Chapter 45
Chapter forty-five
LIAM
I don’t even know what kind of music she likes. The car is far too quiet, which is letting all the bullshit that just happened stew. I doubt Ash is a lover of classic Metallica, but some noise might kill the awkward silence.
The car’s too hot. But she left her coat in Alexei’s box. I stuffed her into one of Beckett’s old hoodies from a go bag I keep in the trunk, and that’s… distracting. Her in Beckett’s clothes is distracting. I’m not going to think too hard right now on how much that turns me on.
I steal another glance at Ash. She’s just sitting next to me, picking at the frayed edge of the cuff of the hoodie.
“You warm enough?” I ask, bringing the heat down a notch before I break out into a sweat.
She nods, still staring out the window. We drive in silence for another mile or so. I check the GPS. We’re almost there.
“What exactly does it mean?” Ash’s voice is so soft, I almost miss it beneath the hum of the engine. “The scent match thing.”
I exhale slowly, buying myself a moment. “A scent match is…” I search for words that won’t frighten her, or me. “It’s a biological compatibility. Stronger than average attraction. Nothing mystical.”
“Does it mean I belong to Pierce now?”
Alarm bells are ringing in my head like a fucking cartoon. Beckett’s in love with her. Pierce is her scent match. And I’m… I don’t know what the fuck I am. But none of that really matters. I have to force my fingers to relax before I crush the steering wheel.
“You don’t belong to anyone, Ash.”
“Beckett…” She lets his name hang in the air. She pulls the cuff of the hoodie over the tips of her fingers and brings it to her nose. It’s clean, but it still probably carries his scent.
“You don’t belong to Beckett either,” I say, not sure where her head is at. “You’re your own person who can make any choice she wants.”
That sentiment is one hundred percent true, but it doesn’t stop my pathetic inner alpha from jumping up and down begging her to please, please, please choose us.
She looks down at her hands. “But Pierce…”
“Pierce reacted like an asshole because he’s Pierce,” I say, allowing a hint of exasperation into my voice. “Finding your scent match is intense. It bypasses a lot of rational thought. But it doesn’t give him, or anyone, the right to make your decisions.”
We stop at a red light. What the fuck do I do here? I’m supposed to be the logical one, the planner, and I don’t know what to do next. We need more time.
“You have all the time you need,” I tell her softly. “No one’s rushing you into anything. No decisions have to be made tonight.”
The light changes, and we drive the last few blocks to her address. The neighborhood is decidedly working class, and most of the houses have seen better days.
“Is this it?” The GPS brings me to a rundown house with a small front yard, a fence wrapped around it, a gate leading down the drive to a garage.
“Did he win?”
“Uh… Ash. This is 2026. Alphas don’t have dominance fights over omegas anymore where they fight to the death and one wins the omega as a prize. I told you. You have all the power here. The fight had nothing to do with it."
“What?” She cocks her head and looks at me.
“That fight wasn’t about claiming you as a prize.” Not really, anyway. “Pierce doesn’t think he won you in a fight.” I fucking hope he doesn’t.
She narrows her eyes at me, but a smile plays about her lips.
“You’re dumb. I meant Beckett. Did Beckett win the hockey game?”
“Oh.” I snort. “That makes more sense.” I pull out my phone and search for the game results. It’s a 3-2 Scorpion win. I turn the phone to show her.
“Thank you for the ride.”
“Anytime,” I say, and I mean it.
She hesitates, then leans across the console. Her lips brush mine. The kiss ends before I can respond, before I can pull her closer.
“Goodnight, Liam,” she whispers against my mouth.
“Goodnight, Ash,” I say, my voice rougher than I’d like.
She nods, then slips out into the night, Beckett’s hoodie hanging to mid-thigh.
I slam the car into gear and pull out, just below tire squealing speed before I turn into that caveman alpha stereotype.
I should not have given her Beckett’s hoodie.
It’s wildly inappropriate to be thinking about ripping it off her with everything that just went down.
Three blocks away, unease replaces the insta-horny. I slam the Charger into park at the red light. There’s no traffic I have to worry about at this time of night.
I’m an ass. What the fuck am I thinking? I just dropped her at the curb like she’s a grocery delivery?
I don’t know exactly what’s happening at her house, but all signs point to it not being safe. And the scent match truth bomb just exploded.
I didn’t even fucking walk her to her door like a goddamn gentleman.
I make a U-turn at the next intersection. I’m just going to drive by, make sure she got in safely.
As I round the corner, I slam on the brakes a house away. She, in fact, did not make it inside. A man is standing on the top step to the front door, under the porch light that’s more like a floodlight, highlighting every crease in his face and shining off the growing bald spot on his dome.
Ash stands perfectly still, her spine straight, her hands hidden in the hoodie. The man steps closer, invading her space. Ash doesn’t retreat, doesn’t flinch. There’s something practiced in her stillness, like she’s been doing it her whole life.
The man moves again, gesturing over his shoulder, then back at Ash. As he shifts, the light catches his face. Weathered skin, dark hair streaked with gray. If I was closer, I’d see the scar through his eyebrow.
The scar Reed gave him.
Randal Voss.
He looks decades older than the last time I saw him, when he had a shotgun trained on me. But it is absolutely Randal Voss, Reed’s father.
The asshole that’s blackmailing us.
He makes an aggressive hand gesture and kicks the door wide. Ash’s head falls defeated as she follows him in. The door shuts smoothly.
Motherfucker. Did I get this all wrong? Is Ash part of it?
Part of whatever scheme Voss cooked up? His little agent?
Did she get close to Beckett just to fuck us?
Is she a good enough actress to pull this off?
You can’t fake a scent match, can you? Is Ash playing us more than the standard puckbunny or gold digger?
Some long forgotten memory chooses this exact moment to squeeze its way out of my brain.
Reed’s mom was trashy in all the good ways.
Big hair, a cigarette always hanging from her red lips, with a mason jar of sweet tea in her hand.
We were twelve when she got pregnant. Randal hadn’t been happy about it, and went absolutely shitballs when they found out it would be a girl.
Reed had been stoked. Probably out of spite, his mom named the baby after herself.
Randal lost his shit. “Stupidest fucking thing I ever did hear. A two-bit whore named Ash Lee naming her baby Ash Lynn.” She died a year later, and Randal insisted we call the baby Lynn.
Ash.
Lynn.
Voss.
Bile and fury rise in my throat, and I clamp my hand over my mouth. Too many conflicting thoughts explode in my head at the same time.
Ash is Reed’s sister.
I fucked Reed’s sister.
Pierce is scent matched to Reed’s sister.
Beckett is in love with Reed’s sister.
Randal is doing terrible things to Reed’s sister.
Fuck me.
Reed’s dad was always obsessed with omegas.
Not that a beta like him had a chance with one.
Reed found his dad’s porn stash, like every teenage boy eventually does, and it was all knotting porn.
All very graphic. I was the first one of us to become an alpha.
I think I was fourteen. Randal gave me one of those mags. It was unsettling.
That last year, Lynn had the biggest crush on Pierce.
She had always chased after us. We were so much older than her that we never gave it a second thought.
Lynn was Reed’s sister, for god’s sake. Randal made a big deal of it one night.
He was drunk, which wasn’t unusual, and squared off with Pierce, which was also not unusual.
He accused Pierce of grooming her. We all knew that was laughably untrue, but Pierce started spending less time at Reed’s after that.
We had just gotten our own place, Pierce and I.
Reed wouldn’t move out of the house and leave Lynn, though.
She was eleven or twelve, maybe. We started catching weird vibes.
Randal started looking at her less like a daughter and more like…
something else. Little things he’d say like, “You’re a big girl now, Lynn, you can’t be wearing shorts and showing off your legs.
” What the fuck is a kid in Florida supposed to wear?
Then the omega obsession started. Everywhere you looked, there were those tween magazines all focused on how to know if you’re ready to perfume. Randal kept buying them. Lynn never read them.
Reed didn’t think his father was messing with Lynn, and he didn’t want to outright ask her. Maybe he should have. But what if she did perfume?
That’s when we came up with the plan. We all wanted out of Florida, but you couldn’t basically kidnap a kid when you were broke and sleeping in your car.
We were going to go balls to the wall and make as much money as possible.
Reed got that job at the ice rink. Pierce was bouncing at any bar that would take him.
I was building websites and hacking into people’s emails.
Then we came up with a haunted house idea.
There was an abandoned warehouse, we could do it up with junk yard finds.
Throw it up with basically no money. It would be all profit.
Kids in our neighborhood would eat that shit up.
That’s when we met Beckett, and we all became a little obsessed with him. Pierce especially.
And then that night. We were all drunk at the bars. Pierce was giddy, flirting with Beckett in our group chat. He loved pushing Beckett’s buttons, knowing Beckett would be squirming and blushing.
Pierce dropped me off before taking Reed home. I should have gone with them. I should have insisted they stay. I should have done a lot of things.
Then Pierce came home covered in Reed’s blood.
I shouldn’t have run with Pierce. I shouldn’t have left Lynn. I shouldn’t have lied to Beckett.
And that all led to an avalanche of bad decisions to protect Beckett from the shit in our past.
My grip creaks on the Charger’s steering wheel, and I can’t force them to relax or let go.
Everything in me is screaming to go in there and rip her out.
But I don’t think I can do that without getting blood on my hands.
My phone pings with a message.
Beckett:
scent match?
we won by the way
My head drops like there’s too much in it weighing it down.
I’ve done so much shit over the years to protect Beckett, protect his career. I can’t go off half-cocked and fuck it up now.
I slam the Charger in gear and let it open up with squealing tires. I need to put some physical space between me and Lynn—Ash—so I can think straight and come up with a plan. One that’s going to work this time.