She would never give me one. Yelena took special enjoyment in fucking with me. Of course she would want to put me directly in front of two women I couldn’t have and couldn’t walk away from while they played.
I stared at our joined hands, but I couldn’t escape the sounds or scent. My grip on Logan’s fingers tightened when she let out a whimper.
I was in hell.
Cat got your tongue, stag?
Fuck off.
Yelena’s laughter echoed through my head.
I yanked Logan’s hand away from the torque and stood sharply. “You’ve had your fun. I’m not going to play this game.”
Logan’s gaze could have melted steel. Power glowed in her eyes, but combined with the flush of her skin and her panting breath, I was desperate to throw her into the dirt and feast between her thighs until she stopped fucking hating me.
I left the two of them there, and rather than take my foul mood back to my suite, I stormed out to the front gate to stare down the creature that had trapped us all here.
“This is your fucking fault. What do you even want?”
It gave no response, not that I expected one. Whatever this thing was, it was incoherent and spoke no language that I could tell. The shriek it let out overwhelmed too many of my survival instincts and I made a hasty retreat. This was bullshit. The whole damn nest was a powder keg because of that monster and all it would take is one fucking spark to blow the whole thing sky-high.
“You’re back!” Florencia beamed at me as I stepped into the kitchen. “I was worried we scared you off.”
“Nah. Just been busy.”
“Well, I’m glad to have you here either way.”
“What are we working on tonight?” The kitchen was empty except for her, the quiet almost oppressive. I suppose I couldn’t expect anything else, considering it was two in the morning.
“Cleaning the walk-in cooler and doing a full inventory of every edible thing in the nest so Chef can design a meal plan for lockdown.”
“That sounds like a lot of work for just you.”
Florencia shrugged. “I don’t have to get it all done tonight. That’s just my task for the next few days.” She was already halfway through the cooler, checking over all the produce and transferring them into fresh bins so the old ones could be scrubbed.
“I’ll do the heavy lifting,” I offered.
“I’m stronger than I look,” she protested.
“I don’t doubt that for a second, but no sense in putting your body through extra strain if you don’t have to.”
We worked for the first bit in relative quiet. I hauled around fifty-pound bags of potatoes, carrots, and turnips for her and she wiped down the shelves beneath them. Eventually I worked up the nerve to ask, “How is the nest adjusting?”
“Business as usual for the kitchens and everyone who works here. The ones who work outside the nest are having a harder time, and the ones with kids.” She turned her gaze to me. “I’ve heard some people can see what’s keeping us in here?”
“A few of us. Honestly, you’re probably better off not being able to.”
“Is it true that it screams?”
I shuddered, even the memory of that piercing sound setting me on edge. “Unfortunately. Once you’ve heard it you’ll never forget it. Are people angry with us?”
Florencia shook her head. “We all come to nests for our own reasons. The whole point of them is to protect us. You and your pack needed that. Granted, that might change the longer lockdown goes on, but there hasn’t been any talk of mutiny to throw you out to whatever is there, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
The anxious knot in my chest unraveled. “I kind of was, actually. We never wanted to put anyone in danger.”
She looked steadily at me as she transferred cabbages from one bin to another. “The world is dangerous. If it wasn’t us, it would be another nest, maybe one less prepared.”
I fiddled with the clipboard in front of me, marking down how many cabbages we had. “Whyisthis nest so much more prepared? In some ways this place is exactly like I expected, and in others it’s the complete opposite.”
