A Year of Almost #3
That is not what I said. Not even close.
I didn't say I wanted to own her. I said I wanted her here, wanted her to choose us the way I've been quietly hoping she might for a solid year. There's a canyon between those two things, and Nico bulldozed straight across it like it wasn't there.
I consider telling him that, but the alpha’s still running hot right now. If I push him, we'll probably end up yelling at each other in the kitchen, and that won’t solve anything.
So I decide to let it go.
For now.
"Okay," I say instead.
Nico blinks, like he’s shocked I’m not giving him a fight, but then I see some of the tension leak out of his shoulders.
"Okay," he says, like he’s happy that’s the end of it.
"Should we check on Lyra?" Mack asks like he’s not sure. "I mean, she had to have heard that. Right?"
Nico goes still, and something shifts across his face.
"Shit." He straightens off the counter. "Lyra,” he says her name like he genuinely forgot she was in the house at all. "Yeah. Somebody needs to make sure she's okay."
"I'll go," I say.
Nico nods, already scanning me, and I watch him catch the state I'm in. My shirt's half untucked and rumpled, reeking of Adrian’s enraged scent.
I leave the two alphas, and I move through the house, working my top button loose as I go.
By the time I reach my bedroom door, I've got the rest of them undone. I push the door open with one hand and drag the shirt up over my head with the other, the damp cotton peeling off my back, and for half a second the fabric covers my face and I can't see a thing.
Then I pull it free, and go completely still.
Lyra is sitting in the middle of my bed.
Her head comes up when the door opens, and her eyes go wide, catching on me.
Her lips part around a small breath. She looks almost startled to see me standing there, like she'd been kneeling in the middle of my bed waiting for someone to walk through that door and hadn't quite believed anyone actually would.
Then something in her face steadies. Her chin lifts a fraction, and she holds my gaze.
"You’re home," she says softly as I take in the sight of her.
She’s on her knees. Spine straight and shoulders back. Her hands rest folded in her lap and her ankles are tucked neatly behind her. It's the posture her mother drilled into her, the one she falls into at the dinner table without thinking, except there's nothing prim about it now.
She's wearing one of Nico’s thin, white shirts. The lamp behind her cuts straight through the worn material. I can see everything. The full weight of her breasts, the dark points of her nipples pushed hard against the fabric, the shadow of her waist tapering down. My mouth goes dry.
"Lyra." Her name comes out rough. "What, what are you doing?"
Her throat works as she swallows. Her hands twist together in her lap, and when she lifts her eyes to mine they're bright and wet, almost like she’s nervous or scared, but she doesn't look away.
"I…uh…" She licks her lips then pulls in a deep breath. "I’m glad your home." Then, slowly, she parts her knees.
The shirt rides up her bare thighs, and she draws in a shaking breath, her lips opening like she's finally going to tell me what's happening to her.
But before she can get a word out, Nico steps into the room behind me, reaching out to touch my shoulder.
"Owen, do we have other bl—" He stops mid-word as his eyes land on Lyra.
Everything about him locks up, his hand frozen right above my shoulder.
His dark eyes go to the omega and stay there, dragging up her face, down over the see through shirt, all the way down the bare stretch of her parted legs. He takes in every inch of what she's put on display.
"Nico," she whispers as she curls her fingers under the hem of the t-shirt.
She pulls in a breath and holds it, her chest lifting, her mouth opening around whatever she's finally worked up the nerve to say.
Then she stops.
Her nostrils flare, and her gaze cuts past me to the doorway, to Nico, and I watch her lose the thread of whatever she was about to say. That's when it reaches me too.
Adrian's rut soaked into Nico’s skin, sharp and hot and heavy, wrapping around all of us until even my dull nose is drowning in it.
"Ah-alpha," Lyra’s chest heaves once, the soft peaks of her breasts pushing against the white fabric.
A low growl rolls out of Nico's chest, then he moves toward the bed.
Lyra pulls in a deep breath through her nose, and I watch her pupils blow wide and black, swallowing all that honey brown.
I can't tell if it's Nico himself or the rut clinging to him or both at once, but something in her cracks open at the smell of him, and her whole body sways toward the alpha crossing the room.
Down our bond, Nico's want hits me like a wall of heat. It’s so intense, I have to grab the doorframe. He wants her. God, he wants her, more than I've felt him want anything.
I look at Lyra, swaying on her knees in the middle of our bed with her legs open and her eyes gone dark, and I send up the only prayer I've got.
Please want him back.