Page 166 of The Rust in Her Hair

It's a high, broken wail, the sound of something precious being destroyed, and I can't stop it any more than I could stop the groan.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Owen says over and over again as he carries me the few feet to the bed and lays me down on it as gently as he can. "Shit. Lyra. What’s happening? Are you okay? Oh, fuck." He goes quiet as she sees the line of blankets stretched between the bed and the closet. "Your nest." His voice falls, shock gripping him.

Half my nest is here on the bed with me, dragged out in the blankets still fisted in my hand, and the other half is back there in the closet, wrecked, scattered, and wrong. The neat little den I built is torn clean in two.

A fresh sob wracks through me, and I reach back toward the closet with my free hand, fingers spread, grasping at nothing.

"Do you want," Owen starts, and I hear how lost he is, how scared. He's crouched over me with his hands hovering like he's terrified to touch me. "Baby, tell me. Do you want me to put you back in the closet? Or do you want all your nesting stuff out here? Tell me what you need, and I'll do it, I swear, just tell me."

I can't tell him anything. The words won't come. All that comes is a snarl, low and bared-teeth, and I stab my hand toward the closet again, toward my blankets and pillows and perfectly tucked in shirts, toward everything that smelled like my pack.

"Out here? Okay. You want it out here. Okay." Owen is already moving. "Okay, I can do that, I'm doing it right now."

He goes to the closet and starts hauling armfuls of blankets out to me, and he doesn't stop talking the whole time, the words tumbling fast and frightened. "Here, this one, this is the soft one you like. And the gray pillow, I know, I've got it. I'm sorry, I'm sorry I pulled you out, I panicked, I didn't know what was happening and you weren't breathing right and I just." His voice cracks. "I'm probably making this so much worse. God, tell me if I'm making it worse."

But I can't get a single damn word out. I can only snarl and grunt, and breathe through the pain.

Owen drops the last armfull right in front of me, and I immediately press my burning face into Nico’s old pillow. My body shakes, and I reach for the next thing Owen brings, and then the next.

Then my hands take over and my head goes quiet.

I don't decide to build. I just move, up on my knees in the middle of the mattress, dragging blankets into place and shoving pillows where they need to go, and it's like watching somebody else's hands do it.

I adjust blankets and fluff pillows, my body refusing to stop.

Make it safe. Make it right. Make it mine.

Owen takes a few steps back, giving me room. I catch him in the edge of my vision, standing off to the side in nothing but his pajama pants and his glasses, his chest bare, and his arms hanging useless at his sides. He's watching me build with his eyes gone wide behind the lenses.

The bruise under his face is so dark now, a deep purple-black, smudged all around his eye socket. The white of the eye itself gone pink at the corner. And he looks scared half to death as he watches me work.

I hate that I’m scaring him right now, but I can’t stop to explain myself.

Plus, my nest is almost there. I've nearly got the shape of it, the walls curved up around a soft hollow in the center, and I sit back on my heels for half a breath to check it.

And that's when my body lets go.

A cramp grips my belly right as a hot rush of slick pushes out of me all at once, soaking through my underwear. It pours down the insides of my thighs, and the smell of it blooms up thick and sweet into the small space. Everything stops. I go still on my knees, and the truth of it drops through me all the way to the floor.

I'm in heat.

I look up at Owen and watch him understand it in the exact same second I do. His nostrils flare and his whole body goes rigid. His eyes snap to mine, blown wide, and he takes one helpless step toward the bed, drawn on instinct, reaching.

And I immediately snarl at him.

It rips out of me ugly and sharp, teeth bared, and he freezes mid-step and rocks back onto his heels. Not yet. It isn't ready. It isn't perfect yet, and nobody comes into my nest until it's perfect, not even him.

Owen lifts both hands and eases back to the wall. "Okay," he says softly. "Okay. I'm right here. Take your time."

I turn back to the nest.

I'm burning alive now. The slick keeps coming, and the flannel is stuck to my back with sweat, and every inch of my skin is screaming to be free of this shirt and my underwear. I want to tear it off, but I can’t spare a second until this nest is perfect.

Pillow. Blanket. Corner. Fold.

And then I hear the front door open, and my whole body locks up.

Boots move through the house. Two sets, walking fast.