Chapter 12
Elijah
The fire needs another log.
I’ve been watching the flames for the past hour, tracking the way they consume the wood. The crack and pop of sap. The slow crumble of bark to ash. It’s easier than watching her.
Not that I’ve stopped.
Tessa’s curled up on the couch with a book she found on Ben’s shelf—some thriller with a cracked spine and yellowed pages.
She hasn’t turned a page in twenty minutes.
Her eyes keep drifting to the window, to the white nothing beyond the glass, and every few minutes she shifts position like she can’t get comfortable.
I know why.
Her scent has been getting stronger all afternoon. What started subtle—soft lavender with a hint of citrus—has deepened into something richer. Headier. Every time she moves, it rolls through the cabin like a wave, and I have to grip the arm of my chair to keep myself still.
The afternoon passed slow and strange. Cards for a while—Milo cheating badly enough that even Tessa noticed, Ben calling him out with increasingly creative insults.
Then we turned on the battery-powered radio, listening to weather updates and static-filled country songs while the storm howled outside.
Normal things. Easy things. Except nothing feels normal with her scent thickening in the air and my body responding in ways I can’t control.
I’ve been hard for hours. Not constantly—it comes and goes, tied to her movements, her sounds, the way she stretches or sighs or tucks her legs underneath her. Every time I think I’ve gotten it under control, she shifts and her scent hits me fresh and I have to start over.
The others are handling it. Milo’s been handling it better than me, at least outwardly.
He’s sprawled in the armchair now, telling some story about a bar fight that may or may not have actually happened, keeping her laughing.
Keeping things light. That’s what Milo does—fills silence, smooths edges, makes people feel at ease.
Ben’s in the kitchen, putting together something for dinner. He’s been quieter than usual since this afternoon, when she broke down and let us hold her. I catch him looking at Tessa when he thinks no one’s watching. The same way I look at her.
We’re all circling her. Three alphas, orbiting the same sun, trying not to crash into each other.
“—and that’s when River decided to climb onto the bar and declare himself king of the establishment,” Milo finishes. “He was banned for a month.”
Tessa laughs—a real one, surprised out of her. “River Brooks? That doesn’t surprise me at all.”
“The very same. Don’t let the charm fool you. He’s chaos in human form.”
“Sounds like someone I know.” She glances at Milo, a smile tugging at her lips.
“I have no idea what you’re implying.” Milo presses a hand to his chest in mock offense. “I’m a pillar of respectability.”
“You literally told me you once convinced an entire bachelorette party that you were a professional tango dancer.”
“And then I proved it.” He winks.
She’s smiling. That’s good. She’s been wound tight all day—through breakfast, through the consent conversation that made her face flame, through the cold shower that did nothing to calm her down.
Holding her on the couch helped, but I could feel the tension still coiled in her spine when I touched her back.
I want to help her. I just don’t have Milo’s words or Ben’s jokes.
I have my hands. That’s all I’ve ever had.
The bandages.
I said I’d rewrap them after breakfast. Hours ago now. I’ve been putting it off—not because I forgot, but because I knew what it would mean. Being close to her. Touching her skin. Breathing her in.
But the gauze is graying, loosened from wear, and she keeps absently scratching at the edges. She needs them changed.
I stand before I can second-guess myself. “Your hands.”
She looks up at me, startled. “What?”
“The bandages. I said I’d change them.” I nod toward the bathroom. “First aid kit’s in there.”
“Oh.” She glances down at her hands like she forgot about them. “Right. Yeah, okay.”
Milo catches my eye as she stands. His expression says he knows exactly what I’m doing—and approves. I ignore it.
I grab a candle from the mantle on my way past. Going to need the light.
The bathroom is small. Too small for two people, but she follows me in anyway, and I’m suddenly very aware of how close she is.
I set the candle on the counter, and the flame throws shadows across the walls, makes everything feel closer.
Her scent fills the tiny space, wrapping around me like a physical thing, and I have to focus on the first aid kit to keep my breathing steady.
“Sit.” I gesture to the closed toilet lid.
She sits. Watches me with those dark eyes as I kneel in front of her and take her left hand in mine.
Her skin is soft. Warm. Her pulse flutters under my thumb as I start unwrapping the old gauze, and I try not to think about how delicate her wrist feels in my grip. How easy it would be to press my lips to the inside of her palm.
Focus.
The gauze comes away slowly, loop after loop, revealing the skin beneath. I’ve done this a hundred times on myself—cuts from chisels, splinters from rough-sawn lumber, the occasional burn from the wood stove in my workshop. But this is different. This is her.
The candlelight flickers, casting her face in gold and shadow. She’s watching my hands as I work, her breath shallow, and I wonder if she can feel how fast my heart is beating. If she knows what this is doing to me.
Hands tell a story. Mine are calloused, scarred, built for work. Hers are softer, but not weak—there’s strength in the way she holds herself, in the grip she had on Ben’s shirt when she let herself break down.
The scrapes underneath are healing well. Pink and tender but scabbing over, no sign of infection. I clean them carefully with antiseptic, and she hisses at the sting.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Her voice is quieter than before. Softer. “You’re good at this.”
“Had practice.” I reach for the fresh gauze. “Woodworking. You learn to patch yourself up.”
I start wrapping. Precise movements, not too tight, not too loose. The gauze winds around her palm, across the meat of her thumb, and I’m hyper-aware of every point where my fingers brush her skin. The small hitch in her breath. The way she leans almost imperceptibly closer.
“Can I ask you something?” she says.
I nod without looking up. Safer that way.
“You’re always so quiet. At town events, at the fundraiser meetings. You barely say ten words.” She pauses. “But you’re always there. In the back. Watching.”
My hands still for a second.
“I notice things,” I say finally. “People talk too much. Miss what’s right in front of them.”
“And what do you notice?”
I tie off the gauze on her left hand. Smooth the edges down. Force myself to meet her eyes.
“You.”
The word hangs between us. Her lips part.
“You work harder than anyone I’ve ever met,” I continue, the words coming slow, dragged out of somewhere deep. “You show up early and stay late and make sure everyone else is taken care of. And nobody takes care of you.”
Her eyes go glassy. “Elijah...”
“I notice when you skip lunch because you’re too busy. When you rub your temples because you have a headache you won’t admit to. When you smile at everyone but it doesn’t reach your eyes.” I switch to her right hand, start unwrapping. “I notice.”
She’s quiet for a long moment. The candle flickers. Somewhere in the cabin, Milo laughs at something Ben said, muffled through the walls.
“That’s...” She swallows. “No one’s ever said anything like that to me before.”
“Then they weren’t paying attention.”
I finish unwrapping her right hand. Clean the scrapes. Start the fresh gauze. The silence stretches, but it’s not uncomfortable. It’s full. Heavy with things unsaid.
She shifts on the seat as I work, and her knee brushes mine. The contact sends heat shooting up my thigh, and I have to clench my jaw against the surge of want that follows. My cock throbs, half-hard again despite my best efforts.
This close, I can smell more than just her approaching heat. There’s fear underneath it. Uncertainty. She’s been holding herself together all day, acting like she’s fine, but she’s not fine. She’s terrified.
“Elijah.”
I look up. Her eyes are on mine, dark and searching.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she whispers. “Let people take care of me. I keep waiting for one of you to get frustrated. To decide I’m too much trouble.”
I finish wrapping her hand. Don’t let go.
“You’re not trouble.” The words come out rough. “You’re not too much.”
Her breath catches.
I should let go of her hand. I should stand up and walk out and let Milo or Ben handle whatever comes next, because I’m not good at this. I don’t have the right words. I never have.
But she’s looking at me like I’m the only person in the world, and her hand is warm in mine, and her scent is everywhere—lavender and heat and something that’s just her—and I can’t think.
“I don’t have words like Milo,” I hear myself say. “I can’t make you laugh like Ben. But I can take care of things. Fix things. Build things.” My thumb traces a slow circle on the back of her hand. “Take care of you. If you’ll let me.”
She’s trembling. I can feel it through our joined hands—a fine vibration, like a plucked string.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she whispers. “I don’t know how to let people in.”
“You’re doing it right now.”
Her eyes go glassy. And then she’s leaning forward, closing the distance between us, and her mouth is on mine.
The kiss is soft. Tentative. A question more than a statement.
My whole body goes rigid.
She starts to pull back—embarrassed, uncertain—and something in me snaps.
I cup the back of her head and pull her in.