The roundabout in my head came to a stop there.
My body had too much going on for my brain to focus on intricacies. Heat flushed my skin and despite my implication we could stop on the way and fuck in a closet, it wouldn’t work. To satiate myself, I’d need a knot, and now wasn’t the time.
“Are you OK?” Caspian asked worriedly, his hand coming down on my arm.
Groaning, I shook him off and stiffened against the waves of desire. “Please, don’t touch me. We need to find Em, and then we’ll go back to my nest, and then you can touch me.”
He nodded, taking a couple big steps back. I led the way through the halls and down the stairs to the infirmary, drawing shocked attention from every room we passed. An Omega in heat shouldn’t be walking around. My scent was too tempting for unmated Alphas, especially considering I was still unclaimed.
I didn’t care about the societal norms, and I could fight off any unwanted suitors.
Would I still prefer to have Cas or Shan rutting me in my nest right now?
Oh, fuck yeah.
Below the desire though, concern turned my stomach. Emmett and I weren’t close yet, but there was something about him. Wewouldbe close, eventually, and even now him being missing made Caspian anxious. I wouldn’t stand for it.
Any reprieve from my heat had ended when I’d watched Oswald with Nolan, both alive and well. Adrenaline had morphed to lust, but I was doing what I could to stop it. The twinges of pain were normal when denying myself, and nowhere near as horrible as they’d been in the last heat I’d had without any help.
When I shoved open the door to the infirmary, all eyes turned in my direction.
It was full of people, the walls sterile and white. Three women in scrubs were patching up injuries on those who didn’t heal instantaneously, and a female doctor in a white coat was making notes on a clipboard. Most people were only mildly injured and seated in black chairs around the edges of the room, but beyond them there were sectioned off areas with beds.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” the doctor said. “With people injured and delicate, you could drive them wild.”
“If they can’t control themselves, they’ll die,” I said. “I can manage to repress my instincts, and so can they. I’m looking for someone.”
A head popped out from around a curtain, two French braids draping over his chest and a smirk on his face. “Freya! Emmett is over here,” Altair said, gesturing me over.
The doctor didn’t look pleased by my invasion of her space, but let me through. It truly was in her best interests to stay out of my way. My mood was far from pleasant. “What happened?” I demanded.
Beyond the curtain, Em was lying asleep on a cot, Sky seated beside him and weaving magic in the air. Literally weaving. He pulled strands from nothing and knotted them together, creating a glowing blanket in the air. It was a style unlike any I’d ever seen.
Caspian rushed to Emmett’s other side, brushing the hair back from his face and checking his prone body for injuries. There was one main one on his stomach, blood seeping through the bandages. “He took some damage,” Altair said. “Sky put him under so his internal organs would have time to repair themselves. Should be fine, though.”
I stood beside Altair in the cramped patient room, but Shan shoved his way between the two of us, trying to do it without touching me. I opened my mouth to tell him off, but closed it again. He was standing chest to chest with Altair, scowling.
Ah. Yeah. Fallen angel vs. angel. It was bound to be a little tense. I’d give Shan a pass on this one, though it was partially because I was far too tired and horny to fight with him.
“Nice to meet you, Freya’s angel,” Altair said with a smirk, holding out a hand.
Shan ignored it.
“Why do you know this guy, Freya?” he asked, not looking back at me.
I rolled my eyes. “Em and I wandered around when we were trying to find Ozzy. We met. He’s not a bad guy.”
“He’s fallen.”
“It’s not like you work for the AEA anymore, either,” I said.
“There’s a huge fucking difference between leaving the influence of Virsphere and swearing loyalty to a Zemterran Duke to become fallen.”
A ghost of a smile appeared on Sky’s face, and Altair was equally pleased by Shan’s irritation. We didn’t need a blow up in a small space like this, and apparently I was the only one capable of diffusing it. Caspian was too busy pressing his cheek to Emmett’s chest to make sure he was breathing. “For fuck’s sake, Shan, put your dick away until we get back to my nest. I’m aware of how big it is, and you shouldn’t be acting all high and mighty considering how many people you’ve killed.”
“The people I killed deserved it,” he muttered.
Altair laughed. “Who’s to say the people I’ve killed didn’t deserve it also? You don’t know who they are. I really love meeting angels, because they always get so upset about my decision to prefer shadow to light.”
