Page 40 of How to Lose a Pack in 10 Dates

Wes

W e hit the steps two at a time.

Jace is ahead, and Cam’s right behind me. No one’s spoken since the car. No one’s needed to. Even Cam’s quiet for once, which is how I know he’s barely holding it together.

And the silence says everything:

We fucked this up. So badly we might not come back from it.

The article—the real one—said it all. So did Zara, with that cracked voice and those wide, tired eyes.

She’s not eating. Her messages don’t make sense. She loved you.

That’s what she was afraid of.

I didn’t listen. I never fucking listened .

We reach her floor, and I wouldn’t even have to check the door number—I’d know which is hers from the scent alone. It punches through the air; too sweet, too sharp, too wrong . It’s instinct gone rotten—soured with stress and fractured with panic.

Jace sways slightly, catching himself on the wall. Cam exhales a broken, “ Shit ,” behind me, and I feel his hand clench the back of my shirt.

My fists tighten. It’s her heat, but it’s not just her heat—it’s completely erratic. She’s not riding it out with a bonded alpha or a stocked nest. She’s surviving it, barely; and she’s doing it alone .

A white-hot bolt of something rips through my chest. Guilt. Rage. Grief. All of it.

I’m the one that told her to leave. I’m the one who looked her in the eye and called her a mistake.

And I’m the one who didn’t believe her when she begged me to.

Now she’s behind this door, delirious and wrecked, scenting so hard I can barely stay upright—and it’s my fucking fault.

“Aimee?” Cam moves first, knocking hard against the wood. “It’s us. We—we read the article. We know now. We know we were wrong. We… we came to talk.”

There’s no answer.

He knocks again, faster now, more desperate. “Aimee. Come on, please—open the door.”

Jace moves to the side and presses his ear to the wood, listening for movement. My hands curl into fists as another few beats of silence pass between us, and I can’t handle it any more. I step forward, crowding the door, my instincts roaring.

I hit the wood with the flat of my palm. “Aimee. Open the door.”

…Nothing.

“Babe,” I say, my voice shaky now. “Open the door.”

Still. Nothing.

Cam rattles the handle. “ Fuck —she’s in there, I know she’s in there—”

“She might not even know we’re real,” Jace mutters. “Zara said she wasn’t making sense.”

I’m not waiting any longer to find out.

“Fuck this,” I mutter, stepping back.

Cam glances at me. “Wes—”

But I’m already bracing my foot.

The door cracks on the first kick, then buckles on the second. On the third, it slams open, the lock splintering clean through the frame.

Her scent’s everywhere. It’s too raw, too desperate; her body crying out for comfort, for safety, for us , and we weren’t fucking there. I barely register Cam saying her name, or Jace darting ahead.

All I can hear is the sound of my own heart breaking.

Still, I move; every instinct I’ve got screaming find her, find her, find her. Her apartment’s hardly huge, and we follow the scent, quickly finding her in her bedroom.

For a second, I think I’m too late. She’s curled on the bed, half-wrapped in blankets and oversized shirts, her body slick with sweat while simultaneously shaking like a leaf.

She’s almost unrecognizable: her face is blotchy, dark eyes glassy and unfocused, and her lips are completely dry.

There’s a small pile of water bottles on the nightstand, but they’re all unopened. One’s been knocked to the floor.

She blinks at us. Doesn’t move, doesn’t speak—just stares .

“Aimee?” Jace says gently, moving closer.

She blinks again. And then—

“No,” she whispers, barely audible. “No, no, no, you’re not—you’re not real—”

Her voice cracks halfway through. I watch with wide eyes as she presses her face into the nearest hoodie, shivering, her whole body curling inward like she’s trying to disappear. Her scent spikes again—wild, distressed, soaked in omega need and pain—and I can’t take it.

Cam swallows hard. “She’s not lucid.”

“She’s been in this too long,” I mutter. “She’s gone past the spike. She’s burning through it.”

“She didn’t call anyone,” Cam says, looking around like he’s searching for answers. “She didn’t tell anyone—”

“Because we didn’t let her,” I snap.

Aimee whimpers into the fabric clutched in her hands, then lets out a sound that absolutely fucking destroys me—half sob, half desperate moan.

Her legs twitch under the covers like she’s trying to crawl out of her own skin, like everything hurts and nothing helps; and I can feel my control slipping with every second I breathe her in.

“Jace,” I snap, my voice rough and low. “We need to cool her down. Cam—get water. Towels. Anything—just go.”

She cries out again, and this time it lands like a punch right to my chest.

Because it’s not just pain. It’s abandonment. It’s betrayal.

And it’s my fucking fault.

I crouch beside the bed, trying to block out the chaos in my own head, the instinct screaming that I need to fix this, that I should’ve fixed this days ago.

“Aimee,” I say, forcing my voice to steady. “It’s us. We’re here. You’re safe.”

She lets out a wet, broken laugh that cracks something clean down the middle in me.

“No, you’re not,” she whispers, not looking. “You’re not real. You’re just my brain being cruel again.”

“Shit,” Cam breathes behind me, reappearing with a cold glass of water. His hands are visibly shaking. “She doesn’t even believe we came.”

“She’s delirious,” Jace says hoarsely, kneeling on the other side of the bed. His eyes land on the untouched food, the discarded suppressant bottle, the wreckage of her nest. “She’s been like this… alone.”

Because of us. Because of me .

Cam reaches out to push the damp hair from her forehead, his touch impossibly gentle.

“Hey, sunshine,” he says softly. “It’s really us. We’re here.”

Her lashes flutter like she’s trying to blink through fog; and then, her deep, dark eyes land on me. She shudders, and every instinct in me is howling to reach out to her. My scent-match. My Omega. And I left her in heat, terrified and alone.

Again.

My throat burns as I force the words out. “I looked at you and saw betrayal when I should’ve seen the truth. I was wrong, Aimee. I was so fucking wrong . ”

Her lashes flutter again, catching on tears she doesn’t try to wipe away.

They slip free; thick, heavy drops that trail down flushed cheeks and disappear into the mess of blankets and borrowed clothes.

She tries to curl away from us, tucking herself deeper into the nest she built in our absence, as if she can make herself vanish.

But she can’t hide her scent.

I feel it in the tight coil of instinct winding in my gut, and judging by the way Cam stiffens beside me and the way Jace swears under his breath and drags a hand through his hair, I’m not the only one drowning in it.

I clench my jaw, trying to breathe through it, trying not to lose myself to the pull of it—but it’s hard.

Harder still when I catch the way her body trembles.

She’s deep in heat, and we fucking left her to it.

My eyes widen as she gasps; a ragged, broken sound that makes all three of us flinch.

“I need—” she starts, voice high and cracking, then stops herself. Shakes her head like she’s ashamed to even say it.

I inch closer, planting a hand on the mattress for balance.

“Aimee,” I say. “Tell us. Tell me. Whatever it is, we’ll do it. We’ll take care of you. I swear.”

Her eyes lock onto mine, and it kills me: the want, the shame, the fury—

The need .

“I don’t want to want you,” she says. “Any of you.”

Cam kneels at the other side of the bed. His hands are gentle, his voice even softer as he lifts the glass to her lips.

“I know,” he murmurs. “But you do. And so do we.”

She drinks. Her hands are too unsteady to hold the glass, her throat working around it like even that takes effort. She whimpers after, her body jolting as though the cold made it worse instead of better, then she buries her face in a shirt again, muffling another broken sound.

“My body…” she chokes out. “It hurts. Everything’s too hot. And it won’t—it won’t stop. I can’t—”

Jace growls, then rips off his hoodie in a rush. It’s clear to see he’s moving on nothing but instinct as he climbs into bed with her. His arms come around her from behind, and she keens at the contact, trying to twist into him, pressing her back against his chest as her scent spikes again.

I have to grit my teeth to stay grounded.

Cam sets the glass down and helps shift the blankets, whispering soothing nonsense as he dampens a towel and gently presses it to the back of her neck. She gasps at the coolness, and I reach for her hand.

“I’m going to touch you now,” I warn her. “Just hold your hand.”

She gives a shaky nod as I take her small hand in mind. Her fingers are ice; but the rest of her body is on fire.

This is what we did. What I did.

We left our omega to burn; and now we’re going to stay with her through every second of the fallout.

“Just breathe, Aims,” Jace says, nuzzling her temple. “We’ve got you.”

“Let go,” Cam adds, his voice low. “Let us help. You don’t have to fight it anymore.”

She looks at me one more time. My breath catches as she hesitates before finally— finally —she whispers the one word I’ve been waiting for.

“ Please .”