Page 105 of In Doubt

Especially me.

Because this is my fault.

I’m always the one fucking up. The one letting this pack down.

First the damn journalist and those articles.

Now Giorgie.

I can’t get the image of her out of my head, curled up like the world was falling in around her.

I did that to her. My carelessness. Of course an omega would freak out if they caught an alpha wielding a phone in a heat, regardless of past history.

We promised Jake, promised her, we’d look after her, and I had failed.

I peer up at my packmates, Levi’s typing frantically on his phone and Dylan’s staring out the window, hands in his pockets.

“You think Jake’s going to be alright?” I ask. It’s him I’m most concerned about. He’s always insisted he hated this girl. I’ve always suspected he’s been in love with her. They say there is a thin line between hate and love and maybe they are right.

This whole situation is really screwed up.

My fault.

I can’t decide what’s worse. That I’ve hurt him or her.

“I don’t know,” Dylan says, wiping at a smudge on the glass with the heel of his hand. “I still feel fucking awful. Like we actually did the thing she suspected us of. Like I am a sicko, an abuser.”

I cringe at his words. Dylan shouldn’t be blaming himself.

“You’re not,” I tell him.

He turns around and stares at Levi. “Am I?” he asks him. I’m not privy to what goes on in the bedroom between those two but it seems he needs Levi’s reassurance right now.

Levi rests his phone on his thigh. “No, Dylan, you’re not.”

Dylan nods a little but doesn’t look convinced. And that feeling, that feeling of being the outsider, the intruder, comes flooding back. Where are my words of comfort? My reassurance?

Is it because they hold me responsible? They jumped to conclusions, hadn’t they? Immediately, assumed the worst of me when they found us together, her screaming.

I screw up my eyes.

The sound of tyres on gravel has us all turning to the window and we go to meet Jake on the driveway.

He looks no better than when we left him as he climbs out of the car. I’m reminded of the last time we got properly beaten on the rugby pitch. No, not just beaten. We got our arses served up to us on a plate. We’d been humiliated, tired, sore and most of all fucked off with ourselves.

Jake had stewed for 24 hours before pulling himself out of it and throwing himself into training.

This time I don’t think it will be as easy.

“Alright, mate?” I ask, resting my hand on his shoulder, searching his face for what I’m sure must be blame.

He still smells of the omega and the aroma has my stupid gland tingling in my neck.

Has me remembering how beautiful, how vulnerable, she looked when I made her come.

“Fuck knows,” he mutters.

“How was she?”