Chapter twenty-five #3
Miles is in Gabriel’s lap, arms around his neck, straddling him.
They’re kissing. Not a quick peck or a safe, domestic thing—a real kiss, slow and deep, Gabriel’s hand knotted in Miles’s hair, Miles rolling his hips like he can’t help it.
Cyrus is behind Miles, pressed close, mouthing at his neck.
Garrett is on the other side, shirt off, sprawled out, watching with that lazy, satisfied look, hand moving up and down Miles’s thigh.
The purring is so loud I feel it from the doorway. My omega reaches for them and I have to stomp her down hard before I do something humiliating for us all.
Gabriel breaks the kiss to say something in Miles’s ear.
Miles shivers and laughs, breathless, and then Gabriel’s mouth is on his neck, right on his scent gland, but there’s nothing casual about it now.
He’s sucking, slow and deep, biting just enough to tease him.
Claiming what’s already his. The kind of hunger he’s never looked at me with.
Or maybe he has but he’s too good to act on it.
Miles makes a sound I’ve never heard. A low, happy whimper, body going soft as butter. Cyrus kisses the back of his neck. Garrett murmurs something that makes Miles laugh and blush.
They’re not winding down for the night. They’re starting something. The kind of evening that ends with all four of them in the nest, Miles loved and claimed and taken apart by alphas who think he’s perfect.
This is their normal. The thing I never see.
While I’m scrubbing their dishes and cleaning their house, this is happening down the hall.
Miles is getting this. Gabriel is giving this—the kind of worship I heard him talk about before, the kind he’d fight to the death to keep.
This is what my scent matches give to another omega and keep from me.
This is what love looks like when nobody’s afraid of it.
I back away, quiet as I can. I go up the stairs, into my room, close the door, and stand there, breathing hard.
The good feeling from the bonfire is dimmed.
The distance between what the Carrs can offer me, and what Miles gets from the Santos pack, is so huge it’s almost funny.
Jeremy kissing my cheek in the driveway versus Gabriel mouthing Miles’s scent gland like he wants to drink him.
Leo’s goofy S’more jokes versus the four of them wrapped around each other, all easy intimacy and claim.
The Carrs are kind. A gentle, contained bonfire. They could be my life.
But the Santos pack is wildfire. Beautiful.
Destructive. Impossible to contain. And I’ll never get that.
Not with them. Probably not with anyone.
Even if Jeremy’s pack decides to love me, even if we build something real, I’ll always know what the other thing could have been.
The version where my scent match wanted me.
The life where I was the one in Gabriel’s lap, being kissed like he couldn’t get enough.
I slump down against the door. I don’t cry. I don’t have the energy for that anymore. The bonfire burned up the last of it.
I just think.
Maybe I should just say yes. I don’t have to wait until another date.
Now. I could call Jeremy tomorrow morning and tell him I want this, and he’d come get me, and I’d leave this house and never have to watch that again.
I’d let him claim me—a real claiming, the kind that snaps scent matches and rewires you—and then, even if I bumped into the Santos pack at the store, I wouldn’t feel the pull. It’d be over. For good.
The scent match would break the second Jeremy’s teeth broke my skin.
My body would forget Gabriel. Forget Garrett, Cyrus, even Miles.
They’d be nothing more than regular alphas to me.
Alphas I could walk away from without feeling like my soul was being ripped out of me.
The part of me that’s been reaching for them would finally, finally be quiet.
Peace. Maybe peace is all I’m meant for.
The word sits in my chest like a promise. Not happiness, maybe—I don’t know if I get to have that anymore. But I’d have peace. A quiet body. A mind that isn’t always calculating distance and dosage. A home where I don’t have to watch someone else get loved through a crack in the door.
I could have that.
I could choose it.
I crawl into bed, still wearing my date clothes. The green sweater is soft and warm and smells faintly like Jeremy—all pine and laundry and a little smokey from the fire. I mash my face into the fabric and just breathe, trying to convince my body there’s something else it can learn to crave.
Downstairs, the noise gets louder.
I shut my eyes. I think about Jeremy’s almost constant touch all night. Theo kissing my hair. Leo’s S’more king speech. Michael’s patient smile.
A pack that laughs. A pack that makes space. A pack where I wouldn’t be the reject.
Maybe next weekend I’ll say yes.
Or maybe sooner.
Maybe love doesn’t always feel like wildfire.
Maybe sometimes it feels like being handed a blanket before you realize you’re cold.
I fall asleep with my face in my sweater, dreaming of fires and a future that’s actually, possibly, mine.