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“Yes, that should be more than enough time,” Dr. Kind says, but I’m already walking away.

I’m not made for the cold, and the Minnesota wind is impossible. It insists on blowing up my coat and chilling me to the bone. No, I’m going back to Georgia immediately.

Nina, you brought this on yourself.

Nina

I’m so hot.My head whips wildly from side to side as I try to get away. All I can think about is knots and the warmth of Ethan and Cooper’s bodies.

Why aren’t they here? Why didn’t they fight for me?!

Screaming as a clenching pain in my lower belly tears through my body, I continue to writhe.

“Please. Please!” I beg, crying. “I need them!”

“Why do you need them?” a voice asks.

My eyelashes are sticking together from the salt in my tearsand I can’t fix it with my arms tied down, which means I’m partially blind.

“It hurts,” I groan. “I need them to fix me.”

I’m not so far gone yet that I want to tell a complete stranger about the knots I need to fill me. I hate that I didn’t make the time to learn about what happens during a heat or how alphas are meant to take care of an omega.

I bet Cooper would be amazing at it…

“Cooper, who is that?” the voice asks.

Fuck a duck. I don’t want to tell them anything, so I press my lips together. Pain has a way of making me say too much, I guess. No more, I won’t…

“It appears as if you’re having your heat, Nina,” another voice cuts in. “Have you ever had one before?”

“No,” I wheeze. “It hurts.”

“It only does if you don’t have a pack,” the man says.

Yes, well no shit, Sherlock.

I won’t know if Ethan or Cooper would have wanted to be my alphas. They called me theirs and I thought they were mine. We didn’t have enough time to discuss anything. We needed more time.

“No pack,” I whine.

I don’t know what I mean by this as I start to tremble and cry. My entire body burns, my pussy begs for a knot. I’m a mess of slick and pain.

“We’ll help you make it through,” one of the men says, wheeling into a room. It feels cooler, which means it may as well be freezing next to my overheated skin. “Now be a good girl and don’t move.”

Everyone wants me to be ‘good’. What if I don’t want to be? I want to be bad, terrible even, if it means I get to live my life on my terms. What I wouldn’t give to erase the last twenty-four hours of my life.

Maybe I wouldn’t be having a heat at all if I hadn’treconnected with Cooper and Ethan. Maybe I wouldn’t be in this position and Mom wouldn’t have found me.

I’m wallowing because I’m in pain and I hate everything. Especially my mother. I really want her to rot in hell.

A prick in my arm makes me flinch, and my eyes are carefully washed with a wet cloth. I’m surrounded by two men in white coats and orderlies. The walls are a blinding white as well, and it’s as if the color has all been washed away.

Is that what I have to look forward to?

Whatever is in the bag hanging over my head dripping into my vein burns, but my body is relaxing at an alarming rate. A part of me wants to hang on, but the medication is ripping through my system and making my eyes closed.

I should have known better than to run. My mom always gets her way.