Chapter 29 Peyton
PEYTON
The silence of the house was wrong.
It wasn’t the comfortable quiet of Florida, filled with the distant ocean hum and the steady breathing of my mates. This silence was heavy, pressed down by the mountains outside and the history inside. Every creak of the floorboards sounded like an accusation.
I sat at the kitchen island, a mug of coffee cooling in my hands. The morning light attempted to filter through the pines, casting long, barred shadows across the table.
Upstairs, Dalton was still asleep, exhausted from the grief and the drive. But Theo…
I could hear him moving in the downstairs bathroom. The water running. The faint, hitching sound of breath caught in a throat raw from retching.
He’d barely kept down the toast Dalton had forced on him last night. This morning, he hadn’t even tried.
I’d told myself it was the stress. The motion sickness from the winding roads.
The shock of seeing the shop destroyed. It made sense.
It was logical. But my instincts didn’t care about logic.
An unease had been pacing the cage of my chest since we crossed the state line, focused on a scent that didn’t fit.
It wasn’t the smoke I could still smell from our brief visit to the shop. It wasn’t the stale fear that lingered in the house.
It was Theo.
He smelled… different.
The bathroom door creaked open. Theo shuffled out, looking pale and small in one of my old hoodies. He offered me a weak, wobbly smile.
“Sorry,” he croaked, leaning against the doorframe. “I think the mountain air disagrees with me.”
“It’s not the air,” I said, the words tumbling out before I could filter them.
Theo blinked, confused. “What?”
I stood up, crossing the room in two strides. I stopped inches from him, invading his space just enough to breathe him in. He smelled of mint toothpaste and sleep, but underneath that… there it was.
Cream. Honey. A richness that coated the back of my tongue, sweet and undeniable. It wasn’t the scent of a sick omega. It was the scent of a nesting one.
“Peyton?” Theo’s voice hitched, a spike of anxiety cutting through the sweetness. “You’re doing the intense staring thing again.”
“It’s your scent,” I said, my voice low. “It’s changed. My instincts know what it means.”
“It’s only been two weeks,” Theo pointed out, looking wary.
“My alpha instincts aren’t wrong,” I growled softly. I reached out, placing a hand flat on his stomach. The hoodie was thick, but I swore I could feel the difference radiating through the fabric. “You’re pregnant. Dalton bought a test. Back in Florida. Did he pack it?”
Theo went rigid. His eyes widened, pupils blowing wide until the iris was just a thin ring of color. “A… a test? Peyton, no. We used protection. The one time it broke, we… it was just once.”
“Once is all it takes,” I said. “Where is it?”
“In the first aid bag maybe? Theo whispered.”Under the sink in the bathroom.”
I didn’t wait. I went to the bathroom, dug through the red canvas bag Dalton had meticulously packed, and found the box. I handed it to Theo.
“Take it.”
“Peyton, this is crazy. It’s just stress. It’s—”
“Take it,” I repeated, gentler this time. “Please. For me.”
Theo stared at the box, his hands trembling. Then he nodded, backing into the bathroom and shutting the door.
Three minutes. This time, the silence wasn’t heavy. It was electric. I paced the small hallway, my heart hammering a rhythm that felt too fast for my chest. Upstairs, I heard Dalton stirring, footsteps creaking on the landing.
“Peyton?” Dalton called out, voice rough with sleep. “Everything okay?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
The bathroom door opened.
Theo stood there, holding the stick like it was a weapon that had just gone off. He looked at me, his face utterly blank. Then he looked past me, to where Dalton was descending the stairs, rubbing his eyes.
“Theo?” Dalton froze halfway down, sensing the shift in the air. “What’s wrong?”
Theo held up the stick.
I stepped closer. Two lines.
The world narrowed down to that tiny piece of plastic. The fire, the shop, my father, the threat—it all vanished, replaced by a surge of possessiveness so violent it nearly brought me to my knees. Mine. Ours. Baby.
“Oh my god,” Dalton breathed, vaulting the railing to land next to us. He grabbed Theo’s hand, staring at the result. “Is that… are we…?”
“Yes,” Theo whispered. Tears welled in his eyes, spilling over. “I’m… I’m pregnant.”
Dalton let out a whoop of pure joy, pulling Theo into a crushing hug. “A baby! We’re having a baby!”
I wanted to join them. I wanted to bury my face in Theo’s neck and scent him until he smelled like nothing but me. But as the initial wave of joy crashed, the tide went out, revealing the jagged rocks underneath.
We were in West Virginia. We were living in a house my father knew about. And I knew I didn’t want my father anywhere near my beta or my omega.
“Peyton?” Theo asked, pulling back from Dalton. His joy flickered, dampened by my silence. ” aren’t you… happy?”
“I am,” I said, forcing my expression to soften. I reached out, cupping his face, wiping away a tear with my thumb. “I am happy, Theo. I promise.”
“But?” Dalton asked, his smile fading as he looked at me.
“But now the stakes have changed,” I said, looking at the two men who held my soul in their hands. “My father… he hated Dalton because he thought Dalton was holding me back. Keeping me from my ‘duty’ to the family line.”
I looked down at Theo’s stomach.
“If he finds out about this baby… a true Claybourne heir? He won’t hate it. He’ll want it. He’ll try to control it. Control us.”
“And he won’t want me corrupting his heir,” Dalton swore, stepping closer, his beta protective instincts flaring to match mine. “We won’t let him get his way.”
“We won’t,” I agreed. I looked around the kitchen—my house, the place I’d always thought of as my safety net. The place I thought I could always come back to. “But that means we can’t sustain a life here anymore. Not even a little bit.”
“What do you mean?” Theo asked, his hand covering mine on his cheek.
“I mean I have to cut the cord. Completely,” I said, the realization settling heavy but right in my chest. “I have to sell the house. I have to call Judd and have him buy me out of the landscaping business. I have to sell the gallery building. I’ve been dragging my feet on the gallery, but it’s time to move on. ”
Dalton’s eyes widened. “Peyton, that’s… that’s everything you have left here.”
“No,” I said, pulling them both into my arms. “Everything I have is right here. This house, this town… it’s just history. And I’m done living in the past.”
I pressed a kiss to Theo’s forehead, then Dalton’s. “We finish dealing with the fire. We settle the insurance. And then we cash out and we go home to Sugar Beach. For good.”
“For good,” Dalton echoed, the tension in his shoulders finally breaking.
“For good,” Theo whispered and smiled.
It was a promise. And as I held them both in the quiet morning light, I knew it was the only way to keep them safe. We were leaving the mountain, and we weren’t looking back.