Chapter 30 – ARCHER
Chapter
Thirty
ARCHER
T he bedding in this obscenely expensive room feels like fucking clouds, but I can't settle. My body's exhausted from the move, from watching our backs during transport, from existing in a constant state of hypervigilance that's become my default setting. But my mind won't shut the fuck off.
I've unpacked exactly three things. My emotional support gun, a change of clothes, and the bottle of bourbon I liberated from the bar downstairs.
The room's too quiet. Too perfect. Like something out of those home design magazines my mom used to?—
Nope. Not going down that road tonight.
I need to move. Need to do something with my hands that isn't jerking off to thoughts of our omegas or punching another hole in expensive drywall. So I do what any reasonable person would do at two in the afternoon in a new place. I pretend to organize shit I don't own.
The hallway stretches ahead like a invitation to bad decisions. I'm just checking the layout, I tell myself. Security assessment. Definitely not hoping to accidentally run into?—
Voices drift from the living room. Soft, intimate. The kind of sounds that make my chest do that stupid clenching thing it's been doing since we found them.
I edge closer, telling myself I'm just passing through. Just need to check if the... fucking... windows are secure or some bullshit excuse my brain's too fried to properly manufacture.
The scene that greets me stops me dead in my tracks.
Juniper's curled against Felix on the massive sectional like a cat that's found the perfect sunbeam.
Her head rests on his chest, brown hair spilling across him like silk, and he's reading to her from what looks like one of those fantasy novels with the covers that promise dragons and sexual tension.
His voice is different when he reads. Softer. The sharp edges that usually armor every word smoothed down to something almost tender. And Juniper... fuck, she looks content. Actually content, not the manic energy or defensive sarcasm she usually wears like battle armor.
"'The knight knew he was walking into a trap,'" Felix reads, his fingers absently playing with her hair, "'but love makes fools of even the wisest men.'"
Juniper snorts. "Love makes everyone stupid. That's why it's dangerous."
"Everything worth doing is dangerous," Felix counters, and there's something in his tone that makes my chest ache.
"They're something, aren't they?"
I nearly jump out of my fucking skin. Carlisle's right behind me, close enough that I can smell his expensive cologne and the underlying scent of satisfaction at catching me off guard.
"Fuck!" I hiss, spinning to face him. "Wear a bell or something, you creepy bastard."
His smile is all teeth and amusement. " I'm not the one lurking in hallways, watching our omegas like a lovesick teenager at a school dance."
"I wasn't lurking. I was..." I grasp for an excuse that doesn't make me sound like a complete stalker. "Organizing."
"Organizing." He draws the word out like he's tasting it. "In the hallway. Where there's nothing to organize. While staring at them with your mouth slightly open like you're standing in the Louvre gazing upon an original DaVinci."
"Fuck you."
"You can both come out now," Juniper calls from the couch, not even looking up. "Stop standing there like creeps. It's weird."
My face burns hot enough to fry an egg. Of course she knew we were there.
She probably knew the second we got within fifty feet.
Omega senses or assassin training or just being Juniper—who knows what combination of skills lets her track everything around her like she's got radar built into her skull.
Carlisle, naturally, strolls into the room like he was invited, poised with casual elegance and not a hint of embarrassment. I follow because the alternative is standing in the hallway like an idiot, which seems only marginally worse.
"We were just going to ask how you're settling in," Carlisle lies smoothly, dropping into one of the armchairs with his usual grace.
Juniper finally looks up, hazel eyes bright with amusement. "Oh, is that what you were doing? Not creeping on story time like a couple of perverts?"
"We're concerned perverts," I manage, trying to salvage some dignity. "There's a difference."
She laughs, the sound bright and genuine in a way that makes my alpha instincts purr like a fucking house cat.
"Well, since you asked so nicely while definitely not stalking us, we're settling in great.
The beds are ridiculous, the bathroom is bigger than most apartments, and I'm pretty sure that kitchen has appliances I don't even know the names of. "
"The pasta maker is purely decorative," Carlisle assures her. "No one actually knows how to use it."
"Thank fuck," Felix says in that painfully dry tone I've come to realize is always sarcasm. "I was worried there'd be expectations."
"The only expectation," I say, finding my footing in the conversation, "is that you rest. Recover. Let us handle the heavy lifting."
Juniper groans dramatically, melting backward until she's draped across the couch like a tragedy in designer jeans. "Rest is so fucking boring. I've been resting for days. My brain's going to leak out my ears if I have to rest any more."
"Your brain's been leaking out your ears since I met you," Felix says dryly, poking her ribs.
She swats at him without looking.
Carlisle's eyes light up with interest. "You could always help with weapons inventory. I have three crates of new acquisitions that need cataloging."
Juniper sits up so fast she nearly gives herself whiplash. "New weapons?"
"Mmm-hmm. Some very interesting pieces from a dealer in Vienna. Experimental ammunition, a few prototypes that technically don't exist yet..."
She's actually vibrating with excitement, and then she stops, eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Wait. This is just organizing with extra steps, isn't it? You want me to do paperwork."
"Paperwork with guns," Carlisle clarifies.
She flops back down. "Never mind. I'm not that bored."
We all laugh, even Felix, though his is more of an exhale with attitude. It's such a normal moment, so domestic, that for a second I can pretend we're just... people. Not assassins and vigilantes, not predator and prey, not whatever complicated mess of biology and trauma we actually are.
"Felix?" Bane's voice cuts through the moment like a hacksaw. He's standing in the doorway, all business despite the casual clothes. "Can I borrow you for a minute? Got some pictures I want to run by you, see if you recognize anyone."
Felix glances at Juniper, some silent communication passing between them. She nods, just barely, and he unfolds from the couch with careful movements that suggest his wounds aren't as healed as he'd like us to think.
"Sure," he says, voice back to its usual flat affect. "Lead the way."
They disappear down the hall, Bane's bulk making Felix look even leaner in comparison. The silence they leave behind feels loaded, like the air before a thunderstorm.
Juniper stretches like a cat, then fixes Carlisle and me with a look that makes my pulse spike.
"Well, well," she purrs, and fuck me if that tone doesn't go straight to my cock. "Looks like I have you both all to myself now."
I laugh, but it comes out awkward and strangled. "What, uh... what did you have in mind?"
She rises from the couch with the kind of fluid movement that makes me think of nature documentaries about predators. The dangerous kind. The kind that play with their food before they eat it.
"Follow me," she says, slinking past us toward the hallway. "I'll show you in the bedroom."
Carlisle and I exchange a look. He shrugs, that insufferable smirk playing at his lips like he knows exactly what kind of trouble we're walking into and can't wait to dive in headfirst.
We follow her because we're idiots. Because we're alphas and she's our omega and our biology is screaming at us to follow her anywhere, even if it's straight into hell.
Because despite everything, despite the attempted murder and the complicated dynamics and the fact that she's basically claimed by another omega, we can't help ourselves.
She leads us to her room, pushing open the door with a flourish.
"Welcome to my domain," she announces.
The room looks like a tornado hit it. Or maybe several tornadoes. Having a party. While drunk.
Clothes are scattered across every surface, the bed's unmade with sheets twisted into incomprehensible knots, and there are at least a dozen pillows in various states of arrangement that makes no logical sense.
Books are stacked in precarious towers, there's a collection of what appears to be stolen hotel soaps arranged on the dresser even though I have no fucking idea how or where she would have gotten those, and—is that a radio in the corner?
Through the connecting bathroom door, I can see Felix's room. It's military-precise, everything squared away and organized with the kind of obsessive attention to detail that speaks to years of having to be ready to run at a moment's notice.
The contrast is so stark it's almost funny.
Juniper flops onto her disaster of a bed, bouncing slightly. "So here's the thing. This room? It's wrong."
"Wrong how?" I ask, genuinely curious despite myself.
"Wrong like..." She waves her hands vaguely. "Like the feng shui is fucked. Like the energy is bad. Like it needs to be completely rearranged or I'm going to lose my mind."
Carlisle's studying her with that intensity he usually reserves for planning someone's death. "You want us to help you rearrange furniture."
"I want you to be my big, strong alpha movers," she corrects, batting her eyelashes in a way that's so over the top it circles back around to being genuinely charming. "Since you're so concerned about my wellbeing and all."