Page 47 of Altius (The Scent of Victory #2)

Twenty-Nine

Morgan

T he next week was a surreal, blissful blur.

Every morning, I woke up to kisses from Wyatt. Then we worked out together in my gym and shared a quick shower. He wasn’t a breakfast person, but he’d eat some oatmeal if I bribed him with gobs of maple syrup and candied pecans.

We filled our daily commutes with random questions and laughter.

In the evenings, he followed me home for dinner.

Cal joined us when he could, eating alpha-sized portions of the larger meals Kelsey started preparing unprompted.

That meant there was plenty to go around if Jacobi stayed in for the night, or when the smell of crockpot beef stew lured Joaquin and Alijah to our door, looking like a pair of starving Victorian orphans.

The next night, Alijah invited us to dinner at their place. Between bites of spaghetti with homemade Bolognese sauce, he and Kelsey decided that group meals would be a regular thing moving forward.

My evenings didn’t change much. I spent them in the library nest, with either Cal or Wyatt working beside me. The space wasn’t big enough for three. At least we all fit on the mattress in my nest.

The cats weren’t thrilled by the group sleepovers.

Kip took a few nights to find his preferred perch: a mound of extra pillows in the corner, where he could keep a watchful eye on me while I slept.

Tenny, meanwhile, resigned himself to wriggling in wherever he could fit, even if it meant suffering the indignity of touching Cal.

But I couldn’t pretend things were perfect.

Wyatt had a serious problem with insomnia. I often woke to find him sitting in one of the cushy accent chairs in my nest, scrolling through his phone in the dark, trying his best not to disturb us.

He’d tiptoe back to bed before five-thirty and pretend he’d slept fine, even when the bags under his eyes rivaled Cal’s.

That was a whole other mess entirely.

The Verray situation was sucking him dry like a capitalist vampire. He was fine at work if he drank enough coffee. In the evenings, he was constantly on his phone or darting off to answer his father’s summons to the family compound.

On the nights he spent with me, Cal slept like the dead, which made me worry he wasn’t sleeping at all otherwise, just running on caffeine and spite. He was determined to get Heather the VP job, no matter what.

“It’s not fair,” Cal grumbled Thursday morning as he followed me and Wyatt toward the elevator. “He’s spent every night with you this year.”

I scoffed. We were only nine days into the new year.

Wyatt hiked his stuffed duffel bag higher on his shoulder and shook his head. “No, what’s not fair is that I have to spend the next three days chaperoning, coaching, and being a responsible adult while you monopolize her.”

“If you don’t like the time-share arrangement,” I said, pressing the call button and shooting a sarcastic look over my shoulder, “we can renegotiate…to zero.”

“Don’t be like that, baby,” Wyatt murmured, sliding a hand over my hip as he pressed against my back, nuzzling my neck. “We’re perfectly content—”

Cal grabbed the strap of Wyatt’s duffel and yanked him away. “Yes, very content. Even if some of us are still struggling with the rules, like no scent-marking before work.”

“Sorry,” Wyatt said as the elevator arrived.

He held the door, letting me on first, Cal next—and then Owen, who materialized out of thin air, as crisp and cold as ever, travel mug of coffee in hand. After giving us each a cutting glance, Owen stepped into the elevator, not waiting for Wyatt to get on before pressing the garage button.

Wyatt lunged through the closing doors. They caught on his duffel, the seams creaking under the pressure before the safety sensors kicked in. The bag dropped to the floor with a heavy thud.

“What’s your problem?” Wyatt grumbled, reaching down to grab it.

Owen took a leisurely sip of coffee.

“Nothing,” he said dryly as he glanced in my direction. “Just enjoying the show.”

“Huh.” Cal rocked back on his heels as a slow smile spread over his face. “Never knew you liked to watch.”

A loaded silence filled the tight space. Owen stared at the display screen, his mouth compressing into a tighter, grimmer line with every passing floor.

I bit my lip, trying my hardest not to smile.

Wyatt cracked first with a blustery guffaw, which triggered Cal.

Their laughter rang through my head for the rest of the day—but not as loudly as the faint smirk Owen shot my way as he stepped out of the elevator.

***

The biting wind couldn’t wipe the smile off my face as I exited my doctor’s office Friday afternoon. And it wasn’t because a silver pickup truck was waiting for me at the curb.

Cal leaned across the center console as I approached, pushing open the passenger door for me.

Hurrying the last few steps, I climbed inside and launched myself across the seat into his arms.

“Clear to drive?” he asked with a chuckle.

“Yes, but that’s not all. I got lucky. Super fucking lucky.” Holding a handful of paperwork, I showed him my temperature, blood pressure, white blood cell count, and liver levels. “All back to normal.”

“Almost.” Cal reviewed the printouts with skepticism.

Sure, my temperature was still a little too high, and my white blood cell count was elevated, but my heat had done wonders for my overall health.

“You lost another three pounds?”

“Don’t act like you had nothing to do with it.” Taking the paperwork back, I slid it into my bag. “If anything, we should celebrate it wasn’t more.”

Leaning against his solid arm, I peered up at Cal over the rims of my glasses.

“Rory’s been complaining about gaining the freshman fifteen.

One of his friends told him to have an early heat so that he could drop his mate weight.

At least, that’s what we used to call it.

Guess the kids say they’re going on a knotty diet. ”

He cut me off with an amused kiss. “Where to—loft or dinner out?”

“Dinner out. A dinner date , to be more precise.” Unzipping my coat, I flashed the shoulder of the preppy blue varsity sweater underneath. “It’s Friday. You know what that means?”

“The all-you-can-eat snow crab special,” Cal said, pulling me in for a longer, more affectionate kiss. “You absolute minx.”

He started the truck and headed for the downtown expressway, in the opposite direction of campus, the stadium, the bridge…and home.

Picking at the seatbelt, I voiced what had been bothering me for the past few weeks. “So hypothetically, if your girlfriend—your perfect, minxy girlfriend who enables your crab addiction—happened to have a shitty memory and wasn’t sure about something…”

“Something like?” he asked, easing off the accelerator to let a sports car cut in front of us.

“Oh, nothing much,” I said lightly, suddenly finding the cuticle of my left thumb fascinating. “Just professing her love and begging you to move in with her during her heat.”

“I would have been very flattered. Touched. Happy.” Cal’s hand settled on my knee. “But I would have known better than to accept. Heats are weird. Things get said. A lot of which doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.”

“What about right now, on a gloomy winter afternoon?” I asked, trying not to get my hopes up.

“That depends.” He paused, glancing in the rearview mirror, but his thumb never stopped stroking my leg.

“I don’t want to negatively impact Kelsey.

Given the collective strength of our pheromones, there’s no way Wyatt or I could move in if Beaufeather’s is still there.

She can’t sell merchandise that smells like sex. ”

“You never know. Might boost sales.”

Cal very nobly resisted rolling his eyes.

“We’re an imposition. I know she likes cooking for a crowd, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she wants to live with us.

I’ve already freaked her out once, when she walked in on me in the kitchen, wearing nothing but my boxers, getting a glass of water in the middle of the night. And I know how much you depend on her.”

“True,” I said. His thoughts mirrored my own. “But if —and it’s a big if—certain contingencies were met…”

“I’d move in tomorrow. If that was the case.”

“And your condo?”

“Your dad can sell it. Never liked the place anyway.” Cal winked into the rearview mirror as he changed lanes. “Too many blue walls.”

***

I was curled up in my library nest on Sunday night, ignoring the dull throb in the right side of my head as I reviewed the gymnastics team’s PheroPass data.

Tenny was snuggled against my hip, while Kip was sprawled out along the ledge, tickling my elbow with his tail.

A dense form barreled through the door and flopped onto the pillows beside me.

Kip scaled the cat tree to safety, but Tenny didn’t so much as flinch, just gave a few lazy half-blinks at Wyatt and went back to sleep.

My newest boyfriend wrapped an arm around my waist and beamed up at me. “Hi, baby. Hope you didn’t miss me too much.”

“How could I miss you,” I teased, tabbing to a respiration rate dashboard, “when I have fresh data to sink my teeth into?”

“Just like Owen planned,” Wyatt grumbled, rubbing his cheek against my side. “Keep you too distracted to take pity on me. The poor man who couldn’t stop thinking about you all weekend. My scent got so bad, I had to take a double dose of my scent blockers to make it through the meet.”

My heart lurched. Since my levels had improved, I’d assumed it would be the same for Wyatt. But what if that wasn’t the case?

I set the tablet aside. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. There were too many people.” He shifted higher, nuzzling my torso. “A bunch of girls from when you used to compete are coaching now, too. They kept trying to get my number or convince me to grab drinks. Made my alpha all twitchy.”

His eyes drifted shut.

“Just need to bring something with your scent next time. I guess I still don’t believe this is real.”

The relief I felt knowing that his waning syndrome hadn’t worsened outweighed the vicious snarl from my omega, thinking about other women approaching our scent match.

I trailed my fingers through his hair, watching as his breathing evened out and his shoulders relaxed. This could be his first proper sleep in days.

“The feeling’s mutual,” I whispered, draping a blanket over him, then returned to my data review.