Page 17 of Hide or Die

“She uses them?” Jax asked. “Well, she’d have to, I guess.”

“Obviously,” Kam said, a bit sharply. I whimpered in distress, and he shushed me, immediately contrite.

Jax met my eyes. “Madam Ambassador.Leona. Heat blockers make your rebound heat stronger.”

Kam caught his breath. “She’s been on them for years.”

Another sob of frustration escaped me. They kepttalkingandtalking, when all I needed was a knot to fill up the empty void inside me that was sucking me inside out like a black hole. I felt like I was burning, all the moisture in my body boiling itself away in the form of sweat and slick.

“This isn’t going to work.” Jax dragged a hand over his face. It was shaking. “Her temperature could spike high enough to do permanent damage. We need to do something different.”

There was a pause, and Kam’s voice sounded horribly uncertain when he spoke. “Were you telling the truth before, about being able to help her? Aren’t you on the alpha drug regimen?”

“I was telling the truth, yes—but that’s not what I meant.” Jax sounded like he was barely holding it together, and I thought maybe, if I could just get my arms and legs free of the damned blanket so I could present for him...? “I’ve got no problem with an omega changing their mind and stopping a mating during their heat,” he went on. “But when a ‘no’becomes a ‘yes’during a cycle this intense, it’s not a real ‘yes.’ Also, there’s the matter of contraceptives. If she’s using blockers, I’m guessing she’s not on them—and while these aren’t great conditions for getting pupped, it’s still a possibility.”

The words flowed over me without sticking. I couldn’t follow the meaning of the exchange, but Kam flinched hard against me.

“No,” he said, the whisper barely audible. “No, she’s not.” I felt him swallow hard. “This could kill her, couldn’t it.”

Another pause. “It’s possible. I know tomorrow’s going to bring its own set of problems. But that doesn’t mean I want to take that kind of chance tonight.”

“Then... what?” Kam demanded. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

The alpha sighed. “She needs a knot. So, the question is, exactly how close are you two?”

SEVEN

Kameron

IBLINKED AT the hulkingalpha seated across the room from us. Leo squirmed in my arms, restless and feverish. She was smearing slick against my dress slacks, one of her thighs splayed across my lap.

“I’m... pretty sure I don’t have the equipment to do that particular job,” I said blankly, my mind shying away from thinking about the scarred wreck that had once been my omegan reproductive system.

“That’s not an answer,” Jax pointed out, with more patience than I would have expected from an alpha stuck in a cell with an omega in heat, and a perceived male beta who was barely keeping his shit together. “You knew her secret. You were ready to stand up to an alpha twice your size to protect her. Are you together?”

“It’s complicated,” I said, still feeling like there was a two-second disconnect between my brain and my mouth.

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