Chapter eighteen #3
Gabriel catches him. Arms locked around his chest, lifting him straight off the floor and pulling him back. Miles thrashes, screaming, kicking, desperate to get free.
“LET ME GO! SHE’S TAKING HIM! SHE’S TAKING ALL OF YOU! I TOLD YOU, I TOLD YOU SHE WOULD—“
Gabriel clamps Miles against his chest, arms locked tight, and starts to purr. The alpha override kind, deep and commanding, made to force omegas calm. But Miles isn’t responding. He’s too far gone, lost in panic, his scent flooding the room with pure distress.
With nothing else left, Gabriel lowers his head and bites down on Miles’s neck.
The bite hold. The same thing Miles did to me, but from an alpha, it’s final.
It’s absolute. The effect is instant: Miles goes limp.
Every muscle lets go at once, arms, legs, even his head, which drops forward.
A broken whimper leaks out, and then he’s done.
There’s no fight left. Only shaking, held up by Gabriel’s teeth and arms.
Gabriel keeps the hold. Jaw locked, breathing even, eyes closed. The vibration keeps going, muffled but sure, straight into Miles’s spine.
Nobody moves.
After half a minute, Miles breaks. He’s sobbing. The deep, wrecked kind, like his greatest security was torn out of him and now there’s nothing but empty space. Nothing but the promise of all his fears come true.
Gabriel lets go of the bite and pulls Miles all the way in, arms around him, face in his hair. “You’re mine,” he says, rough and raw. “You hear me? You’re mine. Nothing changes that. Nobody changes that. She’s nothing, Miles. Only biology. Biology can be fought.”
I felt everything… and he felt nothing.
Miles sobs, fists tight in Gabriel’s shirt, knuckles white.
Gabriel looks up then. At me. At Garrett.
The cold is back in his eyes, but underneath it I see how tired he is. Like the only thing holding him up is sheer willpower, and even that’s running out.
“She’s done,” Gabriel says. Flat. “Tomorrow. I’ll call the Carrs in the morning.”
“Gabriel—“ Garrett tries.
“No.” Gabriel cuts him off, not even looking his way. “It’s over. Miles comes first. He always has. I’m not letting this girl hurt him any more.”
This girl. Not Lily. Not even a “she.” Only this girl, like I’ve always been a stranger here, like I haven’t spent weeks in his house, like he hasn’t wanted me every second of every day.
“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” I say. The words barely make it out. “I was in pain. I just needed—“
“You needed help,” Gabriel says, and for a fraction of a second, the cold cracks. There’s agony underneath. A longing to hold me, a regret. But then it’s gone. The mask comes right back.
“And I need to protect my omega,” he finishes. His voice catches on the word need. “We’re done, Lily. I’ll make the call tomorrow.”
He carries Miles out. Actually carries him, Miles clinging with legs and arms, face hidden, whining that desperate omega tone of distress. The sounds get quieter down the hall until a door closes behind them, soft and final.
Garrett stands there in the middle of his room, fists clenched, eyes bright with anger and loss.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him.
“Don’t.” He sounds ruined. Like he’s already losing me. “Don’t you dare apologize for needing to be held.”
I get up, shaky, my legs barely working. The pain is back, worse than before, like my body wants to punish me for ever feeling better.
“He’s wrong,” Garrett says. “About all of it. You. Miles. What this pack needs. He’s wrong and he knows it, but he’s scared.”
I nod. I can’t speak. The tears are too much.
I walk out. In the hallway, I can hear Gabriel’s purr from behind the pack room door. It’s meant for Miles, always for Miles.
Never for me.
He won. I’m nothing to them. I’m their scent match, but even that isn’t enough. I lived in their house, and I still never belonged.
There must be a reason I barely had any packs ask for me at the registry. Maybe it’s time I face that. Face that I don’t get the luxury of choosing what I want. I’ll have to take what I can get. That’s all there is for me.
I make it to my room, close the door, and slide down the wall because my legs won’t hold me.
I’m leaving tomorrow. I don’t know where I’ll go. The Carrs, maybe, if they’ll take me. Or back to the registry, where Brennan will be waiting. Or somewhere else, somewhere with no name, no pack, no cedar and smoke or honey and sage or black pepper and leather.
No burnt sugar and iron.
That’s the one that really wrecks me. Not the alphas’ scents, but Miles’s.
The omega who bit me, who kissed me, who told me to think of him and then spent today making sure I knew I was nothing.
The one who stood outside my door in the dark.
The omega who screamed himself raw because I was in his alpha’s bed… because he can’t stand to share.
He made me feel like I mattered… just long enough to take it back.
I sob until my chest aches. And then I cry more. And then I stop, empty, sitting on the floor of a room that never belonged to me, trying to picture tomorrow.
But I can’t.
I can’t see anything at all.