“I’m glad. You should get some more sleep, princess. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
I hummed softly. “Maybe by the time I wake up, I’ll be officially done with this heat from hell.”
“You will be,” West said. “You’re almost done, so sleep.”
He might have been lying too, or at least pretending to be certain when he wasn’t. I didn’t care.
Curled up between two of my alphas, I was as comfortable as I could possibly be. Soon, I was back in the depths of sleep.
Chapter
Eight
LAVINIA
I was the one who had to be calm in a crisis.
I had a responsibility to my sisters to stay on my game and lead us through. They expected it of me. My parents expected it. Most of all, I expected it.
Usually, I didn’t have any trouble. But now, with Talia bonded against her will and abandoned by her bondmate, I was finding it more difficult than I ever had before. It brought up bad memories for me.
“We have a private office that you could use,” Dr. Jalisco offered.
I blinked. I’d been staring blankly at the far wall, Mercer already on his way into Talia’s nesting room. The doctor was looking at me with a gentle expression.
“Thank you.” I cleared my throat. “I have to call our family. They’re all worried about her.”
“Follow me.”
My heels pinched my feet as we walked through the historic facility. She took a meandering pace, and I struggled to walkslow enough to stay behind her. Going at her speed forced my heart rate to decrease from a gallop to a trot, but instead of calming me down, it only served to make me anxious.
I couldn’t stop or slow.
If I didn’t keep going full speed ahead, I would falter and break.
The doctor unlocked a sage green door, pushing it open to reveal a simple office inside. “We use this space for counselling sessions, so it’s fully soundproofed and has no surveillance. Plenty of privacy.”
I went inside, finding the room smelled slightly musty from disuse, and placed my bag on the desk. “Thank you,” I said again.
“Take as much time as you need for those calls. And a moment for yourself, too.” She smiled at me. “Watching over others can take a lot out of you.”
This woman deserved whatever they were paying her. I’d only known her for the fifteen minutes she’d spent detailing Talia’s condition, and she already had me figured out as well as my own mother did.
“I appreciate it. And apologize for the chaos that we’re going to bring to this place. Our fathers are overprotective, so they’ll want bodyguards for me and Talia.”
“So long as they don’t disturb my other residents. I’ll have my secretary send you a facility map that shows which areas are strictly omega-only or would be otherwise off-limits to the bodyguards.”
“The residents will hardly know they’re here. I’ll make sure they all understand the rules.”
“Then I’m happy to accommodate. Our short-term residents often have very specific needs, so Talia is hardly an exception.”
A nurse came up behind her with a question, and I was glad for the opportunity to escape small talk. Closing and locking thedoor, I collapsed into the forest green armchair in front of the desk.
There was so much to do.
Talia needed protection. Conrad needed a doctor at the ready for when he woke up so they could assess if he was still feral. Our parents needed to be informed that we’d found their missing daughter. I needed to get Emilia started on finding both Benjamin and the mysterious grey-haired man who’d dropped Tal off here.
Not to mention the feral bullets and what Talia’s pack knew about those. If we didn’t stop distribution or find a way to reverse the effects, there could be fatal results for our people—and for the general public.
