Chapter 4 #2
"Alex's pack. Malcolm and Alex both. They're matched to her. I never questioned the blockers before, but they were hiding it from us. Her too."
"Why didn't you lead with that?"
Ragon's hands curl into fists on the counter and his knuckles go white. "Because it doesn't matter. She belongs to us. We've had her for five years. I have legal custody. She's ours and I'm getting her back."
I can't breathe again.
Scent matches.
Vee has scent matches.
They've been living next door this whole time and we didn't know. Or maybe we did know and we just didn't care because we were too busy with Marie.
They took her.
She's gone.
"She can't be gone." The words come out desperate. Pleading. "We need her. We love her and she loves us."
Doesn't she?
Did we? I did. I do. I was just too scent drunk to remember.
The thought slithers in unwanted.
But if we loved her why did we leave her alone? Why did we believe Marie over her? Why did we let Ragon punish her? Why did we let her fade into the background like wallpaper?
I listen to the hum of the refrigerator and the slow, steady tick of the kitchen clock. There’s nothing else. The room feels colder without her in it, too quiet, too empty. I look around at the coffee mugs, the chairs, the sunlight on the floor. None of it feels right.
"I know." Ragon's voice is hard. The pack lead voice he uses when he's decided and won't be moved. "That's why we're getting her back."
"How?" Eli asks.
"Alex has a criminal record." Ragon's eyes are sharp.
Focused. The pack lead who used to solve problems is back and he's been busy while the rest of us were coming out of rut.
"I looked him up after I figured out they took her.
He went to prison. Four years for aggravated assault.
And when he got out, the registry flagged him.
No omega contact. He's not allowed to have an omega anywhere near him. "
The room shifts.
"He's flagged?" Eli says.
"Flagged. Restricted. And he has our omega in his hands right now." Ragon straightens. "All I have to do is call the registry and tell them a flagged alpha has taken custody of my unclaimed omega. They'll move within hours. They’ll find them. Alex will go back to prison and Vee comes home."
My mind is already racing. "Then call them. Call them right now. Call the police too. That's kidnapping. That's—"
"Stop." Jasper's voice cuts through. Firm.
I turn on him. "What?"
He's leaning against the far counter, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
"If you report Alex, the registry investigates. They come here. They’ll ask more questions than they already are since the zoo.
" He looks at Ragon. "They’ll ask why Vee was vulnerable enough to be taken by the pack next door in the first place. They’ll ask where her pack was.
Where her alphas were. And when they find out she was in heat—alone, in this house, while every alpha in her pack was in a room with a different omega—that's the end.
That's unforgivable neglect. Heat abandonment.
They won't just flag you. They'll remove Vee from your custody permanently. "
The kitchen is very quiet.
"They won't give her back to you," Jasper continues. "They'll put her back into the system. Registry custody until another placement is found. And probably Marie too."
"But we didn't know—" I start.
"Doesn't matter. We're responsible for her wellbeing. We failed. The registry doesn't care about intent. They care about outcome. And the outcome is that an omega in our care spent at least some of her heat alone while we were right down a hall."
Ragon's jaw is tight. "Alex is flagged. He's breaking the law—"
"And you abandoned an omega during heat.
You both have each other by the throat." Jasper says it flat.
No emotion. Just the math of it. "You report Alex, he tells them about the heat.
He has to—it's his defense. He took Vee because her pack left her in crisis.
The registry hears both sides and nobody wins.
Alex goes to prison. Vee goes to the registry. And you get flagged for life."
The silence that follows fills the kitchen.
Ragon's hands are shaking. I've never seen that before.
"So we can't report it," he says.
"No," Jasper says. "You can't. They’re already investigating you and it’s not looking good. If the head investigator has his way, you’ll be lucky if you get to keep Marie, let alone Vee.”
"I don't give a fuck if they take Marie."
The words burst out of me before I can stop them, too loud and too raw.
Everyone stares.
I don't care.
"They can have that liar. I want my Vee back."
Ragon's eyes flash. "Drake—"
"No." I'm shaking now, hands clenched at my sides. "Marie lied. About the zoo. About everything. We saw the footage. We punished Vee for nothing and now she's gone and it's our fault."
"We were doing what we thought—"
"We were doing what was easy." My voice cracks. "We chose her over Vee because it felt good. That's all it was."
Eli steps forward. His scent goes hard with fury, nothing like his usual controlled calm.
"You want to know whose fault it is?" He's glaring at Ragon now. Really glaring. Anger flashes on his face like a neon sign. "It's yours."
Ragon goes dangerously still.
"We all wanted to check on Vee." Eli's words come out shaking. "I asked. Drake asked. Multiple times. And you kept putting us off."
"Marie's heat—"
"Fuck Marie's heat!"
The words explode between them.
Eli never swears. Ever. He's the calm one, the reasonable one. The one who mediates and soothes and finds middle ground.
Not anymore.
"You said 'She's fine.'" Eli's hands are shaking. "You said 'She's not in heat, Marie is.' You barked at us every time one of us came out of rut long enough to ask about Vee. Every. Single. Time."
"The heat was important—"
"More important than Vee?" Eli's voice cracks. "We needed to help Marie so you let Vee go into heat alone? Vulnerable to any alpha who walked by?"
"I didn't think—"
"Exactly. You didn't think. You just reacted. Pack lead instinct said bond with the scent match and you followed it without considering what it would cost."
Ragon's scent flares. Dominance pushing out. "I was trying to do what's right—"
"What's right? What you did, what we did, none of it was right. We destroyed an omega that we had a responsibility to protect, Ragon."
The words hang in the air.
Ragon opens his mouth. Closes it. For the first time since I've known him he looks lost. Uncertain.
Like he's seeing what he doesn't want to see.
I hear soft footsteps approaching.
We all turn.
Marie appears in the doorway.
She's wearing one of Ragon's shirts. It hangs to her knees. Her hair is messy and her face is still swollen from crying. She looks small and uncertain and nothing like the omega who had us wrapped around her finger.
"What's going on?" She sounds quiet. Tentative.
Ragon turns to her. "Alex's pack took Vee."
The change isn't soft or slow. Marie's face goes pale. Actually pale. The color drains from her cheeks and her hand flies to her throat.
"They took her?" Sharp. Almost panicked. "Where?"
Her tone is weird. Off.
She doesn't seem happy about it.
She seems scared.
"We don't know," Ragon says.
I snap.
All the guilt and rage surges up in a tidal wave. All the self-loathing I've been drowning in since I woke up.
It needs a target.
"You did this."
I'm moving toward her before I realize it. Not fast or threatening, just closing the distance.
She takes a step back.
"Drake—"
"Don't,” I say. "You pushed her out. You lied about the zoo. You manipulated all of us and now she's gone."
"There are things you don't understand—"
"Then make me understand." I'm right in front of her now, looking down at her. "Explain it. Tell me why you lied. Why you cried fake tears and made us choose between you and her when you knew exactly how that would go."
Tears well up in her eyes. They’re real this time. I can tell the difference now.
How blind I truly was.
"I'm sorry."
"Sorry?" I laugh and it sounds broken. Manic. "You're sorry? You destroyed everything and you're sorry? You destroyed another omega. One you were supposed to be building a life with."
"I didn't want—"
"You didn't want what? To hurt Vee? Because you did. You hurt her over and over and we helped you do it because we were too stupid to see what you were doing."
"Drake." Ragon says low like a warning.
I ignore him.
"We saw the footage, Marie. We know you lied. Vee didn't push you. You climbed over that fucking rail like you'd lost your mind and then you blamed her and we punished her for it. We broke her for it."
Marie's shoulders shake. "There are things—"
"Things we don't understand. Yeah. You keep saying that. So explain."
She shakes her head. "I can't."
"Can't or won't?"
"Both."
Ragon's voice cuts through. "Tell me why you did it."
Marie turns to him, her face wet with tears. "I can't. Please... I'm sorry but I can't."
He stares at her.
I watch him try. That's the part that makes me sick.
I watch him reach for the defense of her, the instinct that's been running his brain for months, and I watch it sputter and fail.
His mouth opens to say something and nothing comes out.
He looks at Marie—really looks at her—and then his eyes move to the kitchen behind us.
To the counter where Vee used to bake.
To the empty chair where she used to sit with her knees pulled up and her coffee going cold because she'd forgotten about it again.
The hook by the door where her jacket used to hang.
I watch the fight go out of him.
Not all at once. In pieces. His shoulders first, then his jaw. Then his hands, which unclench and go flat on the counter like he needs it to hold him up.
"It doesn't matter," he says.
Marie blinks. "What?"
"The reason. It doesn't matter." His voice sounds scraped out. "Whatever you did and why you did it—I'm the one who let it happen. I'm the pack lead. I made the calls. I destroyed her nest. I enforced the bans. I watched her get smaller and I told myself it was growing pains."
He's not looking at Marie anymore, he's looking at the empty kitchen.
"She used to hum when she baked," he says. "Did you know that? Early on. Before everything. She'd hum and the whole house smelled like vanilla and sugar and I'd come in and… she'd have this look on her face. Like she'd forgotten to be guarded for a minute."
Nobody speaks.
"She stopped humming before you even got here, Marie. That was me. I did that. I did that every year she stayed unclaimed. You just finished what I’d already started."
Marie's tears are still falling but her expression is shifting. Hardening around the edges.
"You need to go," Ragon says. It’s not harsh, just tired. The exhaustion of a man who has just stopped lying to himself and is finding out how heavy the truth is. "I need to get Vee back. And I can't do that with you here."
"You think sending me away fixes what you did?"
"No. Nothing fixes what I did. But keeping you here makes it impossible."
Marie breathes deep and then her face goes hard and the tears stop. Whatever was soft in her closes over.
"That's fucking rich, isn't it?" She puts her hands on her hips.
"After everything you did to her, now you stand up for her?
Now that it's probably too late for you?
After all the punishments and corrections and denials…
and I'll just bet you blame me for everything that happened to her.
Yeah I pushed you in that direction but the cold hard fact, Ragon, is that you didn't have to steer the wheel. "
"I know," he says.
That stops her. She expected a fight but she didn't get one.
"But fine," she continues, anger tinging her tone. "Cast me out." She looks at him and a coldness moves into her eyes. "You felt the bond and you lost your minds. I felt it too. I just didn't let it make me stupid."
She looks at each of us in turn. Not with anger. It’s worse than anger.
"You had a choice," she says. "Every one of you. And you chose wrong. You failed as alphas on such a fundamental level that I'm glad I'm not going to be stuck with you the rest of my life. A scent match is a scent match. That’s all it is. I think I'd rather take what's waiting for me."
She turns for the door then stops.
"With her gone," she says, almost to herself, "nothing matters anymore."
Nobody says a word.
"You'll stay here until the paperwork goes through. Then you're gone."
She goes back to her room.
We hear her door slam.
Then silence.
Heavy and oppressive and full of things no one wants to say.
Ragon is still leaning on the counter. He hasn't moved. His head is down and I realize I have never seen my pack lead look like this. He’s not angry or in control. He’s just broken in a way that doesn't have a strategy attached to it.
I can still smell Marie on me. Days of her scent soaked into my skin. It makes my stomach turn.
Jasper speaks first. "Don't report Vee missing yet. It will backfire."
Ragon nods slowly. "I'll find her myself."
"How?" Eli asks.
"I'll figure it out."
I turn toward the hallway. "I need to shower."
I need to scrub myself clean of Marie.
And then I need to figure out how to get Vee back.
That's all that matters now.
Just Vee.