17. Kael
KAEL
I woke before dawn, as I always did, my internal clock more reliable than any alarm. The cabin was quiet except for the settling of old wood and the whisper of dying embers in the fireplace. But something was different. It took me a moment to place it—the howling wind that had been our constant companion for the past month had finally stilled.
Rolling out of bed, I padded barefoot to the window and pushed aside the heavy curtains. What I saw made me freeze.
Sunlight. Actual fucking sunlight, streaming through breaks in the clouds like golden spears piercing the gloom. The snow had stopped falling, and while drifts still buried the landscape in pristine white, I could see patches of dark earth showing through where the wind had scoured the ground clean.
The storm was breaking.
My chest tightened with an emotion I didn't want to name. Relief, maybe. Or dread. Hard to tell the difference when they both felt like a fist around my heart.
I found Rhys and Fen already in the kitchen, moving around each other with the easy familiarity we'd developed over the weeks. Rhys was manning the coffee pot while Fen worked on breakfast, the scents of bacon and eggs beginning to fill the air. They looked up when I entered, and I saw my own recognition reflected in their faces.
"You saw it too," Rhys said. It wasn't a question.
"Yeah." I slumped into one of the wooden chairs at the kitchen table, suddenly feeling every one of my thirty-two years. "How long do you think before the roads are passable?"
Fen flipped the bacon with practiced efficiency. "Weather report last night said the plows would start running today if the snow stopped. Could be as early as this afternoon for the main roads."
The coffee maker gurgled, and Rhys poured three mugs without being asked. He set one in front of me, and I wrapped my hands around the ceramic, needing the warmth more than the caffeine.
"We need to talk about this," I said, my voice rough with sleep and something deeper.
"About what?" But Rhys knew. We all did.
"About Eliana. About what happens when she can leave."
The words tasted like ash in my mouth. After last night, after her confession and the way she'd finally started to let her guard down, the thought of her walking away felt like tearing off a limb.
Fen served up plates of eggs and bacon, the domestic normalcy of it at odds with the tension crackling between us. "She might not want to leave," he said quietly.
"Don't." I shook my head. "Don't do that. Don't give us false hope."
"Is it false?" Rhys settled into his chair, those green eyes of his serious for once. "You saw her last night, Kael. Really saw her. That wasn't someone looking for the exit."
I had seen her. Curled up on the couch in that oversized sweater, dark hair falling around her face, those matching dark eyes finally free of the haunted look that had shadowed them when we first found her. She'd been beautiful in that moment— not just physically, though Christ knew she was gorgeous in ways that made my alpha hindbrain go stupid—but beautiful in her vulnerability, her trust, her willingness to share the worst part of herself with us.
"Doesn't matter what I saw," I said, stabbing at my eggs with more force than necessary. "She's been trapped here for a month. Of course she's made the best of it. That doesn't mean she wants to stay."
"You're being deliberately obtuse," Fen observed, settling into his own chair with that calm efficiency of his. "And you're scared."
I shot him a look that would have sent lesser men running. "I'm not—"
"You are." His hazel eyes met mine steadily. "We all are. The question is what we're going to do about it."
The bacon was perfectly crispy, the eggs cooked just how I liked them, but everything tasted like cardboard. Outside, I could hear the drip of melting snow, each drop like a countdown timer ticking away our borrowed time.
"We don't do anything," I said finally. "We give her space. We let her make her own choice without pressure."
Rhys set down his fork with a clink. "That's bullshit and you know it."
"It's the right thing to do."
"The right thing?" Rhys's voice carried that edge of alpha command that usually only came out during pack disputes. "The right thing is to fight for what we want. What we all want."
"And what if what we want isn't what's best for her?" The question burst out of me. "What if keeping her here is just us being selfish?"
The kitchen fell silent except for the drip of melting snow and the distant sound of Eliana moving around upstairs. Getting dressed, probably. Making herself coffee in the little setup we'd rigged in her room. Going through the morning routine that had become as familiar to me as my own heartbeat.
"You think she'd be better off alone?" Fen asked quietly.
The image of her as we'd found her flashed through my mind—soaked to the bone, hypothermic, running on nothing but stubborn will and terror. She'd been alone for months before that storm forced her into our path, and it had nearly killed her.
"I think," I said carefully, "that she deserves the chance to choose her own life without three alphas and a beta breathing down her neck."
"Two alphas and a beta," Rhys corrected. "You keep forgetting I'm not the only alpha in this dynamic."
He was right, and we all knew it. The past month had made it clear that whatever we were building together didn't fit into neat categories. Rhys and I shared alpha traits, but our leadership styles complemented rather than competed. I was the protector, the wall between our pack and the world. He was the heart, the one who could charm Eliana out of her darker moods and make her laugh until she snorted.
And Fen was the anchor. The steady presence that kept us all grounded when our alpha instincts threatened to spin out of control.
"The point stands," I said. "She needs to make this choice freely."
"Then we make sure she knows she has a choice," Fen said. "We make sure she knows what we're offering isn't just temporary shelter, but a real place in a real pack."
My coffee had gone cold, but I drank it anyway, needing something to do with my hands. "And if she says no?"
None of us wanted to voice the answer, but we all knew it. If Eliana chose to leave, we'd let her go. We'd watch the best thing that had ever happened to us walk out that door, and we'd pretend it didn't destroy us.
Because that's what good alphas did. They put their omega's needs above their own, even when it killed them.
A creak on the stairs announced Eliana's approach, and we all fell silent, turning toward the sound like flowers following the sun. She appeared in the doorway wearing jeans that hugged her curves and a soft pink sweater that made her skin glow. Her dark hair was pulled back in a messy bun, and she looked as if she was happy.
"Morning," she said, her voice carrying a lightness it hadn't held in weeks. "Something smells amazing."
"Fen's cooking," Rhys said, his charming grin sliding into place like armor. "Coffee's fresh if you want some."
She moved through the kitchen with an easy familiarity, pouring herself coffee and stealing a piece of bacon from Fen's plate with a teasing smile that made my chest tight. This was what we'd built together in our month of isolation—not just cohabitation, but something that felt dangerously close to home.
"Sleep well?" I asked.
She nodded, settling into the fourth chair—the one that had somehow become hers without any of us officially claiming it. "Better than I have in months. I think finally talking about everything, really helped.”
The way she looked at me when she said it made something warm unfurl in my chest. Last night had been a turning point for all of us, but especially for her. She'd trusted us with her worst memory, her deepest shame, and we'd proven worthy of that trust.
"Good," I said, meaning it more than she could possibly know.
We ate in comfortable quiet, the kind of silence that spoke of deep familiarity rather than awkwardness. But underneath it all, I could feel the weight of unspoken knowledge. The storm was breaking. The roads would be clear soon. And our borrowed time was running out.
After breakfast, Eliana helped Fen clear the dishes while Rhys and I moved to the living room. I found myself gravitating toward the window, watching the slow transformation outside as more patches of earth revealed themselves through the melting snow.
"You're brooding," Rhys observed, settling onto the couch.
"I'm thinking."
"Same thing, in your case."
I shot him a look, but there was no heat in it. He was right, and we both knew it. I'd always been the brooding type—too serious, too intense, too quick to shoulder the weight of the world.
"She's going to want to leave," I said, voicing the fear that had been eating at me since I'd seen that first ray of sunlight.
"Maybe. Maybe not."
"Don't."
"Don't what? Have hope?" Rhys leaned forward, his green eyes intense. "Kael, that woman has been through hell. She lost everything—her pack, her alpha, her sense of safety. And in the past month, we've given her something she thought she'd never have again."
"Temporary shelter."
"A home," he corrected firmly. "A family. A pack that actually gives a damn about her wellbeing instead of seeing her as a liability."
From the kitchen came the sound of Eliana's laughter, bright and unguarded. Fen had probably said something dry and witty—he had a talent for catching her off guard with his quiet humor.
"Look at her," Rhys continued. "Really look. Does that seem like someone who's counting down the hours until she can escape?"
I wanted to argue, but the truth was I'd been watching her all month. I'd seen the gradual relaxation of her shoulders, the way her smiles came easier now, the growing trust in her eyes when she looked at us. She'd stopped flinching when we moved too quickly, stopped positioning herself near exits, stopped sleeping with a knife under her pillow.
"She's healing," I admitted.
"With us. Because of us." His voice gentled. "I know you're scared, man. We all are. But running scared isn't going to protect any of us from getting hurt."
The sound of the front door opening interrupted whatever response I might have made. Fen appeared in the doorway, his usually neat hair mussed by wind.
"Roads?" I asked.
He nodded. "Main highway's been plowed. Side roads will take longer, but..." He didn't need to finish. We all knew what it meant.
"How long?" Rhys's voice was carefully neutral.
"Hour, maybe two, before someone could make it up the mountain road to get her."
An hour. Maybe two.
I closed my eyes, feeling the walls of our temporary paradise cracking around us. In an hour, Eliana could walk out of our lives as suddenly as she'd entered them. She could disappear back into the world, and we'd be left with nothing but memories and the lingering scent of omega in our space.
"We should tell her," Fen said quietly.
"Yeah." I opened my eyes, surprised to find them burning. "We should."
But neither of us moved. Rhys stayed frozen on the couch, his usually expressive face carefully blank. I remained at the window, watching the sun break through the clouds with all the enthusiasm of a man watching his own execution.
"Guys?" Eliana's voice from the kitchen doorway made us all turn. She stood there with a dish towel in her hands, her expression curious but tinged with growing concern. "Is everything okay? You all look like someone died."
The innocent question hit like a physical blow. Someone had died—the version of ourselves that had existed in this cabin for the past month. The pack we'd built in isolation, protected from the outside world by walls of snow and storm.
"The storm's breaking," I said, the words feeling like shards of glass in my throat.
Understanding dawned in her dark eyes, followed quickly by something that might have been pain. "Oh."
"The roads are being cleared," Fen added gently. "You'll be able to leave soon. Today, if you want."
She nodded slowly, her knuckles white where she gripped the dish towel. "I see."
The silence stretched between us, heavy with everything we weren't saying. I wanted to tell her to stay. Wanted to drop to my knees and beg her not to go, to give us a chance to prove that what we'd built was real and worth fighting for.
Instead, I said, "We'll help you pack. Drive you wherever you need to go."
"Of course," she whispered. "That's very kind of you."
Kind. The word felt like a knife between my ribs. After everything we'd shared, everything we'd become to each other, she thought we were being kind.
"Eliana," Rhys started, his voice rough with emotion.
"I should probably start getting my things together," she said quickly, backing toward the stairs. "Thank you. All of you. For everything."
She disappeared up the stairs, leaving the three of us alone with the wreckage of our careful composure.
"Well," Fen said after a long moment. "That went well."
I sank into my chair, suddenly exhausted. Outside, the sun continued its relentless work, melting away the barriers that had kept us safe from the real world. Soon, the snow would be gone, the roads clear, and our borrowed time would be nothing but a memory.
The only question was whether we'd have the courage to fight for something more, or if we'd let the best thing that ever happened to us slip away without a word.
Time, it seemed, would tell.