Chapter 8 Jabari
JABARI
Iwashed my hands three times before I walked into that kitchen. The water ran clear the first time, and I kept scrubbing anyway because gunpowder stuck to you if you didn’t get after it right. A man could wash it off and still swear he smelled it later.
Meridian looked clean up top, all glass and quiet steps, but the city ain’t something that leaves a man just because he stepped into a nice building.
I could still hear it sitting in my bones.
Sirens drifting past the building and somewhere outside a bass line thumping through a car door hard enough to rattle the frame.
That was the truth of it, yes sir. Truth ain’t never quiet, no matter how much money tried to dress it up.
On my way in, I passed the corner that kept Chicago honest. Men leaned over a hood with cards slapping and voices low, and two little boys rode their bikes too close to the curb.
A woman stood on a stoop with her arms crossed watching the block, and everybody moved like they understood the difference between danger and home.
The dock was dangerous. The kind that thought it could get brave because it brought more bodies than sense.
That crew had learned otherwise. They weren’t my worry anymore, but the city always tried again with somebody new.
Meridian survived because we ain’t never pretended the lesson would hold forever.
The tray waited on the counter for me, exactly the way I had ordered it for her.
Steam lifted from a shallow bowl, carrying the clean, grounding smell of butter and starch, rice cooked soft enough to give under a spoon instead of crumbling dry.
Beside it sat eggs, scrambled low and slow until they barely held together, pale yellow and still tender.
I stood there a moment longer than necessary, palm braced on the edge of the counter, letting the heat warm my face.
It felt a little ridiculous standing there thinking so hard about food, but an omega in heat turned everything into a decision.
Anybody could take something when they had power.
Restraint was the part that proved what kind of man you were.
The smell reached her before I got close, and her scent shifted almost right away.
The sharp edge of her heat rounded some, not biting the air the same way.
Peaches warmed instead of cutting sharp.
My alpha reacted before my mind caught up, tension easing in my chest when instinct picked up food instead of a problem.
That ease ain’t real. Just a short truce my body gave itself. I took it anyway because I needed both hands steady. I picked up the tray and crossed the room slow.
Nyx watched me without blinking, wrists cuffed above her, muscles tight but controlled. Damp curls clung to her temples, and her skin still carried that shine somebody got when they’d been cleaned up without ever getting to feel clean. Heat flushed her cheeks and ran down the line of her throat.
Heat flushed her cheeks and the line of her throat, and the restraint marks at her wrists were faint but there, pink against brown.
Even tied down, she looked composed in a way that made something in my throat pull tight.
The bed was bolted to the floor, the frame heavy enough a panicked body couldn’t flip it, and the cuffs were fixed into the headboard with reinforced links. That was Meridian containment. Simple. Efficient. Humiliating. It kept people where you wanted them.
It didn’t make them safe.
I sat on the edge of the bed, careful with the space between us.
I set the tray on my thigh where she could see it, and I kept my hands open, same way you did around something dangerous you had no business pretending was tame.
My body wanted to lean in. Wanted to close that space and make her hold still long enough for me to figure her out.
I didn’t.
“This food,” I said. “You can eat it now or leave it. I’ll set it right here either way. Ain’t nothing else to it.”
Her gaze dropped to the bowl, then came back to my face. The look in her eyes was sharp. Not begging. Not soft. The kind that measured distance, angles, and how long a man might hesitate if she pushed him.
“You always eat rice like that?” she asked quiet.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, because manners ain’t never cost me nothing, and sometimes they cost other people everything. “Sits easy. Keeps you steady. Figured your body might need steady right about now.”
I scooped a small bit, rice and egg together, steam brushing my fingers before fading. The warmth steadied me some. My alpha leaned toward it, soothed by the simple act of feeding instead of taking. No dominance. No claim. Just a man holding a spoon.
In another world, it might’ve been ordinary.
I held the spoon out and waited.
She hesitated, jaw tight, eyes searching mine like she was trying to read what kind of man sat in front of her.
I ain’t rush her. Discipline kept a place like Meridian standing. A building full of alphas without it would’ve torn itself apart a long time ago.
Finally she leaned forward enough to take the bite.
Her lips brushed the spoon.
The shift hit right away.
Her breathing slowed some. The tight line in her back eased little by little, and the sharp edge in her scent settled down instead of cutting the air. The heat didn’t disappear. It just tucked itself lower.
My alpha felt that first.
Something inside my chest loosened. Pressure eased off like a fist finally opening. Feeding an omega did that. My body knew it before my head tried to catch up.
I gave her another bite.
Then another.
Slow.
Steady.
Ain’t no point rushing something like that.
I kept the rhythm even so her body could settle around it. Watched her shoulders instead of her mouth, watched the way control slid back into her posture inch by inch. She held herself tight, refusing to let me see a shake even when her heat tried to drag one out of her.
Stubborn woman.
I respected that more than I ought to.
After a few bites the whole room felt different.
Her omega stopped pushing panic into the air.
Instead it started settling around warmth and food, the way a body did when it remembered it wasn’t starving.
My alpha answered it without asking me first. That protective pull slid into my gut quiet and heavy, sitting there without tipping over into claim.
That was the line.
That was restraint.
Ain’t soft. Ain’t gentle.
Just controlled.
When she turned her head away, I stopped right then.
“That’s enough,” she said.
I nodded once and set the bowl aside without arguing.
Up close she smelled like warm cream and peaches baked soft, something sweet and rich that made the back of my neck tighten. Made things worse, really. My hand wanted to move before my brain caught it. Wanted to touch. Wanted to steady her.
I stood up instead.
Put space between us before instinct got bold.
“This means nothing,” she breathed.
“I know,” I said easy on purpose. “Food ain’t no bargain, sweetheart. It’s maintenance.”
Her eyes narrowed at sweetheart.
I let it sit there anyway.
Because I wanted her to hear how gentle a man could sound while still holding every piece of power in the room.
And I meant it.
That was the only reason I could turn and walk away without taking something I hadn’t earned.
I left everything on the side table for the cleaners, then stepped out into the hall with Elijah posted at the door. The camera light above the frame stayed steady. Quiet reminder the pack was watching everything that moved down here.
Through that sealed door I could still smell her.
Sweetness tucked down low. Still there. Still alive. Still fighting those suppressants hard enough a man could feel it in his teeth.
My alpha ain’t settle the second I stepped away from her.
Didn’t matter I’d done the decent thing in that room. Didn’t matter I’d kept my hands to myself. My body only knew one thing.
There was an omega under our roof.
Unclaimed.
Unsatisfied.
Burning.
I started pacing anyway, boots striking the concrete, trying to walk some of the pressure out my bones. The hallway down here was narrow, steel and concrete built for function instead of comfort. Every step bounced off the walls and came back again.
Made a man feel watched even when he wasn’t.
Elijah watched me anyway, even if he pretended not to.
He stood there with his hands clasped behind his back, posture straight in that careful way men held themselves when they were trying real hard to believe they still had their instincts under control.
His scent carried a thin sharp edge to it, restraint stretched tight, and his jaw kept working like he had words sitting there he didn’t want to spit out.
He finally broke after my thirteenth pass.
“Knock it off,” he called.
I ain’t stop.
Didn’t even look at him.
My alpha didn’t give a damn about restraint right then. It only cared there was an omega in heat under our roof and that locking her in a room wasn’t fixing it.
Containment ain’t calm an omega.
Containment sharpened her.
Pressure built when you trapped something like that. Built until it started cutting through training and good sense both.
I planted my palms against the wall and breathed through my nose.
The air smelled like antiseptic and cold stone.
Her sweetness still threaded through it underneath, turning heavy when it had nowhere to go. Like fruit going soft when you sealed it in a box too long.
My body wanted movement.
Wanted dominance.
Wanted to fix the damn problem.
“You shouldn’t be down here,” Elijah said again, closer now.
“I ain’t touching her,” I snapped.
“That is not the concern,” he said.
It damn well should’ve been.
The containment door unlocked behind me with a quiet click from the inside.
I turned fast, instincts jumping, expecting Malachi to step through.
Instead Kairo came out.
Something about him was off.