39. Cass
CASS
U sually, I wake up and wait for that heavy feeling of melancholy to settle in—the one that’s been hanging in the air and through the bond ever since Sterling kicked us all out of her house during her heat.
I know work kept her busy. And then Daisy and her went out last night.
But fuck, I miss her. We all do.
It doesn’t feel right waking up without her here—without her scent filling the house, without her laugh echoing down the hall.
I want to wake up to her naked in my arms, and see her sipping out of Quinn’s favorite mug.
I want to see her come out of the nest drowning in my t-shirt and nothing else, telling us about her plans for the week.
I want to pretend to watch bad ’80s movies on the couch while trying to slide my hand up her thigh, getting her all worked up while she pretends to be scandalized.
Fuck. I just want her.
I kicked Quinn and JP out last night while me and Blake stayed home playing board games.
They needed it, and they were driving me crazy. But it wasn’t even an hour later that Quinn came back without JP.
When I asked, Quinn just shrugged and said JP wasn’t fit for company tonight. Then he sat down and joined Blake and me at the kitchen table like it was nothing.
I figured JP had drowned his sorrows a little too thoroughly when he didn’t come home last night. And yeah, I worry about him. I know he’s got a darkness in him—a weight he’s been carrying for too long.
Another reason Sterling needs to be here. She brings something out of him I haven’t seen since we were kids.
Hope…Joy. Hell, maybe even a future he can believe in.
Though JP’s too fucking wound up to realize it yet.
“She’s good for all of us,” I said to Quinn last night before we turned in.
He just gave me that ‘well, no shit, Sherlock’ look he’s perfected and went to bed without a word.
But this morning, as I stretch, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, bones still aching from yesterday’s work, the first thing I register isn’t the soreness.
It’s JP. Or more specifically—the way JP feels through the bond. And a slow smile tugs across my face before I even realize it’s happening. I recognize that feeling.
It’s the same way I feel every time I’m near our Omega.
And the hope I’ve been quietly kindling deep in my chest bursts into flame. Because if he feels like that—It can only mean one thing.
My heart kicks hard in my chest as I sit up, throwing my legs over the side of the bed. I check my watch and it’s late, almost 9:30. I can’t remember the last time I slept past sunrise. But I don’t care, my chest just feels so much lighter.
It’s subtle, like the tension in a rope that’s finally loosened after weeks of pulling too hard.
I practically float down the stairs.
The kitchen’s empty when I go downstairs, but there’s a mug and a cereal bowl in the sink and a half-drunk coffee on the counter.
Quinn’s already taken Blake to the beach cleanup community fundraiser they had planned today, something about seaweed and pirate treasures and “making memories”. The pack bond hums steady and bright in the background, full of quiet joy.
I hardly pause as I grab a cup and pour my own coffee, before snagging a banana as I head out the back door, walking across the gravel path that leads down to the old workshop.
The shop looks the same as it has since JP and I were kids getting into things we weren’t supposed to.
It’s rust stained with peeling paint, along with a tin roof and weathered wood walls.
The faint smell of sawdust and saltwater clings to everything.
Inside, the diesel smell from yesterday’s project still lingers, trapped in the walls, and the scent of oil, varnish, and cut wood wraps around me like a second skin.
I roll up my sleeves, still smiling like an idiot, and start sanding down the frame of the new railing for the charter boat’s upper deck. It’s stupid, but my hands feel lighter. The whole damn world feels lighter.
Knowing JP has finally let go and let her in.
The thought makes my chest tighten—not with fear this time, but with sweet hopefulness that makes my cheeks hurt from smiling.
For the first time since we met her, I don’t feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.
If JP hadn’t wanted to take the leap, I wouldn’t have pushed him. No matter how perfect she is for us.
But fuck, it would’ve broken something in me.
I’m humming along to some old rock song playing low on the radio, sanding in rhythm against the railing I’m working on, when the crunch of tires on gravel cuts through the morning quiet.
I glance up—toward the open garage doors that face the alley.
And just like that, the sunshine goes cold.
He gets out of his truck and stands in the doorway of the garage like a king presiding over his subjects. He’s dressed in a faded North Star hoodie and old boots.
The perpetual scowl on his face makes the air in the shop feel colder, heavier. His gaze scrapes across the workshop and I mentally prepare myself for whatever criticisms are about to be hurled my way.
I don’t give him the time of day. I don’t turn toward him. I just set the sander down with a slow, deliberate scrape and wipe my hands off on a rag, keeping my voice calm. Barely.
“What do you want?” I ask.
He steps inside without waiting for an invitation, his scent—stale cologne, old beer, the cold rot of bitterness—fouling the air. I can’t remember if I ever found my father’s scent palatable. It used to make me shrink as a kid. Now it just makes me sick.
He doesn’t bother with small talk. “Just checked the books, numbers are down,” he says, voice sharp. “Last month. Charter revenue’s off by fifteen percent. And this quarter is shaping to be at least 10% worse than last quarter.”
I shrug, noncommittal. “Off-season. Happens every year.”
Graves snorts like he doesn’t believe me. “Well, these numbers aren’t going to get you anywhere close to paying me off by the end of the year. Christ, it’s almost November.”
I shrug again, because it doesn’t matter.
I could have the hundred thousand he wants tucked in my back pocket, and he’d still find some way to say I screwed something up.
My shrug is met with a look of pure contempt and frustration.
He hates it when I don’t rise to the bait.
I feel the hope that he might decide he’s not in the mood to fight gets dashed the second I catch the shift in his scent.
It sharpens, darkens—rage and dominance laced with that old, bitter rot.
My Alpha instincts rise to meet it, hardwired and automatic, even though I try my damnedest to keep my cool.
He gives me a long, assessing look—the kind that always meant danger when I was a kid—and goes straight for the kill.
“Maybe if you spent more time working and less time with your face buried in Omega pussy, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
The rag falls from my hands. Heat flashes through me so fast my vision tunnels. I clench my fists, breathing slowly through my nose, counting.
One, two, three. I make myself turn, trying to put space between us. I’ll never be anything more to him than a bone he can pick.
But he just keeps walking toward me, keeps pushing, either oblivious—or maybe just trying to light the fuse.
“For fuck’s sake, son, you can’t run a business when your brain’s distracted because your dick’s busy. Thought I raised you better than that.”
“ You didn’t raise me at all ,” I shout, spinning back to face him. “You worked me like a fucking hired hand, and when that didn’t work, you beat the shit out of me. The same way you treated her.”
That gets his attention. For the first time, I strike a chord. He actually looks at me.
A flicker of something crosses his eyes—guilt, maybe, or just rage at being called out—but it’s gone before I can catch it.
Graves shrugs, mean and casual. “Your mother was a manipulative bitch. Always playing some angle. Heat made her worse. Never satisfied. Always needing more, more, more. That’s what they do.
Take a good man and hollow him out. Then spread their legs for anyone willing to listen to their sob stories. ”
He sneers, stepping closer, voice low and cruel.
“Bet you didn’t know that, Caspian. Your mother was a whore who couldn’t handle being packed. She left because being your mother was too much for her.”
My knuckles crack as I flex my hands. A low growl vibrates in my chest.
“She left because of you,” I bite out, stepping closer. “Not because she wasn’t Omega enough, or a whore. But because you broke her. And if she was able to find solace somewhere else, then it’s a fucking miracle.”
His mouth twists. “She left because she was weak,” he spits.
“No,” I say, voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “She left because she had no other choice.”
The shop feels too small, too tight around us. My Alpha instincts, the ones I’ve fought for years to keep in control, are roaring for a fight now, clawing at my ribs.
“And now you’re trying to do the same thing to Sterling,” I grind out. “To fuck with me? Because you hate Omegas? Because your black fucking heart can’t stand to see anyone else happy.”
I take a deep breath, staring him down, locking eyes that are too much like mine.
“I can’t even stand here and be angry at you,” I say, voice low and shaking with disgust.
“You’re too fucking pathetic. Just leave, Graves. Go darken someone else’s doorstep.”
Graves sneers, the smirk pulling at his weathered face, mean as ever. “That must be some real good pussy to finally give you some balls, boy.”
I lunge before I can think better of it.
I grab him by the front of that stupid jacket and slam him back against the nearest post. The wood shudders under the force.
“Don’t fucking talk about her.”
His eyes go wide, and for the first time—maybe in his whole miserable life—Graves looks scared.
He still looms over me, all bulk and bluster, but it’s like Sterling gave me a fucking forcefield.
And I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that whatever he has, whatever he says he’ll give me, it’s nothing but lies.
I don’t need it.
I can build it all up again. Without him. Without his poison. Without a damn thing he’s ever touched.
I take a step closer, staring him down, feeling every scar he ever left on me burn like fuel.
“You don’t own me,” I snarl. “You don’t own this shop. You don’t own the name Redgrave. You sure as fuck don’t own my future.”
Graves’s mouth tightens, but I bulldoze right over whatever he thinks he's about to say.
“You can take the North Star. Take the business. Take the goddamn house. I don’t want it. I don’t want anything that smells like you.”
My voice cracks, I need him to hear it. Every word. I jab a finger into his chest, hard enough to make him rock back a step.
“You’re nothing to me now. You’re a bitter old bastard who’s gonna die alone, counting all the shit he crushed trying to feel powerful.”
I take a breath, the final one I’ll ever waste on him.
“And when you’re rotting in that house all by yourself, I’ll be somewhere else—happy. With my pack. With my Omega. Building a life you’ll never be good enough to understand or be a part of.”
He tries to push me off, sputtering, red-faced, but I pin him harder.
“My life is mine, my pack is mine, the Omega is mine, Blake is mine. Don’t fucking come near any of them ever again.”
I let the silence stretch between us, heavy and final.
“Get the fuck off my property, Graves,” I finish, low and deadly. “And don’t ever come back.”
I shove him with a hard final push, and he stumbles, catching himself awkwardly on a workbench.
I turn to leave and head back to the house, blindsided by the relief that’s coursing through my veins.
“You walk out that door,” he sneers, “and you’ll never get a penny. Never set foot on the Star again.”
“Good,” I snap. “I don’t want any of this…not a goddamned thing. It’s all been tainted by you.”
For a beat, all I hear is our harsh breathing, the creak of the rafters above us, the wild, unrepentant pounding of my own heart.
Graves straightens, his face a mottled purple, rage choking him silent. He storms out without another word, gets in his truck, and drives off.
I stand there, fists shaking at my sides, chest heaving.
The bond between me and the pack hums in my veins like electricity, burning away the last of the rot he left behind.
I choose them.
I choose her.
Always.
The door that leads to the yard and house creaks open a minute later.
JP stands there. He must have just got back. He stands with bare feet and his hair wet from a shower. He smells like soap and Sterling—thick cinnamon and vanilla twining with his licorice and spice. His brows lift when he sees me, the tension still rolling off my body like waves.
“You good?” he asks.
I huff a breath and laugh—a raw, broken sound that feels more like freedom than anything I’ve ever known.
“You smell like a goddamn bakery,” I rasp out.
JP smirks, a little smug, a little sheepish.
Without thinking, I stride over and pull him into a tight, bone-crushing hug. JP stiffens for half a second, then melts into it.
“Welcome to the club, brother,” I mutter against his shoulder.
The pack is whole.