Chapter 22
Chapter twenty-two
Uninvited Guests Don’t Get Parking Validation
Riot
Riot woke to footsteps on the porch.
His eyes snapped open, his heart rate spiking with the hypervigilance that always followed an episode—his body still running hot, nerves scraped raw, every sense cranked to a setting of “everything is too loud and I can smell the neighbor’s breakfast from three houses away.
” He could hear the creak of each floorboard, and smell who was approaching before they reached the door.
Dante and Orion.
What the hell?
Late afternoon light slanted through Lilac’s faded curtains, painting the small bedroom in shades of amber.
Cass was still curled against his side, one hand on Riot’s chest, breathing the slow rhythm of deep sleep.
His scent had mellowed from the sharp urgency of active heat into something softer and sweeter, but Riot could feel the next wave building like a pressure in the air.
His own body was a mess of contradictions. Exhausted but wired. Guilty but still wanting. Every time Cass shifted against him, Riot felt that familiar heat stir in his gut, and every time it did, the shame followed right behind it like a debt collector who’d been given a house key.
You almost hurt him. And you’re still getting hard when he moves like someone with the self-control of an unsupervised fifteen-year-old.
He pulled himself away carefully, inch by inch, hyper-aware of each point where they touched.
Cass made a soft sound of protest. Riot found his pants on the floor and pulled them on, grimacing at the stiffness in his muscles.
He reached the door before they could knock, blocking the entrance with his body.
The cool air from outside hit his bare chest and he realized he probably looked like hell—shirtless, scratched up, smelling like sex and heat and rut.
Good. Maybe they’ll take the hint and leave.
“We’re fine,” he said flatly.
“Heard you had an interesting day,” Dante said as he glanced at the scratches. He pushed on Riot’s shoulder and narrowed his eyes when Riot didn’t budge. “Let us in.”
Riot’s jaw tightened. Dante looked the same as always—polished, composed, that Gensyn breeding showing even in casual clothes.
The man could probably survive a building collapse and emerge with a pressed collar.
But there was something softer about him now, something that had developed over six months of actually having something to protect instead of something to steal.
His scent carried Orion’s signature woven through it, deep and permanent and strange.
“Holy shit,” Orion said, his amber eyes going wide. “You actually—”
“He’s sleeping.” Riot kept his voice low, but the warning was clear. “And I’d appreciate if you kept your voice down.”
“We brought supplies.” Dante held up a canvas bag. “Things he’ll need when the next wave hits.”
“And we wanted to make sure you hadn’t broken him,” Orion added. “A Berserker and an Elysian seems like a recipe for disaster.”
The words found something tender and drove straight into it.
“I didn’t break him,” he said through his teeth.
Almost. You almost did.
“No one’s saying—” Dante started.
He heard movement from the bedroom, sheets rustling, a confused sound, then footsteps. Riot turned just as Cass appeared in the bend of the hallway, and both Dante and Orion ducked under his arm to enter.
Cass’s eyes were heavy-lidded, still soft with sleep, and there were marks on his visible collarbone.
Marks Riot had put there. He looked thoroughly ruined.
He looked like every stupid, reckless decision Riot made in the last several days given physical form and then dressed in his clothing.
Riot’s body responded instantly, predictably, a pulse of desire that made him want to cross the room and press Cass back against the doorframe and—
Stop. Jesus Christ, stop.
Then Cass’s gaze found him, and his whole face transformed. The sleepy confusion melted into something bright and relieved, a smile breaking across his features like Riot was the best thing he’d ever seen.
“You’re still here,” Cass said.
Where else would I be?
Then Cass glanced at the intruders. “Oh—hi! Orion and Dante, right? I’m sorry I was so rude before…I think my mind was too warm.”
“It’s okay,” Orion said. “I figured we’d check in and see how you’re doing.”
Cass smiled, genuine and warm. And then he was moving, crossing the room with that unconscious grace, reaching for Orion like it was normal to give hugs to almost strangers wearing only a t-shirt. His arms wrapped around Orion and he tucked his face into Orion’s neck.
Riot’s brain short-circuited.
He watched Cass scent Orion—watched him press close and breathe deep, all sleep-warm and innocent, the black shirt leaving nothing to the imagination.
Orion had gone rigid, hands hovering uselessly, a flush crawling up his neck.
Two Omegas tangled together, one in heat and pliant, the other fighting instincts that six months of being claimed hadn’t fully tamed.
Fuck.
Beside him, Dante made a low sound and quickly adjusted the front of his pants.
For a long, stupid moment, neither of them could do anything but stare. Two Alphas, one bonded and one whatever-Riot-was, standing in a doorway with their higher brain functions temporarily on holiday.
Then Cass pulled back, his face flushing as awareness caught up with instinct.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, hands flying to his chaotic hair. “That was inappropriate, and I’m not even dressed, and this is so spiritually untidy—”
Riot moved before he could think about it, crossing to catch Cass’s hands. The touch seemed to ground him—Cass’s skin was warm, his pulse fluttering at his wrist. Real. Here. His.
Not yours.
“You’re fine,” Riot said, ignoring his own internal argument. He was getting good at that. Possibly too good. “No one cares.”
“But I just smelled him without asking—”
“It’s fine,” Orion managed, letting out a small laugh. “Really. You just keep catching me off guard with that.”
Don’t think about Cass scenting Orion. Don’t think about Cass scenting Orion…
Dante’s hand landed on the back of Orion’s neck. The gesture sent a spike of something through Riot’s chest—envy, maybe. The easy certainty of it. The right to touch like that, to claim publicly, without the accompanying terror that he might accidentally destroy what he was holding.
“You okay?” Dante asked.
“I’m fine. Get off me.”
“You’re flushed.”
“Because your hand is on my neck like I’m a disobedient puppy. Move.”
Dante’s grip tightened instead. “Make me.”
Orion elbowed him in the ribs. “I said move, asshole.”
Cass flinched.
“Hey,” Riot said sharply. “Tone it down.”
They turned to look at him.
“The language,” he clarified, pulling Cass closer. “He’s not used to it.”
“Right. Sorry.” Orion’s expression shifted to understanding. “Elysian thing?”
“Raised voices and harsh words meant spiritual misalignment,” Cass said softly, looking at the ground as he squeezed Riot’s hand. “It’s hard to hear, even when I know it doesn’t mean the same thing here.”
“We’ll try to keep it clean,” Dante said. “No promises.”
They settled onto Lilac’s worn couch, Dante’s arm draping over Orion’s shoulders.
Riot guided Cass to the other end, keeping him close, hyperaware of everywhere they touched.
The warmth of Cass’s thigh against his. The weight of Cass leaning into his side.
The want that wouldn’t stop pulsing under his skin, patient and relentless, like a headache that had been promoted to a permanent position.
“Where I am from,” Cass said slowly, watching Dante and Orion with the expression of someone observing an entirely new species, “I’ve never seen bonded partners speak to each other like that.”
“Fighting is foreplay for him,” Dante mused, reaching for Orion’s hand.
Orion jerked his hand back and elbowed Dante in the ribs again. “Shut the—” He caught himself, glancing at Cass. “Be quiet, Dante.”
Cass’s brow furrowed. “What’s foreplay?”
Riot choked on nothing.
Orion’s head whipped toward him, eyes wide with a look that clearly said what exactly have you been doing with him?
“It’s—” Dante started.
“Don’t,” Riot warned.
“—the buildup before sacred union,“ Dante finished smoothly, ignoring him completely. Riot had to admire the technique, actually. The man could sell sand to a desert. “The things that get you in the mood. For us, that’s arguing.”
Cass’s confusion only deepened. “Before sacred union? But sacred union is when two souls merge their energy to create spiritual harmony. What does arguing have to do with energy merging?”
Dante blinked. Then looked at Riot. Then back at Cass.
“Sacred union,” he repeated slowly. “That’s what Elysian calls it?”
“Calls what?”
“Don’t,” Riot said again, harder this time.
“When two people—” Dante gestured vaguely. “Physically.”
Cass stared blankly.
“Intimately.”
Nothing.
“When bodies—”
“He’s born Elysian,“ Riot cut in, feeling heat crawl up his neck. Somehow this was what was going to do him in. Death by embarrassment. The irony would be spectacular. “And he hasn’t taken that course yet.”
Dante’s mouth opened, closed, opened again. He looked genuinely at a loss—probably for the first time since Riot had known him. It was almost worth the embarrassment.
“So when you two...” Dante gestured between Riot and Cass. “Earlier. Did he even know what was happening, or—”
“I knew some things,” Cass said helpfully. “Riot explained the words.”
“Oh yeah?” Orion grinned. “What words?”
“Orion.” Riot glared at him.
Cass’s cheeks turned pink and he started fingercombing his hair, looking at his lap. “Like orgasm. And cum. And—”
“Okay,” Riot interrupted, his face definitely burning now. “We don’t need to—”
“—and slick, which is apparently normal and not disgusting even though it feels disgusting, and there’s a spot inside that makes everything go white when you press it, and—”
“Cass.”
“What?” Cass looked at him with genuine confusion. “They asked.”
Orion had buried his face in his hands. His shoulders were shaking.
Riot wondered, with the detached curiosity of a man watching his own dignity burn to the ground, whether it was possible to die of secondhand embarrassment. The modifications had enhanced a lot of things, but his ability to withstand social catastrophe was apparently not among them.
“Oh.” Cass’s expression fell. “I’m sorry. I’m not very good at communication techniques.”
The guilt in his voice made Riot’s chest ache. He pulled Cass closer, pressing a kiss to his temple without thinking about it. “It’s fine. You didn’t know.”
“But I should have known. Brother Matthias always said I lacked spiritual discretion—”
“Brother Matthias can choke on his spiritual discretion.”
Cass’s eyes went wide. Then—impossibly—he giggled.
“You can’t say that about an Elder.”
“I just did. What’s he going to do, harmonically realign me from here?”
The giggle turned into a real laugh, bright and surprised, and Riot felt it on his skin like the sun.
Despite the guilt and the wanting and the mess of the last few days, Cass was laughing, pressed against his side, wearing his shirt, and for a brief, beautiful moment, the world felt like it was doing something right for once.
Then Cass’s expression flickered. His hand pressed to his stomach as his breath caught.
Riot clocked it immediately, the shift in his scent, the sudden tension in his body, the temperature climbing where they touched, the pressure in the air like a storm front that hadn’t bothered to check the forecast.
“Oh no,” Cass whispered. “Not again.”
Orion tensed, his own scent spiking in response. The feedback loop starting—one Omega in heat triggering sympathetic responses in another, pheromones bouncing between them like a conversation Riot couldn’t interrupt.
“We need to go,” Dante said, already pulling Orion to his feet. “Now.”
“Don’t fucking grab me like that, asshole, I’ve never had this happen before,” Orion started, then cut himself off as another wave of Cass’s scent seemed to hit him. “Yeah, okay...going. We’re going.”
Cass doubled over as he stood, a thin trickle of slick already sliding down his inner thigh, visible below the hem of his shirt, and the sight of it sent heat pooling in Riot’s gut like someone had poured gasoline on an already considerable fire.
Focus. He needs help, not you losing control again.
“I’m sorry,” Cass gasped. “I can’t control—I don’t know why it keeps—”
“It’s not your fault.” Riot pulled him close, trying to ignore the way his head was swimming. He needed to be the person Cass apparently believed he was, even if the evidence for that belief was, at best, circumstantial. “It’s fine. I’ve got you.”
At the door, Dante paused. Whatever joke he’d been about to make died on his lips as he looked at Cass trembling in Riot’s arms, tears of frustration on his cheeks.
“Take care of him,” Dante said quietly.
Then they were gone.
“I didn’t mean to make them leave,” Cass said, his voice small. “My body keeps doing things without asking me—”
“It’s not your fault.” Riot cupped his face, thumbs brushing away tears. Cass’s skin was fever-hot. “None of this is your fault. And they’ll be back tomorrow to embarrass us some more.”
That got a watery laugh.
“Come on,” Riot murmured, guiding him toward the bedroom.
His own body was thrumming with want, the need to touch and take and claim pounding through his blood like his pulse had developed a separate agenda.
But underneath it—stronger, he hoped, he needed it to be stronger—was the need to take care of him.
To do this right. To prove that the choice he’d made before wasn’t a fluke, but something he could keep making, over and over, for as long as it mattered.
He had to believe that was possible.