13. Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen
Holden
Lennon gasps as her body jolts in my arms, her fingers curling into the front of my body as though she is trying to catch herself before she falls.
“Hey, hey. It's alright,” I murmur, tightening my hold around her before the panic can pull her fully from the fragile edge of sleep. “It’s just me. I’m putting you into bed.”
Her lashes flutter as she fights to open her eyes, but exhaustion has sunk too deeply into her bones, leaving her movements slow and uncoordinated as I lower her carefully onto the mattress at the center of her nest. The moment my knees press into the softness surrounding her, guilt winds itself around my throat.
I should not be here. Not inside her apartment.
Not standing in the one place that is supposed to belong entirely to her, untouched by the pack that violated every boundary she tried to establish.
Her scent saturated the enclosed space, midnight rain and moonlit roses threaded with sweet, delicate honey, softened by sleep but still carrying the bitter trace of anger that had flooded the training room while she drove her fists into my chest. Beneath it lingers the salt of her tears, the faint leather of the gloves, and the clean sweetness of the blankets gathered around her body.
Everything is burgundy. Shades of silver and black line her body in a perfect frame. It’s her in every way.
The most vulnerable place an Omega possesses, and I have entered it without being invited.
Again. The realization turns my stomach even though I had only carried her here because she had collapsed against me, her body too depleted to remain awake after finally releasing the fury she had carried since she left me. Left us.
I had offered myself to her because I didn’t know what else to give.
My body was the only apology that felt tangible.
The only thing she could strike, bruise, and punish without destroying another piece of herself in the process.
Every blow had landed with a dull thud against my chest and ribs, my sternum and shoulders are still vibrating.
Her screams tore through the training room until her voice became ragged.
None of it had been enough. No bruise she left behind could compare to the damage I had carved into her.
That Dominic carved into her. A permanent brand that shows the world that this Omega belongs to us.
And she always will.
Even if she doesn’t want to admit it.
I saw it in her eyes. Behind the hatred. Behind the overflow of pain and torment that’s plagued her since we last spoke. Since the night she walked out of our lives. Thank fuck it wasn’t for forever. I don’t think I could bear it. The thought alone has me wanting to murder someone.
I settle her against the pillows, drawing the nearest blanket over her before I make myself step back.
Her eyes open properly then, dark and glassy beneath the soft glow of the fairy lights wound around the walls.
Gold light spills across her face, catching against the damp tracks left behind by her tears and turning the loose strands of hair around her temples almost luminous.
She watches me silently. No anger, but there’s no softness either.
Only a bone-deep weariness that makes something behind my ribs twist until breathing becomes difficult.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, though the words feel pathetic the instant they leave my mouth.
She says nothing. She’s good at that. Leaving nothing but the heavy silence stretched between us, filled only by the quiet hum of the air-conditioner and the distant traffic murmuring beyond the apartment windows.
I should leave. I know I should, but my feet remain rooted beside her nest because I have carried these words inside me for months, repeating them in empty hotel rooms and beneath the roar of disappointed crowds that could never drown out the memory of her fear. Fear I had once wanted to be there.
I have rehearsed them so many times that they should come easily. But they never do. Not when it comes to her.
“The moment I scented you, it felt like my life finally began,” I admit, my voice rough enough to scrape against my throat.
“For the first time, I could breathe without feeling like something was sitting on my chest. The world didn’t seem as dark, and I thought I would never have to feel alone again.
That my pack and I were finally complete. ”
Her expression barely changes, but her scent shifts, the faintest pulse of confusion slipping through the exhaustion before she forces it beneath the tight control she wears like armor.
I lower my gaze because looking directly at the devastation I created makes cowardice whisper through me again, and I need to say these things.
I need her to know everything. No holding back.
If I ever earn her trust again, I need to start with no lies or omissions or anything between us.
To start over is to start on a clean slate.
Even if the slate is covered in the rotten foundations we had given her.
My fingers find the edge of one of her blankets, tracing the worn stitching while I search for the courage I should have possessed from the beginning.
“Then I followed Sasha into his vengeance because loyalty was easier than questioning the man I had built my entire life around. I obeyed him even when I knew what we were doing was wrong, and every time my conscience tried to stop me, I buried it beneath the excuse that his pain belonged to me, too.”
The fabric bunches beneath my fingers.
“I chose him over what was right. Over you.”
The confession settles heavily in the room, ugly and undeniable.
“I wasn’t confused, Lennon. I wasn’t helpless. I was weak, and I was a fucking coward who understood enough to know better but still allowed loyalty to blind me to the bond I could have built with you. And the sick part is, he feels the same way. But that’s not for me to tell.”
I force myself to meet her gaze because hiding from her now would only prove that nothing inside me has changed. And everything about me has…because of her. For her. That has to count for something…right?
“Sasha hasn’t had an easy life. I’m not making excuses for either of us, but it’s our truth.
There isn’t a single thing I wouldn’t do for him.
He deserves to be loved when all life ever gave him was sorrow and torment.
And despite all of it, he has been like a sounding board for me.
” I clear my throat, letting it all out because this is just as much about her as it is me.
Maybe admitting these things about myself will help me move past it, too.
Maybe it won’t. But I’m here. I’m doing it anyway.
Because I have nothing left to lose. I’ve already lost the girl.
She’s not mine anymore, despite being our scent match.
She made her choice, and I have no other choice but to go along with it.
It won’t be without a fight, might I add. But it’s the way things are.
“My dad died when I was a baby. It was just my mother and my sister and I growing up. We came from money, but none of it mattered to me. I grew up lonely. My mother and her family had a pack picked out for me and status was the only thing that mattered to them. I certainly didn’t care.
None of that was me. I wanted connection.
I wanted to know that the pack I laid with were the ones who’d have my back in my darkest hour.
Not something chosen or decided, because let’s face it.
We don’t dictate what fate determines. We’re just here to go along with it.
But I couldn’t go through with it. I couldn’t have an arrangement made when I knew that somewhere out there, I’d find my mates.
I thought I was at least worthy of love if not anything else.
Of something that no arrangement between well-to-do families could ever provide.
It was archaic, that’s what it was. And by then, I’d already fallen for Sasha and Dom.
I could never choose between the life that I wanted, filled with unconditional love, no matter how tortured we all were, and a life of convenience and wealth with a pack who’d never know the real me.
Not in the way Sasha and Dom do. Joke’s on my mother because the NHL provides enough money to last a lifetime, and I did it all on my own.
We all did. I walked away from my family and I never once looked back.
I don’t miss them. I don’t care. Everything pales in comparison to the love and the bond I share with Ars Mortis. Until you.”
For several seconds, Lennon says nothing, and the silence between us is almost deafening.
Her eyes drift away from mine, settling somewhere beyond my shoulder as she draws the blanket higher over her chest, the soft fabric whispering beneath her fingers while the warm light catches against the dampness still clinging to her lashes.
I can see her turning my words over in her mind, examining every exposed, jagged edge before deciding which one she intends to cut me with.
“You walked away from everything because you believed you deserved more,” she finally says, her voice quiet but steadier than it had been back at the arena.
“You refused to let your family choose who you loved, where you belonged, or what the rest of your life was going to look like because you knew none of that was real.”
I nod, the movement stiff with the tension gathering at the base of my skull.
“And you have them,” she continues. “You found Sasha and Dominic, built a life with them, and proved that you didn’t need anyone’s approval or some carefully negotiated arrangement between anyone to become successful.
You got everything you wanted without sacrificing the people you loved to get it. ”