Chapter 23
twenty-three
I’ve been so frantic to undo everything, I realize I never stopped to ask myself whether any of this is even real.
As I turn to face the achingly familiar vanilla scent, I know for sure; it can’t be.
I clearly died two nights ago, watching the foreign lights float across the sky. And this has all been a dream… or some sort of afterlife.
That would make sense, actually. Maybe I’m in purgatory, living out the horror of harming an innocent omega, over and over and over… My worst nightmare.
It has to be something like that. A dream. A delusion.
I don’t know. Because all I can see—the only thought running through my addled brain—is him.
The alpha from all my best, worst, most buried memories.
My lion.
Is he truly standing here? Backlit by the first sunrays of this horrible, heartbreaking day? Breathing like he’s just run a hundred miles?
I’ve pictured his messy, dark blond mane a million times. Remembering the feel of it between my fingertips. The way our bodies moved together. How his eyelids fought so hard to stay open, after, trying to remain watchful. Guarding me when he couldn’t even protect himself.
This can’t be him.
He can’t be real.
Right?
As if in answer, the hulking alpha’s expression flickers. I just barely make out his hazel eyes, bright and wet. Beaming intensity that turns my lungs to ash.
The way he watches me is so familiar. His absolute focus. The wary, electric undercurrent of his taut posture. Hunted. Hopeful.
Mine, my Omega whispers. I knew he was mine.
I want to tell her she’s wrong. Because he can’t actually be here. This is impossible.
Except… it isn’t. Not for an omega with true mates.
The word rings through my body like a church bell, reverberating over every nerve and synapse. Filling me with melodic tremors.
It’s like he can hear it, too. His muscles tweak tighter as his throat works. He tries to speak multiple times—and, Lord, that’s familiar, too. Watching him fight for words, the urge to comfort him when he couldn’t form any.
Finally, one cracked question breaks free, rasping from his lips.
“Are you real?”
It’s exactly what I would ask him, if my Omega let me have the reins to my own body. That seems unlikely, especially when my lion alpha’s scent spikes.
And—oh God—it’s exactly the way I remember. The richest vanilla, mixed with darker tinges of smoke and salt.
The more it soaks into my senses, the more my panic evaporates. The regret and urgent need to flee. All my good intentions and logic. The past, the future.
It all slips away, as if it never was.
And either I’ve really died… and Atlas and Gideon and Finn were all tests I passed, somehow, leading me to this final heaven. Or—
Or he’s actually here.
The fourth scent swirling through this charmingly dilapidated house. The third alpha in this even more ramshackle pack. The essence I must have picked up on, however faint, before I bit his pack alpha.
Found him. My Omega sighs, collapsing as if she’s finished an unfathomably long race. Releasing the reins so completely, for a moment, I’m scared she’s gone, back to wherever she hid in the past. An exhausted, wordless squeeze in my center reassures me. She isn’t gone—just resting.
Because this is all she wanted.
See? she whispers. That’s all of our mates. And this one will always protect us.
I know it’s true. If this is really him… My lion would have protected me with his life.
The alpha seems to remember everything. A visible shudder rolls over him before he moves, stepping closer. I watch in a daze, still not quite believing. Until he’s looming inches from me, reaching out.
Calloused fingers stroke the hair parted around my shoulder, smoothing one lock between their roughened pads. My lion keeps his gaze trained on that single strand, following it to the wavy end. A quivering exhale sloughs out of him.
Just like in my memory, his arms suddenly snap up. Pulling me into his wide, heaving chest as his forehead drops, falling to my bare shoulder. Warm wetness kisses the skin of my collarbone. Dreams and reality collide—the memory of a dozen moments exactly like this, from another life.
Him holding me, hiding in my hair. Letting his pain bleed out where no one else would ever see. And me, standing still. Knowing, down to the bottom of my soul, I couldn’t leave if I wanted to.