Burnt

Chapter 21: Bad Influences

Alison's POV

My heat lasts three days. When I wake up on Saturday morning, I'm relieved to feel back to normal. After spending most of Wednesday asleep and then Thursday and Friday in a heat induced daze, it's nice to be myself. It'll be even nicer to leave this room.

Despite being the only ones who can really feel it, as my mates and therefore the only ones who are really affected, the twins insisted on bringing food to me. Now that I can think clearly about it, I'm glad they did.

Everyone must know by now. Even if they didn't explicitly hear anything about us being mated, they must have heard that I was in heat. There's not much other way to explain my absence to the pack. Especially since only one of them left at a time to go fetch things or deal with pack work. And when they did, they smelled different. We all will now.

I'm nervous about seeing other people. It's like wearing a sign that says 'I just spent three days having sex!' Yes, it happens to every female wolf. Usually a bunch of times by now. It still feels personal, like I'd rather not have everyone know.

I check my appearance in the mirror one more time on our way out the door. Cameron stops behind me, strong arms wrapping around my waist. "I told you. You're perfect." He tells me for the fifth time this morning. His head rests on my shoulder, making eye contact with me in the mirror.

"I just know that everyone is gonna be looking at me." I reply, also for the fifth time this morning.

He smirks, proud that everyone will know for certain who I belong to now. "Yeah, but it's not a judging stare. They're happy. They wanna see their new Luna. Several pack members have already congratulated us and asked about you."

My cheeks burn red. "Are you kidding? They're going to talk to me about it?" I exclaim, twisting around in his arms.

"Told you it wouldn't make her feel better to know that." Chris chimes in, walking out of the bathroom and towards the door.

I narrow my eye suspiciously as I look between them. "Secret convos, huh?"

They both avert their gaze innocently. Little do they know that simply not replying won't prove their innocence. I roll my eyes, a playful smile on my face. "I suppose you two can collaborate occasionally." The pads of my fingers run up Cam's chest as I step away.

Stepping up to Chris next, I kiss him slowly. His head follows after me even as I keep moving toward the door, prolonging the kiss until I open the door and break away from him with a giggle. I walk quickly down the hall towards the stairs.

I'm not even halfway there when footsteps rush up behind me. Two sets. They each grab one of my hands as they fall into step with me.

As soon as we get to the bottom of the stairs and into view of straggling pack members I can feel the looks. I was right. They're looking at us. Me. But--Cameron was also right. They're smiling. Hushed whispers do make their way to my ears but they're all excited in tone.

Everyone we pass stops to watch us. Two of them even open the dining room doors for us. As nice as I'm sure their intentions are, I still don't love the attention. I can feel my cheeks pinken slightly. There has never been quite so many eyes on me.

The dining room is easily at full capacity today. How they heard we would be here, I have no idea. My hands being squeezed and tugged slightly moves me forward. All I have to do is get used to this. As jobs go, it's a pretty easy one. At least that's what I tell myself to keep my feet moving under so many people's gazes.

I look around as we get to Wesley and Ashlee on our side of the table. They, like everyone else in the room, had stood as soon as they saw us. A sign of respect. For us. Me.