Chapter 285

Suddenly I found myself caught between two very irritated Alphas.

Nicholas was growling, his shoulders straight, his stature tall and imposing. Julian matched the intimidating posture. He was slightly smaller in build compared to his brother, but he was still tall and strong.

I guessed I might have better luck trying to calm down Julian, as he’s the one more fully aware of what happened here. Julian and I had not been having sex in the airplane bathroom, or whatever else Nicholas might think. Our interaction was entirely innocent.

Julian’s Alpha surfacing was just a direct reaction to Nicholas’s. It was entirely defensive.

So I turned to Julian and placed my hand on his arm. Before I could say one word, Nicholas’s growl grew louder. Julian began growling to match. Under my fingers, I felt his muscles tense.

“Julian,” I said, pleading. “Stop this.”

But Julian didn’t listen. His focus was entirely on his brother. Even when I tried to move into his line of vision, breaking his line of sight, Julian would just lean or straighten to see over or around me.

God, these two thought they were so different in so many ways, but the truth was, they were actually very similar. This stubbornness was just one of the many ways.

Deciding that Julian was a lost cause, and since my interactions with him were only making Nicholas more upset and heightening the already skyrocketing tension in the small plane hallway, I turned to Nicholas instead. I was in front of him in three short steps. Had the brothers inched closer?

I really needed to stop this before it turned to violence. Another handful of minutes, and they’d be in wolf form, biting at each other’s throats.

“Nicholas,” I said as I moved closer to him. He did not reply. As Julian did, he absolutely refused to look at me, never taking his furious gaze off of his brother. “Nick.” Still nothing.

Irritation bubbled inside of me. These two were going to shift and potentially damage this little plane. I wasn’t about to die in a plane accident because these two couldn’t get their acts together!

Touching an Alpha about to shift was a dangerous prospect, but I knew Nicholas would never hurt me. So I moved closer into Nicholas’s space, right up to his chest. Then I lifted my arms and placed my hands flat on his face, one on either cheek.

If he wanted to avoid looking at me, I would force him too. This foolish growling match was because of me, I knew that, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let it continue.

I don’t have the strength to move Nicholas, even with my additional werewolf ability, but with my urging, he did finally look down at me.

His golden eyes were molten, the green flecks dark, nearly black. They cooled only marginally when he looked at me.

“I was having a panic attack. Julian was helping me,” I said. In Nicholas’s state, he wasn’t likely able to hear much. I had to keep my sentences short and to the point. “Everything was entirely innocent.”

Nicholas’s brow pinched together ever so slightly. Then, subtly, he leaned into me and began to sniff.

He was scenting me, likely to see if the scents backed up my words. They would. While I might smell of Julian, as we did embrace, I would not smell of sex. Nicholas wouldn’t detect even a hint of arousal on me.

Slowly, the fire in Nicholas dimmed somewhat. He took a great big inhale, and on the exhale, his shoulders lost some of their rigidness. He inched closer to me, and lowered his head down toward my shoulder. There, he turned his nose into the base of my neck and inhaled.

I let my hands drop from his face down to his chest, where I felt the steadiness of his heartbeat under my palm.

This type of scenting felt too intimate for our audience, but I supposed there was no real harm in it. Julian knew of my affections for Nicholas, and his for me. If anything, Julian might give me a high five afterwards. He’d say something like, If he’s jealous, it means he cares.

But then, I look to the side and realize that Julian is not our only audience. A few feet to the side, watching us from the wall of the plane interior, stood Bridget. Her expression was carefully blank, but even that was alarming, given that she usually sported a smile no matter the occasion.

I didn’t know my place here. With Bridget’s presence and everything that had happened since her arrival, I felt on uneven ground. And I heard her voice, remembered her words, when she told me that she and Nicholas were together now, and I needed to back off and leave him alone.

This was not leaving him alone.

Since Nicholas wasn’t touching me, his arms down straight at his sides, I faced no resistance when I placed a foot behind myself and took a large step backwards.

Nicholas didn’t give chase. He simply raised his head and looked at me. His expression was mostly unreadable, as if he was still half-lost to the instincts of his wolf. But the human side of him seemed like he had a question.

He probably wanted to know why I backed away.

I wasn’t about to tell him it was because of Bridget, especially with her close enough to hear.

“I need to get back to Elva,” I said. It wasn’t a lie. I had left Elva alone too long. But it wasn’t the full truth either. For now it would have to do. “If you’ll excuse me.”

I turned to leave, but that was when Nicholas reached out and snagged my arm. I looked behind me, up into his face. Was that reaction from the human side of him, or from the wolf?

Slowly, the human side of him was returning fully to the surface. But he still didn’t release my arm.

“I’ll go with you,” he said. His voice was deep and rough, remnants of his wolf nearly overtaking him.

“I’ll be okay,” I said.

“There might be turbulence,” he said. “Or you might panic when we land. You shouldn’t be alone.”

I wasn’t entirely helpless. Yes, I did have a panic attack and I didn’t want Elva to see, but I felt okay now… I think. At any rate, I couldn’t ask Nicholas to abandon his other guests, aka Bridget, to sit next to me just in case something might happen.

He was determined though. And when Nicholas was determined, there wasn’t much that could change his mind.

“Okay,” I eventually caved. “Thank you.”

As we began to walk away back to my seat, Nicholas loosened his hold on my arm but didn’t release me.

Behind Nicholas’s back, Julian flashed me a smile and a quick thumbs up. I knew he’d be supportive. I couldn’t help but wonder now too, if he had purposefully matched Nicholas’s aggression instead of backing down just to force me into intervening myself. Had he predicted this outcome?

I wouldn’t put it past him. In all other areas except those relating to Bridget, Julian seemed to be six or seven steps ahead of anyone else.

Then, my gaze slid past him to the other observer. Bridget continued to watch the scene unfold. She still wasn’t smiling, though now her face wasn’t entirely blank either.

In fact, it almost looked like she was glaring straight at me.