Chapter six
Lily
Garrett’s still got his arms around me when the screaming starts.
Jagged and animal, a noise that makes the hair on my arms stand up.
It’s coming from somewhere down the hall.
Miles. Even with a wall and a whole house between us, I understand that sound.
I recognize how his voice breaks on the edge of rage, spinning out into something wild and not-quite-human.
“LET ME OUT! I’LL KILL HER! I’LL RIP HER THROAT OUT!”
I flinch so hard I nearly jerk out of Garrett’s grip, which only makes him tighten his hold on me. Down the hallway and past a closed door, there’s chaos—maybe a chair scraping across the floor, a loud THUD, Gabriel’s low cadence somewhere underneath it all, trying to cut through Miles’s shrieking.
“She has to GO! She has to—LET ME GO! I’LL MAKE HER LEAVE! I’LL—“
The words die off, replaced by a full-body howl of frustration.
There’s the slam of a door, a mess of muffled shouting and what sounds like fists hitting drywall.
I’m shaking. Actually shaking. My omega is curled up in a ball, whimpering, because hearing another omega this out of control—it does something to you. Makes you want to hide.
“He’s trying to get out,” Garrett says, way too calm for what’s happening right now, but I can feel the tension in his body. He’s ready to move.
“Can he?” I can barely get the words out.
“No. Gabriel won’t let him.” But even as he says it, Garrett has an edge, like he’s bracing for all hell to break loose. “He just needs to calm down. Gabriel will handle it.”
There’s another crash, like a table going over, and then Gabriel’s voice rips through the noise. It’s a tone I haven’t heard from him before—a command that makes you want to flop onto your back and bare your throat.
“MILES. ENOUGH.”
The air in the house goes heavy. Even from here, it makes my omega want to roll over and show her belly. I can’t imagine what it feels like for Miles, being right there in the blast zone.
For a second, everything goes eerily still. Then I hear Miles again, but it’s not angry anymore. Desperate, cracked down the middle.
“Please, alpha, please, I can’t—she’s going to take you—I can smell her on you—please—“
“You need to calm down.” Gabriel, still that alpha voice, but now softer, like he’s trying to soothe a feral animal. “I’m not going to let you hurt yourself or anyone else. Do you hear me, Miles?”
“I can’t calm down! I can’t! Not while she’s here, not while I can smell her everywhere—“
“Then I’ll help you.”
And then everything shifts. The noises from down the hall get weirdly quiet, but not in a peaceful way.
More like building, coiling up. At first, I don’t get it.
But then there’s a sound, a moan, low and shaky, and the steady creak of something heavy moving in rhythm. And I know exactly what’s happening.
Gabriel’s helping Miles the way only an alpha can. The help only an alpha can give. All teeth and hands, pheromones forcing submission.
My face goes hot. I want to crawl out of my own skin. This is not how I imagined my first day with my alpha. Listening to him fuck another omega through a wall while I sit here on the couch, my heart racing, every nerve lit up.
That should be me. He’s supposed to be my alpha. He should be drawing those sounds from me. Instead, I’m sitting here listening to him give what I need to the omega he chose. The omega he found worthy of him.
I should move. I should leave the room. But I don’t.
I can’t. I’m stuck right where I am, breathing in Garrett’s scent, listening to the not-so-distant sounds of Gabriel and Miles.
It gets louder, more intense. Miles’s moans go from resistant to absolutely wrecked, begging for more, please, Alpha, don’t stop—it’s like I feel every word, every pulse of that connection, like it’s happening to me.
I hate my body for it, but my omega doesn’t care about shame.
She’s tuned in, desperate, whimpering at the edge of every sound.
I’m wet between my thighs, slick and aching and furious at myself for reacting like this when I should be—I don’t even know what I should be.
But my body doesn’t care that he chose someone else. It still answers him like I matter.
Garrett knows what I’m feeling. I know he knows because he leans in, presses his lips to my hair, and whispers, “I’m sorry.”
He’s not talking about the noise. He’s sorry for me. Sorry that my body is betraying me. Sorry for all of it.
“This isn’t—I know this is hard,” he murmurs, arms tight around me.
Hard. That’s one word for it.
“It’s fine,” I manage. It comes out strangled and thin. “He needs to calm Miles down. I get it.”
“Do you want me to take you somewhere else? You probably want to be alone right now. Somewhere you wouldn’t be able to hear—“
“No.” I cut him off. I don’t want to be alone.
Not in some strange room, with nothing but my own thoughts and the distant reminders of what’s happening here.
Even with the awful tangled mess of what’s happening in that room, Garrett makes me feel anchored.
Safe. I want to enjoy the limited time I have with him.
“Okay.” He just holds me a little closer. “Then we’ll just wait. It won’t take long. Once Miles... finishes, he usually falls asleep. The release helps reset his system when he gets like this.”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak, and we sit in silence while the noises from down the hall climb higher and higher.
Miles is crying out now, high and desperate, the slap of skin on skin unmistakable. Gabriel growls—a sound you feel more than hear, all alpha and possessive—and Miles’s scream goes ragged, then shatters into a different kind of silence.
After that, it’s just soft voices. Comfort, maybe. Reassurance. Then nothing at all.
“It’s over,” Garrett says quietly. “He’ll sleep now. Probably for a few hours, at least.”
I let out a shaky breath. The edge of arousal fades, replaced by a kind of exhaustion that makes my bones feel heavy.
“Does that happen often?” I ask. “The... the calming him down like that?”
“Not as often as it used to.” Garrett shifts so he can see my face, his eyes searching.
“When he first came to us, it was almost every day. His omega was so damaged, so convinced that he was going to be hurt or abandoned, that he’d spiral into these episodes of panic and rage.
The only thing that helped was physical domination—forcing his body to submit when his mind couldn’t.
Over time, as he started to trust us, the episodes became less frequent. He hasn’t had one this bad in months.”
“Until I showed up.”
“Until the scent match happened,” he corrects gently. “It’s not your fault, Lily. You didn’t choose this any more than the rest of us did. It’s just... a difficult situation for everyone.”
That word again. Difficult. As if any of this could be boiled down to a three-syllable label. It’s not difficult. It’s impossible. But I don’t say that.
I hear footsteps in the hallway and both our heads snap up. Gabriel’s there in the doorway, looking like he’s been run over by a truck. His sweater’s wrinkled, hair wild, eyes shadowed, and he’s carrying a haunted look that makes me want to glance away.
“He’s asleep,” he says. “He’ll be out for a while. I gave him something to help him stay under.”
“Is he alright?” I ask. He raises his eyebrows, surprised.
“You’re asking if the omega who just attacked you is okay?”
“He’s scared.” I shrug, but it hurts my shoulder, and my cheek still burns where he clawed me. “I understand scared.”
He studies me for a long time, eyes narrowed, thinking. Then he says, “He’ll be fine. Eventually. This is just going to take time.”
“How much time?”
He sighs and walks into the living room, sinking into an armchair, almost defeated. “Honestly, I don’t know if he’ll ever fully accept you being here. His trauma runs deep, and you represent everything he’s afraid of. But we’ll figure it out. We have to.”
It’s not “everything will be okay,” but it’s a promise to try.
“We should establish some ground rules,” Gabriel says, straightening up a little. “For how this is going to work while you’re staying with us.”
I nod, dragging my attention back from the edge of sleep.
“First, your room.” He waves in the direction of the house’s east wing. “It’s far from the pack bedroom where Miles and I sleep. You’ll have your own bathroom, your own space. It should give you privacy and keep you separated from Miles when he’s... volatile.”
“Sure.”
“Second, meals. We eat together as a pack, but given Miles’s reaction to you, it might be better if you take your meals separately for now. At least until he’s had a chance to adjust.”
The words sting. Harder than I want to admit. Eating alone, like I’m some stray that wandered in and they’re just hoping I’ll wander back out. But I get it. I guess.
“That’s fine,” I say, keeping my face blank.
“Third.” Gabriel’s brows draw together. I can tell he hates whatever’s coming. “Physical contact. Between you and... anyone in this pack. It needs to be limited. The bond is already pulling at all of us, and the more we touch you, the stronger it will get. That’s not fair to Miles.”
Not fair to Miles. Not once does he say it’s not fair to me. I don’t even make the list.
Next to me, Garrett goes stiff. “Gabriel, she’s an omega, she needs—“
“I know.” Gabriel cuts him off with a hand. “I know it’s hard. Believe me, I see it. I’m aware she’s touch starved. But we have to think about the bigger picture here. We have to protect Miles, and we have to protect Lily from getting more attached to a pack she can’t stay with.”
Can’t stay with. Not even a maybe. Just can’t.
I’ve made it this far without alpha touch; what’s a little more time? I try not to notice how my skin aches for it now, the restlessness, the hollowed-out feeling. I don’t want to admit how much it bothers me, not even to myself.