Page 78 of All Packed Up

She swallowed. “So the ball’s in my court, huh?”

Nic chuckled, his thumbs brushing away any remaining wetness as he smiled down at her. “Yeah, I’d say so.”

“I just—it feels hypocritical of me to…”

“To what?” he pressed. “Wendy, this is your heat. Your body. You can do what you want with who you want, and no one has the right to say a damned thing about it. Especially not those fucking—” Nic lifted a clenched fist to his lips, cutting off his words. Wendy watched him swallow, gain his composure. “They are not here. So don’t leave room for them.”

Wendy swallowed sharply, glancing down at her lap. “I was with them for four years, you know,” she admitted. “And it’s really hard to ignore their voices. Sometimes they sound so close to my own.”

Her eyes fluttered closed in frustration. Wendy tried not to feel sorry for herself. But she often couldn’t help but wonder why her. Why had she been the one to get trapped into a pack like that?

“What’s your voice saying right now?” Nic challenged.

Flicking her eyes open, Wendy frowned at Nic. Endless thoughts were rippling through her mind like the numbers changed on the stock market app Arlo had shown her.

Narrowing them down…

“What are you going to do about Griffith?” she blurted. “I think I’m jealous.”

Nic tried to hide a smile, but it spread across his red cheeks anyway.

“I think the real question is,” Nic corrected with a pointed glance, “what do you want to do about Griffith? And hell, the sstoners too. You did kinda—”

Wendy slapped a hand over his mouth. If he mentioned once more that she’d come on the knot to the thought of them, she was gonna scream. “Stop embarrassing me,” she whined.

Nic chuckled behind her palm. “Never. And there’s nothing to be embarrassed about anyway. Did you think you were the only one who saw Tate in those leggings?”

Wendy gaped at the beta, smacked his thigh. “I knew it! You should have seen Arlo and Griffith before they left.” Wendy laughed at the memory. “I’m pretty sure Arlo almost missed a step, he was staring so hard.”

“Wendy,” Nic said, his voice slow and low and dangerous. “You keep distracting me. Back to the questions at hand here.”

“You didn’t answer my question either!” she cried. “Why am I the only one being interrogated?”

Rolling his eyes, Nic laid back on the bed, tucking his hands behind his head with a sigh. He plopped his feet up on the pillow in her lap, ignoring her glare.

“Fine. What do you want to do about Griffith?”

Nic asked the question so confidently, as if he had an answer ready on his tongue, but he paused for the longest moment. Wendy watched the emotions flick across his face, and it looked like he had about the same understanding of his feelings as she did hers. See: Not Found.

“I just met Griffith. And even though he’s opened his home to us and literally built a bed so I could go into heat… I’m nowhere near ready to use something like” —Wendy nodded her head at the muzzles— “that with him.”

Sharing your body with someone was completely different than sharing your fears. It gave that person a power. One that many people didn’t deserve.

“What about the other two?” Nic asked. “How do you feel about them?”

Wendy frowned, crossing her arms and leaning back against the wall. “I think I haven’t gone into heat yet because I’m still nervous about them. Not because I get bad vibes from them or think they are bad alphas… but there’s always the terrifying thought of what-if,” she admitted with a frown, her words whispered. “What if I went into heat and asked for them while I was out of it? What if I asked them to bite me and they did?” she wondered, lifting a hand up to her neck. She had one bite she didn’t want. One bond she was going to have to live with forever. She didn’t want another.

Nic sat up so fast he made Wendy dizzy. “Wendy, you would never have to worry about that with these alphas. Have you met them? I’m pretty sure Tate thinks you’re the boogieman. But like, a hot one.”

She giggled, sniffling, and wiped at her eyes. “You’re a dork.”

“I know,” he agreed, his smile fading with her laugh as they turned serious again. “Would it make you more comfortable if… if I was there with you? To make sure nothing happened.”

Her breath caught. Nic was safe. And mature and responsible and he’d proven he could protect her, that he would protect her.

“Yeah,” she agreed on a breath. “Yeah. I—I know you’d look out for me.”

His smile was nothing short of proud. “Nothing is out of the realm of possibilities, we can do whatever you need to in order to feel comfortable.”