Chapter thirty-one #2
She trusts me, after all of it—all the cruelty I’ve given her. I don’t know what to do with that. Don’t think I even deserve it. When she leaves, I think I’m going to keep reaching for her anyway.
But it doesn’t matter. She still has to go.
We get cleaned up. I wash her hair, because I like how she tips her head back and closes her eyes. She washes my back, because I let her. We don’t talk about what I’m feeling. I don’t have the words yet, and she doesn’t ask.
We finish up and come out to the living room just as the door opens. All three alphas, together. Gabriel first, then Cyrus, then Garrett. There’s a wave of alpha scent and cold air.
I greet them like always. Kiss Cyrus on the jaw. Tackle Garrett, turn it into a kiss. Gabriel goes straight for my mouth, raw and claiming, his hands tight on my hips.
When I let go of Gabriel, I see Lily. She’s in the kitchen doorway, caught watching. I see that hungry look she tries to hide. I see how she shrinks herself down when my pack touches me. How she looks away late, like she has to train herself not to want what she sees.
“I’m going to cook tonight,” she says, too fast, too bright. She’s already heading for the kitchen before anyone answers.
I know what she’s doing. She can’t stand to watch the intimacy between me and my alphas. It still hurts her. She needs it even as she can’t look away, and the only way out is to make herself useful somewhere else.
I just… I don’t want her to hurt anymore.
The protectiveness I feel for her doesn’t match how it feels with the alphas. It’s a different animal entirely. Omega to omega. Raw instinct. The need to shelter someone smaller. To protect her from the things that split you open and leave you bleeding.
“I’ll help,” I say and follow her into the kitchen.
She looks at me as if I’ve announced I’m going to shave my head and join the circus. “You want to help cook?”
“Don’t make it weird, Stray.”
She gives me a sly smile before turning away.
We make pasta. Keep it simple. Boil water.
Heat the sauce. Garlic bread because Garrett bought the good stuff that comes in a shiny gold bag.
She’s at home in the kitchen now. She moves with certainty, opens cabinets like she owns them, grabs utensils without asking.
She knows every drawer and shelf by heart.
We all eat together around the table. Gabriel at the head, me next to him, Lily beside me.
Garrett across, Cyrus at the other end. It’s loud and messy.
Garrett tells a story about a client and everyone’s laughing.
Cyrus eats three plates of pasta without a word, and Gabriel keeps glancing at me and Lily, side by side, with that look he gets when he longs for something so much it scares him.
It’s the same way he looked in the beginning when he waited on permission to enter my nest.
I think about what it would be like if this was every night. If she stayed. If it was always pasta and bread and too many voices trying to dominate around a table that’s a little too small.
After dinner, Gabriel and Cyrus clean up. I drift into the living room and take the couch next to Garrett. Lily goes for the armchair, the one tucked in the corner. It’s farthest from the pack, closest to the door. The same place she always picks when the alphas are home.
Garrett puts on a movie. The alphas get comfortable. Gabriel on my other side, Cyrus in the far chair. It’s the usual arrangement; me in the middle, bracketed, protected.
Except Lily is over there alone, in her chair, watching us without watching, arms braced on the rests, body angled toward us like she wants to cross the distance but can’t quite figure out how.
Twenty minutes in, I can’t take it anymore.
“Lily.”
She jumps, startled.
“Come here.”
She blinks at me. Looks at Garrett, then Gabriel, then back at me. “What?”
“Come here. Sit next to Garrett.”
She freezes. I see the calculation in her eyes—the panic, the risk, every memory of reaching for something and getting her hand slapped away.
“Sit next to Garrett,” I say again, using the voice that doesn’t leave room for argument. The same one I’ve been using on her all week. It switches her off, makes her move before she can think about it.
She comes right over and perches on the edge of the couch, next to Garrett, stiff as a fence post. There’s a mile of space between them. She doesn’t breathe.
Garrett and Gabriel and Cyrus are all staring at me. They’ve never heard me use that voice. It’s an alpha’s voice, but it came out of an omega’s mouth. They don’t know what to do with it.
I look at them, daring them to say anything. Go ahead. Try me.
No one does.
Lily sits there, rigid, eyes locked on the TV. She’s waiting for the blow to fall. For the punishment she’s certain is coming.
I reach over and take Garrett’s arm, setting it around Lily’s shoulders. Then I adjust her, too, nudging her shoulder down, tipping her head until it rests against his chest.
“Relax,” I tell her. “It’s fine. I’m not going to be mad. I want this. And you need it.”
She searches my face like she’s searching for the catch, the trap, the cruelty she’s been trained to expect. “I don’t want to take anything from you.”
“You’re not taking anything. There’s enough alphas to go around, and nobody’s going to run off and propose. Relax.”
I watch the words hit her. The tension in her face eases. Mostly. She lets herself lean into Garrett, just a little.
Garrett looks at me, bright-eyed, barely breathing, waiting for permission.
For a second I think I’ve made a mistake. I make myself breathe deep.
Then I nod.
He starts purring.
Lily just collapses. She melts against him, sinking down in a long, shivering sigh.
The change is so sudden it’s almost violent, like watching frost melt to water.
All the remaining tightness in her face, gone.
I stare at her and feel… satisfaction, deep and simple.
The feeling of providing for someone who needs it.
There’s no jealousy or fear that she’s stealing from me.
I’m relieved because I thought there would be.
I’ve been helping her with tricks—the nipping, the dominance, the games she can understand. But I always knew it wasn’t enough. She needs the real thing—alpha pheromones, real purring, real touch. I can’t give her that. But I can decide who does, and when, and how. That makes it mine.
If I tell them to stop, it’s over. I’m not losing anything. I’m giving her something, but only because I want to. I’m the one in control.
I lean back into Gabriel. He wraps his arm around me, his purr joining Garrett’s, the two sounds thrumming in the air until the whole room feels like it’s humming.
I watch Lily’s face, slack with relief, her eyes shut, her breathing even.
The pain she always carries—the headaches, the tension, the old bruise of being touch-starved—it’s lifting.
I can see it. Stark relief is all over her.
I did that. Not the alphas. Me. She’s healing because I said yes.
The movie ends. The credits roll. Gabriel stretches beside me, and I feel how much he doesn’t want to move. How he’d stay like this, all of us tangled together, forever.
I make myself get up. Lily is half-asleep on Garrett, scenting the air, the whole room thick with peach and ozone, warm and sweet.
“Bed,” I say. “Everyone.”
We all start migrating toward the stairs.
Gabriel stops me in the hall. “Sleep with me tonight?”
I can feel the guilt rise. I’ve been ignoring him since that night even if I told him I wasn’t. I know it’s at least a little true. I also know I need to stop. He doesn’t deserve it. Not anymore.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
He nods. Squeezes my wrist. Then walks to the pack room.
I find Lily in the hallway, on her way to her own room. She pauses. I pull her in and kiss her, slow, unhurried. She tastes like the popcorn we ate during the movie.
“You okay sleeping alone tonight?” I ask.
She nods. “I’m okay.” And she means it. For once, she really means it. She’s still holding the purr in her bones, glowing soft, every line in her face smoothed out.
“Thank you,” she says. “For what you did. For letting me—“
“Don’t thank me. Just go to sleep.”
“Yes, Miles.” She smiles and disappears into her room. Her door clicks shut, soft.
I stand in the hallway, caught between her door and the pack room. Two rooms. Two lives I’ve kept apart because I thought if I let them touch, it would tear me apart.
Maybe I’m wrong.
Maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much if she stayed.
Maybe it would hurt worse if she left.
I go to the pack room and climb into the nest with Gabriel. He pulls me close, already purring, his face pressed to my hair.
I shut my eyes and think of a girl with blue eyes and a voice that says yes, Miles like she’s been saying it all her life.
Maybe. I let the thought sit. I don’t chase it away.
Just maybe.
I don’t push it any further than that.