Chapter 7 #3
Something flickers across his face, but it’s too fast to catch. Was it surprise? Concern?
Or is he calculating how much I know?
Declan shifts behind him, and they exchange a look I can’t decipher.
My omega is all twisted up. They’re intense. They’re physical. They’ve been orbiting me like something already theirs.
It’s not hard to imagine that kind of brain deciding that taking my scent would be…normal.
“Maybe,” I say, keeping my voice tight. “Unless the wind took them.”
Just then, my phone vibrates in my pocket. Grateful for something else to focus on that’s not the slate eyes currently watching me intensely, I pull it out of my pocket and look down at the screen.
Alert: “Pip is loose again. Hide your snacks.”
I swipe the alert away, annoyed. I don’t care about Carol’s damn dog.
“Do you remember what was hanging there?” Declan asks, drawing my attention back to the two alphas in front of me. His eyes are sharp now. He might be chaotic but he’s also a CEO; I can see the gears moving behind his eyes.
I stare at him, very carefully not looking like I’m imagining him holding my favorite turquoise thong.
“Just…things,” I hedge. “Underthings. Some more…delicate than others.”
Knox’s mouth parts, understanding dawning.
“Oh,” he says, the word dropping low. “Oh.”
His scent shifts, molasses burning a shade darker. Something hot and complicated I can’t parse. Anger? Possessiveness? Guilt?
He leans forward, weight on his hands on the hedge, studying my face with an intensity that makes my skin prickle.
“Someone took your underwear off your line?” he asks. His voice is too controlled, like he’s working very hard to keep it level.
“I don’t know,” I say quickly. “It might be nothing. They might have…fallen. It’s probably nothing.”
His gaze goes distant for a second. When he looks back at me, his slate eyes are darker, unreadable.
“We’ll find it,” he says. Not a question. A statement.
The certainty in his voice could mean he’s protective.
Or it could mean he already knows exactly where it is.
The irony is so thick I could choke on it.
If you are the ones who took them, congratulations, you’ve already found them.
I laugh, a thin sound that comes out more like a gasp. “It’s fine. Really. I don’t want to make a big deal out of…laundry.”
“Someone taking your clothes without permission is a big deal,” Declan says. His jaw is tight now. The thing behind his back shifts; whatever it is, he adjusts his grip on it. Knox shoots him a sharp look that looks like a warning.
Declan’s expression smooths out immediately, going carefully blank.
“What are you hiding?” I ask before I can stop myself.
His eyes flick down, then back up, fast. “Hiding?”
“You’ve been holding something behind your back since I walked up,” I say, gesturing. “What is it?”
He hesitates. Just for a beat. Then his grin flickers back, too wide, too fast. “This? Nothing. Just—uh—private.”
Private.
Knox’s hand tightens on the hedge.
My brain leaps to: a pair of my panties twisted around his fingers, thin lace stretched between his hands. Maybe the black pair, the one with the flower-embroidered straps.
I am going to short-circuit.
“Okay,” I say, backing up a half-step. “Well. If you see anything…weird…in your yard, let me know. It’s probably just the wind. I’m sure it’s the wind.”
I am not sure. I am not sure about anything except the fact that my skin feels too hot and my heart is beating too hard and I need to get away from their eyes.
“Mia,” Knox says, softer. “Wait.”
I freeze.
He leans a little closer, eyes scanning my face. His voice drops, gentle in a way that makes something deep in my chest ache.
“Did you… smell anyone?” he asks. “Anyone near your line? Stranger? Kid? Another alpha?”
The way he says “another alpha” makes my insides do an uncomfortable twist.
“Just you,” I hear myself say.
His breath hitches, just once.
Declan swears under his breath. “Jesus, Mia.”
I realize how that sounds. Heat surges up my neck.
“I mean,” I stammer, “you. As in. Your house. Your scents. Carrying. On the wind. Not, like—you weren’t in my yard, I didn’t mean—”
Smooth. Really nailing this.
Knox’s mouth curves. “Got it,” he says quietly. “Just us.”
The implication hums in the air. Just us. Like that’s somehow better than “someone else.”
I force a smile that feels like it might crack my cheeks. “Anyway. I should… check the rest of my yard. In case my… underthings are caught in a tree somewhere.”
Kill me. Kill me now.
“Yeah,” Declan says, eyes still darker than usual. “Do that. And Mia?”
“Yeah?” I squeak.
“If you see anyone hanging around your fence who doesn’t live here,” he says, all the humor gone from his voice, “tell us. Immediately.”
The way he says it like a command and not a suggestion makes my throat constrict.
I nod, because anything else feels like it would stick in my throat.
He shifts the box on the table, fingers tapping against the cardboard. “No one should be touching your things,” he mutters.
Does that include them?
“Thanks,” I mumble, because my social training is stronger than my fight-or-flight. “I’ll…keep an eye out.”
Knox studies me a second longer, nostrils flaring one more time like he’s trying to read something in my scent. His expression is unreadable. Whether concern, or scheming, I can’t tell which.
I take that as my cue to retreat before I say something like “If you’re going to steal my underwear, could you at least fold my towels?” So, I turn and walk away, careful not to run. My legs feel wobbly.
On the way back to the house, I can’t stop replaying every flicker of expression on their faces.
They didn’t look entirely surprised.
Knox went still the second I mentioned it. Declan hid whatever was behind his back even tighter. They exchanged looks.
Either they’re genuinely concerned and protective.
Or they’re very, very good liars.
And I have no idea which.
Inside, the cool air of the kitchen hits my overheated skin like a slap. I shut the back door then immediately feel stupid, like they can hear that and decode my mood from the sound of the latch.
I lean my forehead against the glass for a second, breathing.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay.”
This is fine.
This is not fine.
I wander back through the house like a ghost, my mind folding in on itself.
Part of me wants to march back there and demand, point-blank, Do you have my underwear? Did you take them? The idea makes my stomach turn inside out.
Because if they say yes, then I’m done. That’s it.
No more slow flirtation. No more “maybe.” No more excuses about instincts and biology. Taking something that intimate without asking, then hiding it, then lying to my face?
That’s a boundary I can’t bend around, no matter how good they smell.
I scrub my hands over my face.
The rational part of my brain is screaming Stalker! Creep!
But the omega part, the part that has been sad and starving for years, is curled up in the back of my mind whispering: Mine. They want. They take.
“You are broken,” I tell myself. “You are completely broken.”
The afternoon drags. I try to work. The words do not come.
Every time I open my laptop, my fingers hover over the keys and all I can think is: Dear readers, here are five signs you’re letting intense alphas steamroll your boundaries.
Sign one: you’re too busy wondering if they stole your lingerie to meet your deadline.
I open my “Rules of Engagement” notebook and stare at it.
Under #2, my small addition from earlier in the day, ‘Don’t get used to it’, feels suddenly prophetic.
I add a new one, my handwriting a little jagged:
6. Protect your scent.
Then, underneath that, in even smaller letters:
6a. And your underwear.
I laugh a little hysterically, then clap a hand over my mouth, because if my neighbors have super-hearing on top of everything, I’ll die.
I need a sanity check. I need someone to tell me I’m being a paranoid narcissist and that wind exists.
I grab my phone and open my thread with Sierra.
Me: Emergency. Code Red. My lace thongs are missing from the line.
The three dots appear instantly.
Sierra: The ones you bought when we were drunk online shopping? The ‘use in case of emergency’ lace?
Me: Yes. They’re gone. Just those. The cotton stuff is still there.
Sierra: OH MY GOD.
Me: It was the wind, right? Or a squirrel? Tell me it was a squirrel.
Sierra: Mia. Please. A squirrel does not have a preference for turquoise satin. You know who has a preference?
Me: Don’t say it.
Sierra: The pack of intense, territorial alphas living ten feet away.
Me: They wouldn’t. Would they? That’s insane. That’s criminal.
Sierra: It’s nesting behavior! They’re stealing scent tokens! This is literally the plot of that book I made you read last summer. Next, they’re going to install military-grade locks on your doors or buy your mortgage.
Me: I am not accepting a hostile takeover of my lease. I am calling the police.
Sierra: Do not call the police on your harem. Just wait. See if they look guilty. See if one of them is wearing a turquoise pocket square.
Sierra: #PANTYGATE
Sierra: Keep me updated. If they sniff them in front of you, you are legally required to marry them.
Sierra: Admit it. This is your dream scenario.
Sierra is an enabler. She’s saying the quiet part out loud. The part my romance-soaked brain has been whispering all afternoon. I groan and toss the phone face down on the duvet, regretting everything.
Evening creeps in. I collect my dry washing when the light outside turns golden, then softer, then dusky.
Shadows lengthen in the yard. The breeze cools.
Next door, I hear occasional sounds: the slide of their back door, the clink of dishes, someone laughing.
Declan, probably. The muffled bass thump of music, then silence again.
Normal neighbor noise. But I’m hyperaware of every ripple and shift.
By nine, my brain is exhausted from replaying the same loop of possibilities.
I tell myself to be rational.