Chapter fifteen #3
The pack is in the living room. Garrett’s on the couch, watching me with hope. Cyrus is in his usual chair, observing. Miles is in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed, face already twisted into something ugly.
He’s the first to talk. “Did you fuck them?”
“Miles—“ Gabriel starts.
“I’m serious. She reeks of them. All four. What, did they pass her around like a—“
“That’s enough.” Gabriel’s voice drops. Miles shuts up but doesn’t uncross his arms.
Gabriel turns to me. “How was it?”
I look straight at Miles. “They were delightful, actually. Respectful, funny, and genuinely interested in me as a person. I’d love to see them again.”
Miles’s mouth goes flat. Confusion flashes behind his glasses.
“Good,” Gabriel says. “If they reach out about it, would you go with them? Permanently I mean.”
The question hits hard. Would I go? Would I leave this house, this pack, these scent matches, and start over with four strangers who made me laugh and taught me to throw an axe? Would I choose something good… over something that feels like mine?
“I barely know them,” I say. “It was one date.”
Miles gives a short laugh from the kitchen. “Here we go again.”
“I’d like to at least explore my options before I commit myself forever,” I say. “That doesn’t seem unreasonable.”
Gabriel’s expression hardens. “Lily, you need to understand. You don’t have time to explore. The specialist confirmed your condition is deteriorating. We’ve contacted over a dozen packs. Most said no. The Whitfields were a disaster. Now the Carrs seem willing, and you want to keep shopping?”
The warmth from earlier drains out of me.
“I’m not shopping. I’m trying to find people I can live with for the rest of my life. That’s not something I want to rush.”
“You may not have the luxury of time. Your health isn’t going to wait. The Carrs liked you. Most of the packs on my list aren’t even willing to try. You can’t drag your feet on this.”
“She’s only met two packs,” Garrett says. “One was terrible. This one went well. Let her meet one more, at least. There’s still time.”
Gabriel turns on him. For a second, I think he’ll snap, but Garrett looks back, unflinching.
“Fine.” Gabriel exhales. “One more. But after that, Lily, a decision needs to be made. We can’t keep dragging this out.”
“I understand,” I say. The words are automatic. I’ve said them so many times they barely mean anything.
Miles pushes off the wall. “She doesn’t want any of them. She wants to stay. She’s going to keep saying no until we give up and let her have what she really came here for. You might as well start sending me on these pack dates.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.” Even if a part of me wants it to be true.
“It’s exactly what you’re doing. Every time you say no, you buy yourself another week here, another week with my alphas, another week of Garrett making you soup or eggs and looking at you like you’re the only one in the room. It’s a strategy and it’s working.”
“Miles,” Gabriel says, alpha tone creeping in. “Go to the pack room.”
“No. Someone needs to say it. She’s manipulating all of you and you’re too—“
“I said go.”
It isn’t an alpha bark, but it’s a command all the same. Alpha authority seeps out of the edges of the words. Miles flinches, his whole body folding in for a second. He stares at Gabriel, hurt and angry, then turns and stomps up the stairs. The door slams. Silence.
“I’m sorry about that,” Garrett says.
I nod. Can’t talk yet, because if I do I’ll cry, and I won’t do that in front of Gabriel.
Cyrus stands. He doesn’t speak, but as he passes me on his way to the stairs, his hand squeezes my shoulder. Warm, fast, then gone.
I look at Gabriel. He’s standing there, arms crossed, and I search his face for what I used to see—the reluctant want, the ache, the alpha who looked at me like I was the answer to a question he was scared to ask.
It’s not there.
What’s left is exhaustion. Irritation. The flat, practical focus of someone handling a problem he wants gone.
He doesn’t want me anymore. Maybe he never did.
Maybe what I read as want was always just the bond pulling at him.
Now the bond is fading into something more manageable, and there’s no man left underneath. No one who reaches for me on his own.
“Goodnight, Gabriel,” I say.
“Goodnight.”
It sounds like I’m already gone.
I go to my room. Shut the door and sit on the bed.
My clothes still smell like the Carrs: pine and fresh laundry, Jeremy’s hand on my back, Theo’s fingers adjusting mine, the easy warmth of alphas who liked me. Underneath, barely there now, burnt sugar and iron. From yesterday, from the floor, from the moment that changed everything and nothing.
And even deeper, almost gone: cedar and smoke, honey and sage, black pepper and leather. The scents of the pack that should have been mine, dissolving day by day. And I’m the only one who seems to notice.
I don’t cry.
I’m too tired to cry.
I just sit, in a room with no nest, wearing the scents of men who want me and men who don’t.
I finally found something that could work.
And it still isn’t what I want.
I wait for morning. What else is there?