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She finally lay still, still burning up, and she whimpered in her sleep.

I let out a sigh, exhausted. Something was still wrong, but maybe she would wake up better.

“Is she going into heat?” Rian asked quietly.

“I don’t know.” West sounded tired himself. “It would be a month early.”

I leaned over to touch him and made sure he was getting cuddled. He was on Ember’s other side and Alejandro had him spooned.

“Maybe with the nest…” Rian trailed off, no doubt remembering that it was West’s nest too.

“It’s more likely a bad panic attack. We’ll see how she does.”

I drifted off to sleep only to wake up when Ember shouted.

Adrenaline pumped through my body. The close walls of the nest helped, and I took another deep breath in. I saw why Ember liked the tunnel of the nest. It would be hard to sneak in here. I smelled no one but our makeshift pack.

“No, please,” Ember cried out, her body going rigid. “Mom.”

West shook her shoulder. “Wake up. It’s a bad dream.”

She startled awake, pressing her nose to my throat again. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Her face was wet with tears.

I stroked her hair. “Nothing to apologize for, my love. What can we do?”

“My body hurts. Nothing feels right.” She shifted between me and West. She whined, and I purred as hard as I could, stroking my hand over her face.

“They’re going to be disgusted,” she said. “I need to leave before they see me lose my shit.”

“They won’t,” West said calmly. “We would have left a while ago if I thought that would happen.”

I tightened my grip. “You mean us? Ember, lose all your marbles. We just want you to feel better.”

“No way,” Alejandro said, sounding firm. “You’re stuck with me.”

“You can’t leave. You just made the nest,” Rian said, sounding vaguely scandalized. “We still have to layer our scents in here.”

Ember sniffled, like she didn’t believe us.

“You’re mine,” I growled. “I’m not letting you go.”

Ember relaxed at that.

My alpha instincts were in go mode. My omega was upset but I couldn’t do anything but hold her while she cried. It made me cranky.

West shifted. Rian’s scent got closer. Rian put his arms around her. She was still burning up.

The night passed in snatches of time. We tried to sleep as best as we could, but Ember startled awake every couple of hours, semi-lucid. She complained that everything smelled like burnt rubber, so we rubbed our wrists under her nose. She stayed hot, so we kept cool washcloths rotating. She cried in her sleep until one of us woke her up.

We rubbed her back, cuddled her, and tried to get her to drink some fluids. She refused the fluids but allowed the cuddles.

I knew I should have moved, let someone else take her other side, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t make myself move her arm wrapped around my neck even if I’d had a gun to my head. The others didn’t seem to mind and shifted positions behind her. West curled up closer to our heads, another benefit to the nest. We could surround her with our bodies, a living nest.

We finally got a long stretch of sleep like that, with West lying almost horizontally, his head close to mine; Ember between us; and then Rian cuddled behind her with Alejandro lying further down the nest so he could wrap his hands over her legs.

I woke up to the scent of her perfume, so thick and heavy my cock was painfully hard. She licked my neck, and I tightened my hands, stroking down her side.

“Alpha,” she whispered, gyrating her hips against me.