32. Ren
Chapter 32
Ren
T he morning light creeps across the kitchen counter as I stare into my tea, watching leaves settle at the bottom of the cup. We’d tried for normalcy—the three of us making breakfast like we used to, before everything changed. Before I?—
“Pass the sugar?” Jax’s quiet request breaks through my thoughts.
I slide it over without looking up. The kitchen feels too empty and too full at the same time. Empty because Finn isn’t here yet, full because we all know he’s upstairs with her . Both of them curled up in our nest, their scents probably mingling in ways I’m trying very hard not to think about.
Stone hasn’t said a word since he started cooking, his movements more like robot than man as he flips pancakes. The rhythmic scrape of the spatula against the griddle is the only thing that fills the silence.
“He slept through the night,” Jax offers finally, like he’s testing the words.
I grunt in acknowledgment. Finn sleeping through the night shouldn’t be remarkable. But it is .
“The whole night,” Stone emphasizes, still not turning from the stove. “No nightmares. No panic attacks. No?—”
“I know .” The words snap out harsher than I mean them to. Of course, I know. I’m the reason he has those nightmares. The reason he wakes up gasping, clutching his side where the door frame crushed inward?—
A floorboard creaks overhead and we all freeze. Footsteps, quick and light, moving with a bounce that hasn’t been there in…
I have to force myself to remain still as hushed voices from above begin to get clearer. There’s the sound of the nest room door being opened and then Finn’s voice talking about something I can’t catch. The stairs creak as they descend and the muscles in my throat tighten up.
I’m not sure what to expect. One glance at Jax and Stone tells me they don’t know what to expect either.
“Good morning, my gorgeous disasters!”
Finn’s voice rings through the kitchen like a bell, bright and clear and so achingly familiar it steals my breath. When I look up, he’s practically dancing into the room, wearing those ratty old sweatpants he loves and one of Stone’s old sweaters that I haven’t seen him wear in forever. His hair is still damp from a shower, curling around his ears the way it used to before?—
Before.
“Oh, pancakes!” He bounces over to Stone, peering around his shoulder. “Dinosaurs again? You’re so predictable.”
Stone’s spatula freezes mid-flip. “They’re not?—”
“Yes, they are. That’s clearly a stegosaurus.” Finn steals a blueberry from the bowl, popping it into his mouth with a grin that makes my heart ache. “Though your T-Rex needs work. The proportions are all wrong.”
“It’s not a—” Stone starts to protest, then actually looks at his griddle. “... shut up.”
Finn laughs—actually laughs—and the sound hits me like a punch in the gut .
“Coffee?” Jax offers, already reaching for a mug. His voice is careful, but I catch the uncertainty in his undertone.
“Please. And tea for Hailey when she comes down. The chamomile, I think. She liked it last night.” Finn hops onto the counter, swinging his legs like a child. Like he used to. “Which reminds me—I was thinking about the garden.”
My cup stills halfway to my mouth. The garden? He hasn’t set foot in that garden this early in the day and so eagerly in a long, long time. The only time I’ve seen him there lately was when we’d stay late at the job and come back to find him tending his plants in the quiet stillness.
“What about it?” Stone asks, voice as careful as Jax’s as he flips another pancake that is definitely shaped like a dinosaur.
“Well, it needs tending, obviously. All those weeds! And I was planning on adding some roses along the perimeter to brighten up the place—” He cuts himself off, nose wrinkling. “You don’t think that’s too much, do you?”
“No!” We all answer at the same time, creating a sort of booming effect in the kitchen.
“Good!” Finn continues as if nothing’s wrong. He reaches over, stealing another blueberry. “Anyway, since you three will be at work, I thought Hailey and I could start clearing it out. Maybe plant some new things. She seems like she’d enjoy that.”
The casual way he says it—like this is the most normal thing in the world—makes something in my chest crack.
A soft sound from the doorway draws all our attention. Hailey stands there in what looks like one of Finn’s old shirts and one of his sweatpants. Her hair is sleep-mussed, cheeks still flushed from whatever happened upstairs that I’m still determinedly not thinking about.
She looks at each of us in turn, her gaze dropping quickly whenever it meets an alpha’s eyes. Marginally better than when she first faced us all. But when she looks at Finn—God, the change is instant. Like he’s ethereal and she can’t help but be awed by his beauty. Like she can’t quite believe he’s real.
I know that look. I’ve worn it myself.
“Morning, sunshine!” Finn beams at her. “I was just telling these guys about our plans for the garden. That is—” His voice softens, gentles. “If you’d like to help me?”
The hope that blooms across her face is almost painful to watch. “I…I’d like that.”
Then something shifts in her expression. A shadow of fear crosses her features and her shoulders hunch slightly as her gaze darts to me.
“A-Alpha…if…if that’s okay?” Her voice drops to barely a whisper. “I promise I won’t try to run again. I know better now. I’ll stay where you can see me and?—”
I can feel the moment Jax and Stone’s gazes snap to me. Red bleeds into the edges of my vision. The teacup creaks in my grip as fury rises in my throat—not at her, but at those bastards that trained her like this. At whoever taught her to make herself small, to qualify every want with promises of good behavior.
I’m not aware I’m snarling until Jax’s hand lands on my shoulder, squeezing in warning.
Hailey has gone very still, eyes wide but pointed at the floor, and I realize I’m probably confirming every fear she has about alphas. About me.
I’m not a monster. I’m not a monster. I’m not?—
“Of course, it’s okay,” I manage, forcing my voice level. “The garden is…the garden is Finn’s. Whatever he wants to do there is fine.”
The tension in her shoulders eases slightly, but there’s still wariness in her scent. Still fear.
“More than fine,” Stone adds, his voice deliberately light as he slides a plate of pancakes onto the table. “Maybe you can stop him from creating another man-eating Venus flytrap. ”
“That was one time,” Finn protests, hopping down from the counter. “And it wasn’t man-eating. It just…had ambitious dreams.”
“Finn, those things aren’t meant to grow as large as yours did. I swear you had it on a diet of steroids,” Jax points out dryly.
“It was organic fertilizer! And hey, the woman at the exotic plant expo didn’t mention she’d smuggled the seeds from Borneo. How was I supposed to know it was some rare highland variety that gets big enough to catch rats?”
Stone places another plate of pancakes on the table. “Thank god you’re only planting herbs and vegetables now. I swear, one time I was out there trying to weed around the roots and that thing had been salivating.”
Hailey’s quiet giggle makes something in my chest loosen, even as Finn launches into an elaborate defense of his gardening.
I watch as he guides her to the table, pulling out a chair and piling her plate with pancakes. Watch as she slowly relaxes under his endless chatter, her eyes following his animated gestures with growing wonder.
It’s fascinating. The way she responds to him. The way we all do. Even now, even after everything, he has this effect on people. This ability to make the world brighter just by existing in it.
But there’s something else, too. I catch the way Finn’s scent spikes with relief every time Hailey’s shoulders relax even slightly, the way his gestures get more animated when she seems tense. He’s trying so hard to make this normal for her, for all of us. It’s been so long since our kitchen felt like this—warm, safe, full of easy laughter.
“—and the irrigation system was perfectly reasonable,” Finn is saying, gesturing with his fork. “Yeah…it kind of got out of hand at one point, but?—”
“It flooded the entire back patio,” Stone mutters, but there’s fondness in his voice I haven’t heard in months.
“Details.” Finn waves this away, then turns to Hailey with that brilliant smile. “So, what do you think? Ready to brave the wilderness of our backyard?”
She nods, something like excitement flickering across her face before she catches herself. Her gaze darts to me again, checking for…permission? Approval?
I force myself to soften my expression, to look as non-threatening as possible. I don’t think it works.
Finn beams. “Maybe we should focus on the vegetable patch I wanted to start!”
“V-vegetable patch?” Hailey’s voice is so soft it sounds like she’s whispering.
“Yup.” Finn nods. “I tried growing cabbage, but by now they’ve probably gone wild and completely feral. Like Ren before his morning coffee.”
I choke on my tea. Jax actually snorts. Even Stone’s lips twitch.
But it’s Hailey’s reaction that catches my attention. The way she looks at Finn with growing amazement, like she can’t quite believe someone like him truly exists. Someone who can joke with alphas, who can make them laugh, who can be so utterly, beautifully himself without fear.
I remember feeling that way once. Still do, sometimes, when I let myself.
“Well,” Jax says finally, pushing back from the table, “maybe we could help with the garden today.”
Finn pauses mid-gesture, fork hovering over his plate. “Help? Aren’t you going to the office?” For just that moment, I see a crack in his facade.
“Maybe not today.”
“Oh.” There’s something in Finn’s voice—just the slightest waver that probably only we would catch. I watch his fingers tighten around his fork, the way his smile stays fixed in place. He’s been performing all morning, keeping things light, pretending everything’s normal. But I can see the cost of it in the tension around his eyes .
The silence stretches. Hailey’s scent spikes with anxiety, and I watch her curl slightly closer to Finn. His shoulders ease just a fraction at her proximity.
“It’s not safe,” Jax says finally, “leaving you two alone.”
Finn doesn’t laugh or argue. He just looks tired suddenly, the bright mask slipping. “We’ll be fine,” he says quietly. “I think…I think we both need some space today.”
I understand what he’s not saying. That maintaining this cheerful facade is exhausting. That he needs time to just exist without three alphas watching his every move, analyzing every expression. That maybe Hailey needs that, too.
“Actually,” I say slowly, “changing our routine might draw attention.” When they all look at me, I immediately feel like I’ve revealed too much. I’d already decided to take care of it. Spent half the night planning exactly what I would do. How I would keep them all safe. They don’t need to know how deep this goes. How deep it all goes. Clearing my throat, I continue. “Wherever Hailey came from, they could be looking for her.”
Silence fills the room and when my gaze shifts to Hailey, her eyes are on the floor, heart beating so hard it’s like I have dog ears and can hear it from across the table.
Jax sets his mug down. “What do you suggest?”
My gaze shifts to him briefly. Is he actually asking for my input? Putting trust in me and what I have to say?
Thank god he’s our alpha and not me. My first instinct is always to burn everything to the ground and sort through the ashes later. But Jax—Jax is the thread holding us all together, his steady presence the only thing that’s kept us from imploding these past months. If I were in charge, we’d have self-destructed long ago in a blaze of terrible decisions and even worse follow-through.
I release a slow breath, feeling the mood Finn had worked so hard to set quickly seeping away. “Hailey was on foot. There’s been no reports of any accidents on the roads near here for at least fifty miles. No missing persons reports with her name or picture. I checked. Which means…”
“Which means this ‘Academy’ cleaned it up before the authorities arrived,” Jax finishes.
I nod. “And anyone with even basic use of their cellphone can pull up their maps app and find that we’re one of the houses near whenever she crashed.”
Silence again. Jax nods slowly. “So, you think we should maintain normal patterns.”
“I think,” I choose my words carefully, “Stone could stay. You and I go to work as usual.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” Finn mutters, but there’s less heat in it. Then I remember the scar on his wrist. The way he gasped for air as they pulled him from the wreckage. The way his blood looked so black in the moonlight, as I?—
“No,” Stone agrees quietly. “But maybe I need to be here.”
Something passes between them—one of those silent conversations I’ve never quite learned to read. Finally, Finn sighs dramatically.
“Fine. But only if you promise to actually help instead of hovering like some oversized mother hen.”
“I do not hover?—”
“You absolutely hover.”
“Right.” I stand, gathering my mug, desperate to escape before the memories can fully surface. Because I know why Stone hovers. Jax and I both do. “We should go.”
Setting my cup in the dishwasher, Finn’s laugh follows us as Jax and I gather our things. Through the doorway, I catch glimpses of them—Finn already planning with animated gestures, Hailey watching him with that mix of wonder and devotion, Stone pretending not to hover while definitely hovering.
“Ready?” Jax asks quietly, keys jingling in his hand.
I nod, unable to trust my voice. As we head for the door, I hear Finn’s voice drift after us :
“—and that’s why I’m absolutely not allowed to grow mushrooms anymore. But don’t worry, sweetheart. We’ll start with something simple. Like man-eating petunias.”
Hailey’s laugh, soft but real, nudges something in my chest that I try to ignore. Something that feels dangerously like hope.
Gods help me.
Gods help us all.