Page 376 of Immune

I roll toward Xeon, dragging the blanket with me, and crawl halfway onto his lap now that he’s adjusted himself to sitting. It’s a bold move that shocks me, a move way bolder than I have a right to pull out of the bag given that this kind of thing still terrifies me to a degree. But I have four bonds I can feel, four men around me that have proven time and time again that I can trust them. If I can give them my body to completely defile in the best way imaginable but can’t sneak in a cuddle the morning after, then there’s something cosmically wrong with me.

I don’t want to feel wrong. I’m done feeling wrong. And scared. And in a perpetual state of survival. I want to be able to initiate affection, even if it’s in small doses right now. Like only partially lying on Xeon and using him as a body pillow.

Apparently I shock the human body pillow, too, because Xeon goes still under me. I ignore it and my thundering heartbeat and the learned fear I’ve spent six years harboring, opting instead to shove my face into his chest and close my eyes again.

“There,” I mutter. “Fixed it.”

Silence answers me and I don’t need to open my eyes to see the shock on four Alpha faces. I can feel it thrumming through the bonds. Jesus Christ, can’t a girl cuddle after bonding with four guys and spending all night in a heat cycle and taking four knots like it was my job until the sun kissed the horizon before crashing in an exhausted heap?

I mean, it’s me. So I suppose there is validity to the lack of response and the stunned silence. I’m learning, though. Growing as a person. All that weird, gross stuff.

Then Ewan whispers, “We’re all seeing this, right?”

“Shut up,” I grumble, regret slowly working its way through my brain. “I’m sleeping.”

Fletcher’s laugh rumbles from behind me, low and rough. He leans in and presses a kiss to the crown of my head, wiping away the regret with a simple touch, and says, “Mornin’, darlin’.”

“No. Night.”

“Pretty sure it’s morning,” he counters, his argument supported by the light sneaking under the makeshift curtain that covers the window.

“So I’m actually going to reject your timeline, but thanks,” I mutter, sighing deeply as if that’ll soothe the sudden restlessness that has awoken in me. I guess that’s what I deserve for jumping headfirst out of my comfort zone without a parachute or helmet.

Kaito’s voice comes from my other side, calm and way too awake. “Your knee is bent.”

“That’s typically what a knee does,” I snort.

“It’s bent badly,” Kaito corrects, and I hear the subtle amusement in his words.

“She’s a dramatic bitch,” I sigh, destined to remain awake now that I’ve gone and shot myself in the foot with my choices.

Xeon only moves when I adjust him, picking his arm up and wrapping it over my shoulder awkwardly until he catches the hint. Then he adjusts the blanket around my leg, careful and practical, easing the pull in my knee without making a big thing of it.

That almost annoys me.

Almost.

I breathe him in instead of making it a thing. Frost and steel. Clean skin. Warmth he hides from everyone except apparently me now, because my life has decided privacy was built for people with fewer bonds.

“You’re uncomfortable,” he says softly.

“I think I’m a little too emotionally unavailable for discomfort,” I tell him.

He pauses for a second before dutifully informing me, “That doesn’t make it go away.”

“Medically unnecessary, but okay,” I grumble against his chest.

Ewan lifts his head, and I open my eyes enough to catch sight of his wrecked hair and half-lidded eyes. He holds his arm up and declares, “I support her denial. Big fan of denial. Carried me through years of emotional constipation.”

Kaito sighs.

Fletcher says, “That so?”

Ewan drops his face back into the pillow. “Don’t psychoanalyze me before breakfast. That’s just not on.”

Breakfast?

Before I can chase that appealing word with a rumble in my stomach, there’s a knock at the door. Every Alpha in the room changes, but not dramatically. Not with growling or chest-beating or whatever crap my body apparently finds interesting now. They just grow alert enough that the atmosphere shifts a little. Ewan’s hand shifts toward the knife by the mattress. Fletcher sits up a little straighter. Kaito looks at the door with that quiet intensity of his. And Xeon’s arm tightens once around my back before loosening instantly.