Chapter 45
forty-five
brIAR
The one issue I didn’t think through in my whole plan to sneak out of the nest, possibly enrage the pack alpha, find the mean one, spill my guts to him, and somehow get him to come back—
Okay, so there were a few issues.
But one in particular.
When my stomach grumbled—reminding me my dinner consisted of a little wine and a whole lot of drama—I was not prepared for Rhys to leap into action like I was teetering on a burning ledge.
I’m not sure what he plans to do to get takeout at ten a.m., given it’s the staff’s morning off—but the man seems pretty damn determined to make it happen.
In typical Rhys fashion, he doesn’t offer any explanations. He simply spins his phone in his palm and nods at the second-floor hallway. “Go get comfortable, viper. I’ll grab the food and bring it up when it’s here… if that’s okay with you. Of course.”
The vulnerability in his eyes is the only reason I don’t tease him for seeming so uncertain. That, and the fact that he listened to my whole sordid story without mocking me one single time.
Instead of taunting, I stretch up on my tiptoes and let my lips brush his cheek. “It’s okay with me.”
A shiver moves through him. His hand snaps to my wrist, a dark look darting across his angelic features when he pulls back. “If you make me come in my pants again,” he husks, “I may never live it down.”
I raise my brows. “What if that’s my master plan?”
“Then it’s working.”
I’m still dazzled by his rueful, gorgeous parting grin when I step into the shower ten minutes later.
Hell. I really don’t know where we go from here.
I consider my options as I lather up. Leaving them all. Staying and trying to sway them into helping me. Staying and just… being.
God, am I insane?
Actually, I think I might be.
Because the second I skim soap over my skin, my Omega loses her mind.
Their scents, she panics, watching the sudsy water swirl down the drain. They’re washing off! They’re not on me anymore. I can’t—I can’t—
We can’t scent them. And as I start drawing quicker, shallower breaths, I realize I might be freaking out a little bit, too.
Did I imagine all of this? Am I delusional? Do I actually have mates? Do they truly… care about me?
How can any of this be real? How could they be all over my skin and wrapped through the strands of my soul one minute and then just disappear down a drain? Am I still locked in that closet, clinging to sanity?
Knock twice if you’re okay, Rosie.
A high whine cracks through the bathroom. Before I can drag in enough steamy air to produce a second one, footsteps race into the room.
My husband’s, to be exact.
The look on Cillian’s face is feral. Full of so much anger and intensity, I immediately cringe into the glass shower enclosure. My Omega whimpers as I bite my tongue, holding the fearful noise in.
The strides stop.
“Briar.”
Is he…?
He is purring. And his voice is as gentle as his hands when they find my shoulders. “What’s wrong, rosebud?”
“I—I—”
Shit, I really can’t breathe. Instincts I can’t control skitter up my spine, closing my windpipe.
My eyes lose focus, lolling until they find the visible pulse in his neck.
I fixate on it instinctively—and the next thing I know, I’m throwing my arms over his broad, bare shoulders.
Climbing him to get the warm scent of his throat.
For the second time in twelve hours.
So maybe I can see Rhys’s point about dying from embarrassment by increments.
But Cillian instantly lifts me into his embrace, stretching his neck to give me better access to the small traces of spice and smoke I sense through what’s left of the neutralizer.
“Good fucking girl, needing your alpha,” he roughs out, holding me closer. “I’ve got you.”
He nuzzles his cheek over my temple, scent-marking me. My head swims, dizzy from the rush of pheromones and the need for more. “Cillian—”
He stills when I say his name, his muscles stiffening around me. “I need you back in the nest,” he growls, snatching a towel off the rack and stalking out of the room. “I nearly snapped into a rut when I woke up without you.”
“Sorry,” I mumble into his neck. “My Omega needed to check on Rhys. She wanted to tell him everything.”
You know at some point you’re going to have to stop throwing me under the bus, the voice in my middle mutters.
Dream on, traitor, I snap back.
Cillian noses at my cheek, the gesture as sweet as his answering whisper. “Never apologize for caring about my packmates, rosebud. They’re your alphas, too.”
My alphas.
The truth of that has only just begun setting in. Dane’s whispered confessions last night. Rhys groaning into my lap, coming completely undone from the simplest of touches. And Cillian, here. Knowing I needed him, running to my side like—like—
A mate.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you before,” Cillian murmurs, nudging the door to the nest open with his shoulder. Dane stirs but doesn’t wake, burrowing his face further into the blanket they wrapped around me last night.
My husband lowers me to my feet, keeping his hands on my hips to hold me steady as their scents wash over me. I sway, but lock eyes with him, needing to hear the rest of his thought.
“I wanted to,” he promises, ice-blue eyes sparking like frozen ponds. “Every fucking day, I woke up and went to sleep wanting nothing more than to barge over to your rehearsals or your father’s house and sweep you up. Tell you that we were mates. Carry you home.”
But then all their “clients” would have known they had a scent-match. And they might have used me to harm or extort them. Not to mention Gideon and his agenda.
I’m not sure I’ll ever admit it to the powerful man throwing himself at my mercy, but I’m not sure I would have wanted any of that.
Once I was here, though… His… He could have told me. I would have tried my best to make his secret into our secret.
“You didn’t have to keep me in the dark for so long,” I reply, finding some of the strength I desperately lacked before. Picking up steam as I let my righteous indignation flow through me.
“It—this—do you know how embarrassing this feels? To know that my Omega was sensing her mates every day and I couldn’t understand that?
! And you knew. You knew the truth and you calculated that I wouldn’t be able to figure it out.
Because I didn’t know anything about being around alphas—you knew I would assume that all the crazy feelings I had were just normal.
You knew I’d been sheltered and you used it against me! ”
Cillian’s gaze blazes. “Yes,” he finally bites out, reaching over to grasp my jaw, “I used your innocence against you. I used every fucking thing I could think of to keep you safe. Because that is my religion, Briar. My damnation and salvation and every last breath in between. You. Safe. Here. And mine.”
Fuck. Fuck him. And fuck me, because I don’t stop his lips when they find mine.
I open for them.
And lose myself in the way he pours his soul out at my feet. Begging for forgiveness. Demanding my submission. Somehow swirling his need and mine into a thicket so thorny, I know I’ll never escape it.
A tangle so beautiful, I don’t think I want to.