Chapter 14 #2
"That's not—" Nolan cut himself off with visible effort, his chest rising and falling with a slow, controlled breath, forcibly reining in his reaction.
He uncurled his fist finger by finger, forced his shoulders to drop from around his ears, but his eyes were still dark with concern, still calculating.
His voice came out softer when he spoke again, gentled by effort.
"We can talk about that later. The medical implications. If you want."
I nodded, grateful for the reprieve, and pressed on before I could lose my nerve.
"After I ran, I just... drifted." My voice had gone distant, like I was reciting facts about someone else's life, someone I'd read about in a book.
My tea had gone cold in my hands, but I kept holding it anyway, needing something solid to anchor me to the present.
"Worked where I could—under the table, cash only, no questions asked.
I was sixteen with no papers, no education, no family.
Moved when I had to. There was always something—a jealous coworker, a handsy boss, someone who figured out what I was and decided that meant I was theirs for the taking. "
A low growl rumbled through the room, vibrating in my chest. From Reid, I thought, or maybe Sawyer—maybe both. The sound was primal, protective, raising the hair on my arms in a way that should have frightened me but didn't.
"I learned to run." My voice was barely above a whisper now, the words scraping out of a throat gone tight and raw.
My eyes stayed fixed on the rug, on my white-knuckled hands, on anything but their faces.
"I learned to leave before things got bad.
I learned not to get attached, not to hope, not to want anything I couldn't carry with me.
" I finally looked up, found four pairs of eyes fixed on me with varying degrees of rage and sorrow and fierce, protective want. "And then I came here."
The silence stretched like a held breath, filled only by the pop and hiss of the fire.
Then Kol moved—slowly, deliberately, telegraphing every motion, giving me plenty of time to pull away or tell him to stop.
He crawled across the few feet of floor between us on hands and knees and settled at my feet, his back resting against the couch, his shoulder just barely brushing my leg through my jeans.
He didn't try to hold me, didn't try to comfort with words.
Just sat there, a warm presence, his scent wrapping around me like a blanket, offering support without demanding anything in return.
"That's not going to happen here." Reid's voice was low and rough with emotion he wasn't even trying to hide, each word landing like a stone dropped into still water.
He'd leaned forward in his chair, his elbows braced on his knees, his dark eyes boring into mine with an intensity that should have been frightening but somehow felt like safety.
His scent had settled back into its usual steady warmth, but there was steel underneath it now—a promise, a vow written in woodsmoke and whiskey.
"No one is going to run you off. No one is going to hurt you.
And if anyone tries—" His jaw tightened, that muscle jumping again beneath his stubbled cheek. "They'll answer to all of us."
"Reid." My voice cracked on his name, splintering around the edges, overwhelmed by the fierce protectiveness blazing in his eyes.
"He's right." Sawyer's voice was unexpected, rumbling out of the shadows like distant thunder, and I turned to find him watching me from his chair with those pale blue eyes that saw too much.
His rough voice was quiet but certain, each word deliberate and heavy, carrying the weight of hard-won experience.
His beer sat forgotten on the side table, his scarred hands loose on the worn armrests, his whole body angled toward me despite his position at the edge of the group. "We protect what's ours."
The words should have felt possessive. Controlling. Like all the times before when Alphas had claimed ownership over something that wasn't theirs to claim. But from Sawyer—from all of them—it felt different. It felt like shelter from a storm.
"Your turn." The words came out before I could think better of them, rough but steadier than before, desperate to shift the weight of attention off my own broken story. I looked at Reid, then let my gaze sweep over the others. "I showed you mine. Show me yours."
Reid laughed—a real laugh, surprised out of him, rough and warm and utterly unexpected. The sound transformed his face, smoothed away the hard edges, made him look younger, almost boyish despite the silver in his hair.
"Fair enough." He settled back in his chair, his whiskey glass dangling loosely from his fingers, firelight playing across the weathered planes of his face.
His dark eyes grew distant, looking at something far away and long ago, and when he spoke again his voice had dropped into a lower register, rough with memory and old pain.
"I inherited this place from my father. Though 'inherited' makes it sound a lot more civilized than it was. "
He raised the glass to his lips, took a slow sip, the motion deliberate and unhurried.
"My father was a drunk." The words came out flat, matter-of-fact, but I could see the old pain lurking underneath them like rocks beneath still water.
His jaw tightened, his grip on the glass flexing, the firelight catching the white of his knuckles.
"A mean one, when he got going. He loved this ranch more than anything—more than my mother, more than me—but he was running it into the ground.
Bad decisions, worse debts, deals that should never have been made.
By the time he died, we were six months from losing everything. "
"Reid." Nolan's voice was soft from the couch, gentle as a hand on a wound, an offering of comfort that asked nothing in return. His green eyes were warm with understanding, with years of friendship and shared history.
Reid shook his head, a small motion, his dark hair catching the firelight.
"I was twenty-three." His voice was rough, scraping over wounds that had scarred but never quite stopped aching.
His dark eyes found mine across the room, something raw and vulnerable flickering in their depths, a glimpse behind walls I suspected few people ever saw past. "Angry as hell.
Feral, if I'm being honest—all that rage with nowhere to put it.
I wanted to let it all burn. Walk away and never look back. "
"What changed?" My voice was barely a whisper, caught up in his story, in the glimpse of the furious young man he'd been.
"Hank." A ghost of a smile crossed Reid's face, there and gone like lightning, softening the hard line of his jaw.
His thumb traced the rim of his glass, the motion absent, his mind clearly somewhere else, somewhen else.
"He'd worked for my father for years. Stayed on even when things got bad, even when he wasn't getting paid regular.
When my father died, Hank looked me in the eye and said, 'This land doesn't care who your daddy was. It only cares what you do with it.'"
He drained the last of his whiskey in one long swallow, set the empty glass aside on the table with a soft clink.
"So I did something with it." His voice was stronger now, pride bleeding through the old pain like sunrise through clouds.
His broad shoulders squared with remembered determination, his dark eyes sweeping over the room, over each of us, warm with quiet satisfaction and hard-earned peace.
"Worked myself half to death for five years.
Paid off the debts, rebuilt what my father had broken, turned this place into something worth having.
" His lips curved into something almost like a smile, fond and warm. "And then I started collecting strays."
"Strays." Kol's voice was amused, warm with affection, and he tilted his honey-blond head back against the couch to look up at Reid. A grin played at his lips, his amber eyes dancing with mischief and love. His shoulder pressed more firmly against my leg, grounding us both. "That what we are?"
"If the shoe fits." Reid's voice was dry as dust, but his eyes were warm, crinkling at the corners with obvious affection as he looked at the younger Alpha sprawled at my feet. The hard lines of his face had softened completely now, years falling away in the firelight.
"I'll take it." Kol turned his head, his cheek resting against my knee for just a moment before he pulled back, a fleeting touch that made my heart stutter in my chest. His amber eyes found mine, bright with mischief and something deeper, something tender.
His voice was light but his gaze was serious. "I've been called worse."
"Your turn, then." I found myself saying, surprised by how much I wanted to know, how much I wanted to understand each piece of how they'd become who they were.
My hand moved without conscious thought, my fingers brushing through the soft waves of Kol's honey-blond hair before I could stop myself, the strands like silk against my skin. "If you want."
Kol's eyes fluttered closed at the touch, his whole body going loose and pliant, a soft sound escaping him that was almost a purr but not quite—something content and vulnerable and trusting. When he opened his eyes again, they were bright with emotion, shining in the firelight.
"I was the youngest of five." His voice was different now—softer, more subdued, the usual manic energy banked to a low simmer, barely flickering.
He shifted to face me more fully, sitting cross-legged on the floor with his back still against the couch, his hands fidgeting restlessly in his lap.
His amber eyes dropped to watch his own fingers twist together, nervous energy with nowhere else to go.
"Four older sisters, all Betas, all perfectly normal and well-adjusted and everything my parents wanted. And then there was me."