36. Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Six
Mira
I run blindly to my room, stumbling inside. My nest calls to me, but when I crawl inside, it's wrong, all wrong. The scents are too strong, too alpha, just too much . Their combined scents wrap around me like a noose, making the arousal in my body burn. If I stay in this space I’m going to incinerate.
I turn and stumble to the bathroom, slamming the door behind me. My hands shake as I fumble with the lock. Heat scratches under my skin like glass shards. My mind fogs with it, with the memory of Cole's hands, his mouth, his scent. My clit is so sensitive that the crotch of my jeans is too much pressure on my body. This isn't normal. This isn't right.
I collapse against the door. My legs give out and I slide to the tiles. Everything hurts… my core, my abdomen, my heart. The tiles feel good against my burning skin, but it's not enough. Nothing is enough.
Arousal, pain, heat, and guilt war in my veins. Cole's taste still lingers on my tongue, his scent branding me. I press my palms against my eyes until I see stars, trying to block out the memory of how perfect it felt, how right. How for one moment, I let myself believe I could have this. Could have him. Could have them all.
I knew better. Knew I couldn't. Knew what would happen if I let myself go. The price of pleasure is pain, always pain. And now I've dragged Cole into my mess. Sweet, haunted Cole who already carries so much guilt. Who looked at me like I was everything he wanted right before I ran. Who probably thinks this is his fault when it's all mine.
I’ve made a mess of everything.
I'm going to have to leave behind this beautiful dream of belonging before hell can rain down on them but first, I have to survive this heat spike that’s come from nowhere. And from the way my body's tearing itself apart from the inside, I'm not sure I can.
Another wave of pain rips through me and I bite my lip so I don’t cry out.
Gods, it hurts so much, but it’s everything I deserve.
Each wave of pain is a reminder of my stupidity. I shouldn't have led Cole on. Shouldn't have taken photos of him. Shouldn't have asked him to teach me. Shouldn't have melted into his kiss like I had any right to experience such pleasure.
I'm the worst sort of person.
Cole will blame himself. He'll think it's his fault, add it to whatever guilt he already carries. He doesn't see that I'm poison.
A knock on the door makes me flinch. “Mira?” Cole's voice is rough. “Let me in.” His decadent scent, heavy with his aroused musk, seeps under the door, making my skin prickle with awareness even through the pain .
“You don’t have to be here for me. Please go away,” I manage through gritted teeth. “I'm fine.” The lie tastes bitter on my tongue, but I can't let him see me like this. Can't let him blame himself for what my body does.
“You're far from fine.” His scent grows stronger, heavy with distress and something darker. “I can smell your pain.”
And I can smell his guilt. His turmoil. It makes everything worse, knowing I've added to whatever burden he already carries. “I shouldn't have kissed you. I should have known better. I know you don't want me. You don't even like me. I should have stayed away from you.”
He groans, the sound full of anguish. “This is not your fault. Gods, Mira, I wanted to kiss you. I want…” He breaks off, muttering something that sounds like “so much more,” but it can't be true. Can't be real.
“Don't lie,” I whisper, pressing my forehead to my knees as sweat drips down my spine. “I disgust you. You wouldn't even be near me during my heat. That's the biggest tell of all.” His absence during those desperate days still stings, even as my body burns.
I hear him slide down the other side of the door, his weight settling against it. The thin barrier between us is both too much and not enough. “Lying is all I have done. But not to you, Sweetness. To myself.” He sighs, the sound long, drawn out and so, so tired. “Mira, I... need to tell you about Lily.”
Lily? “You don’t have to tell me anything.”
“Yes. I…want to, Mira. I want you to understand it all so you can see how stupid I am. How blind. How sorry…” He draws a breath. “This isn’t an apology. Nothing will make up for how I’ve treated you. I’ll spend the rest of my life doing that, but…at least I hope you’ll understand. I was just a kid. Eighteen and thinking I knew everything. I met Lily at university before all the laws changed. Before they started restricting omegas from the public. Back when things were simpler. Perhaps I was just too naive to see how complicated they really were.”
I curl on the floor and press my burning forehead against the cool tiles as he speaks, letting his words wash over me. My stomach cramps and I bite my lip to keep my whimper inside .
“Lily sat next to me in Ancient Literature. She had this way of seeing straight through all the bullshit in the texts.” His voice catches. “She made me laugh. Made me think. I'd only presented as alpha three months before, a late bloomer. I didn't really understand what that meant. What I was capable of. What I could destroy.”
The self-loathing in his voice makes my omega whine, wanting to comfort him.
“We started spending time together. Study groups turned into coffee dates. She loved photography too, just like you. She used to carry this ancient camera everywhere.” A broken laugh. “Gods, we were so young. So fucking young. I thought... I thought what I felt was love. Thought I could protect her. Instead, I...”
I can't help the jealous pang in my chest at the tenderness in his voice, even though I have no right to him. Never did. The way he talks about her… it's clear she still haunts him.
Another cramp tears through me, but I focus on his words. On the agony in his voice that matches the physical torture in my body. The way his scent grows heavier with each revelation, weighted with years of guilt.
“One thing led to another, and she went into early heat. She was far too young; it shouldn't have happened. Took us both by surprise.” His voice breaks, and I hear him thump his head against the door. “Triggered my rut. We were too young to control our pheromones, too inexperienced to understand the dangers.”
He shifts against the door, his scent souring. Raw anguish threads through his words. “I was out of my mind in rut. I'd just... I'd just bitten her when she started seizing. I called the university medics, but...” He stops, and I can hear him fighting for control, his breath coming in harsh gasps. “She died on the way to the hospital.”
The silence stretches, heavy with his pain. When he speaks again, his voice is barely a whisper, shattered and young. “Her body wasn't developed enough for a heat. She had a weakness in her DNA. Undiagnosed. Unknown.”
His guilt wraps around me stronger than his scent, and suddenly his distance makes terrible sense. The way he holds himself apart, the fear in his eyes when he looks at me, the careful control he maintains. It's all because of Lily .
Because he thinks he killed her. My broken parts shift and crackle as though they’re making space for pieces that aren’t my own.
I manage to find my voice after a cramp steals my breath for a moment. “It wasn't your fault, Cole. You were both so young. You couldn't have known.”
“That's what everyone says,” he responds, bitter and broken. “Adrian, Zane, the doctors, even Lily's parents. But hearing it and believing it...” He trails off. “How do you believe something when the evidence of your destruction is right there in front of you?”
Silence draws between us. He's tried to erase what happened with Lily through self-recrimination. Through denying himself, but I see a man who cares so deeply, he hasn't been able to heal that wound. Cole is a good man who feels deeper than anyone I know. His pain echoes my own, a mirror of guilt and regret.
“I understand…I understand how it feels when you're responsible for the deaths of people you love.” The words come easier than they should, maybe because of the pain fogging my mind, or maybe because it's Cole on the other side of the door.
The pause is long, heavy. His scent shifts with surprise, with recognition of shared pain. “Who?” he asks finally, the word barely audible. There's no judgment in his voice, just quiet acknowledgment of another soul carrying the same burden.
I shouldn't tell him about my parents. Haven't told anyone except Emma and Leah, and that was only because they were there in the aftermath. They understood because they were orphaned, too. But Cole... Cole will understand that sort of loss because he’s lived it.
He won't offer empty comfort or useless platitudes just like I won’t give them to him. Sometimes bad things happen and there's no pretty bow to tie around the tragedy. There’s no way to describe how different life is after loss like that. Death doesn’t carve you cleanly; it drags its claws through the marrow of who you are. And the worst part is that I resent the world for continuing to spin. For daring to hum with life when mine ended with the death of my parents.
Cole knows. I see it in the way his gaze lingers on my scars—not with pity, but recognition. We’re both ghosts, stitching ourselves back into shapes that don’t quite fit. No, there’s no bow. Just the frayed edges of what’s left, and the quiet understanding that some wounds don’t close.
The words push up my throat, bursting to come out but this time I don’t stuff them down. Maybe it’s because I’m so heavy I’m suffocating and I need, just once, to let out my deepest, darkest secret of that day.
I stuff my fist against my teeth and whisper. “My parents died because of me.”
The silence that follows draws on, but it’s filled with understanding. And somehow, sharing that weight with Cole makes everything just a little lighter. Even as my body burns with pain, even as pleasure turns to torture, there's something almost comforting about being understood so completely.
“Oh, Sweetness. I’m so sorry,” he whispers.
I swallow back the thickness in my throat. “Yeah. So am I.”
I hear a few muffled thumps, and I realize he’s tapping the back of his head against the door between us. Then Cole's weight shifts away from the door and muffled steps on the carpet fade. But for once, the absence of pressure doesn’t hollow me out. He’s not rattling the doorknob. Not forcing me to let him offer me comfort because it makes him feel better. Cole just… lets me exist. Even when I’m fractured.
Because I’m fractured.
Our kiss lingers on my bruised mouth—desperate and starved, my teeth trace his lip. I remember how he froze, his hands fisting in my hair as if I embodied the perfect fusion of salvation and sin. It changed things. Carved a fault line between who we were and whatever jagged thing we are now. He doesn’t expect me to stitch myself into the shape of Lily’s ghost for him. Just like he doesn’t try to sand down his edges to fit me.
My attention locks on soft footfalls outside the door. He’s back. I recognize the cadence of his steps—deliberate, weighted, like he’s marching to his own execution. His scent seeps under the door, his fresh pine scent overpowering aged leather. He doesn’t speak for a moment. Doesn’t knock. Just… exists there.
“Mira.” My name cracks in his throat. “I, uh. Have something. For you.” A rustle of fabric, then a shaky exhale. “I kept telling myself there’d be a perfect time to give this to you, but fuck, I’ve been… I’ve had my head so far up my own ass I could’ve auditioned as a fucking colonoscopy dummy.”
A humorless laugh punches out of me. “Cole—”
“Let me say this. Please.” His palm taps the door, not in anger, but like he’s steadying himself. “I’m sorry. Not just for today. For… for making you think I didn’t want you. That’s—fuck. That’s so far from the truth it’s laughable. I just… I didn’t think I deserved to want anything after Lily. Let alone you.”
I clutch my abdomen as I sit up, pressing my forehead to the door. Inhaling the pine that drives the ache away just that little bit.
“I’ve been selfish,” he grinds out. “To Adrian and Zane. To you. Letting my guilt poison every goddamn choice. But I’m done. I won’t… I won’t stand in your way. With them. With… anyone. You deserve peace. I don’t want you all to be unhappy because of me. I’m going to…I’ll leave, Mira. I’ll leave the pack because you deserve so much more than me.”
Leaving . The word detonates in my chest. Every cell in my body goes rigid as heat of another kind sweeps through me. What he’s saying is so wrong. Too wrong.
A beat. An object glints as it’s pushed under the door—a golden heart pendant, chain coiled neatly beside it. My breath catches. My locket. The one I thought I’d lost but now it’s repaired. The gold glints, buffed and shining like new. The broken link in the chain is fixed. I fit my nail between the halves and open the heart, the hinge now working, and I see Mom’s smile, no longer blurred by water damage or mold. Dad’s arm around my shoulders, creases smoothed. The frayed white edges around the photo are clean and colorful.
“I picked up the locket when we found you in your apartment,” Cole says, voice muffled through the door. “I had it restored. I meant to tell you sooner but—” A bitter laugh. “Figured you’d hate me for hoarding it. Another reason to add to the list, right?”
He fixed it. Not just the locket—the memory.
The proof that I was loved before grief turned me feral.
That I’m still worth loving .
My throat tightens. All this time, I thought he saw me as a burden, a problem to tolerate. But this—this is a confession. We’re bleeding the same blood.
Cole’s shadow still lingers under the door, his breath hitching like he’s waiting for a verdict. Stay, I want to say. Stay and prove you’re not the ghost you think you are . But another cramp twists low in my belly.
I grunt, doubling over, my body betraying me again. Slick pools between my thighs, nipples pebbling against my shirt, the ache in my clit so sharp it blurs my vision.
Pathetic, I curse myself. Weak. But Mom’s steady smile winks at me, bright and fresh in the restored photo. I swear I feel Mom’s fingers smoothing my hair—the way she did when nightmares yanked me awake as a kid. “You’re stronger than the dark, Mira.”
Dad’s voice hums beneath hers, warm and wry: Scars mean you showed up to the fight, kiddo. Even the scars you can’t see .
Cole’s scent sharpens—pine needles and alpha pheromones spiking as my own floods the room. “Mira?” Panic edges his voice. “Fuck, I know I’ve got no right to help you, but—fuck—let me call Adrian. Zane. Someone.”
I squeeze the heart pendant until its edges bite my palm. Mom and Dad not here. Of course they’re not. The bathroom tiles are still cold, the air still reeks of my own sweat and slick, and Cole’s still holding his breath on the other side of the door. But for the first time since their deaths, the memory of them doesn’t slice—it settles.
The desperation in his tone cracks something in me. Not pity. Recognition. We’re all mosaics of old wounds and bad choices, but Mom and Dad would tell me to stop punishing myself for needing glue.
Another cramp seizes me. Their words aren’t a memory—they’re a demand.
Mom and Dad didn’t want to leave me, and they wouldn’t have wanted me to stop living either. Mom’s delicate lavender perfume drifts past me, quickly followed by Cole’s desperate burnt resin.
The locket’s chain tangles in my fingers. Outside I hear Adrian’s urgent murmur and Zane’s heavy footfalls. Their scents flow under the door, smoky cedar, sharp zest and smoldering pine pitch. They envelop me in a comforting embrace, grounding yet intoxicating. Their scents reach for me, embrace me, and I know exactly what they feel. What they think as certainly as I know my own thoughts and emotions. The knot of fear and uncertainty within me loosens its grip, unraveling as their scents weave through the room like a soft, protective cocoon. I don’t need to fear them.
“Adrian and Zane are here,” Cole says softly. “Can they please come in, Sweetness?”
Another cramp wracks my body, worse than before. The arousal is excruciating. This burning ache won’t be satisfied until I have their help. The itch under my skin is driving me insane. My thighs are covered with slick even as pain tears through me. My abdomen is a yawning hole throbbing to be filled and my clit throbs so painfully that an ache spreads from the top of my thighs to my backbone.
Want them. Want them so bad.
“Take the chance, Mira.” Mom’s voice whispers in my soul. “Not because it’s safe. Because it’s yours .”
I press the locket to my lips.
With trembling hands, I reach up and unclip the lock. The door opens, and all three alphas look down at me—Adrian with his controlled concern, Zane with his open worry, and Cole with his haunted guilt. Their combined scents wash over me making my omega keen even as my body punishes me for wanting.
I must look a mess, sweating, trembling, curled against the bathroom wall. But there's no judgment in their eyes. Only acceptance.
Always acceptance.
Adrian kneels, his movements careful, controlled. He brushes my damp hair from my face with the gentlest of touches. His hazel eyes are dark with concern, but there's no pity there. “Do you need our help, Little One?” Even now, with me sprawled in pain and sweating on the floor, he gives me a choice.
They all do; it's who they are.
They can’t be any other way .
I manage to nod, and he lifts me like I weigh nothing. His smoked cedar envelops me, soothing even as my body burns. “Where do you want to go?”
“My nest,” I whisper.
“Okay.” There's no judgment, no suggestion that my ratty closet nest isn't good enough. No pressure to use the beautiful nest room they prepared. They accept it just like they accept me, broken pieces and all. My safe space in their world, and…and…
Adrian lays me down among my mixed collection of old and new blankets. “What do you need?”
The truth spills out before I can stop it, raw and desperate. Straight from the deepest place inside my heart, straight to my lips, and in that second, I see the whole truth of it. Speaking to Cole. Him telling me his darkest secret has unblocked mine. “Everything.”
“We'll give you that. And more,” he promises, and I believe him.
Adrian and Zane settle beside me with their big bodies, shielding me against the pain. Cole hovers in the doorframe, his face taut and hollow. His fingers dig into the wood as his shoulders droop. He looks infinitely sad and suddenly I don’t want him to be separate. Anything less would be incomplete, wrong. He's damaged, yes, but so am I.
I want him here. Hunger for him as desperately as I do Adrian and Zane.
With me.
With us, because…
And suddenly I understand. Not just understand with my head. The certainty is in my heart, body and soul. And it’s a fucking revelation .
Adrian and Zane have known about Cole's wounds all along. They've watched him carry his guilt, his self-loathing. They've loved him through it all, made space for his pain, accepted his broken pieces without trying to force him to be whole.
Just like they're doing with me.
The truth weaves through the cracks of my heart, pulling shattered pieces together into fragile wholeness. I've been so focused on keeping my secrets, that I missed what was right in front of me. These alphas don't need me perfect. They don't need me whole.
I lift my hand to trace the side of Adrian’s face. “You…you don’t try to take my broken pieces away,” I whisper, my words cracking.
Adrian smiles at me and sunshine breaks out behind metaphorical clouds. “Of course not. I would never do that to you.”
I look at Zane. At the way his gaze softens when he looks down at me. He smooths a knuckle down my cheek. “We just want you. All of you. Broken pieces and dark secrets included.”
My lips tremble before they stretch into a smile.
I've been telling myself I have to run to protect them, but... maybe that's just another way of running from myself. From the possibility of healing. From the terrifying prospect of being loved despite my damage. Because of my damage.
Cole shared his deepest shame with me, and in return, I shared mine. The weight of my parent’s death is different now, not lighter exactly, but shared. Understanding blooms between us, a recognition of similar souls. And Adrian and Zane... they've been waiting. Waiting for both of us to realize we don't have to carry our burdens alone.
I've been so afraid of them discovering what I am but looking at how they love Cole through his darkness, how they accept his need to punish himself while gently showing him another way... maybe they can accept my darkness, too.
Maybe running isn't the answer. Maybe staying is. Seeing Mom and Dad again, even in that little picture, is enough to remind me that I was loved. That I can accept love.
I grimace as another cramp winds through me.
“Come, Little One. Please let us make you comfortable,” Adrian says.
Cole’s face closes off and I won’t have that. Not anymore. Not when I understand how deeply he feels. Not when their scents weave this safe place around me. Not when Cole’s scent calls to every part of me and I need him like I need my next breath.
Like I need all of them .
Being broken isn't so bad when you're broken together.
“Cole?”
He turns so fast his shoulder bumps the frame. His dark eyes glitter as they land on me. I raise my arm, stretching my fingers toward him. “Please, Cole. Will you stay?”