25. Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Five
Gabriel
L eah lies slack against my chest, all bird-bones and fever-heat, her breath shallow along my collarbone. We’re sprawled in the base of the shower, cold water sluicing over us. I shake so hard I nearly rattle my teeth. I’m soaked to the skin, chest convulsing with every breath and I don’t care.
I wedge my back against the tile and tip up my chin, letting the water cut fine, icy tracks down my cheeks.
Ronan kneels on one side, droplets beading and rolling over his jaw as he strokes her cheek.
Jax stands just outside the stall, bare feet planted in the puddling water, hands fisting and flexing at his sides, shock carved in brutal lines across his face.
Jax keeps swallowing, throat shuddering. Ronan keeps glancing from Leah to me, as if he can somehow fix this just by looking hard enough. Undo her shattering in front of us.
She’s colder now. Her skin pale and translucent. The air around her is still fouled with that chemical taint that coats my mouth with old pennies. That rotten undertone clings to her real self like poison.
I press my mouth to her temple, barely daring to blink.
My hands won’t stop shaking.
Ronan swallows. He’s as shaken as Jax and me. "She’s… She’s not just having a bad night. She’s breaking apart. She called her Omega ‘her,’ like it’s a whole other person."
Jax swears under his breath. "She really thinks she ruined her own life. That she’s poison."
"It’s worse than that. She’s split herself down the center to survive her abuse.
" The systematic breaking at Haven and the facility didn’t just damage her body.
It shattered her mind. The only way she could make sense of the horror was to blame herself.
She turned all that hate inward until she fractured.
"She’s one of the worst cases we’ve ever seen." My voice sounds like gravel. I hold her wrist as if her skin could teach me how to put her back together.
"Did you find out who Leah saw out the window?" Ronan asks Jax.
Jax wipes a hand across his face, frustration sparking under his careful calm. "I didn’t. Whoever it was disappeared fast. There was no trace by the time I got outside."
I hesitate, dreading the answer. "Do you think she really saw someone? Or was spiraling because of everything in her system?"
Jax’s gaze rests on our Omega. "I wish I knew. Who could blame her for seeing monsters in the shadows? But…" He shakes his head, jaw working. "We can’t afford to write anything off as just her imagination. If she really saw something, then we’ll get to the bottom of it."
Whatever the reason, it doesn't change her state. She’s been through so fucking much. Most of it, we’ll never fully know. All we can do is be here consistently to pick up the pieces. Which I will do willingly for the rest of my life. There’s nothing I won’t do for our Omega.
Leah stirs in my arms, lashes fluttering against her damp cheeks. Her body contracts, legs twitching, and her sweet floral aroma rises through the cold water, travels from my nose to my balls and squeezes with an iron fist.
"Gods," I choke out.
Jax fists his erection and Ronan’s gaze burns with pure hunger. Her hormones aren’t helping with her mental spiral. I want to take her to our home where she can have her own space, and a proper nest, somewhere she might accept the part of herself she's rejected as her only means of survival.
Where she can thrive, not just survive.
Where she can heal without doubt.
Where she can be who she truly is.
Her eyes blink open and I fall into stormy gray clouds, her pupils so wide their color is a barely-there ring. She focuses on me and her scent ripens and thickens. Sweet and syrupy with desire.
"Alpha." She cups my cheek, palm trembling but sure, and traces her thumb along the stubble of my jaw. The moment is so tender it bruises.
She turns her head, her gaze falling on Ronan, then Jax kneels so close he’s getting covered in the cool tide of water.
"Alpha, need…knot. Please," she whispers.
My heart trips, stops, then pounds hard.
My bond brothers’ eyes burn back, hungry and stricken, mirroring the same hopeful terror shooting through me.
I want to tell her yes. Yes, we’ll give her everything, but she’s not in her right mind to give consent.
She’s been betrayed enough. I won’t take advantage of her the way every other asshole has in her life.
I draw my thumb across her bottom lip. She responds instinctively and sucks the tip into her mouth. Her silky tongue swirls over the pad and my body clenches. I swear I feel the ghost of her mouth pulsing straight to the root of me. My groan echoes around the shower stall as my toes clench.
"Careful, Gabe." Warning is stitched into Ronan’s words .
I flash my teeth, something half-feral in my throat. "You think I’m going to take advantage of her in this state? I’m stronger than that, Ronan."
"I know. I’m just checking. She’s…" His gaze flicks to Leah, where my thumb leaves her mouth, and she follows with a desperate whimper. "She’s irresistible. She’s our scent-matched mate and she’s hurting."
My breath shoots out in a tight, ragged exhale.
Her hunger is a wildfire, sparking, crawling over my skin and burrowing into my bones.
My knot would soothe her. I could give her exactly what she craves to ease her torment, but not without her consent.
Her hips begin to move, seeking the drag she longs for.
"Please…need…hurts…" Her hands scramble at my chest, searching for purchase. "Please, Alpha—"
"I’m going to touch you where you hurt, Sweetheart. Are you ready for my touch?" I ask.
A whimper steals past her lips as she nods.
I slide my hand between her thighs to find slick seeping hot and sweet through the material of her sweats.
Her perfume coats the air more potently than before.
Her breaths come fast as I caress her clit.
Her mouth part with a keen as she grips my wrist and grinds against my fingers.
"Alpha. Please." The desperation in her voice is a spear to my soul.
She’s sunk so far into her heat that touching her the way we have isn’t going to sate her. Whether it’s because of her spiral, or that she was triggered by the person she saw doesn’t matter. All I care about is my Omega writhing in agony.
"Jax, get the box of supplies. It’s in the nest in the cabinet. There’s a…" I swallow, hating the urge but loving I can give her this. "There’s a dildo in there. With a knot. She’ll want it."
I’m glad we stocked this safe house with anything and everything an Omega could require in an emergency heat. I just never thought we’d use any of it with our own Omega.
"On it." Water sprays as Jax dashes out of the bathroom.
Ronan brushes the damp hair off Leah’s brow. "Good thinking, Gabe. She’s desperate. Let’s get her prepared enough to take it. "
A guttural sound tears from someplace deep inside her that's all instinct and no reason.
Her back arches off the shower tiles as another vicious cramp wracks her.
Her fingers scrabble at my chest, nails biting through the thin cotton of my shirt.
The fabric gives way with a sickening rip that echoes off the tile.
Ronan blocks the spray with his body and kneels beside her. He circles her fragile wrists. "Stop, Omega. You will hurt yourself. Let me undress you."
She whimpers, but the tightness in her muscles loosens as Ronan peels off her soaked sweats. The fabric clings to her skin, resisting for one terrible moment before yielding. "Easy, Omega. We've got you."
Leah moans, the sound dripping with both relief and fresh torment.
Her head lolls to the side, strands of hair sticking to her flushed cheeks.
Even drowning in heat and pain, her thighs press together in an instinctive protective gesture.
Her instincts trust us, but old wounds run deeper than reason.
Her muscles remember the hurt and brace for it no matter how gently we hold her.
She still carries that violence in her bones, carved so deep that even our care can’t erase it.
I’d take it from her if I could, bear it myself, but the only thing I can do is hold her and pray each day unwinds some of that fear.
Ronan moves with deliberate slowness as he peels the soaked sweatshirt from Leah's trembling body.
The fabric clings stubbornly to her damp skin, revealing inch by tantalizing inch of flushed, fevered flesh.
As he lifts the hem past her ribs, shadows of her physical trauma mar her delicate skin, making me vow for the millionth time that pay day is coming for the people who hurt her.
But Gods. She's breathtaking.
Even starved and broken, she's all Omega curves and vulnerability.
Her collarbones stand too prominent, yet they frame the perfect swell of her breasts so beautifully it makes my mouth water.
As the last of the fabric clears her body, her scent explodes between us, her rose laced with dark, rich musk.
She writhes in my lap, thrusting out her beasts as her head lolls against my shoulder. "Please." Her fingers scrabble at my thighs, blunt nails digging into my sweats. "Touch, please… "
Ronan’s voice is rough velvet as he murmurs, "I’ve got you, Kitten." Impossibly tender, he slides his hands over her thighs and brushes the delicate creases where her legs meet her hips, coaxing them apart.
The water pours over her like liquid silver, rivulets catching the dim light as they race down her stomach. Droplets linger on her flushed folds, before Ronan’s hot breath gusts over them.
She jerks, a whimper tearing from her throat, but Ronan holds her firm. "It’s okay. This will help."
He licks a slow path along her open seam, dragging the flat of his tongue from her dripping entrance to her throbbing clit. The sound she makes is half-sob, half-scream, her thighs shaking where they bracket his head.
Slick wells on his tongue before he swallows it down. Ronan groans against her, the sound bleeding with worship, his hands tightening to keep her open. Water sluices over them both, mingling with her slick as his tongue plunges inside her before his lips seal around her clit.
Her hips jerk, but he holds her firm, his big hands splayed across her hipbones to keep her open.
My palms burn to bring her as much pleasure as my bond brother. I cup her breasts, thumbs circling her peaked nipples in slow, teasing strokes. She's so soft here, the weight of her perfect in my palms. I pinch her nipples gently and she sobs, her back bowing so sharply I have to brace her.
Ronan moans against her cunt, making her scream. His tongue flicks over her clit. Once. Twice before he sucks, hard enough to make her thighs clamp around his head.
“Alpha!” she wails, clutching at my hair, trapped between the two of us.
Ronan laps at her like a man dying of thirst as she reaches her first orgasm, his tongue plunging inside her before retreating to circle her clit again to prolong her pleasure.
My cock is painfully hard, straining against the soaked denim of my jeans, my knot aching.
Every pulse of my length sends a fresh wave of hunger straight to my cock, my balls draw up tight and throbbing beneath the constricting fabric, but I force myself to ignore the discomfort. This isn't about me.
Her hips roll against Ronan's mouth as she whimpers a high, broken sound that sends alarm bells ringing through me.
She needs more.
The bathroom door swings open as Jax bolts back into the room clutching the knotting dildo, throwing the package to the ground.
Leah reaches for him. “Alpha." Her voice is a shattered whisper, but it might as well be a scream for how it affects him.
"She needs you, brother. One orgasm hasn’t satisfied her. She needs skin to skin."
Jax reaches behind his neck and rips off his t-shirt.
The next second, his jeans and boxers are shoved down his legs in one violent motion, kicked aside before he steps into the shower.
Water sluices over his bare skin, highlighting the flex of muscle as he kneels beside us, his cock already hard and flush against his stomach.
Leah whimpers again, her body instinctively arching toward him. Jax opens his arms. "Come here, Sunshine."