Page 135 of Pack Frenzy
“Maybe. Or maybe they didn’t make it off that ship.”
Seven years ago, someone on that cruise made Blake bleed—and I want to know who.
CHAPTER 33
JESS
It starts small.
Three weeks in, and I finally have a routine—if you can call it that. Eli’s out the door by seven most mornings, badge clipped to his shirt and travel mug in hand.
Rowan works from his office, drafting blueprints or stalking client calls with that quiet-focus face he gets. Cassian’s usually in the workshop behind the house, sanding something, cutting something, or muttering over a half-finished table he swears is “almost done.”
Days blur together in the comfortable kind of way. Breakfast with whoever’s home. Rowan dragging me out to the porch for “actual sunlight.” Cassian showing me how to tell the difference between a dovetail joint and “whatever crime IKEA is committing this week.” Evenings with Eli teaching me how to dice onions without losing fingertips.
Nothing dramatic—just life. Quiet, steady, dangerous in its own way because it felt… good. Like a rhythm I wasn’t supposed to want.
Which is why the shift catches me off guard.
A wrongness in the air I can’t pin down. The sheets feel too rough. The blanket is too light. Every shift of fabric against my skin scrapes at me like static. I kick them off, pull them back, twist them into a useless knot at the foot of the bed.
The house hums with the same soft quiet as always—wind against the windows, the air conditioner’s low exhale—but I can’t settle. My pulse trips every few beats, like my body’s waiting for something I forgot to give it.
I press a pillow over my face and breathe in fabric softener and faint traces of Eli’s detergent. It helps for a second. Then doesn’t.
My skin’s buzzing and my room feels like it grew three sizes overnight—too big, too empty, too loud.
I sit up, swing my legs over the edge of the bed. It could just be I need a snack. Or caffeine. Or an exorcism.
I glance at the digital clock beside the bed. 3:07 a.m.
Shit!
Maybe just stretch my legs or something.
I grab a water bottle from the mini-fridge in my room and step into the hallway. The floors are cool under my bare feet, and the house smells faintly of them, easing this gnawing in my gut for half a second.
A small pile of laundry in a basket props open the laundry room’s door. Rowan’s hoodie is on top. Faded navy from too many washes, the cuff still torn.
I shouldn’t. It’s not mine.
But my fingers are already reaching.
The fabric’s soft, worn thin in that perfect way, and when I bury my face in it—sandalwood and rain hit me so hard my knees almost forget how to work. The wrongness inside me eases for half a breath.
I tug it over my head before I can think. The hem brushes my thighs, and I breathe in deep, greedy lungfuls ofhim. My heart slows. My shoulders unclench.
It’s stupid how good this feels. Like I’ve been holding my breath for years and only just remembered oxygen’s a thing.
I crawl back into bed, wrap my arms around my middle, and tell myself it’s just comfort. Not instinct. Not the strange pull I’ve felt since the night they first scent-marked me.
The air conditioner clicks off, and the silence sharpens.
Under the hoodie, my skin prickles. The air’s turned heavy, sticky, like the whole house can’t sleep either.
I shove the blankets aside again, restless. My body doesn’t want to sleep. It wants… something else.
Something that smells like all of them, likehome.
