Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
Heath
WHEN I WOKE UP, I HAD an armful of Tony, and there Jez was still nestled inside my head. The room was dark, but the darkness held a faintly gray edge that signaled the arrival of morning in the not-too-distant future.
“Not a dream, then,” I muttered, even though the whole scene had a faint sense of unreality to it.
“Not a dream,” a feminine voice whispered at my back.
Tony slept on in my protective embrace. Gage’s rhythmic snoring sounded from somewhere behind me. Jez and I lay there for several minutes, loudly being awake at each other through the mating bond.
We had to talk. I knew we had to talk. She knew it, too.
Eventually, she stirred. “C’mon,” she murmured. “While they’re still asleep.”
I felt the slip-slide of her expensive dress as she eased upright, squirming out of the tight space where she’d been lodged between me and Gage. Giving in to the inevitable, I gently settled Tony’s slender body into the nest of cushions and blankets.
He made a small, unhappy noise in his sleep. I barely managed to get out of the way before the hulking form of my alpha packmate shuffled forward and took my place, wrapping his arms and legs around Tony without either of them waking up.
The idea of Tony safe in the arms of the world’s most protective teddy bear made a spear of some unidentifiable feeling pierce through me. And, of course, every emotion I felt was now shared with an audience of one bonded omega.
“Yeah,” Jez breathed, apparently in agreement with my reaction to the pair now cuddling in the nest. “I know exactly what you mean.”
That mirrored reaction ricocheted between us, until I couldn’t have said who was feeling what. I carefully got to my feet, aware that Jez was doing the same. We snuck out of the room like guilty schoolchildren, trying not to make noise.
Was Knox awake yet? Normally, he would be—but I could tell he wasn’t quite as recovered as he wanted us all to think. I didn’t hear anyone else stirring in the house. For lack of any better ideas, I led the way to my room, rather than to the shared space of the kitchen.
It was only when we entered that I realized this might not have been the best choice of venue. I was immediately hit with the visceral memory of everything that had happened in this room over the past several days.
I flicked on the light.
“You cleaned up,” Jez said. She went immediately to the bed and sat on it, which really wasn’t helping with my situation.
“Of course I cleaned up,” I snapped back. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t actually want to sleep in dried blood and stale spunk.”
She just stared at me, her gray eyes too large in her gaunt face.
How had I failed to notice how thin she was?
The expensive party dress she was wearing clung to curves and angles that wouldn’t have been out of place on an exclusive catwalk in Paris or Milan.
But I somehow doubted her lanky, size-four frame had been cultivated for the whims of the fashion industry.
I shook my head sharply. It did nothing to dislodge her presence inside my skull.
“Sorry,” I said, more gently.
She sat staring at me for longer than was comfortable. When she finally spoke, the words weren’t what I’d expected.
“I know you have serious feelings for Tony,” she began. “I can feel what you feel. You do understand that he only kept you at arm’s length to protect himself, right? He was lying through his teeth when he told you he didn’t want any strings attached.”
“I... what?” I stammered, derailed.
I was still trying to wrap my head around the situation with Tony, because if I had one rule for dealing with people, it was to believe them when they told you what their boundaries were.
She sighed, and it seemed to come from down around her toenails somewhere.
“Never mind. It’s not my business; I understand that.
” She drew her knees up, resting her bare feet on the edge of the mattress and wrapping her arms around her legs.
“Look, you just need to know that I don’t blame you for anything that happened.
None of it was your fault. You treated me better than other people would have, after I tried to kill your pack leader. And as for the rest of it—”
Another sigh.
“Well... we’ll get it sorted out soon enough, I guess. I can take a pregnancy test in about ten more days, and Knox wants us both to get tested for diseases. Then I’ll get the gland removal surgery as soon as I can. It’ll be like none of this ever happened.”
Her emotions flowed through me in time with her words, stealing my tongue for several seconds. Sincerity... worry... guilt... grief.
“I’m so sorry for what I did to Knox,” she finished, the guilt swelling to the forefront. “I just... need you to believe that, even if it doesn’t change anything, really.”
“It changes things.” The whispered words were out of my mouth before my brain could vet them.
She looked up at me with wet eyes. As I watched, a tear overflowed to trail down her cheek. She dashed it away impatiently.
“There’s something else you should know,” she said.
“Tony is a good person. In fact, I think he might be the best person I’ve ever known in my life.
” Two more tears tracked down her cheeks.
“Please give him a chance and treat him right, because something as wholesome as his love for you doesn’t come along every day. ”
“He deserves better than someone like me.” Again, the words were out before I could stop them.
She gave a little shrug. “Maybe. But you’re the one he wants. And people like Tony and me... we’re very careful about what we want.”
It felt like all the fight had drained out of both of us.
“I wasn’t exaggerating when I said you saved me in that cell,” I said, because it suddenly seemed important for her to understand that. “The others don’t think I would’ve hurt the kid... but they have no clue what it was like to be stuck in that chemically induced rut.”
I examined Jez’s face. She’d gone to sleep with makeup on, but her tears had melted the foundation along her cheek. Beneath it, I could see the half-healed scar where a kidnapper’s blade had sliced along the delicate skin.
I swallowed hard. “It was complete insanity. The others can’t understand that feeling of being out of control... of believing with every fiber of your being that if you don’t fuck, you’ll die. Jez... your scent—knowing you were nearby—it gave me the strength to hold on until you could get to me.”
Her face crumpled, and a silent sob shook her small frame.
“I wish I could have met your pack the right way,” she whispered, more tears washing away the facade of makeup she’d put on to cover up her pain.
Yearning flooded the bond. Mine or hers... maybe ours together.
I pushed away from the wall, crossing to her. My hands might as well have belonged to someone else as they cradled her jaw. I pressed a kiss into her rumpled, pale blond hair.
“Me, too,” I said, as I straightened away. The truth of the words echoed through me, taking me by surprise.
Rather than giving in to her tears completely, she closed her eyes and steadied her expression before opening them again and meeting my gaze.
“Promise me something,” she said. “Don’t let Tony leave the house without talking to him. Properly. If he wants you, and you want him, then for god’s sake, have each other. This world sucks too bad to throw the good things away when you find them.”
I couldn’t refuse her. Not when she was so very, very right about that.
“I promise,” I told her, and there was nothing artificial about her relief through the bond.
“Good,” she said, sniffling.
After taking another moment to compose herself, Jez led the way back to the TV room. The others were, miraculously, still asleep. She didn’t waste any time, shaking them both awake with practical effectiveness.
“Wha...?” Tony muttered, coming back to consciousness to find himself in a different pair of arms than he’d fallen asleep in. He twisted around to look at Gage in the early morning light. “Um... hi?”
Gage, who always woke up just about as gracefully as a hibernating grizzly, blinked at him. “Hi. You’re good to cuddle.”
Pink flooded Tony’s cheeks. Gage let him go and he struggled into a sitting position.
“... thanks?” Tony said uncertainly.
Affection flooded through me despite my best efforts, followed closely by a wash of smugness not my own.
“Get up,” Jez commanded, grabbing Gage by one meaty bicep and tugging. “You’re taking me back to your room. Tony and Heath need privacy for a talk.”
“Oh,” Gage said, still noticeably out of it. “Okay.”
Jez got the big guy upright and marched him out of the room efficiently. Just like that, I was alone with Tony.
He scooted back until his shoulders rested against the front of the sectional couch, rolling his lower lip between his teeth nervously.
“Erm...” He hesitated, then spoke in a rush. “I’m really sorry I lost my shit with you over the phone. I meant what I said at the time... but it wasn’t fair, and I was upset.”
“You had plenty of good reasons to be upset,” I said, trying not to wince as I thought back to all the things Tony must have seen while Jez and I were out of our minds with lust.
“I know,” he said. “But I still shouldn’t have unloaded at you like that. What happened, happened. And anything you and I might have had together—”
“Stop,” I said.
His jaw clicked shut.
My stiff joints creaked as I lowered myself to sit next to him, within arm’s reach but not touching.
“Someone just told me that the world sucks too much to throw away the good things when you find them.” I met his eyes—deep brown and slightly bloodshot.
“Now, I wouldn’t normally take advice from this person, but in this case, she was absolutely right.
I want to be with you, if that’s what you want, too. ”
His breath caught in his throat, and he swallowed noisily.
“But... the mating bond,” he said hoarsely.
“Is temporary,” I retorted, not acknowledging the wave of unpleasant emotion that came on the heels of the words. “Maybe we need to talk about how packs work. Sometimes I forget you’re a beta.”
“You guys don’t really act like a pack, though.” Tony’s eyes darted nervously away, and then back. “I mean, no offense. But I didn’t think any of you did relationships. Like, at all.”
The sad part was, he was right.
“Well... maybe that needs to change.” Saying it felt like jumping off a cliff; the water churning far below. I took a deep breath and forged onward. “Packs sometimes include betas. I would like you to be my—our—beta.”
Tony’s breathing grew faster; a little ragged. He licked his lips.
“I, uh... I knew a pack in St. Louis. They... helped me. They had a beta, but I thought it was a special case. He was already married to their omega before the pack met them.”
“Every pack is a special case,” I told him. A small snort of amusement took me by surprise as I added, “Although, this one might be a bit more ‘special’ than most.”
He huffed out a breath of laughter. “Yeah, maybe.” Then he sobered, holding my gaze with unblinking intensity. “You mean it, though? You’d really... want that?”
My throat ached. “I don’t think either of us are very good at wanting things. Maybe it’s time to work on that.”
Apparently, it was my job today to make other people cry.
Tony’s face contorted, but before I could stammer out an apology, he’d turned and scrambled into my lap, his lips crashing over mine.
I tasted his single sob more than I heard it—but an instant later, it was lost beneath the sea of relief and rightness at having him in my arms.