Page 38 of How to Lose a Pack in 10 Dates

Aimee

I don’t cry anymore. I think I used all of my tears up the last three days. Now, I just sit at my desk like a ghost; silent, hollow, and quietly unraveling one cell at a time.

I haven’t eaten properly in days. Every bite I attempt just sits in my throat like cement. Lex and Zara have been hovering: texting, dropping snacks off, threatening to drag me outside, but I keep telling them I’m busy, that the article needs finishing, that I’m fine .

Which is a lie.

I am anything but fine.

The buzzing in my head won’t stop no matter how many pills I take to try and ease it.

My vision blurs if I move too fast, and my body feels too hot and too cold all at once.

I’m clammy, but my hands shake when I type.

I’m sweating through my shirt even though the air-con’s on full blast, and the scent of the guy two desks over is making my skin crawl.

“Jesus,” Rachel mutters, standing over me. I didn’t even register her approach. “You look like you’ve just been dragged backward through a heatwave.”

I blink up at her. “Huh?”

“You reek of stress, you’re sweating through your blouse, and you’ve typed the word ‘betrayal’ eight times in one paragraph.” She pins me with a look sharp enough to draw blood. “Go home, Aimee. Before you crash and burn all over my office.”

I open my mouth to argue, but my tongue is heavy.

And truthfully, I’m too tired to lie anymore.

“I just need to finish the article,” I tell her, my voice cracked and brittle. “It’s basically finished, now; it just needs an edit. I can—”

“No,” Rachel cuts in. “I’ve got access to your drive: I’ll handle the polish. Just get yourself home, and take the time you need until you feel… better.”

The shame burns deeper than anger ever could, but I nod anyway, pushing myself to stand. The room tilts slightly, and I steady myself against my desk.

“Text me when you get home,” Rachel sighs. “And for the love of god, woman: hydrate .”

*

The silence hits hard when I finally unlock my door and stumble inside. There’s no laughter or teasing voices, no heavy alpha footsteps or comforting scent. It’s just the sound of my own heartbeat, hammering too fast, too loud.

I kick off my shoes and peel off my jacket, shivering. My shirt clings to me, damp with sweat. My scent’s all wrong; sour with stress and sharp with something worse— grief . My skin prickles all over as I head to my room on autopilot, trying to hold it together long enough to make it to the bed.

But when I open the door, I stop short.

The space looks… different .

There’s a second blanket folded at the end of the bed, and my old nightgown tossed on top.

The pillow from the couch is nestled behind mine now, flanked by two of Cam’s shirts—ones I swiped and never gave back.

There’s a box of tea packets on the nightstand, my favorite lip balm, and a hoodie that isn’t mine, but smells faintly like Jace.

I blink. Once. Twice.

I didn’t plan this, but it’s all there: the soft things. The familiar scents. The quiet, instinctive curation of comfort.

I stagger back a step, panic rising like bile.

Fuck. I’ve started to nest.

My skin prickles as warmth rolls through me in jagged, burning waves, and my knees buckle as the air thickens around me.

Oh god . This is it.

My heat’s starting, and it’s not the good kind, either. Not the sweet, instinctual bloom of want that sneaks up during scent-matched banter or warm touches in the kitchen. This is something else entirely: something sharper, something hungrier.

This is stress-induced. Trauma-triggered.

My body is panicking, and it wants them . It wants safety and scent and grounding hands. It wants the pack I lost, the pack I broke.

I stumble forward and crumple onto the bed, barely catching myself before I hit the mattress face-first. My fingers clutch blindly at the tangled mess of fabric until they land on Jace’s hoodie. I drag it close and press my face into it.

It still smells like him, but underneath that, it smells like all of them. A blur of alpha and memory; of warmth and weight and everything I can’t have anymore.

I breathe it in like it might fix something, like it might make the ache go away, and god, I hate them. I hate them for not listening, for not believing me, for turning on me the second it got hard. For looking at me like I was nothing.

But beneath it all, I hate myself even more.

This is all my fault. I pushed it too far. Played with fire and got burned. I let it become real, and now I’m here; heart cracked open, instincts spiraling, completely, irrevocably alone.

“I didn’t mean to,” I whisper to no one. My voice is hoarse, my throat raw. “I was trying to protect myself. That’s all I was doing.”

But that’s not true. Not really. I played with something delicate and real and sacred, and now I’m alone, wrecked by the very thing I swore wouldn’t happen.

My head swims as I curl up tighter. My body’s already trembling again, slick dripping between my thighs, muscles locking with another sharp pulse of heat.

I close my eyes, and they’re there. Not really - but I swear I can hear their voices, can feel phantom touches.

I see Wes kneel beside me, palm on my sweat-slick back, whispering, You’re safe. I’ve got you.

I feel Cam kiss my shoulder and say, Let me help, baby. Let me make it better.

I hear Jace groan in my ear; Fuck, you’re so sweet like this. Let us take care of you.

It’s not real. And it never will be again.

I curl into the wreckage of the nest I didn’t mean to build.

Everything is soaked. My whole body feels wrong, my limbs aching with the need to be held and touched and scent-marked.

The air feels abrasive, and I can almost feel them: still reaching, still bleeding.

I press a pillow between my legs on the off chance that it might quiet the screaming in my body.

It doesn’t.

My body wants them. My heart wants them.

And I am completely, utterly alone.

The sob cracks out of me before I can stop it. Then another. And another. They wrack through me, curling my body into a tighter knot of pain and want and shame, and I bite my own hand to muffle the sound.

I’m going into heat, and no one’s coming. They won’t touch me. They won’t scent me. They won’t believe me.

I whisper their names, one by one. And still, no one comes.

I’m not just alone: I’m abandoned .