Page 29 of Strays
Her agitation hits me straight in the gut. I feel my muscles tightening, like my body’s getting ready for a fight I don’t even know yet. The hum in our chest grows louder, and we all straighten, alert.
Jay’s posture is stiff, but his tone stays gentle. “You don’t need to worry,” he assures her. “Nothing in the world could’ve made us give up meeting you. Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out.”
She doesn’t look up, staring at her hands for a while, her whole body tense until she blurts out, “I’m not going to be a stay-at-home wife and mom like other nyras. I have a career. One I worked hard for. And I’m not open to givingthat up.”
She takes a shaky breath. “I made that perfectly clear when the Matching Center first called about our match. Then again, when the meeting was rescheduled. I can’t believe they let you come here and scent me without telling you my only condition, even after I repeated it so many times.”
She finally looks up. “I know you had different expectations.”
So this is what Commander Eneas meant byunusual circumstances.
I’m so relieved I could cry. She was so nervous I thought she was about to tell us something far worse. I feel my body slowly relax.
“You think that would send us running?” Shane laughs, breaking the tension. “You wouldn’t get rid of us even if this was a real problem, which it’s not. I know nyras don’t usually work, but if you want to, why would we even care?”
"The only expectation we had was to find you. We don’t care about anything else," Jay says softly.
"And you’re the first nyra we’ve spent more than ten minutes with," Shane adds, chuckling. "We didn’t exactly have a lot of reference points to form expectations."
She narrows her eyes at him, surprised. "Are you serious?"
"Well… not totally," I admit. "My mother was a nyra. I spent a lot of time with her as a kid. She was the housewife type, and I think that’s part of why she ended up so screwed. Honestly, I’m glad you’re not like her."
She studies me, head tilted, like she’s trying to decide if she believes me. But I’m being completely honest.
Aegis-nyra bonds can’t be undone, so my mom would always be bonded to my fathers, always need them when she went into heat. But if she’d had a life outside our house, like most human women, I think she would’ve been happier.
I never thought about it before, but seeing Jo with Alice, and even with the nurse, I realize my mom could have had friends. Someone in her life besides my dads and their new mate.
Maybe she could’ve had a job that paid enough for her to get her own place, so she wouldn’t have been stuck living with my dads after her house became Lydia’s house.
Shane isn’t completely right, though. For all the years I dreamed about finding our nyra, I had built some expectations, and it never once crossed my mind that she would leave our home every day for work. That she would have a life beyond us, full of people I don’t know. Coworkers. Friends.
And even though now, after knowing Johane, I’m truly glad she would never be as vulnerable as my mother was, the thought of her being out in the world without the protection of a pack, exposed to strangers, still makes something in me coil tight, my instincts scream against it. But I shove it down. Deep.
She shifts her gaze, studying me first, then Shane, then Jay.
“I’ve heard so many times that aegis are possessive and controlling. That if Ibonded with a pack, chances were I’d end up locked inside a pack house.”
Shane squints, confused. “Are your fathers like that?”
I want to know too. Aegis can be intense, yeah. I remember how my fathers used to follow Lydia everywhere, but from my memories, they didn’t strike me as controlling, just protective. So something must have happened to her to make her believe her aegis would lock her inside a house against her will.
But she just looks at us, eyes still wide with fear.
I look straight into her eyes, trying to make her see that I mean every word. “We’re not perfect. I won’t pretend we are. I know we’ll mess up. One day, somehow, we will. But this is a promise I can make to you. And it’s an easy one. No matter what, we will never take away your freedom. Never lock you up. Never force you into a life you don’t want.”
She stares into my eyes, searching. And I think she believes me, because I can see her whole body relax.
And then her scent changes. The floral perfume of lilies turns heady, spiced. The shift hits me like a truck, and I choke on nothing.
My cock is rock hard so fast I go lightheaded.
At the end of the bed, Jay — calm, unshakable Jay — looks like he’s just been hit with an electric current, his expression frozen in panic. And for the first time in my life, I see a flush creeping over Shane’s tanned skin.
And then Jo bursts into laughter, so hard she can barely breathe. The tray in her lap nearly slips, but Shane catches it before her dinner spills. The three of us remain rigid, eyes locked anywhere but on each other.
It takes a while for her to manage to stop laughing long enough to speak. “Oh my god, the look on your faces!” She pants between breaths, wiping away tears of mirth. “I’m sorry. I guess that’s my fault. Looks like it’s going to take a while to get used to this whole pheromone party we’ve got going on.”
