Page 36 of Tying the Knot
“She took her washing!” Nik pants, keeping stride next to me.
“And?”
“Something made her leave, but not in a massive hurry. She stopped for her washing.”
I blink. I don’t have a fucking clue what he’s getting at. I don’t think he does either, to be honest. We keep running with Kaleb and Eli behind us. Eli is breathing down my neck. I swear if the pavements weren’t so icy, he’d have shoved me out of the way ages ago.
When we reach the hotel and burst through the reception door, I halt and hold my hands up for everyone to stop behind me.
“Wait. We can’t all go thundering up to her room, scaring her half to death. Let me go. She knows me, and I know where it is.”
I avoid Elijah’s menacing glare. Yes, I told them we kissed but neglected to tell them it was outside her room.
“Go,” he growls. “If you need backup, we will be right behind you.”
I nod and take the stairs two at a time, not giving him the chance to change his mind. I feel like I know enough about her temperament to approach this with caution and not exactly expertise, but definitely more so than the other three.
I stop outside her door and breathe in. Her scent is almost overpowering. I stumble back, saliva filling my mouth as I realise what has happened.
She is in heat.
“Oh, fuck,” I mutter, placing my hand on the door. “Morgan?” I call out. “It’s Dylan. I’m just checking to see if you are okay?” I scrunch my face up for sounding like a knob. Of course she isn’t okay.
“Dylan?” Her weak voice filters through the door. “Yes, I’m fine. Please go.”
“Are you sure? Do you need anything?”
“Please just go.” I hear the sound of vomiting and cringe. I glance down the hallway to the stairs and wonder if I should do something unwarranted and something that will probably get me arrested. I place my hand on the door handle and test it, but it’s locked, of course.
“Morgan.” I rap on the door.
Nothing.
“Morgan!”
“Dylan, please just go,” she snaps.
I take a step back even further, chewing the inside of my lip. I’m at a crossroads and don’t know which way to go. I know three alphas who could and would willingly help her, but I have zero knowledge of how she would react to that. Probably not very well. But…she is in heat and clearly suffering. She has no alpha to ease her through the heat.
“Go away,” she grits out. “I’m fine.”
I know I have to do as she asks. To do otherwise is a gross violation of her trust, but I can leave her with something. “You have my number. Ring, day or night, if you needanything. Got it, Morgan? Anything.”
“Grrrn,” she groans.
“Let me know you understood me.”
“Right, got it. Fuck off, will you!”
I snort in surprise and walk slowly away from the door, not having a clue what to tell the rest of the pack. If I mention her heat, their alpha sides will rear up, and it might not end well for any of us. Not that I think they would do something stupid. They wouldn’t. They have too much respect for women, omegas and, well, pretty much everyone unless they genuinely don’t deserve it. But it will eat at them, knowing they can’t help her without her full consent. Asking now is just asking for trouble.
“Well?” Eli demands as I reach the bottom of the stairs.
I make a choice to protect her and the pack. “She’s in her room safe but throwing up a storm. She reckons it was a dodgy sausage roll she ate for breakfast that she bought a couple of days ago and left out in her room."
He frowns so fiercely that I think his eyebrows are going to form a moustache. “What?” he snaps. “She’s sick?”
“Yeah. It’s not pretty.”
