Page 111 of The Gift
Iget why they’re being paranoid, and overly protective, but at the same time they must have knocked their heads and forgotten who I was and where we were.
“Come on, you’re like going to be what? An hour tops?”
Four blank—no that’s not right—four furious but trying really hard to not look like furious glares, stare back at me.
“One of us should stay,” Ashton says, talking to the group and not me.
“Excuse me, you did not ice me out of the conversation did you?”
“Bailey girl,” he whines. It kind of makes me gooey on the inside if I’m honest, to see Ashton whine. He falls out of formation and sits on my bed again, brushing the hair off my face.
“If you guys want to ignore what I say, that’s on you, but don’t come back at me when I don’t listen to what you’re saying. This needs to be a two-way street. If I say I’m fine, you have to listen. Okay? Honesty works, being a bulldozer does not.”
“I don’t feel good about leaving you alone,” Reno admits from his place in the line-up of the members of cranky Pack Bailey. Most of whom are still growling at the situation.
“I get that. You know…” I say slowly and a tiny bit teasingly, the smile on my face adding to it. “The other alternative is you ask the alphas to come in here for a meeting.”
Reno and Ashton hiss first, Koda’s top lip twitches, and Henley looks like he’s about to explode.
“Guess that’s your answer.” I smile sweetly, but for the sake of these agitated dicks, I verbally go over the security details. Again. “Reno, who can get in my room?”
“I’m swapping the entry code out for every shift changeover, limiting access to nurses on duty.”
“And all the nurses have been security checked? The Alliance knows where they live? You’d have their Social Security details on hand and verified I suspect?”
“Harsh,” he retorts, before softening, nearly smiling, “but true.”
“I have my phone.” I hold mine up. “Now you show me that you each have yours.” I wait, tilting my head to the side impatiently. Once I have seen all four phones, I go on. “You need to do this. And by this, I mean leave me alone and go to your meeting on the ground floor. Leave someone at the door of the ward. This thing between us won’t work if you swap out the cage I was in with one of your own doing. I get you’re all freaked out by recent events, but right here and now, I’m fine and you are overreacting.”
I sink back into my pillow, relieved to have spoken the truth but also worn out. Getting shot kind of takes it out of you.
Henley reacts the fastest to my words. Taking a step back like I shot him in the heart.
Did I say what I said to be intentionally a little waspish? Yeah, I did. Sometimes the sting is what helps you remember. And they need to remember that me coming out as an omega, or more accurately, their omega, does not constitute me allowing them to wrap me in cotton wool or lock me away. In actual fact, the meeting they are meant to be leaving for ensures that’s not the case. Add in the fact that these guys are good at security, and in my opinion, the epitome of alphas, I’m sure I’m safe. If not, they’ll go bat shit crazy again.
Koda is in my space, offering a quiet apology, before anyone blinks. He shuffles away like a naughty kid and waits at the door as the others say goodbye. Henley hovers, and I nab his hand, bringing his fingers on the healing marks of his bite, and he relaxes slightly.
“Hen, prop my phone up on something and put me on a video call with you, if you need.”
He leans in taking a large inhale of my scent, my omega puffs up happily for her alpha, and I douse us in my scent, peachy richness stirs between us. And praise the Lord, I feel my pussy finally stirring after her recent drug induced hibernation, thudding in time with each blink of his blue eyes.
“You’re meant to make this easier for me to leave,” he murmurs, leaning in close and pulling my blanket up to release more of my desire.
“Yeah, well, you knew going into this, I’d keep you on your toes. Plus, you know how turned on I get when you get all… alphaish. Add in the fact I was denied an orgasm or two, and, well, a lot of me being so wound up is your fault. But I have an idea that will make it all go away: when you get back, we can see if I can suck dick yet.” I push him away with a laugh that sounds overly husky and breathy, even to me.
Henley scowls at me briefly and then takes another large inhale of my scent, rubs his dick, and drops a quick kiss on his bite before striding away without another look. Spoiling me with a handful of small reactions, ensuring I get the bigger picture of who I am to him.
They leave without another word of argument. I can feel how much they don’t want to, but they have to.
I flick off a text to Lennon but even that leaves me worn out. I wasn’t lying about how tired I was, seriously, even without Reno hovering protectively, watching me like a hawk, I’m getting pretty good at understanding how my recovery is going to go up and down.
My eyes close and I float in that dreamy space of half-awareness, but more dozy than alert. I get rattled out of my rest by a brisk knock on the door followed by the noise of the latch disengaging and a nurse pushing her equipment cart in. I’ve gotten pretty friendly with the team who work my room, although this nurse is new. The name on her ID card matches the one embossed on her uniform, so I leave it be.
“I’m here to take blood samples.” She comes across matronly, dropping the pretence of overfriendly. A lot of the nursing staff have pretty even temperaments. In a way, they’re overly aware and cautious, which I suspect has more to do with the nature of the staff working in the omega ward than their actual personalities. If the guys were here, they would be chatting, but not me.
“Sure,” I reply. My phone pings with an email coming in from Lennon, which I guess will be an outline of what she and Carmen have been discussing.
While the nurse does her thing, I do mine. I have to purposely switch off interacting with her as I try to distract myself from a sudden and unexpected rush of bad memories. I hold my phone with one hand and kind of read the screen, but really, I’m hyper focusing on the needle out the corner of my eye while I focus on ignoring the clanging in my head.
