Alpha Brat: A Tale Of Five Hot Wolves

Chapter 21: Burning

I wake up choking on heat.

Not cute romance novel heat where the heroine wakes up a little flushed and dramatically touches her forehead.

No.

This is biblical. Plague levels of suffering. My entire body is boiled alive from the inside out, every inch of skin too tight for my bones, sweat slicking my neck, my chest, the backs of my knees. My hair is plastered to my face and I’m tangled in sheets that were woven in the depths of hell itself.

For one blissful second, I have no idea where I am.

Then memory slams into me. The wolf.

A massive one with human eyes and blood on its teeth.

More memories come crashing after it in jagged flashes, landmines going off in my skull.

I sit upright so fast the room tilts sideways.

"Not now," I croak.

My stomach lurches. Panic crawls up my throat like claws. I need to leave. I need out of this house, out of these woods. Away from the terrifyingly beautiful men who apparently turn into actual wolves and maybe drug people with their pheromones or maybe I’m losing my fucking mind and have finally snapped.

I throw the blankets off, instant relief hits my overheated skin.

Still too hot.

I peel my shirt off next. Then my shorts. Then kick helplessly at the sheets tangled around my legs because fabric feels unbearable. Everything touching me feels wrong. Too rough. Too tight. Too much.

My own skin is too sensitive on my muscles and bones.

Cool air brushes across my stomach and sends a weird shiver through me that lands low in my body and makes me clamp my thighs together hard enough to hurt.

"I’m dying." I whisper to the ceiling.

That feels like the most reasonable explanation at this point. People probably don’t hallucinate wolves unless they’re actively perishing.

I slide out of bed on shaky legs and nearly face plant because my knees decide they no longer support human life.

The room smells strange.

No.

Not strange. freeweɓnovel.cѳm

Wrong.

My heart stutters, something inside me twists painfully. The room smells like me. Sweat and shampoo and panic and fabric softener. Underneath it all is faint cedar from the furniture and the fresh forest air drifting through the cracked balcony doors. But something’s missing. Something important. My eyes sting with the knowledge that I don’t know what smell is gone, only that the absence of it feels unbearable.

I’m trying to breathe with one lung.

"What the fuck." My voice cracks halfway through.

I wrap my arms around myself and stand there trembling in my underwear while early morning light spills across the floorboards.

On a deep breath I smell it. Dark and clean and distinctly male. My head snaps toward the bedroom door at whiplash speed, the scent hits me again, stronger this time, drifting underneath the door frame.

My entire body reacts, every muscle loosens, my breathing deepens, heat coils low in my stomach. I grab the bedpost to steady myself.

What. The. Fuck.

I open the door peeping left and right, the hallway is quiet. Sunlight cuts through the enormous windows at the far end of the corridor, painting gold across the walls. Somewhere downstairs I hear movement. Deep voices.

And the scent, so strong now my mouth waters.

I should go downstairs, demand answers. I should pack my things. I should call the police.

Instead, like the dumb bitch I apparently am, I follow the smell.

Barefoot.

In my underwear.

Fantastic.

The hallway feels cooler than my room but my skin still burns. Every breath I take carries traces of them. Different scents layered over each other. Spice and pine and cold rain and leather and smoke and something darker underneath all of it that makes my pulse stumble every single time I inhale.

I stop outside one of the doors. My hand lifts before I consciously decide to move it. The second I push the door open, relief crashes into me.

The room smells like Corrian, aggressively like him. Like his flannel shirts and cedar soap and that deep warmness that always wraps around me whenever he stands too close.

The bed is unmade, there’s a dark grey hoodie tossed over a chair. I cross the room and grab it. The second I press it against my chest, tension drains out of me.

This is insane.

Actually insane.

I bury my face in the fabric anyway. Joy blooms. Relief. Comfort. Safety. I make the most pathetic sound imaginable, then freeze in horror.

"Did I just whimper?"

I stare at the hoodie in my hands considering what I’m doing, weighing up if I have finally, really lost it. Then clutch it tighter.

I hate everything.

Leaving the room a minute later, I’m wearing the hoodie and carrying one of his pillows. free𝑤ebnovel.com

The next room smells different. Darker. Leo.

His room is huge but sparse. Black sheets. Dark furniture. Heavy boots shoved carelessly beside the bed. A leather jacket hanging off the corner post. The air itself feels heavier in here. Masculine in a way that makes my stomach flip.

I spot a massive charcoal blanket folded at the end of the bed. Mine now.

"Frankie," I whisper at myself while dragging it into my arms, "you are stealing from potential werewolves."

For the next seven minutes I move from room to room, a feral, sweaty goblin burglar gathering treasures. I’m wearing the hoodie, clutching pillows, blankets, shirts, trousers, underwear and I’ve even slipped on a pair of socks. I feel less itchy inside my own skin. All I can do is ignore that right now, or I’ll spiral.

I back out of the final room draped in stolen fabric and nearly walk directly into Jax coming up the stairs.

I squeak.

Jax freezes.

His eyes drop and take in a few things simultaneously. My almost naked, sweating body. The wild birds nest that used to be my hair. All of my stolen booty.

He slowly lifts his gaze back to my face, his pupils blown wide.

"Oh," he says faintly.

I point at him accusingly. "This is your fault somehow."

His mouth twitches. "You robbing us blind is my fault?"

"I’m not robbing anybody." I clutch the blanket tighter.

Jax looks at the pile in my arms. Then at me. Then visibly bites the inside of his cheek like he’s trying not to laugh.

"I was gonna return them," I lie.

"Sure you were, Frankfurter."

I should feel embarrassed, I just suddenly feel... emotional. Violently emotional. My eyes sting again, I’m struggling to see through tears.

Jax notices and his expression shifts, all teasing draining away. "Hey," he says softly.

That’s all it takes. One gentle word and those tears are spilling down my face.

"What’s wrong with me?" I whisper furiously, wiping at them.

He moves carefully, corning a frightened animal. Maybe I am.

"You’re okay," he murmurs.

"I’m clearly not okay, Jax, I’m stealing your fucking laundry."

That gets a tiny laugh out of him. Another wave of heat crashes and my knees buckle. Jax catches me, big hands, warm chest. Safe. Relief floods my body as we connect.

I make another horrible little sound against his throat.

His entire body goes rigid. "Frankie," he says hoarsely.

"I know. I know. This is weird. I hate this too."

"You definitely do not smell like you hate this."

"Oh God." I pull away, he doesn’t stop me and stumble backward clutching my pile of comfort objects with what little dignity I have left. "I’m going back to my room."

"Probably smart."

"I’m not building some weird pillow fort thing, by the way."

Jax’s eyes flick meaningfully toward the mountain in my arms. "...You have enough supplies for one."

I flip him off weakly and retreat down the hallway before he can see me burst into tears again for absolutely no reason. By the time I make it back into my room, I’m shaking. My skin is flame itself and my entire skeleton feels put together wrong. Everything’s too sensitive and needy.

But now the room smells better. I drop everything onto the bed and start arranging it. There’s no thought, I pop down pillows first, then the blanket, drape the shirts and trousers.

Hands on my hips, I look at my creation. I’ve built the sleeping area of a racoon, all I can do is stare at it in abject horror and accept that no matter how much I will myself to walk away, I’m going to curl into it.

I climb into the middle of the pile, and as soon as the warmth and essence of them engulfs me, my breathing finally slows. I pull each item closer, needing the fabric pressed to my skin despite the fever. Maybe this is what a psychotic break feels like.

I lie there curled in the middle of the nest while sunlight creeps slowly across the room and tears slide silently into the fabric beneath my face.

Somewhere deep down beneath the panic and confusion and humiliation is a worse thought.

One that hurts so badly I can barely breathe around it.

I don’t want to leave.

And that’s far more terrifying than the wolves.