Chapter twenty-eight
Gabriel
Ihear Miles before I see him, his cries shake the walls while I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood.
Garrett’s voice floats just under them, steady, anchoring, like he always is when Miles comes apart.
Cyrus is there too. I feel him through the bond—a wall of cold, quiet rage, aimed straight at me.
I stay in the hallway, pressed against the wall, lungs tight.
The house is thick with the scent of them.
Lily, Miles, the remnants of everything I’ve been afraid of since the first day Lily crossed the threshold.
It’s everywhere: in the cushions, the carpet, drifting down the staircase.
Burnt sugar and ozone. Iron and peach. Tangled so tight I can barely tell them apart.
My alpha is in agony. He claws at the inside of my ribs and makes my hands ache to break something just so I can breathe again. The scent of my omega on someone else. The scent of sex on someone I’ve tried to deny. Both at once, a rope around my throat, tightening every time I draw breath.
I did this to myself.
I called Lily a snake. Defective. I told her nobody would ever want her and watched her believe it. I kept going because stopping meant admitting the truth, and the truth is worse than anything I said.
The truth is I’m jealous. Of both of them.
Jealous of Miles for touching her. Having her.
For giving in to what I’ve been starving for since the night her scent hit me at the gala and rewired everything.
Jealous of Lily for reaching Miles in a way I never could.
She found the switch inside him that I’ve been hunting for three years.
Miles let her hold him. Let her see him break.
He let her in. Gave her what he’s never given me…
the core of him. Vulnerability. He shows her the side of himself that he hides from me.
He chose her without my permission, and the fact that it happened outside my authority burns worse than I want to admit.
So I lashed out at the easy target. Lily. Because hurting Lily costs nothing.
Except it does. It costs everything I’m trying not to say out loud. If I say it out loud, I’ll have to stare it in the face. I’ll have to let myself feel it.
I close my eyes. I see her face, the moment she said I understand, Alpha.
Alpha… the word that means so much to my dynamic spoken from the mouths of omegas. But she wasn’t speaking to her scent match or her alpha. She was speaking to a threat. I became the thing she needs protection from. The sort of alpha my whole reputation is built on despising.
I spent so long trying to protect Miles from pain that I stopped noticing I was becoming the source of Lily’s.
The pack room door opens. Garrett blocks my view, his face hard.
“Are you done?” he asks. The flatness in his tone is new.
“I need to talk to Miles.”
“He’s not ready to talk to you.”
“Garrett—“
“You used the bark on him. You know what that does. You know he hates it.”
“I know.”
“And then you sent him away so you could be alone with Lily. What did you say to her, Gabriel?”
“I’ll deal with it.”
“What did you say?” He holds my gaze, and for a moment there’s nothing but that. He already knows it was unforgivable.
He steps aside. He isn’t satisfied, but we both realize I have to face what’s waiting.
Miles is in the nest, curled against Cyrus, his face blotchy and red, eyes swollen. He sees me and his face morphs—grief boiling to fury with nothing in between.
“Don’t,” he says.
“Miles—“
“Don’t you dare come in here and try to fix this with a speech. You barked at me, Gabriel. You know I hate it. It makes me feel like—“ He cuts himself off, breathing ragged. “Like I’m back there. With them. Being commanded like a dog.”
The guilt comes fast, a black edge to the world. I know what the bark does to him. It short-circuits his will. It echoes every cruelty his old pack gave him. I did it anyway, in front of Lily, because I was scared, angry, and needed to assert control before I lost it.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “For the bark. That was wrong.”
“You’re sorry.” He laughs, bitter. “That’s great, Gabriel. Really helpful.”
I cross the room, but leave space between us. Garrett closes the door with a soft click. The four of us in the heavy air, the scent of what Miles did today hanging over everything.
“I heard you,” Miles says. “Through the wall. I heard you say I cheated.”
“Miles—“
“Did you really mean that? You think I betrayed you?”
I stare at the floor. “Yes.”
“Is that what you think happened?”
“I don’t know what happened. I walked in and the house smelled like—“
“Like sex. Yeah. Because I had sex with her.” Miles sits up, pulling away from Cyrus.
His face is a wreck, but his eyes are clear.
Right now, he’s the Miles who won’t back down.
“And I didn’t see it as cheating. You brought her in this house.
Your scent match. You dangled her in front of me knowing how I’d feel about it and now you’re mad that I made myself at home with it?
I didn’t do it to hurt you, Gabriel. There’s just something about her…
we connected. I’m not saying I love her or want her to stay.
But what happened… it had nothing to do with you. For either of us.”
He’s right. He didn’t betray me. He only made peace with the chaos I created. The knowing is the thing that made me vicious to Lily instead of honest with myself.
“I’m sorry,” Miles says, softer now, anger folding into fear. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I didn’t even think about you when it was happening, and maybe that’s worse, but it’s the truth.”
Garrett sits beside him, grounding him with a palm to his back. Cyrus stays where he is. I feel them both through the bond, watching, ready to step in.
“We’re not angry with you,” Garrett says, and I believe him. “Either of us. We get it. We’re the ones that brought her into the house.”
“You didn’t, though,” Miles says, eyes locked on mine. “He did. Gabriel made the decision. As lead, without asking any of us, and now he’s punishing everyone for the consequences of his own choice.”
I take it. I deserve it.
“I’m not angry with you, Miles.” I sit on the edge of the nest, careful not to crowd him. “I panicked. I walked in and smelled it and I handled it the worst possible way.”
“By blaming Lily.”
“Yes.”
“What did you say to her?”
I tell him. I skip the cruelest words that I spewed at her but I admit to accusing her. All while watching his face turn cold with anger.
“She didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I know.”
“She didn’t seduce me, Gabriel. She didn’t manipulate me.
She didn’t trick me into anything.” Miles’s voice builds, it’s relentless, the kind that grinds down walls.
“I kissed her. A while ago, first time was in the kitchen. I’ve been biting her, nipping her pressure points, helping her with the pain.
I’ve been ordering her around the house, making her sit at my feet, making her bring me things.
She does whatever I tell her. She just gives in, and it makes me feel like—“
He cuts himself off, swallowing.
“Like an alpha,” he finishes, so quiet I almost miss it. “She makes me feel like what I was supposed to be.”
The room stills, everything held in that one truth.
We all understand what he’s really saying.
All three of us have felt Miles’s true nature, even without a physical bond.
We never pushed it because he was never ready to admit it before.
But we could sense it just under his skin.
The need for control, the underlying urge to dominate.
It’s the same needs that drive us as alphas, only his is born from trauma, not DNA.
“Today was my idea,” Miles continues. “All of it. I told her what to do. I took her to bed. She’d never been with anyone before, Gabriel.
Anyone. No alpha, no omega, nobody. I was her first.” His chin lifts.
“I’m glad it was me and not some random stand-in alpha for heat at the registry who’d knot her and forget her name. ”
Jealousy cuts through me so hard it feels like injury. The thought of another alpha that isn’t pack touching her makes me want to rage. The image of Miles with her… that one’s more complicated.
His words sink in. The pride and the possessiveness, no shame in either. He’s claiming her—his way—and daring me to take it from him.
“Something’s happening between us,” Miles says. “I don’t understand it. But she brings something alive in me that none of you can, and I’m not going to apologize for that.”
Garrett and Cyrus watch me, their expressions a silent challenge. Through the bond: alert, braced, holding position.
“I’m sorry,” I say. To all of them. “I’m sorry I used the bark. I’m sorry I sent you away. I’m sorry I blamed Lily for something that wasn’t her fault.”
Miles looks at me, long and hard, and then his shoulders drop. The fight leaves him… because he’s tired, and he believes me.
He reaches for me. I go to him, fold him up, let him bury his face in my neck. His fists knot in my shirt. I hold him, breathing in burnt sugar and iron and, beneath it all, the ghost of peach and ozone that clings to his skin like a secret.
Lily. She’s in him now, part of whatever he’s becoming.
“I need to apologize to her,” I say, words muffled by his hair.
Miles pulls back, searching my face. “What exactly did you say to her? Besides accusing her?”
I want to lie. But I’m done with that. So I tell them everything. The snake. The defective. The speech about nobody wanting her, about the registry, about the Carrs only being kind out of pity. The six years line. Telling her I wanted her gone. Her face when she said I understand, Alpha.
The room goes colder with every word. Garrett’s anger builds, a storm front. Cyrus’s goes cold and dangerous. Miles’s expression curdles: shock, fury, hurt.
“You told her she’s defective?” Miles almost sounds wrecked. “You told her nobody wants her?”
“Yes.”