided my cervix needed to be humbled.

And the shirt I’m wearing - definitely his, by the way - is clinging to me like it's got abandonment issues.

My brain does a slow, hungover scroll through the previous twenty-four hours.

The bonds. The sex. The growling. The knots.

The fact that I willingly became a one-woman alpha buffet.

Ohgod.

I feel them. All four of them. Heavy in my chest, twined down my spine like living wire, pulsing under my skin.

Like gravity -multiplied.

I asked for this. Ichosethis.

But now that I have it?

Shit. It’s alot.

I sit up too fast, immediately triggering some kind of full-body alarm system. My spine screams, my legs wobble, and my everything goesnope.

The room tilts. My stomach flips. My scent probably smells like panic and bad decisions marinated in four different alpha pheromones.

And beneath it all, a buzz. Ahum.

A growing sense of pressure I can’t explain, only feel.

I need air. I need space. I need… something.

The blanket twists around my legs as I shove it off. I swing my feet to the floor, grimacing at the way my muscles scream in protest.

I try to stand. I try to breathe.

I try not to cry.

“Okay. Okay. You’re fine,” I mutter. “You’re just... biologically wrecked and emotionally compromised. No big deal.”

Cue my internal monologue having a mental breakdown in four-part harmony.

I’m not falling apart. I’mnot.

But I amspiraling.

The door hisses open.

“Rhea.”

Ash. Of course it’s Ash. He’s the only one who can enter a room like a nuclear bomb and a crisis counselor with biceps.

I immediately try to act normal, which means I wobble, miss my footing, and do the world’s slowest, least graceful attempt at crumpling onto the floor.

He catches me before I hit anything.

“I’m okay,” I lie.

“You’re literally vibrating,” he says, steadying me like he’s been expecting this exact meltdown. “You’ve had four full bonds in less than a day, haven’t eaten, haven’t slept, and from what I can feel through the bond? Your hormones are throwing an actual rave.”

---