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TWENTY-FIVE

Gabriel

WE WERE MORE than twelve hours deep into Emma’s heat, and my feeling of having been hit by a lorry hadn’t faded in the least. The dampeners Curran had given me might be dulling the impact of our five mingled scents, but they did nothing to dull the memory of that first impossible hit when I’d walked into the cabin.

Curran and Onyx had already taken their shots before we arrived, but I wondered if that same reaction was part of what was making Elijah so jumpy. Had the omegas smelled the same thing I had?

God, I hoped not—because it was impossible. Scent matches were the stuff of trashy romance novels. They had no place in the real world, where dragging two random omegas into the middle of my personal shitshow would be the worst possible thing I could do to them.

Speaking of the omegas, Elijah had disappeared a few minutes ago for the fourth time since Emma’s heat had started. The last two times, he’d returned from the ship’s head smelling of slick and omega spend—detectable even through the blockers. I was sure that without them, it would have been powerful enough to knock my higher brain functions completely flat.Happily for my sanity, this time he’d gone up to the deck instead of to the head, presumably to get some air.

I could sympathize.

In fact, I was considering following his example when Curran, who’d ceded his place curled around Emma to Onyx, flopped down next to me on the seat. He had at least put on a pair of trousers, but his scarred upper body was still bare to the waist. Seeing my two bodyguards in this new light was yet another aspect of the situation I hadn’t anticipated.

Curran had been my rock for years—ever since Theresa had disappeared. Our families had lived near each other in the cesspit of East London’s gangland. He was seven years older than I was, so we hadn’t been terribly close when I was a child. But when my sister went missing and I started harassing the wrong people for answers, he’d taken it on himself to look out for me, for some godforsaken reason.

When I’d confided my plan to get out of the slums and become rich enough to track down Theresa’s kidnappers, he hadn’t laughed me off. And when I grew powerful enough to make myself a nuisance to the area’s crime families, he’d stood between me and danger.

He’d taken a bullet for me once, the evidence still a livid mark etched out in scar tissue. Now, he was looking at me with tired but incisive brown eyes.

“She’s beginning to stir again,” he said gruffly. “If there’s anything you want to tell me before she decides you’re her next meal, now’s the time. You’ve been even jumpier than Elijah, and he’s got cause to be jumpy. You don’t. So, what’s going on in that head of yours, eh?”

They’re supposed to be our pack, but it’s impossible, I thought.

Walking away from them is going to break me, even though that’s completely irrational, I thought.

Emma’s uncle sold my sister into sexual slavery, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that knowledge, I thought.

“First heat,” I said aloud. “You know how it is. That, and I’ve had way more of an eyeful of your ugly arse over the past few hours than I ever needed or wanted.”

Curran gave me a look that said he wasn’t buying it for a minute.

Elijah returned, hesitating on the steps when he saw us talking. “Everything still okay?” he asked.

With a grunt, Curran levered himself up. “She’s stirring. Probably not long until her next peak. She got some good rest this time, though. Look, lad—I know this situation is a mess, but you don’t have to disappear into the loo to take care of yourself if you don’t want to. It’s a heat. It’s not as though you’re gonna offend us.”

Elijah flushed, but he resumed his journey down to the cabin. Meanwhile, I tried not to think about Elijah and Emma both writhing naked in ecstasy among the pillows.

“Didn’t think you needed any more distractions,” he muttered, not meeting our eyes.

“It’s a heat,” Curran said again. “Unplanned, sure. But it might as well be as pleasant as the five of us can make it, and afterward we’ll walk away friends.”

“What happens in the Aegean stays in the Aegean,” Onyx put in from the floor. “Oh, and also—incoming.”