Chapter 7 #2
I look up at the oak tree branches stretching over the hedge. Maybe there’s a magpie family somewhere currently getting cozy in my lingerie. It sounds ridiculous. That’s a lot of lift for a small bird, but nature is full of surprises.
I scan the branches. No flashes of color. No lace fluttering in the breeze.
Just leaves and judgement.
Option Three: Human interference.
I swallow.
My brain immediately offers up images I do not want: someone’s hand plucking the lace from the line, lifting it to their nose, inhaling—ugh.
“I am going to die,” I mutter.
I grip the empty section of line, the rope rough against my fingers.
I don’t jump straight to perverts because…I know my neighbors.
Or I think I do.
They’re intense. They’re loud. They’re not subtle, any of them. If they wanted to mark something as theirs, they’d do it with ten feet of neon sign, not underwear theft.
But we’re not talking about rational, boardroom-level behavior here. We’re talking instincts. Pheromones. Biology.
Alpha omega dynamics in real life aren’t the nonsense people write in my comment sections about “alphas going feral during her heat and dragging her into the nest,” but we are still animals under the laundry detergent and the mortgage.
And some packs do that.
They take things that smell like a prospective omega, especially undeclared ones. They hoard shirts, scarves, pillows. Use them as scent anchors. It’s an old, messy kind of courting, pre-bonding, pre-consent.
Outdated. Questionable. But not unheard of.
My cheeks heat.
I remember how they looked at me at the barbecue, four sets of eyes tracking me like I was the only interesting thing in a yard full of food and potential drama.
I remember “our omega.”
My heart lurches, half dread, half something shamefully close to flattered.
“This is what happens,” I whisper to myself, the words hot and bitter. “You get dizzy over a few abs and a power-washed bin and forget that you barely know these men. You don’t know their boundaries. You don’t know their rules. You let them in too fast, and now you’re missing underwear.”
My throat tightens. Shame and anger and embarrassment knot together.
Because if it is them, if this is some primal little theft born from too much scent and too much tension and not enough self-control, then that’s on me too, isn’t it?
I gave them so much access so fast.
I went into their house. I took their coffee. I let them touch me. Little touches, sure, but touches. Hands on my back, on my wrist, on the air space around me.
I lied to Carol for them.
I smoothed. I buffered. I did pack work for people who are not my pack.
And now I’m standing in my yard, staring at an empty stretch of clothesline, wondering if the pack next door is currently passing my underwear around like an appetizer.
Heat floods my face so hard I have to drop my forehead against my arm and breathe.
I don’t blame them.
God, that’s the worst part.
Some deep, deep piece of me, which should honestly be tried in some kind of feminist court, whispers, Yes, they’re intense. Yes, they push. They’re alphas. It’s your job to slow things down.
“I hate you,” I tell that internalized garbage voice.
I don’t hate them. I hate that I didn’t guard myself better.
Julian’s voice threads through, completely unwelcome: You’re so dramatic, Mia. Not everything is a big deal.
He would say I’m overreacting. That it’s just underwear. That there are bigger problems in the world than some lace.
But it’s not about the lace.
It’s about boundaries.
About the story I’m telling myself about what’s safe.
I straighten, jaw tight.
“Okay,” I say. “Fine. You want proof? We’re going to get proof.”
I am a writer; I know how to research. I know how to test hypotheses.
Right now my hypothesis is: The pack next door is either (a) weirdly innocent and unaware, or (b) weirdly intense and has my panties.
If they did this, if they took something that intimate without asking, that tells me who they are under the pretty pack veneer. That tells me to lock my doors, close my curtains, and probably find another rental.
If they didn’t…then I need to have a talk with whatever raccoon or neighborhood pervert is making my life into an after-school special.
My heart hammers.
I wipe my palms on my jeans and look toward the shared hedge.
Their yard is quiet.
The big maple tree on their side stirs in the breeze. The shadow of their house stretches over their grass. No loud voices. No clang of weights. No sound of Declan singing badly along to pop music while coding.
Maybe they’re out.
Good. Better. I can check quickly. See if there’s any incriminating evidence like, I don’t know, a scrap of turquoise lace on their lawn furniture.
I creep along my side of the fence, feeling ridiculous and nosey and like one of those cartoon characters tiptoeing with exaggerated steps.
The hedge is tall but not privacy-grade; there are gaps between the leaves wide enough to peer through if I angle right.
I reach the midpoint and risk a glance.
The view is limited: a slice of patio, the edge of a chair, the corner of their sliding door. No underwear shrine in sight. No altars built out of my lingerie.
I exhale, hand on my chest.
And then I hear it.
A laugh.
Two, actually.
Male, familiar, and a little too close.
I freeze, pressing instinctively into the shadow of my hedge like it can hide me.
Through the gap, a shape moves.
Knox, in a black t-shirt and basketball shorts, steps into view carrying a small cardboard box. He sets it on the patio table near the fence. Declan appears a second later, wearing a faded band tee and joggers, his right hand curled loosely at his side, holding something I can’t quite make out.
My heart slams into my ribs.
I go very still.
They’re at the hedge. They’re at my hedge.
I should back up. I should go inside. I should not stand here.
Instead, I stay, half-hidden, because if this were a book, this is exactly when the stupid omega heroine would overhear something important.
“—I’m telling you, this is the move,” Declan is saying, gesturing with his hands, whatever is in them half-hidden behind his back. “You can’t deploy without testing first.”
“We deployed plenty of things without testing,” Knox says absently, eyes scanning the yard. “Remember last week?”
“That was…guided chaos,” Declan counters. “Also, we nearly melted half a server rack. I’m trying to grow.”
“Growth would be not hacking the neighborhood watch camera feed just to see if Carol visited Mia,” Knox says dryly.
My stomach drops.
What.
Declan sputters. “I did not hack it. It has a default password. I had to know if that woman was bothering her after she lied for us.”
My brain is flickering between ‘they talk about me when I’m not there’ and ‘you are literally eavesdropping, Mia, sit down’.
A gust of wind shifts, carrying a thread of my scent toward them. Or maybe it’s just my panic, hot and bright, radiating through the hedge.
Knox’s head snaps up, nostrils flaring. He inhales, once, twice before his brows pinch.
“Do you smell…?” he starts.
Declan goes still, nose lifting just a fraction, like some internal radar just pinged. His eyes narrow, scanning the hedge.
I curse my biological existence.
I take a tiny step back, heel catching on the garden edging. The plastic snaps under my foot with a soft crack, just loud enough.
Both of their heads whip toward the sound.
There is a second, just one, where I could run. Where I could pretend I’d been doing something innocent like checking the mailbox.
I blow it.
Because in that same second, my brain offers up its worst-case scenario reel: them catching me, one of them dangling a scrap of lace from his fingers.
If they’re guilty, I’ll see it.
If they’ve touched my underwear, it will be in their eyes.
I straighten my spine, heart trying to climb into my throat, and step forward.
Out from under the shadow of the hedge. Right into view.
Knox’s expression flips from alert to bright in half a second. Declan’s mouth curves.
“Mia,” Declan says, tone pitched like he just found exactly what he’d been looking for. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I manage. It comes out thinner than I’d like.
They’re standing on their side of the hedge, close enough that if it wasn’t between us, I could reach out and touch them.
Declan has something held behind his back, his elbow locked at a weird angle.
My stomach swoops.
“I was just…” I wave a hand vaguely at my yard, which currently contains grass, and my dirty thoughts. “Doing a…yard check.”
Smooth.
“Yard check,” Knox repeats, amused. He slings an arm casually over the top of the hedge. The pose flexes every muscle in his forearm. “Very official.”
His eyes narrow slightly as he looks at me. He inhales again, quick and sharp.
“You okay, neighbor?” he asks, voice dropping a shade lower. “You smell…” He trails off, watching me.
Heat floods my face.
No, I’m not okay. You stole my panties, you thief.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
He doesn’t look convinced. His pupils are a little too wide. His shoulders are a little too tight. Every alpha neuron in him is probably lighting up at the spike of my scent.
Declan shifts his weight, the thing behind his back scraping softly against his jeans.
“Just enjoying the breeze?” he asks, too casually.
My eyes flick to his arm, to the box on the table, back to his face.
“Just…checking,” I say. “Have you guys seen anything…loose? Blowing around?”
His brows rise. “Loose?”
“Like…laundry.” I’m dying internally. “Clothes. The wind sometimes…grabs stuff.”
Do not say panties. Do not say panties. Do not say—
“Did you lose something?” Knox asks, straightening. His voice has changed. Gone deeper. Dangerous.
I hate how my body reacts to that tone. My heart does a weird stumble-run. My skin prickles.
I swallow. “I’m missing some…items. From my clothesline.”
Knox goes very still. His eyes lock on mine, and for a second, I can’t read his expression at all.
“Missing?” he echoes. His voice is carefully neutral. “Like…stolen?”