Birds of a Feather

Chapter 35

Author Note:

So... I've been doing. It's been something. I'm not sure how often I'll be updating at this point. Work is insane. Classes are extremely time consuming. Trying my best. Hope you like this update.

-Book

Dinner went extremely well. Cas had been placed between the two betas who took turns feeding her from their own plates. Taeil had claimed that it was their compromise with the alphas to allow their instincts to flourish.

As the dishes are cleared Winwin hands her a cup of cooled tea, putting two pieces of candy onto the table. "Trust me." Johnny says from the other end of the table, "You'll want to drink that as quick as possible and eat the candy immediately. It tastes awful."

Cas takes a quick sniff of it, almost gagging at the rancid scent. It reminds her of that one bad St. Patrick's Day where boiled cabbage sat out in the sun, but somehow also so much worse. She winces. "It's just like college. Just like really bad tequila. We can do this. We can do this." She mutters, trying to hype herself up, the amused smirks passing around over her head going unnoticed.

She takes a deep breath, exhales and pinches her nose. Tipping the glass into her mouth, it takes sheer willpower to force the luke warm liquid down. Her face screws up and she starts gagging all over again afterwards, "JESUS FUCKING CHRIST! EW." She says in between gags, having to put the back of her hand up to her mouth multiple times as Taeil rubs up and down her back. He hands her the unwrapped candy and she's quick to pop it into her mouth.

"Well..." Doyoung says, "If it helps, you did better at that then Johnny. We had to hold him down and force him to drink it a couple times."

She glares across the table at him, meekly as she shivers from the god awful after taste. She spots Johnny looking a little green across the room and she growls at him, "For the record, your courting gift official sucks ass." She gags again, "tastes like it too. Ugh why. How many of these do I have to do?" She whines.

"Um... 20 if you do it consecutively. 2 added for every day you miss. So... don't miss?" Jaehyun says.

"Hyung?" Jungwoo says hesitantly, while moving next to Johnny, "We have to get her to the nest."

All of the alphas shift a bit, "Right." Taeyong says. "Why don't you guys go get her settled? We'll join in a bit if everything goes well."

"Settled?" Cas asks, head tilting as she lets Johnny pull her up from the chair.

"We'll explain when we get there, little omega." He hums against her ear.

She allows the two alphas to push her towards their nest, Johnny's hands around her waist as Jungwoo grips her left hand in his. They push her into a room, fuzzy blankets spread out all over the surfaces. Her hand grips Jungwoo's tighter and he smiles sadly, "Unfortunately no nesting tonight, Cas. We need the blankets how they are."

She doesn't contradict him. No reason to inform both of these alphas that her reaction wasn't one of want, but one of fear and anxiety. She still hadn't been able to recover a desire to nest, fairly certain her omega had some form of PTSD from it. Or she was broken. Regardless, it was not something she wanted to address with them right now, so she just nods along as the two alphas guide her to sit on the bed.

"Now," Johnny says as he sits next to her, "there's a side effect for at least the first 2 or 3 doses of this. As you know, the drug this is countering causes surprise heats for omegas." Cas nods, "Well, the tea does the opposite. It's working to balance your body out, so you're about to get very very cold." She just stares at him, "This is only for the first couple times you take it, like I said, but it means you need to get external heat to help your body cope with it."