Page 6 of Secure Touch (Her Vicious Pack #8)

Jorge

My heart is still racing as I try to spread as many calming and reassuring pheromones around me as I can, flooding the bathroom together with Caleb, Riley and Luca.

What the fuck just happened?

I’d read that Omegas suffering from pheromone withdrawal can act in irrational and unpredictable ways, but what just happened with Mathew and Vera wasn’t just ‘irrational’ or ‘unpredictable’, it was fucking dangerous.

We were lucky that by the time Caleb and Riley managed to drag Mathew into the bathroom, Mathew didn’t have all his energy left anymore. And we were double lucky that Vera didn’t put up a fight when Caleb went to get her from the ruined nest.

The nest…

Their beautiful nest…

Mathew and Vera have always been so happy with their nest, this one and the previous one, so to see them trying to rip it apart...

Fucking hell.

It broke my heart.

It’s clear that things with them are much worse than we expected.

The plan was to flood the bedroom and the nest with our pheromones and then all climb into the nest together and wait out this pheromone withdrawal ordeal.

But the moment we stepped into the bedroom, Mathew and Vera were having none of it.

First, Vera got all upset when Caleb didn’t move off the blanket she wanted quickly enough and once she got the blanket, she started opening doors, clearly looking for something and not finding it.

But, before we could figure out what was going on with her, I saw Mathew cut open a pillow from the nest with a knife, spilling the filling everywhere.

Caleb managed to get the knife away from him without seeming to distress Mathew even more, but that didn’t stop Mathew from ripping the rest of the pillowcase apart with his bare hands, before moving onto other items.

I’ve never seen an Omega so intent on destroying their nest.

Mathew and Vera love their nest. And somehow, they were set on destroying the whole thing.

Luckily, once we got them into the bathroom and they retreated to the bathtub, the two Omegas quickly fell asleep. This gives us a couple of moments to rest, to think, to figure out what’s going on.

“I think it’s the lack of settled scents.” Luca’s voice is strained and he’s very pale right now. “Vera said that she was looking for ‘home’. I think the lack of any normal ‘house’ scents and lack of established pheromones that have collected in rooms over time are messing with their heads.”

He closes his eyes tightly, his breathing hard behind his mask. “I’m sorry. I’ll be right back.”

He quickly gets up and rushes out of the bathroom, making sure to leave the bathroom door open only long enough to slip through before he closes it behind him again.

I look at the other two Alphas, who seem to be thinking what Luca said over. “Do you think he’s right, that this doesn’t feel real to them? They can see all the usual things around them, but the lack of normal scents is making them feel that this is some fake world?”

When we left Mathew’s office to come upstairs, the explicit lack of scents while every other one of my senses told me that this was still the same place as ever was jarring. It didn’t feel wrong , but was definitely strange.

But for Omegas who are already having pheromone withdrawal problems, that jarring sensation might have been much more unsettling, might have triggered some instincts that were already on high-alert.

“To them, everything looking right but there being a distinct lack of scents might have been like a nightmare.” I let out a long breath, my heart heavy. “Fuck.”

If you look at their behaviour that way, it makes total sense. If they feel that all of this is a nightmare, then it makes sense that they wanted to destroy the nest.

What better way to fight yourself out of a nightmare than to get rid of it? Than to destroy it?

Like they’re not dealing with enough as it is.

Like this pack isn’t dealing with enough shit as it is.

I hope that Mathew and Vera getting some sleep will help them, especially if they get enough of our pheromones while they do so. Even if the bath really isn’t the most comfortable place to sleep for anyone, they seem calm right now, which is much better than before.

“How can we help them see that this isn’t a nightmare?

” Riley looks at our Omegas with pain in her gaze.

“How can we help them see that there isn’t anything bad or dangerous going on here?

That this is the real world?” She looks at me and then at Caleb, who shrugs, looking as lost as the rest of us.

“I wish I had an answer. But I think, right now, that the only way to help them is to help them recover from the pheromone withdrawal. Once that’s a bit better, this should no longer be as big of an issue.” Caleb stands up, stretching, which seems to wake up Vera, who lets out a soft whine.

I reach out, carefully stroking her messy hair, trying to help her get back to sleep.

The pheromone withdrawal is the main issue, once we solve that, the rest should go away too.

But that could take days, which, ehhh...

I’m not looking forward to being locked in here, in the bathroom, for days with nowhere else to go.

Once we were all upstairs and settled —in the bathroom, not the nest like planned, but we were as settled as we could be— life for the rest of the organisation and the general household started going again.

Which meant that Eli could bring us food, all of it pre-packed so there would be as few pheromones on it as possible, and that we could hear other people walking around downstairs, going about their days.

We spent the first two days in the bathroom, day and night, mostly sitting next to the bath as Mathew and Vera slept inside.

By the third day, our pheromones had settled enough in the bedroom that our Omegas could be there without any problems, which was a welcome change for everyone as we were all sore from sleeping on hard surfaces.

The bed isn’t as comfortable as the nest, but we’re not going into the nest room yet.

It’s still a mess, since none of us have had the opportunity to clean it.

And it’s going to require a lot of cleaning with all the pieces of fabric and pillow stuffing in there, none of which we want to accidentally blow into the bedroom or anywhere else where it would be even harder to clean up.

Mathew and Vera have been asleep most of the time, only waking up long enough to eat and get closer to us for some cuddles.

I’d been worried that getting them to really rest so that they could recover was going to be a struggle, was going to be tricky, since they’re usually pretty active. But, after the whole nest-destroying thing, they’ve only been sleeping. Which has been a blessing, even if it’s worrying at times.

It has left the rest of us with a lot of free time on our hands —way more than is probably healthy— while we’re worrying about our mates and can’t do anything that might require us to leave this room for any length of time.

I’m getting restless, which is not good, at all.

“Does anyone need anything from the craft room?” I get up from the bed, making sure not to disturb it too much. I can leave the room for a minute or so, long enough to go to the bathroom, anyway, and a trip to the craft room shouldn’t take me much longer than that.

Riley looks up from her phone, thinking. “My knitting project is in my own room. I’ll go pick it up once you’ve returned.”

I look to Caleb and Luca.

Caleb shrugs and then shakes his head. “I’m good.”

“What have you got on offer?” Luca stands up from his place near the window, where a stream of fresh air from outside makes it slightly easier for him to breathe. “Because when I grabbed that paper to try and distract Vera, I wasn’t in there long enough to get a good sense of what you had.”

“Ehhh...” I try to come up with a list of things I know I can ‘grab and go’, so I’m not gone for too long. “Knitting and crochet, but you’re going to have to be able to come up with whatever just from what I manage to grab, I can’t dig around too long.”

He laughs, an easy sound that makes me smile too. It’s good to hear him laugh, it means he’s probably finally settling in a little. “Pass. What else?”

“Cross-stitch. I’ve got a couple of kits, so, easy to grab but limited options. Sewing, but you’re going to have to hand-sew as I’m not going to bring the machine over and, again, it’s going to have to be improvised from what I manage to find. Ehh...”

What else did we get? We picked up a lot of things that day at the fabric and the yarn store, but then some of us also ordered things online after that, which I don’t remember as well.

“I think we got a few miniature kits. What I recall, they should be stored near the door...”

“They require more tools, which are not stored with the kits.” Riley sits up. “We’ve got paper crafts things, but those also have the issue of having to find various tools to do anything with them.”

Luca looks between us. “So, from what I understand, cross-stitch is probably my best option?”

“Right now? Yes.” I shrug. “Sorry.”

“If you’re into knitting or crochet, I can grab you what you need when I pick up my own project from my room, but only if you know what it is you’ll need, and if I remember where we stored it.

” Riley looks excited about the idea of sharing her hobby with another one of her mates.

She loves her time knitting with Vera, so to get another mate on board is probably even more exciting.

“I can knit but my crochet isn’t that good.” Luca laughs again. “I need a lot more focus and attention for knitting than a cross-stitch project. I have a bad habit of not counting my stitches properly and then I’ll have too many or too few very quickly. So, maybe another day.”

Sounds like he’s made his choice.

“Cross-stitch it is. I’ve got a kit for purple flowers with a bird and a butterfly and a cottage-y, nature-y one.” I’m trying to remember what I picked up. I already started the one with the kittens for the sewing room, so that’s what I’m going to be working on today too.

“That first one sounds better, from your description.”

I grin. “I’ll grab us what we need and I’ll be right back.”

I glance over to Mathew and Vera, but they’re both still fast asleep. If I’m only gone for a moment, they should be fine. Right?

I hold my breath as I slip out the door, trying to be as quiet as possible. The hallway is filled with pheromones and scents, mostly from other people, as we’ve kept our doors closed as much as possible.

The crafts room doesn’t really have any scents or pheromones in it, since it’s been kept closed since it was cleaned, so anything from here that I bring back to our bedroom should be safe.

The room looks a lot more intimidating now I’m here to quickly grab some things. If I’ve got the time to browse and find what I’m looking for, it’s not a bad room. But it’s not really a good room for quick thinking, with how messy it is.

The cross-stitch kits are in a large box, together with some hoops, supplies and even a stand. Instead of taking out what we need, I grab the whole box, that way, I can’t leave behind anything important. Hopefully.

When I’m on my way back to the bedroom, I run into Eli, who’s coming up the stairs with a tray of food and drinks.

“How are they doing?” He glances at the closed bedroom door.

“Sleeping, most of the time.” I let out a long breath. “How is everyone out there doing?”

“Mostly not sleeping.” He lets out a quick laugh. “But we’ll manage for at least a couple more days. The organisation doesn’t have any active missions right now, so most of it is just basic communication and other things. The usual stuff.”

“I’m sure everyone will be glad once Mathew is back at work.” I motion for Eli to put his tray on top of my box. “I’ll see what I can do to make recovery as smooth as possible, if that’s even possible. Because I’ll be so glad once our world is bigger than a single bedroom and bathroom again.”

I haven’t gone completely stir-crazy yet, but I know it won’t be that much longer. And I really hope that by then, Mathew and Vera are doing well enough that we don’t need to be locked up anymore.

But that’s all we can go on right now, hope.

A lot of hope.