Page 78 of Pack: Posy 3

"Don't leave, Posy," Cole whispered, his pretty eyes latched onto my face.

"I won't. I'm here. How's Topaz?"

"Sleeping. Very tired. Fought the thing. Healed me over and over."

His voice was getting a little stronger, which encouraged me, although he still had to stop and take a breath after every choppy sentence. Closing my eyes, I pressed my lips to his forehead.

"Posy. I'm sorry." He grabbed my arm and pulled me against him and buried his face in my neck. "I'm so sorry ... those words came out of ... my mouth. You are none of those things. You are perfect, honey. I love you. Don't leave. Don't leave. Don't leave."

"Shh. Rest. I'm not going anywhere. I love you, Cole."

His tears ran down my skin and soaked my shirt, and I hugged him tightly as harsh sobs racked him.

"I had the witches check over everyone here," Mason told us, "to make sure there was no more spawn. We're all good."

"Why didn't it get Posy?" Ash asked. "She hugged Cole."

"Did you touch his skin?" Poppy asked, and I shook my head. "That's why, then. A parasite needs skin-to-skin contact to dump its spawn into a new host, which it will do only when it senses imminent death or danger because it risks killing itself to spawn.”

Ariel and Maria joined us, and the betas formed an outer circle around our inner one. Ariel knelt near Cole's head and raised her hands, and soon a shimmer appeared in the air over him. After a minute, she finished and dropped her hands.

"He's going to be all right, luna," she said. "He's exhausted emotionally and mentally and needs a lot of rest, but his wolf has already healed the psychic damage. They need to sleep now. After that and a few good meals, they'll both be right as rain."

"Alphas, luna, I'm so sorry this happened," Maria choked out and my eyes flew to hers. It made me sad to see her cheeks stained with tears. "We should have prepped him better. We should have noticed that it spawned. We should have—"

"Maria, stop," I said. "It wasn't anyone's fault. Don't blame yourself. I don't, and I don't want you to, either."

"We're not used to working with anyone other than Gelo, and he would have known not to touch the infected host before we did our part." With a sigh, Ariel stood, and Tristan immediately gathered her into his arms. "We need to do some training with the alphas before we go on any more missions like that."

Cole's hold had slackened, so I sat up and speared each of my mates with a narrow-eyed glare. The sun had sunk below the horizon, but there was still enough light for them to see how serious I was right now.

"No more," I said fiercely. "No more missions. At least for a while. You are staying home andnoneof you are leaving my sight."

"Okay, honey." Cole reached up and cupped my face with hands that trembled, and I could hear the exhaustion in his voice. "Okay."

"We'll tell the king we're unavailable for the rest of the summer," Mason declared while nodding. "Like Ariel said, we need time to train with them. I don't want anything like this to happen again."

"Oh, yeah! We're on vacation for the next two months!" Wyatt crowed. "We'll take you on those dates we wanted to go on and to the queen's coronation and your mom's family reunion!"

"Andto the beach!" Ash chimed in. "Then we can go shopping for your school supplies—"

"The beach?" I cut him off, that one word perking me up. "You promise?"

"I promise."

I smiled widely, flashing him my dimples, and he grinned.

"Sorry to interrupt," Crew said, "but Alpha Jay's team has returned. He dropped Sara off at Beatrix's. Emerson, Angelo's back at your place. Luna, with your consent, we'll leave you with your mates and go to ours."

"Of course. Thank you all so much." I stood up, wobbled a bit, and grabbed Mason's shoulder to steady myself. "I can't tell you how much it meant to me to have you by my side today."

"We will always be by your side," Tyler said and hugged me. Ducking down, he whispered in my ear. "Peri said you better call, text or link her soon, or she's going to raise hell until she finds out what's wrong."

Giggling a little, I told him I would contact her before I went to bed, but gave him permission to tell her and the parents what happened.

I hugged the rest of the betas and the witches and Leo, then they disappeared into the darkening evening.

Not too long after they left, I heard a vehicle was coming up the drive, but someone else would have to deal with whoever it was and whatever they wanted. I'd had enough for one day. All I wanted to do was curl up with my mates in our bed and sleep for a week.

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