Page 134 of Run Wild Omega

“Okay,” I say. “We’re okay. Under 103.”

“For now,” Miles says quietly.

I set the thermometer down and look at my pack. Two men, both fighting the same battle I am, both white-knuckling their way through a biological assault that would break most men.

“We’re going to have to help her through this,” I say. “All of us. Together. We stay in this apartment, we keep her safe, and we don’t cross the line. Not unless she asks us to.”

“And if the heat gets worse?” Dylan asks.

“Then we manage it. Cool towels, hydration, scent contact. Whatever she needs that doesn’t involve us losing our minds.”

Miles sits on the floor beside the bed, his back against the wall. He pulls out his tablet and starts typing. “I’m logging the timeline. Onset, temperature, duration. If Dr. Nguyen needs data, we’ll have it.”

“Good.”

Dylan doesn’t sit. He paces the length of the bedroom, his energy coiled and restless, and I can see the restraint costing him in the tightness of his shoulders and the way his fists clench and unclench at his sides.

On the bed, Tess whimpers again. Her body curls tighter, and a fresh wave of her scent rolls through the room, so thick and sweet that I taste it on the back of my tongue.

Dylan stops pacing. His nostrils flare. His chest expands.

“Breathe,” I tell him.

“I’m breathing.”

“Breathe through your mouth.”

He does. We all do. The three of us, standing in a darkened bedroom, breathing through our mouths because the alternative is inhaling her and losing whatever’s left of our minds.

Tess reaches out from the nest. Her hand finds mine, her fingers threading through, gripping tight. Her palm is damp, hot, and the contact sends a pulse of need up my arm so intense that my vision whites out.

“Wyatt,” she whispers.

“I’m here.”

“Don’t let go.”

“Never.”

I hold her hand. I breathe. I count the seconds.

And outside, the snow keeps falling.

Tess

The second wave hits like a grenade.

One minute I’m curled in the nest, breathing in the sagebrush and mountain rain of Miles’s sweater, clinging to Wyatt’s hand like it’s the only solid thing in a spinning world. The next, my spine arches off the mattress and a sound tears out of me that doesn’t sound human.

It’s not pleasure. It’s not pain. It’s both, fused together into something my brain can’t categorize, a sensation that starts in my core and radiates outward until every inch of my skin is screaming. My nipples are so sensitive that the cotton of my tank top feels like sandpaper.

The slick between my thighs is constant now, pooling beneath me, soaking through the sheets. My hips are rolling on their own, grinding against nothing, searching for friction that isn’t there.

I can’t control my body. I can’t control my thoughts. They’re a slideshow of skin and teeth and hands and cocks, Wyatt’s mouth on my neck, Miles’s thumb between my lips, Dylan’s hips driving into me on the bench seat of a truck that exists only in a dream I had earlier this week.

The dreams are nothing. This is everything.

“Tess.” Wyatt’s voice, close. His hand is still in mine, but his grip has tightened. “Tess, can you hear me?”