Page 99 of In Doubt

“Do you want me to come with you?” Jake asks. “Or one of the others?”

“No, I … I need some space.”

Jake looks as if he might argue but Levi silences him with a jab of his elbow.

We all watch as she hobbles from the room. She’s obviously sore from all the rutting and knots she’s taken. I want to make that right but now isn’t the time.

The bedroom door opens, then shuts, and the key turns in the lock.

I turn to the others. They look as if they just witnessed a car crash.

Fuck!

25

Giorgie

The next 24 hours are some of the worst of my life. Flailing about in my now empty nest, enduring the agony of my heat without any means of relief.

The contractions in my womb rip through my body, and I scream in agony, clutching onto the covers, and my whole body drenched in sweat. Slick flows from my core soaking the mattress, and my skin is too tight. I scratch at it, at the gland at the back of my neck and soon my skin is marked by red welts.

I bite on my knuckles, pull at my hair, try my best to suppress my screams and cries, knowing I’m provoking the alphas out there.

Alphas I don’t want anywhere near me. I don’t care that their phones are locked away. I don’t care that they’ve promised to take care of me.

This was a mistake. A stupid, stupid mistake. And I am a stupid, foolish girl for ever believing it would be otherwise.

Because I’m damaged. Permanently and irrevocably damaged and scarred by what happened to me. Seduced by the charms of an alpha, fooled into sharing my heat with him, only to be taken advantage of. It changed me, and this is who I am now. I shouldn’t pretend I’m something I’m not. An omega who can enjoy her heat, enjoy her body, explore her desires.

I need to stick to safe and simple.

Jake Grantham, Jake Grantham’s pack, are anything but.

It doesn’t stop my traitorous body from wanting them though. Their scents hang heavy in the room like delicious, tempting fruit. Their come stains the sheets. And I can’t stop myself from taking large lungfuls of those aromas or from rolling in their mess, wanting it all over my skin. It does little to relieve me, only drives me wilder. But I hardly know my own mind, barely able to hang on to that thread of truth, remembering who I really am.

My feverish mind keeps delivering up flashes of memories that have me sobbing. Jake kissing me under the stars, Levi’s fingertips brushing my skin in the swimming pool, sucking Dylan’s sugar-sweetened finger, even the way Aiden had taken control of the situation out there in the kitchen.

And the sex too. So good, I make my lip bleed when I bite down on it to stop from calling for those alphas, begging for more.

I can’t trust myself not to fall apart again. And no matter how bad this is now, that dark place, that terrifying black pit, is a million, million times worse.

Time bends and warps, the light in the room bright one moment, dark the next. Shadows shift, the air warms and stales. The pain never stops.

Until finally, it does.

I jolt awake, tangled in the bed sheets, the light in the room a dull grey.

I blink up at the ceiling. The ache between my legs has dulled and the pain subsided. For the first time in days I feel cool air rush against my skin and I am no longer boiling hot.

It’s over. At last, it’s over.

I roll onto my side, hugging my body.

I allow myself to cry a little with relief and, because, if I’m honest, I feel miserably sorry for myself.

After a few minutes of this self indulgence, I wipe my face with my palm and scoot to the edge of the bed. It’s completely trashed. The sheets and blankets will have to be burnt and the mattress binned. I will cover the cost of the damage, I can’t ask the alphas to do that.

At the edge of the bed, I wrap one of the less soiled blankets around my frame, and pick up my phone from the side table. It’s been turned off for the whole of my heat. Only I have the passcode to switch it on.