Page 9 of Pack Down Bad

I can see the conflict in her eyes, the uncertainty of what’s happening here, like she’s caught between wanting to trust what’s unfolding and being afraid of the consequences.

The tension in her posture is unmistakable—her shoulders stiff, her lips pressed tight, as if every part of her is at odds with the pull of the situation. I can feel her hesitation, her mind racing.

“Mates?” she murmurs the word breathlessly to herself, so quietly I almost miss it.“Holy fucking knots.”

Her words barely register as her body grows sluggish right before my eyes. With a gasp, my arm shoots out as if I could help catch her from halfway across the room. Thankfully, Rhys catches on quickly and wraps an arm around her waist as she goes limp against him.

“A little help here?” he says as her body turns to dead weight. Knox and I both leap into action as Rhys bends to get an arm behind her legs and lifts her bridal style to bring her over the threshold. He carries her into our home, exactly where she belongs.

ChapterSix

Belle

My eyelids are heavy, but I manage to pry them open to look up at the three faces staring down at me. I glance to either side to take in my surroundings while I try to avoid meeting the curious eyes of the men hovering worriedly over my limp noodle of a body.

The last thing I remember is getting light-headed after realizingthat thing I’m still struggling to wrap my mind around. I must have passed out, and someone managed to get me onto the brown leather couch in their open floor plan living room.

“How long have I been out?” I ask, wondering how embarrassed I should be. A short blackout is understandable. Amusing even. A longer pass out where I might have been lying unconscious, drooling, and who knows what else? Not so cute.

None of the guys respond immediately. I reluctantly return my gaze upward, eyes searching each of theirs as I implore them to answer. All three wear similar scrunch-faced expressions of worry.

Rhys eventually answers, his voice deepening into a parody of a raspy, old man to tell me, “You’ve been asleep for eighty-four years.”

The man next to him with smooth, brown skin and black hair rolls his eyes and smacks the back of his hand against Rhys’s gut. “Don’t tease her,” he says. I give him a brief once-over, taking in his neatly trimmed facial hair across his jawline and over his upper lip. There’s even a smattering of dark hair peeking out from behind his pastel green sweater.

“Hi,” I blurt out.

“Hi.” His smile is wide and warm, showing off two rows of perfect teeth. “I’m Percy.”

He smells like apples. The smell is sweet but subtle, and I can’t help but inhale deeply, trying to get more of it. When he catches me, I feel my cheeks warm with a blush.

“I’m in your house.”

“I know.” His eyes crinkle near the corners as his smile grows impossibly wider. He’s amused by me.

Good grief.

The world’s sexiest three men have just taken me into their home, and for two of them, this is their first impression of me. A silly little mess of a woman passing out in their doorway. Which somehow still seems like a better start than Rhys finding me stranded on the side of the road from a minor car accident.

Is this what rock bottom feels like? Omegas fantasize about the possibility of finding a scent-match, and here I am making a mess of things.

I clear my throat and try again, “I’mBelle.”

“Nice to meet you, Belle.” Percy’s voice is so smooth that my name sounds like butter rolling off his tongue. My lower belly clenches with interest.

“How do I smell?” I blurt out the question without thinking it all the way through.

Rhys snorts out a laugh that’s cut short when the third man turns a sharp glare his way. Percy’s lips twitch, but he manages not to laugh at me.

“You smell amazing. Like cinnamon,” Percy answers wistfully. He starts to reach out for me before stopping himself short, though the effort seems to take a lot out of him because his breathing turns shallow.

Together we smell like dessert, maybe a warm apple pie. I wonder if we could top each other with ice cream…

Wait a second. Stranger danger. I need to stop thinking with the part of my body currently leaking slick so that I can focus on the serious situation at hand.

I have so many questions. “Why are you three living hours from town?”

The other two men snap their heads over to look at Rhys. I guess he’s the one responsible for them living outside of civilization in the middle of nowhere.

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