Chapter 21
Malcolm
He's asleep on my couch.
The alpha who abandoned Vee during her heat. The one that let his pack lead destroy her nest and punish her over Marie's lies. The one that stood by while she fell apart.
He's asleep on my fucking couch.
I'm pacing the kitchen. Four steps one way. Four steps back. The floor creaks under my weight and I don't give a shit if it wakes him.
My hands are shaking. Not from cold. From the effort it's taking not to go in there, grab him by his sick, pathetic throat, and drag him back out into the rain.
Finn is at the table with his laptop, pretending to work. His eyes keep flicking to me, watching. Waiting for me to snap.
"Malcolm—" he starts.
"Don't."
He closes his mouth. Smart man.
From the living room comes a sound.
Low and controlled, but present.
I know that sound now. The register of Rhys working at something. Managing something. Keeping whatever is in him on the right side of a line he's drawn for himself.
I look through the doorway.
Rhys is in the corner where he's been since we got Drake inside. He’s standing now, not sitting. His arms are crossed over his chest, his jaw is set, and his eyes are on the couch where Drake is sleeping with an intensity that could strip paint.
Then his arms uncross.
Not to relax. To free his hands.
I've seen this before. Twice. Both times ended with someone on the ground and Rhys standing over them with blood on his knuckles and no memory of deciding to move. The last time it took Alex and me both to pull him back and he still almost put me through a wall.
His weight shifts forward onto the balls of his feet. His chin drops.
I'm already moving but I'm in the kitchen and he's fifteen feet closer to that couch and I know, with the certainty of a man who has watched this exact sequence play out before, that I will not get there in time.
Then Vee stands up from the arm of the couch.
She doesn't rush. Doesn't panic. She just crosses to him and puts one hand flat against his chest.
He doesn’t move.
The sound stops.
One arm comes up and rests against her back. Just getting contact.
His eyes move from Drake to the top of her head.
The dangerous stillness shifts and becomes just stillness.
She figured that out fast, I think. How to reach him. When to reach him.
I watch them longer than I should.
Then Alex appears in the doorway.
He looks at me, at Finn, then at the living room where Vee has apparently found the one way to keep our most volatile packmate from doing something irreversible.
"Outside," Alex says. "Now."
"I'm fine."
"You're about to put your fist through a wall. Outside."
I follow him because he's right and we both know it.
The porch is still wet from the storm. Rain has stopped but everything drips. Water falls from the eaves in a steady rhythm that does nothing to calm the rage boiling in my gut.
I lean against the railing. Grip it hard enough that the wood bites into my palms.
Alex stands next to me. Doesn't say anything. Just waits.
The silence stretches.
"I want him gone," I say finally.
"I know."
"He hurt her. He left her alone during her heat. He—" I stop and take a breath that doesn't help. "And she brought him inside. She's taking care of him. Like he deserves for her to even look his way."
"Yes."
"Why aren't you angry?"
Alex is quiet. "I am angry. But it's not my call."
"He could report her location to Ragon. He could—"
"He broke his pack bond to come here," Alex interrupts. "Bond-break sickness nearly killed him on the drive. He showed up on his knees in the rain to apologize to her."
"So?"
"So he's not going to report her. He's not a threat."
I turn to look at him. "You can't know that."
"I can." Alex's sounds steady in that way that makes me want to hit something. "I've seen enough desperate men to recognize one. He's not here for Ragon, he's here for her."
"That doesn't make it better."
"No. It doesn't." Alex turns to face me fully. "But it's still not our call, Malcolm. She gets to decide who she forgives. Who she lets in. Even if we hate it."
I know he's right, but I still don't want to hear it.
"She said she doesn't forgive him," I point out.
"Yet."
"Yet."
Alex nods. "Eventually she might. We have to be okay with that if it happens."
"I'm not okay with it."
"Then get okay with it." His voice goes hard. That pack lead edge that makes my spine want to straighten. "Because we're not Ragon's pack. We don't control her. We don't tell her who she can see or forgive or care about. She makes her own choices."
I look away. Stare out at the dark woods.
"Even ones that hurt us," Alex adds.
My jaw clenches so hard it aches.
Because he's right.
And I fucking hate that he's right.
We stand in silence for another moment.
"How long do we let him stay?" I ask finally.
"Until he's well enough to leave. A few days maybe. Maybe longer."
"And then?"
"Then we see what Vee wants."
The problem is I already know what she wants.
She wants to be able to choose. To have options. To not be trapped how Ragon and the registry trapped her.
And one of those options might be Drake.
The thought makes my stomach twist.
"What if she chooses him?" The words come out rough. "What if she forgives all of them and goes back?"
Alex is quiet for a long moment.
"Then we let her go."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that,” he says. "Because keeping her against her will makes us no better than Ragon."
I want to argue. Want to tell him he's wrong.
But I can't because he's not. I know he’s not.
"I can't lose her," I say. The confession costs me. "Not after everything. Not after finally finding her. After getting to know her. I can't—"
My throat closes up.
Alex's hand lands on my shoulder. Heavy. Steady.
"I know," he says. "I know, Malcolm. Everything you’re feeling… I’m feeling it too."
We stand there, his hand on my shoulder, the weight of everything unsaid between us.
Then he speaks again.
"But you might have to. We both might. All of us might."
The words sit like lead in my gut.
"Because of the flag," I say.
"Yeah."
I turn to look at him. "Chase said he was working on it."
"He is. But it's not looking good." Alex's expression is carefully neutral. "The charges were serious. The registry doesn't overturn flags easily."
"We might not be able to keep her even if she wants us to."
"No. We might not."
The rage flares hot and immediate.
Not at Alex. At the whole fucking situation.
At the registry that put a flag on Alex for what Rhys did that night.
At the people that made Rhys the way he is in the first place.
At the system that says Vee needs to be claimed but won't let the right people do it.
At the universe for giving us our scent match and then making it impossible to keep her.
"That's fucked," I say.
"Yeah. It is."
I grip the railing harder. The wood creaks.
"I've never wanted anything like I want her," I admit. The words come out raw. Honest. "Not the business. Not the house. Not anything. I just want her."
"I know."
"And we might lose her anyway."
"Maybe."
"That's not good enough."
Alex doesn't answer because there's nothing to say.
He squeezes my shoulder once and goes back inside.
I stay on the porch.
The cool air bites at my skin and I welcome it. Prefer it to the warmth inside where Drake is sleeping and Vee is probably somewhere nearby, taking care of him like she takes care of everyone.
I go back inside eventually.
Finn has abandoned the laptop to make tea.
I stop in the doorway to the living room.
Drake is on the couch, still asleep.
Rhys is in the armchair. He's changed position since earlier—sitting now instead of standing, elbows on his knees, hands loosely clasped. Monitoring.
Vee is on the floor at the base of Rhys's armchair.
She's leaning her back against the front of the chair, her head tipped back slightly against his thigh. One of his hands rests at the edge of the armrest, and her fingers are loosely curled around his, not quite holding, just resting.
She's asleep.
He's not. His eyes are open, still tracking the room. Still doing the job he's assigned himself. But the tension in his body is different from before, less coiled and more settled.
Like he can keep watch without needing to act as long as she's there. As long as he can see she's safe.
I look at them for a long moment.
At how she gravitated to him even in sleep or how he adjusted himself without waking her. That careful arrangement of himself around her, deliberate, precise, accounting for the difference in size and force.
"They orbit each other," I think.
I noticed it earlier when she touched his chest and everything in him changed. How he tracks her through rooms or how she always knows where he is without looking.
It doesn't sit wrong.
Those are the only words I have for it. It just doesn't sit wrong.
I go to the kitchen and accept the mug Finn hands me without asking what's in it.
"She's asleep against his chair," I say.
Finn looks up. "He's good for her."
"Yeah."
"And she's good for him." Finn wraps his hands around his own mug. "Did you see what she did earlier? When he was about to—"
"I saw."
"One hand. That's all it took."
I drink my tea.
"She figured him out faster than any of us did," I say.
Finn nods. "She's good at people. Always has been." He pauses. "She just hasn't had people who let her be good at them before."
The words sit between us.
I don't have anything to add to that.
***
I don't sleep.
I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, listening to the house settle around me.
Around two in the morning I hear movement downstairs.
I get up and move down the hall.
Rhys's door is open. His room is empty, his bed barely disturbed. I don't know if he slept at all or just lay there how he sometimes does, present without resting.
I find him in the hallway outside the living room.
He's standing with his back against the wall, arms crossed, looking through the doorway.
I come up beside him and look too.