Chapter 178. Nesting II
Maisie
I blinked and the hallway snapped back into focus.
The girl’s friends had scampered away, staring at me with horror, and the girl has backed herself against the lockers, whimpering. I thought I smelled pee. Half of the hallway had gone silent, watching me with the same fear.
My claws were out. As were my fangs. They kept lengthening and retracting.
It was like... I was glitching.
I stared at the girl’s exposed throat.
Just one bite--
"I..." My voice shook violently. "I don’t know what’s happening."
Without looking at her, Mercer said, "Go."
She ran so fast, she tripped, got up and didn’t stop running until she was out of the building.
If they weren’t holding me , I thought I might have chased her.
I caught my reflection in his worried blue gaze and my eyes were flashing from blue to red to black, like it couldn’t decide which it wanted to be. My mind was writhing with violence. Jealousy, anger, wrath, blood, pain, destroy them all.
I started to hyperventilate. "I didn’t mean to--I-I don’t know why I did that--"
"We know," Soren said immediately. "Just breathe, Adams. That’s all. In and out."
It took nearly thirty minutes of deep breaths to get myself under control, and just when they were about to leave me in front of my classroom, my eyes started to water. And leak.
No.
No, absolutely not. I absolutely wasn’t crying.
I pressed the heel of my hand to my face, furious at myself. At the weakness. At the way my body interpreted them going up to their lectures to abandonment. And then, I started sobbing outright, hot pathetic tears spilling down my cheeks.
The four of them froze.
The movement was so synchronized it would have been funny on a different day, but all it did was make me feel rawer and more vulnerable as they turned slowly, like I was a ticking bomb about to explode.
I felt like it. I couldn’t control it. It was ugly, high-pitched, hiccup-y and embarrassing. We were getting looks of bewilderment from the people passing by, which only made me cry harder because I didn’t even understand why I was crying and wanted to go hide where no one would find me.
Mercer reached me before the others. He cupped my face in both hands, his thumbs brushing the tears away even as more replaced them.
"Hey," he murmured, searching my face. "What’s wrong? Are you hurt anywhere?"
I tried to speak, but all that came out was a strangled hiccup, followed by another wave of tears so abrupt it made my chest ache. "I... I don’t know," I blurted, hating how small I sounded. "Can’t one of you stay here with me?"
It had to be the hormones. I was drowning in more tears and embarrassment. And I buried my face in his sweater, sniffling and sniffing and clinging, completely unlike myself.
They surrounded me, soothing me all at once, until I could get my thoughts in order, and then I drew back, horrified. "Sorry, I didn’t—"
"It’s okay," Quinlan said, running his hands up and down my back in soothing circles. "It’s completely normal. You’re nesting."
I stared at him, still sniffling. "Nesting?"
Soren nodded. "The tonics must be triggering that, too. Your body thinks it’s pregnant, so every protective, territorial, and possessive instinct is on overdrive. It’s normal with Lycan pregnancies, I hear."
Mercer tucked my hair behind my ear. "Your body is preparing for something that isn’t there yet. It wants safety. It wants our scents. It wants us close. All the time. Don’t cry. We’ll fix this."
"You’re just saying that to make me feel better," I muttered, though it came out wobbling.
Quinlan’s mouth brushed the spot behind my ear. "It will settle."
"I’ll stay with her," Jericho said, but Quinlan shook his head. "No. I’ll stay with her. You’ve got four classes this morning."
I opened my mouth to tell him he didn’t have to, that I could manage, that I was not some delicate thing that needed my hands held the entire day, but then my lip trembled again at the thought of parting from them.
So much for that.
Quinlan’s expression softened. "It’s all right, cherie. I’ve got nothing important today."
****
It was a terrible idea, having Quinlan stuck to me like glue for all of my classes.
It was great at first, having him walk me to every single one of my classes like it was the most natural thing in the world. He carried my bag, kept a hand on the small of my back, and glared at anyone who looked at me too long. He sat with me through the first period and jotted down some of my notes for me, daring the lecturer to make a comment about him obviously being in the wrong class.
By second period, he had charmed Mrs. Belarus so thoroughly, she was pinked face and also twirling her hair around her finger, allowing him to stay because he was her favorite student and understood something called ’separation anxiety’.
I suspected she was as enamored by him as the entire class was. And then I started to feel murderous again.
Well, until he leaned in and told me I was the most beautiful woman in the world and nuzzled my neck.
And then, I was on cloud nine again.
Shit hormones.
But by the time we reached my third class of the day, the hormones had reached a fever pitch.
I couldn’t focus.
Professor Halven was droning on about something—I had no idea what the hell he was talking about—because all I could think about was the way Quinlan’s thigh was pressed against mine under the desk. The way his scent, clean, expensive, and deeply masculine, wrapped around me like a drug.
It didn’t help that he looked so good this morning in his crisp blue shirt underneath that black leather jacket and blue jeans that clung to his muscular thighs. His polished black boots were tapping rhythmically against the floors.
He looked like he’d dropped right out of a shoot for a magazine cover. It was distracting.
And there was the fact that his fingers were tracing slow, absent-minded circles on my bare thigh underneath the desk.
And every few minutes, his fingers would slowly casually drift higher.
I shot him a warning look.
He didn’t even glance at me. He just kept staring straight ahead at the professor like he was the most attentive student in the room, while his fingers slipped beneath the hem of my skirt and traced the inside of my thigh, dangerously close to my soaked panties.
My breath hitched. "Quinn," I chided.