Page 21 of Hide or Die

EIGHT

Leona

EVERYTHING HURT, andsomeone was crying into my hair. I felt like I was suffering the worst hangover I’d ever had, multiplied tenfold and paired with a vague, generalized sense of impending doom. I was curled in someone’s arms—

Kam.

I was curled inKam’sarms, and it was his tears slowly soaking my scalp. “Odama,” I croaked. Lifting uncoordinated hands, I pawed at him ineffectually—weak as a newborn kitten. His embrace tightened, holding onto me as though he feared I might disappear, but his chest only hitched harder beneath my cheek.

“It’s all right, Little One.” The basso alpha rumble came from some distance away, and my entire body twitched in unconscious reaction. “Just let him hold you. He tried to explain what was happening earlier, but I think you were too out of it to really understand.”

“Understand what?” I rasped, still trying to soothe Kam with hands that didn’t want to obey my brain’s commands. Everything around me was hazy. Dreamlike. There was something important I should be thinking about, but try as I might, I couldn’t grab hold of it.

“You’ve been taking heat blockers for a long time,” said that reassuring alpha voice. “That’s made this heat way stronger than it normally would be. Trying to tough it out could be medically dangerous for you. I’m lending you my pheromones, and Kam is lending you a hand... so to speak. We’re going to need to do that again in a few hours—possibly sooner. It shouldn’t be quite as bad this time, since we know not to leave it too long. Until then, you need to rest.”

I wasn’t at all sure of the meaning of his words. They seemed important, yet I couldn’t seem to focus on them. Except for the last part, anyway. How was I supposed to rest when my packmate was upset?

“No,” I protested. “Kam...”

He gave a harder shudder against me, and his body stiffened as though he were physically dragging his control together. I could smell the faintest whiff of something sharp and lemony rising from his skin, soured by the tang of grief and fear. I’d... never smelled his scent before. How was it possible that I’d never scented him until now?

His chest expanded with an unsteady breath.

“I’m all right, Leo,” he whispered. Clearing his throat, he continued in a stronger tone. “Jax said something nice to me, that’s all. You know I don’t deal with things like that very well.”

Again, I had the feeling that I was missing some deeper meaning. I tried once more to lift a hand to his cheek, only to miss and end up pawing at the side of his neck instead. “You’re okay?”

He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. “’Course I am.” A slight pause, then, “Is it all right for me to touch you when you need it, since Jax can’t?”

I blinked, not sure why the alpha couldn’t touch me. He was nearby—I could smell his heavy, comforting scent. But as for the rest of it...

“You’re my pack,” I told him, and burrowed a bit closer against his body.

He curled around me. “I didn’t hurt you, though?”

I tried to take stock, and decided I’d been right before. “Everythinghurts,” I said.

“That’s because we left it too long,” said the alpha.

Jax.

The alpha’s name was Jax, and that should have been important, though I wasn’t sure how, exactly.

“Mmph,” I said against Kam’s collarbone, my hazy thoughts growing cloudier.

“We won’t make that mistake next time,” Jax assured me. “The next peak won’t be so bad.”

Again, I wondered why he was staying so far away. It would be much nicer if he were over here, curled up next to Kam and me. Maybe then, Kam wouldn’t cry anymore. The fuzzy gray clouds abruptly smothered me, and I slipped into a doze.

* * *

Icame back to myself—aftera fashion, at least—when the aching emptiness inside me yawned wide once more. Iwanted. My wanting was an endless void that could only be filled by the alpha across the room.

I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t give me what I needed, no matter how much I begged and cried. Instead, Kam urged me onto my hands and knees as the fever grew, and something filled me that wasn’t an alpha’s cock. It wasn’t what my body yearned for—but it was better than nothing. My pheromones swirled together with the alpha’s, eventually triggering a shuddering release of the horrible tension. Again, that faint hint of gingery citrus wafted among the stronger scents choking the room.

Sleep came, followed by something that was almost like wakefulness, but not quite. The alpha said nice things to me in that reassuring, rumbly tone, while Kam held me and stroked my hair. It was pleasant. Time passed. The pattern repeated once more. Afterward, the arms holding me trembled with exhaustion, or maybe something else... something less to do with the physical.

Distantly, I wondered how long this would go on. Something about the thought triggered that same sense of impending doom I’d felt earlier—the one that had been hanging over me for some time now. I mewled, not able to summon words to express my fears.

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