38
Zephyr
I stepped out of the bedroom quietly, careful not to wake Phoenix as I shut the door behind me. She needed rest more than anything right now. My head pounded with everything that had just gone down, but there was no time for me to relax. I headed down the narrow aisle of the plane to the main cabin, taking a deep breath before pulling out my phone.
Parker would be the first call. He had to know what was going on, but not everything. Not yet.
I scrolled to his number and pressed dial, pacing the length of the plane as I waited for him to pick up. The moment he answered, his voice came through, tense and urgent. “Where the hell are you?”
“I need you to grab Kage and meet me at the airstrip,”
I said, my tone firm but trying to keep things level. This was going to be a hell of a conversation, and new Parker’s temper didn’t help.
“No,”
he growled. “I’m not leaving without Phoenix.”
“It’s taken care of,”
I replied, keeping my voice even. I didn’t need him flipping out right now.
“What the fuck do you mean by that? What did you do?”
“I can’t explain it over the phone,”
I said, sighing heavily. “Just trust me on this. You’ll see when you get here.”
“Trust you? You’ve got to be kidding me,”
Parker snapped. “You better not be screwing this up, Zephyr.”
I clenched my jaw. He had every right to be pissed, but we didn’t have time for this back and forth. “Just meet me at the damn plane.”
I put my pack lead bark behind the words.
There was silence on the other end, but I knew Parker would show up. He didn’t have much of a choice.
I ended the call and rubbed the back of my neck. That had gone about as well as I’d expected. Now for the real shitstorm.
I pulled Phoenix’s phone from the bag I’d hastily thrown together when I took her, thumbing through the contacts until I found the one I was looking for: Dove. This was going to be… interesting, to say the least. But Dove had to know Phoenix was safe, even if she wasn’t going to like the way I went about it.
I hit call and waited.
After a few rings, Dove picked up, her voice soft and concerned. “Phoenix? Are you okay? Do you need me to bring you something?”
“It’s not Phoenix,”
I said, bracing for what was about to come. “It’s Zephyr.”
The silence that followed was deafening, and I could practically hear the anger boiling on the other side.
“What have you done with my sister?!”
Dove’s voice erupted through the phone, full of fury. I could picture the death stares she would be giving me, her face flushed with rage.
“I have her,”
I said calmly, though irritation crept into my voice despite my best efforts. “And before you completely lose your shit, understand this: I’m doing what’s best for her. She needs us, Dove. You know that just as much as I do.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
she snapped. “You think kidnapping her is in her best interest? Do you have any idea what you’ve done? She’s fragile right now, Zephyr! She’s—”
“I know exactly what she’s going through,”
I interrupted, my tone sharp. “I get that you love your sister, but she needs more than just you to pull her out of this. Hell, she was drunk when I got to her, so she’s sneaking booze behind your back… or are you enabling her?”
“The hell I am,”
she shot back, her voice brimming with anger. “You’re out of your damn mind if you think I’d do that. I’ll just stay with her 24-7 to cut off her supply.”
“That’s not enough, Dove,”
I said, my frustration bubbling over. “There are three of us. Let us help shoulder this for her. I’ll get her the help she needs. I swear to you, she’s in good hands.”
I took a deep breath, forcing my voice to soften. “I won’t let anyone hurt her. That includes my packmates… and that includes herself.”
Dove’s voice was trembling with anger. “If you hurt her any more than she already is, I swear to God, I’ll castrate you.”
I smirked despite myself. “Understood. But she’ll be fine, Dove.”
“She’s terrified of hospitals,”
Dove warned. “Don’t take her to one.”
“I won’t. We’re going home.”
There was a long pause on the other end, and I could almost hear the wheels turning in Dove’s head. She was calculating, trying to figure out how to get her sister back.
“I’ll send you the address,”
I added. “But you’re not taking her away from us.”
“You’re a bloody hard-headed Alpha, you know that?”
Dove growled. “You can’t just barge into people’s lives and—”
“I’ll have Phoenix call you once she’s settled,”
I cut her off. “But there’s one more thing. I’ve got a security firm heading to your place first thing tomorrow.”
“What?”
“Your house was way too easy to break into. It’s not safe, and if I could get in, someone else could too.”
Dove started swearing again, but I ignored it. “You’ll be secure by nightfall. In the meantime, I’ll take care of Phoenix.”
“Good luck when she realizes what you’ve done, Zephyr,”
Dove said, her voice laced with venom. “You’re going to need it.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Before she could hurl more threats, I hung up, letting out a long breath. She wasn’t wrong. Phoenix was going to lose it when she woke up and found out what I’d done, but I didn’t care. I’d do whatever it took to help her, to save her from whatever hell she was stuck in right now.
Even if it meant being the bad guy.
◆◆◆
The tension hit me the second Parker and Kage stepped onto the plane. Their eyes were wild, and I knew this wasn’t going to go well. They both stormed toward me, barely containing their rage. Kage was the first to speak, his voice low and dangerous. “When did Dove let you see her, Zeph?”
I sighed. There was no point in lying. “She didn’t.”
Kage’s eyes narrowed, confusion briefly flashing across his face before realization set in. “What the hell do you mean she didn’t?”
“I broke in,”
I said. “I took her.”
The silence that followed was deafening, and I braced myself for the inevitable explosion.
“What the hell, Zephyr?!”
Parker roared, fists clenching at his sides. “Are you out of your damn mind?”
Before I could respond, Kage was on me, grabbing my shirt and slamming me against the wall with a growl. His face was inches from mine, eyes burning with fury. “You’ve just ruined everything! She’ll never trust us now. Don’t you get that?”
I stared back at him, refusing to flinch. “I did what had to be done. She wasn’t safe there.”
“You don’t get to decide that!”
Kage snarled, his grip tightening. “You don’t get to play the hero and drag us all down with you.”
“I have a plan.”
Parker scoffed at my revelation, but I continued on. “She needs help, real help. Not just us showing up with apologies.”
We couldn’t just swoop in, all apologies and regret, and expect Phoenix to suddenly be okay.
She was spiraling, and no amount of promises or good intentions were going to pull her out of that. We had to do more.
“So we take her to a facility? There is a rehab in LA that is supposed to be suited for Omegas,”
Kage added.
I had thought a lot about this while waiting for my pack to arrive. And after Dove’s insistence on no hospitals, it became clear the best thing was to take her home with us and bring in the help she needed—private professionals. Packs often opted for private rehab or therapists, keeping things in-house, where the pack could be close and support their own. Dove had been adamant that Phoenix wasn’t going to respond well to a cold, sterile facility.
“She’s terrified of hospitals,”
I told them. “She needs to be somewhere she feels safe, not locked away.”
So that left us with the question of where to take her. We had properties all over, but none of them were truly a home. They were just stops we made between tours—barely lived in, soulless. The idea of bringing her back to the tour bus was a joke, and Phoenix’s tiny apartment in New York? That was a disaster waiting to happen. That place was barely fit for one person, let alone all of us.
“I was thinking we could go back to the pack house.”
The second the words left my mouth, I felt everyone’s attention snap toward me. I saw the shock in their eyes, especially Parker’s. He raised an eyebrow, disbelief written all over his face.
“The pack house?”
he questioned, his voice laced with skepticism. He knew damn well how I felt about that place.
I nodded, jaw set as the weight of my decision settled in. “Yeah. The house is big, it’s quiet, and the land… it’s perfect. She’ll have the space and peace she needs to recover.”
I wasn’t surprised by their reactions. They knew I hated it there. The pack house was in California, buried deep in the San Gabriel Mountains. It was tied up with my past, and everything I had worked so hard to escape. But Phoenix needed it. And, God, I had let her down enough already.
“You sure?”
Parker asked.
I glanced at him, my gaze hard, and nodded. “Yeah. I’m sure.”
Our pack house felt like a prison of my past, a constant reminder of the years I spent fighting to prove myself, all while my mother’s shadow loomed over me. She never lived there, but her presence was always felt—an oppressive force that crushed me from a distance. The echoes of her words, the expectations I could never meet, haunted every corner. Every step inside felt like a relapse into those dark days when my value was never my own to define, and I was only ever a reflection of someone else’s bitterness.
The house represented a time in my life when I felt powerless, when I questioned my worth at every turn, and I hated it because of that. I knew they didn’t get it. They couldn't understand why I let my past with my mother cloud my feelings toward our home, but none of that mattered anymore. Phoenix mattered. And if that meant going back there—if it meant forcing myself to face everything I’d buried—then so be it.
“She’s pack,”
I said, my voice rougher than I’d intended. “I was a fool not to see it sooner, but she’s pack. And if I need to make peace with my past to give her what she deserves, then I will.”
There was a beat of silence after that. No one argued with me, no one challenged it. They both knew I wouldn’t back down. I saw it in the way Kage looked at me, the way Parker finally nodded. It was the right decision.
The pack house wasn’t fancy, but it was ours, and the acres of land around it would give Phoenix room to breathe. Space to heal. The isolation, the quiet… it was exactly what she needed. Exactly what we needed, too. Maybe facing that house again wouldn’t just help Phoenix. Maybe it’d help me make sense of everything, too.
I took a deep breath, forcing myself to focus on the present.
Before we could all agree, a small sound came from the bedroom—barely audible, but enough to make all of us freeze. A soft, pained whimper. The fury on Kage’s face faltered for a moment before he let go of me, shoving me aside as both he and Parker stormed toward the bedroom.
I followed behind them, heart pounding. This was the part I had dreaded.
As we entered the room, Phoenix was there, curled up on the bed, her eyes glazed and unfocused. The moment she saw us, her gaze immediately locked onto me. A flicker of recognition passed through her eyes, but then confusion took over.
“What… How did I get here?”
she muttered, her voice weak and disoriented.
Not waiting for an answer, she scrambled from the bed, stumbling to the floor and pressing herself into the far corner of the room. Her whole body trembled, and her eyes darted between me and my packmates like a trapped animal.
“It was me,”
I said quietly, taking a step back to give her space. “I took you. They had nothing to do with it.”
I backed away slowly, hovering at the doorway, watching as she cowered in the corner. My heart clenched at the sight. She wasn’t herself—she was lost, deep in her hindbrain. Overwhelmed.
Kage moved toward her next, his expression softening as he knelt down, but the moment he got close, Phoenix flinched and whimpered, pressing herself even further into the corner. She was in full Omega mode, her mind likely convinced that we had rejected her after her heat.
“She thinks we don’t want her,”
I told them.
Parker lowered himself to the floor slowly, his movements deliberate and non-threatening. He offered her his neck, a sign of complete submission. “Hey, Sweetheart,”
he said softly, his voice a soothing rumble. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry Zeph took you from your sister, but just say the word, and I’ll take you back. I promise.”
Phoenix’s Omega let out a pained whine, and Parker inched closer, keeping his voice gentle. “It’s okay. It’s okay, baby. I don’t want you to go. I just want you to have a choice.”
She looked up at him then, her eyes still clouded with fear and confusion, but there was something else there now. She was listening. She was hearing him.
“Will you stay here with me?”
Parker whispered, barely a breath. “Let me help you.”
For a moment, everything was still. The only sound was her shallow breathing, and then, slowly, she gave a small nod, her head dipping ever so slightly.
“That’s my Doll,”
Parker murmured, a low purr vibrating from his chest as he moved closer, his large hands carefully lifting her from the cold floor. He cradled her gently, as if she might break at any second, and carried her back to the bed.
She didn’t fight him. She didn’t flinch or pull away. Instead, she curled into his chest, pressing her face into the crook of his neck like she was trying to bury herself there, hiding from the world.
Parker climbed onto the bed with her in his arms, pulling the blanket over her as he whispered soft reassurances into her hair. His scent, his warmth, everything about him seemed to calm her, slowly but surely.
Kage stood nearby, watching the scene unfold, his fists still clenched at his sides. His jaw was tight, and I could tell he was struggling with the same helplessness I was feeling.
I stayed by the door, not daring to move any closer. I had done enough. I had broken her trust, forced her into this situation. I was the one who had caused her this pain, and now all I could do was watch as Parker tried to repair the damage.
Phoenix’s breathing slowed, her body relaxing bit by bit in Parker’s arms. She didn’t say anything, didn’t cry or scream or accuse us of anything. She was too far gone for that. But at least she was here. At least we had a chance to fix things.
And I would do everything in my power to make sure we did.
Kage turned his head slightly, his voice a low growl. “You’d better pray she forgives us.”
I nodded, my throat tight. “I know.”
Because if she didn’t, there’d be nothing left for any of us.