Chapter 15 #2
Nervously, I step towards the door. I don’t know if Nick is right, but his plan is all I’ve got.
I try to move quietly as I open the door to Kai’s bedroom and step inside. It’s pitch black in here, but a little bit of light from the doorway makes the room come into view.
Kai is lying on his back in his bed, and from here, I can’t tell if he’s awake or not. I’ve been too scared to take a breath before this moment, but as my lungs burn and I suck in air, his scent hits me like a brick to the face.
Fuck. If it was bad in the rest of the apartment, then his bedroom is unbearable. My own scent unleashes around me, frantically filling the small space with peppermint sweetness. A desperate attempt to soothe the beta that’s in so much pain.
Kai whimpers, his body shaking as he rolls onto his side, curling into a ball. Val must have helped him change his clothes when they got here because his dinner attire is gone, and he’s wearing sweatpants now.
“She’s in my dreams…” he murmurs, and I stop moving.
Fuck, he’s awake. I watch as he slowly sits up in bed and looks over in my direction. I don’t know how much of me he can see, with just the light from the doorway seeping in.
“I didn’t think I’d fall asleep tonight, but I’m glad I did.” His smile is weak and sad, tugging at my heart.
“I had to make sure you were okay,” I say, taking a few slow steps toward him. “But you don’t look okay.”
“No, I suppose I don’t.” He nods, moving to the edge of his bed until his feet touch the ground. I stand in front of him, unsure what to do next. “I don’t want to wake up,” he adds with a whimper, and I frown.
Does he really think this is a dream?
Reaching up, I caress his cheek softly, running my fingers through his hair. His body shudders under my touch, and he presses his face into the palm of my hand. He reaches for me, and I don’t stop him as his hands grip my hips, pulling me until the last few inches between us disappear.
When he nuzzles his face against my bare chest, I shiver.
“This isn’t a dream, Kai…” I whisper, pushing my hands into the hair at the back of his head.
“I wish this wasn’t a dream,” he mumbles, holding me tighter. “But I can only hold you like this when I dream. Fuck, I miss you so much.” He whimpers again, and this time I feel his tears as they dampen my skin. “If I never wake up, I can hold you like this forever.”
“Don’t say that,” I hiss, tugging his hair back and forcing him to look up at me. “This isn’t a dream, Kai. Don’t ever say that again.” A tight knot forms in my throat as tears burn my eyes. “Promise me,” I demand.
Kai blinks at me for several long seconds, not saying a word or moving at all.
“Kai,” I say again, cupping his face in the palm of my hands and moving until we’re nearly nose to nose. “Never again.”
“Plum?” he asks, releasing my waist, his hands traveling to my ribs and then my back. “I dream about you so often… I thought this was another one. This is real?”
“I couldn’t just leave you to suffer. I couldn’t lie in bed for another second, imagining you in pain, and do nothing. You don’t deserve that.” I’m running my hands through his hair. It feels right to touch him, but I don’t really know what the hell else to do or say.
“You should go. You shouldn’t have to see me like this.” Kai shakes his head, dropping his hands to the side of the bed.
“Let me decide what I should and shouldn’t do,” I tell him, hands still in his hair.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” He nods, his eyes falling shut as he leans into my touch.
“I don’t know how to make this better,” I admit. Kai looks up at me, his eyes filled with sadness.
“Why do you think it’s your responsibility to make this better, Sweet Plum?” Kai asks, and for the first time since he returned, I think I might actually be talking to the man I knew all those years ago.
The real Kai. The wise kid who always knew exactly what I needed to hear.
The boy who grew into the man I loved.
“I’m the one who hurt you,” I whisper.
“No, you’re not. You were just honest with me.
I did this to myself. You’re not responsible for the way I’m feeling or for making it better.
” Kai turns his head into my hand, breathing in my scent.
“I’m not strong enough to walk away, Plum.
I’m so sorry, but you have to do it,” he says, cupping his hand over mine as he nuzzles my palm.
“I would never leave a friend in this condition, and I’m not leaving you.”
“We aren’t friends anymore. I destroyed that too.” Kai shakes his head but doesn’t release my hand. He’s desperate for my touch and for the comfort I’m offering, but he doesn’t want to keep hurting me.
“Maybe we could be,” I offer. I don’t know what to do, but I know I can’t leave until I know Kai is going to be okay. I never wanted to hurt him, but I didn’t even realize I could hurt him.
Maybe the version of Kai that showed up at that Halloween party couldn’t be hurt, but this Kai?
This Kai is broken-hearted, and seeing him like this has changed something for me.
Maybe it’s the support of the two men waiting patiently in the living room, or maybe it’s the fact that I’ve realized my own strength.
Whatever it is, I know what I don’t want, and that’s for Kai to break.
“I want to, Plum. More than anything.”
“But?”
“But… I know I’m not strong enough for that. Not right now, and maybe not ever. I love you more than anything, and I want you to be happy. I just… I can’t be here to see you happy without me. I know that might sound selfish, but I’m trying to be honest. I know it will slowly destroy me.”
“I get that,” I say. And I really do, because the thought of Kai with anyone else makes me want to start a fight or chain him up in a room where no other woman can get their hands on him.
“Where do we go from here?” I ask.
“You go out there to the men waiting for you, and I’ll go back to bed,” Kai answers, dropping his hand but not moving away from me as I drop my hands to his shoulders.
“That’s not what I mean. How do we get to a place where your best friend isn’t so worried that he can’t take his eyes off you?”
As soon as I say it, I realize we need to bring Kai with us back to the farm. Val and Stella shouldn’t have to supervise the broken beta during their wedding, and I don’t know how long it’s going to take him to get to a better place mentally.
But it’s more than that. I want to be the one who takes care of Kai. I want to be close to him. I want to make sure he’s okay. Not anyone else. This oddly feels like it belongs to me too, and I don’t want anyone else to have it.
“We bring him with us and show him how to treat our omega the way she deserves,” Nick says from the bedroom doorway.
“Tie him to a chair and make him watch us knot you…” Benson adds with a growl, and my head whips around, eyes wide, as I glance between the two alphas.
Kai shakes his head, but for the first time since we got to the apartment, his scent changes. Desire, need, and panic all replace the devastation that had been seeping into the foundation of this moment.
“Tie him up,” I whisper, looking down at Kai. He’s staring up at me, but unlike before, where all I could see was sadness, now there’s something more.
“Like…” Kai murmurs. Swallowing thickly before looking over to the alphas. “A punishment?” he asks, sounding so fucking hopeful.
“You want to be punished?” I ask, skeptical, and the beta nods his head, still watching the alphas, who both lift their brows.
“Yes. I… I think I should be punished.” Kai turns back to me, licking his lips. “Will you? Please, Plum?” The way he whispers my name, like he’s begging me for this, steals the air from my lungs.
The gravity of it hits me all at once, and I don’t know what to say. I can’t punish Kai… What would that even look like? What does he want, exactly? To watch another man fuck me? The thought makes me swallow a lump in my throat. Isn’t that cruel?
Kai slides off the edge of the bed and onto his knees.
The move forces me back a step. When I look down at him, his brown eyes are locked on me.
At this moment, I am his only lifeline, but I already knew that.
That’s why I’m here. It’s why I came for him.
I knew that no one else could help Kai but me, and maybe he’s the reason all of this is happening, but I am the one who hurt him.
I could have kept pretending, kept lying.
Instead, I ripped my chest open and made him face all the damage he’s done. He was young, and he was dumb. He made a mistake, and then he was too terrified to face reality. The second his knees hit the pavement, I saw it. The pain he’d been hiding.
I think that might have been the one thing I needed to see. I didn’t know it until he was breaking apart before me, but until that moment, I didn’t believe him. I didn’t believe he was sorry or that he ever even loved me in the first place.
Now I do, because you only break like that for someone you love.
“It wasn’t until I saw you fall apart that I believed you,” I murmur, cupping his cheek with my palm.
I don’t want to keep hurting Kai. If I did, I would have left him to rot in that bed, but all of this is new to me.
I don’t know what I’m doing, but I think I know what I want… “You’ve got a lot to atone for, beta.”
Kai nods eagerly as Nick and Benson step into the bedroom. The alphas stand behind me, arms crossed over their chests, as we stare down at the man on his knees. His scent isn’t drowning us with acidic pain anymore. He doesn’t look lost in his own mind.
“One condition.” I hold my finger up.
“Anything.”
“Dreaming about me isn’t better than being here with me, right?” I ask, watching the way Kai swallows hard, nodding his head once. “Then I don’t want you to leave me here alone again to be with your dreams,” I whisper. I don’t know how else to say it—how else to tell him that he can’t give up.