Chapter 170: We’ve got company

The hot water had done wonders for my aching muscles, but it couldn’t undo the physical reality of what twenty-four hours of an Alpha rut and an Omega heat had done to my body.

​After drying us off, Reid carried me back to the bedroom, laying me down on my stomach across the fresh sheets he’d managed to pull onto the bed.

I buried my face into a pillow, letting out a sharp, breathless hiss as he opened a jar of medical-grade anti-inflammatory cream.

​"Sorry... fuck, Kain, I’m sorry," Reid muttered, his voice thick with genuine guilt as his fingers gently smoothed the cool, soothing ointment over my swollen, tender entrance and the small tiny tears left behind. "I was a fucking animal. I shouldn’t have been that rough with you."

​"Shut up," I rasped into the pillow, my fingers clutching the fabric as the cooling sensation began to dull the sharp sting. "You were in a rut, and I was in heat. We were both out of our minds. You don’t need to apologize, McCoy."

​He didn’t answer with words, just pressed a soft, lingering kiss to the unbruised skin of my lower back before pulling a pair of his oversized sweatpants and a massive, worn-in cotton T-shirt over my body.

The shirt swallowed me whole, hanging low enough to cover my hips, but doing little to hide the dark purplish bite marks painting my throat and collarbones.

"Jeez, I marked you everywhere." he said as he brushed the bite marks with his thumb.

"Well, all these marks will fade with time." I said. "What’s important is that you didn’t mark my nape."

"Yeah," he answered, though he looked a little distracted as he did, staring at my clean nape.

​We devoured a second round of the food right there on the bed, my body desperately soaking up every calorie, before we finally collapsed into a deep, dreamless sleep.

​The next morning, the sudden, loud chime of the penthouse intercom shattered the morning quiet.

​I sat up instantly, a sharp bolt of panic cutting through the lingering lethargy in my veins. The clock on the nightstand read 10:15 AM.

​"Shit," Reid cursed, throwing off the duvet and grabbing a pair of shorts. "Stay here. Don’t make a sound."

​"Who is it?" I whispered, my voice still ruined and raspy.

​Reid checked his phone on the nightstand, his jaw tightening. "It’s Marcus... and he brought company. Russo, Miller, and Gerald are with him."

​My blood ran completely cold. "They can’t see me like this, Reid. I smell like your rut, and I can barely walk. If they see the Captain looking like he got taken apart by an Alpha, the entire team will know my secret." ℯℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

​"Go into the bathroom for now," Reid said quietly, grabbing my wrist to steady me as I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. "Lock the door. I’ll handle them and get them out."

​My legs wobbled violently the second my feet touched the floor, my knees threatening to give out completely. I gritted my teeth, forcing my unstable body to stagger into the adjoining bathroom, shutting the heavy door behind me. I sank onto the closed toilet seat, my chest heaving as I listened intently through the wood.

​In my hurry, I hadn’t realized one critical thing: my phone was still sitting right on the nightstand next to Reid’s bed.

​Down the hall, the front door opened, followed by the clatter of several pairs of sneakers stepping into the foyer.

​"Damn, McCoy! Look who’s actually alive!" Russo’s booming voice echoed through the apartment, loud and obnoxiously bright.

​"We brought coffee and protein shakes," Marcus said, his tone that of a relieved team manager. "How are you feeling?"

​"I’m fine," Reid replied, his tone locked into a smooth, slightly exhausted grumpiness. "Fever broke last night. Just severely dehydrated."

​A sudden, sharp sniff sounded from the living area, followed by a low whistle from Miller.

​"Fuck, Reid," Miller chuckled, a sly, teasing edge in his voice. "The air in here still smells like a damn war zone. You definitely didn’t ride out that rut alone, did you? The whole place reeks of a fresh, sweet Omega."

​My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped animal inside the bathroom. I could hear their voices all the way from the bathroom and so I held my breath, fearing if I breathed too loudly, they would hear it. My hands gripped the edge of the porcelain seat so hard my knuckles turned white.

​"None of your business," Reid snapped coolly, maintaining his defensive Alpha front seamlessly. "I had help. That’s all you need to know. We have five days before Game 2 against the Vipers, so if you came here to gossip about my personal life, you can get the hell out."

​"Alright, alright, calm down, big guy," Gerald laughed. "We just wanted to make sure our star winger wasn’t dying."

​"Speaking of the team..." Marcus’s voice shifted into manager mode, the sound of him pulling out his phone echoing down the hall. "Has Evans come by today? Or has he called you? I’ve been trying to reach him since eight this morning to go over line adjustments, but his phone goes straight to voicemail. He wasn’t at the facility either."

​Inside the bathroom, my eyes widened in sheer, blinding terror. No. No, no, no.

​"Uh, nope," Reid said, his voice dropping an octave as he tried to sound indifferent. "Haven’t seen him today. He probably stayed home to rest after handling the media stuff."

​"That’s weird," Marcus muttered. "He usually answers on the first ring. Let me try him again right now—"

​Ring. Ring. Ring.

​The piercing, loud chime of my default ringtone exploded from the nightstand right outside the bathroom door.

​The living room went dead, suffocatingly silent.

​My body went completely rigid. My breath caught in my throat. I felt the air freeze in the apartment.

​"Is that..." Russo paused, his eyebrows practically drawing together through the air. "Is that the Captain’s phone?"