Chapter 26
Bane
I can still feel him.
It's been two hours since we left Max's room, and I can still feel his tongue on my fingers, feel the phantom weight of his wrists pinned beneath my hands, hear the desperate sounds he made around my fingers as he sucked them like they were the only thing keeping him sane.
I've showered twice. It doesn't help. He's seeped into my skin, into my blood, into some part of me I didn't know existed until tonight.
The office is quiet. Atlas is at his desk, pretending to look at something on his laptop, but his eyes haven't moved in fifteen minutes. Zero is sprawled on the leather couch, a glass of whiskey balanced on his chest, staring at the ceiling like it personally offended him.
None of us are sleeping tonight.
I'm in the armchair by the window, watching the moon through the glass, trying not to think about the sounds Max made when Atlas's fingers were inside him.
Trying not to remember the way his body arched, the way he whimpered, the way he looked at me with those desperate, tear-filled eyes while Atlas was the one who got to—
I clench my jaw. Force the thought down.
It should have been me.
The jealousy is ugly. Shameful. Atlas was helping Max, taking care of him, doing what needed to be done.
And I was grateful for it—am grateful for it.
But some primal part of me burned the entire time, watching my brother's mouth on Max's body, watching his fingers disappear inside that slick heat, watching Max fall apart under Atlas's touch while all I could do was hold his wrists and give him my fingers to suck.
I wanted to be the one between his legs. I wanted to taste him. I wanted to feel him clench around me, wanted to find that spot that made him scream, wanted to be the reason his eyes rolled back and his spine arched off the bed.
Instead, I held him down and watched someone else have him.
And I've never wanted anything more in my life.
It's not just the omega pull—though that's there, thrumming under my skin like a second heartbeat.
It's something deeper. Something that started the moment Max stumbled into the bachelor suite I was hiding in during the wedding, all nervous energy and guarded eyes and those pouty lips that couldn’t find confident words.
I want to know him. Really know him. I want to understand why he flinches when people get too close. Why he hides his writing like it's something shameful. Why he looks at himself in mirrors like he's cataloging flaws instead of features.
I want to be the one who makes him smile—really smile, not that tight-lipped performance he gives Margot. I want to be the one he trusts with his secrets. I want to peel back every layer he's built around himself and find the person underneath.
And yes, god fucking help me, I want to make him whimper like that again. Want to feel him come apart under my hands. Want to hear my name on his lips when he breaks.
"We need to talk about this."
Atlas's voice cuts through the silence. I look up. He's closed the laptop, his hands folded on the desk, that CEO expression firmly in place. The one that means he's about to say something we won't like.
My older brother has been calling the shots since I was young. It’s his role and he plays it well.
Zero doesn't move. "Talk about what?"
"About Max. About what happened tonight. About what happens next."
I watch Atlas's reflection in the window glass. His shoulders are tight. Coiled. He's been like this since we left Max's room—wound so tight I'm surprised he hasn't shattered.
"What happens next is we help him through his heat." Zero takes a sip of whiskey, the glass catching the lamplight. "It's going to last days. He'll need us again."
Us. The word lands strangely in my chest. There is no us when it comes to Max. There's Atlas, who touched him. Zero, who wants to own him. And me, hovering at the edges, wanting things I can't name and definitely can't have.
"That's not what I mean." Atlas stands, moves to the window, his back to us. His hands are clasped behind him—the pose he uses in boardrooms not with family. "We need ground rules. Boundaries. We can't just—"
"Can't just what?" Zero sits up now, suddenly alert. The whiskey sloshes but doesn't spill. "Take care of him? Because that's exactly what we did. He was falling apart, and we helped him. Easy. What's the problem?"
I could tell him. I could say the problem is that I held his wrists while our brother made him come, and I've never been so jealous of anything in my entire life. But I don't. I never do.
"The problem is this can't be a free-for-all.
" Atlas turns to face us, and there's something hard in his expression.
Something territorial. The alpha in him, usually so carefully leashed, showing its teeth.
"Max is vulnerable. He's in the middle of his first heat, he's confused, he's scared. We can't all just—"
"Spit it out, Atlas."
Zero's voice has gone flat. Dangerous. I've heard that tone before—usually right before something gets broken.
"I'm saying one of us needs to take the lead. Be his primary." Atlas's jaw tightens, a muscle feathering beneath the skin. "The others can assist, but—"
Zero laughs. It's not a nice sound. It's the laugh of a man who's been waiting for a fight and finally found one. "Let me guess. You're volunteering."
"I'm the oldest. I have the most control. I can—"
"You can what? Claim him for yourself while the rest of us watch?" Zero is on his feet now, whiskey forgotten on the couch, hands curling into fists at his sides. "That's bullshit and you know it."
My pulse kicks up. The air in the room has changed—thickened with pheromones and tension. Two alphas squaring off, circling each other without moving. I can smell it: Atlas's cedar and bourbon gone sharp with dominance, Zero's gunpowder and winter turned acrid with challenge.
And underneath it all, still clinging to my skin, the ghost of Max's scent. Honey. Vanilla. Smoke.
"That's not what I'm saying."
"It's exactly what you're saying." Zero steps closer, and there's danger in his posture—weight forward, shoulders rolled, chin tilted down in that way that means try me.
"You want to be his alpha. His only alpha.
" Another step. They're barely three feet apart now.
"News flash, brother—you don't get to make that decision alone. "
Atlas doesn't back down. Never does. He meets Zero's stare with that cold, calculating look that's made grown men flinch. "Someone has to make decisions. Someone has to think about what's best for Max instead of just what they want."
"And that someone is you? The one who had his fingers inside Max an hour ago?" Zero's lip curls. "Real selfless, Atlas. Real fucking noble."
I stay quiet. I always stay quiet when they get like this. The peacekeeper. The mediator. The one who smooths things over after they've torn each other apart.
But inside, something is burning.
He's mine too.
The thought is so loud I'm surprised they can't hear it. So fierce it steals my breath.
I watched Atlas claim what I wanted. I held Max down while someone else made him feel good. And now Atlas wants to formalize it—make himself Max's primary, like Max is a business acquisition, like the rest of us are just consultants on the project.
Fuck that.
My fingers dig into the armrests of the chair. I force myself to stay seated. To keep my mouth shut. To let them fight it out like they always do while I sit on the sidelines and pretend I don't have a stake in this.
But I do. God help me, I do.
I want Max in ways that have nothing to do with alpha instinct and everything to do with him. The way he chews his lip when he's nervous. The way he’s at peace curled over a book. The way he looked at me in the library that night—like he saw something in me worth seeing.
I don't just want to claim him. I want to earn him.
And I can't do that if Atlas locks him away like some prize to be protected.
"We're not discussing this now." Atlas's voice is clipped. Final. He turns back to the window, dismissing us both with the rigid line of his spine. "Max needs rest. We all need rest. In the morning—"
"In the morning, what? You'll have drawn up a contract?" Zero sneers, and I watch his upper lip curl, watch the vein in his neck pulse with barely contained fury. "Established visiting hours? This isn't a business negotiation, Atlas. He's not a merger."
"I'm aware of that."
"Are you? Because you're treating him like an asset to be managed, not a person to be—"
"To be what, Zero? Claimed? Fucked? Owned?" Atlas spins around, and his composure cracks—just slightly, just enough for me to see the rawness underneath. His hands are shaking. Atlas's hands never shake. "Because that worked out so well in the basement, didn't it?"
The words land like a grenade.
I go still. The basement. I was the one who found Max the next morning—saw him in the kitchen, moving like someone who'd been hurt, couldn't sit down without wincing, wouldn't make eye contact with anyone. I went to Atlas. Told him something was wrong. That I thought Zero had done something.
We confronted him. Zero had a bruise on his jaw the size of Max's fist. He admitted Max had come to him, that he'd smelled Max's scent and couldn't resist. But he never gave us the full story. Just said Max "wanted it." That he didn't say no.
Atlas let it go then. I shouldn't have.
"Atlas—" Zero's voice carries a warning.
"No." Atlas steps closer, and there's something dangerous in his posture now.
Something I've never seen directed at one of us.
"Last time, you gave me scraps. Told me he 'came to you.
' That his body 'wanted it.' That he didn't say no.
" His voice drops, deadly quiet. "This time, I want the truth.
All of it. What exactly did you do to him in that basement? "
Zero's jaw locks. His hands curl into fists at his sides. "I already told you—"