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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

NAKOA

G race hasn’t been feeling well since we set out to secure the weapons stash and vehicles needed to storm North Shore.

She doesn’t have her usual sassy comebacks to Raphi’s taunts or Leo’s endless intrusive questions.

Doesn’t comment on how we should still focus on finding Faith, who’s she’s deluded herself isn’t dead in the wreckage.

As her alpha, I can no longer ignore her strange symptoms. I’m getting enough shit for supporting her in her revenge. Emilio is especially put off, the only other apex on South Shore.

I don’t fear a rebellion. What I fear is losing this fragile peace we’ve build between all of us by ignoring what seems so obvious.

Raphael bit her nape, mated Grace. But this scent, this isn’t a new heat thankfully. And maybe the fairytales are real. But my fear is primal as we reach the mountain where we’ll find deliverance.

It started with a slight fever that she brushed off as too many nights trekking to the wet, cold crumbling streets of Providence’s main road.

But I wasn’t buying it and neither were Raphael and Leo who’s intense gazes wavered with fear in time with the flickering campfire as we got situated off the main road and settled in for the night.

We still had about a week to go before we reached this so-called boat that was big enough and strong enough to brave the waves and get us close to the north sector.

But all our plans fell to the wayside at the terrifying thought that Grace was sick and getting worse.

She threw up most of the white fish, looking more feverish than she had during the height of her magnificent heat.

Then she guided my trembling fingertips to her…

Wait? When was our too thin omega so round and soft?

My eyebrows furrowed, remembering that she wouldn’t let us touch her for this last week either. And then I gasped as if I was just slapped in the face because I also realized something more important.

Blood.

Leo and Raphael. have first picked up on the center of an omega in heat. But the first smell that sent me off the day Grace crash landed into our life was blood.

The blood of the dead pilots. The blood of dying alpha fighting to claim. But most importantly, the sickly sweet and then strangely musky scent of period blood. It was something Rapahel had to explain to me, that female omegas went through every month they were unclaimed and not bred.

It was also something that I hadn’t smelled since Grace came.

“You’re—”

“Pregnant,” she cut me off and then she hung her head in shame.

“Calling off the mission isn’t possible, Raphi. And you know that.”

He’s spiraling.

“Prey for me. Hunt with me. Don’t even thing about leaving me before we get our revenge.”

I give in, drown in the combined floral and forest complimentary pehermones in the air, wondering if this will be my mate’s last heat, my last rut, and our pack’s last chance to unite our bodies and hearts as one.

And then I see it, the fear and self loathing.

You’re nothing like him.

He pulls me into his waist then hoists me skyward, so I can wrap my legs around them.

I’ll prove it to you. Prove that I’m worthy to be your mate. To be a part of this pack.

I allow him to carry me over the threshold of the boat back down to shore and smile into his neck. The sound of the sand crunching under his heavy steps is strangely soothing, compared to the sauntering sparks and hammer strikes coming from our ticket out of paradise.

Then Raphael sets me down on the at the back so the guys can keep hard at work, without me distracting them. I know my pheromones are leaking out at an alarming rate.

Before he leaves me under the canopy of palm leaves he kneels and rests his head on my stomach.

I kiss the top of his head, tears welling up in my eyes

How can I convey to Raphael, my alpha, that he’s more than worthy to be mine? How can I make him see that he was always worthy before me?