Chapter Eleven
Sera
Dr. Maverick arrives smelling of coffee and antiseptic.
I know him by reputation. Beta. Mid-fifties. Silver threaded through dark hair, kind eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses.
He's treated more damaged omegas than anyone in the county, and his work here at the OHC is well-renowned.
He steps into the room and stops. Takes in the scene without reacting to it. Two omegas huddled together on the floor. Four alphas standing around them like we're all trying not to detonate.
His expression pinches slightly. “Okay,” he says quietly. “Nobody move any closer.”
He studies the omegas for a long moment, gaze moving over the way they're pressed together, the panic still sharp in their scents, the hypervigilant way Aubrey tracks every movement near Espie.
Then he looks around the room itself. The white walls.
The harsh hospital lighting. The empty floor space around them.
“This place is making it worse. They can scent the difference between here and somewhere safe, and right now every breath they take is telling them they're still in danger.”
His gaze flicks to me. Then Kev. “They need to be away from here. There are too many traumatic impressions for them to overcome.”
“Another private medical facility—” Adrian starts.
“Private doesn't help. It will still scent like somewhere they can't leave to them. You'd be moving the problem into another room. They wouldn’t heal there.” He glances at the alphas crowding the doorway, then to me.
“They're scent-matched. Their bodies know you even if their minds haven’t caught up. That pull to you all is going to do more for them than anything I can prescribe.”
“What do you suggest?” Kev asks.
“I’d say he means taking them home with us,” Ezra says.
My head snaps up. There’s no way in hell I’ll be going anywhere without—
Dr. Maverick nods. “Your scents are soaked there. It will help. But they’ll need all of their scent-matches around them. Espie needs Sera as much as you, Sera, need her.”
“Nobody's asking you to leave them,” Ezra says, looking at me, no doubt reading the way I’m barely holding myself together.
“We have room for them and you, Sera, if you'll come,” Lex says.
The omega’s huddle together. Equally wounded and vulnerable.
Espie and Aubrey are wrapped so tightly together that pulling them apart would destroy them both, which means I go where they go.
Into another pack's territory, outnumbered and outmatched, surrounded by male alphas who are as desperate as I am, as confused, as terrified of getting this wrong.
There is no other solution and I will do anything for my mates. Anything.
“I agree,” I grind out.
Kev's eyebrows rise. “Just like that?”
“What do you want, a negotiation? A contract? I live in a one bedroom apartment and they can't stay here like this. So let's go.”
Kev opens his mouth, closes it again. The fight goes out of his eyes. Not concession, something quieter than that.
“She's right,” Lex says, from somewhere behind me. “We can work out the rest when we get there. Right now the only thing that matters is getting them out.”
Kev nods. Slow. No triumph in his expression, no satisfaction. Grim determination, and relief.
I crouch down on Espie's other side, moving slow. “Hey, sweetheart. We need to get you out of here. Somewhere safe for the both of you.”
Her eyes find me. They're not really seeing me, not all the way, but the gardenia edges back from full panic, and that's enough. I hold still and let her look.
“Aubrey? Come with us. With Espie. She needs to be somewhere safe with you,” I say.
His chin lifts a fraction, dazed eyes blinking at me.
Two nurses appear in the doorway with wheelchairs, keeping their distance until Ezra nods them in.
Getting Espie into the chair takes longer than it should.
She doesn't resist exactly. She's past that, past most things, but her body is barely cooperating, and every movement costs her something she doesn't have much left of.
Aubrey watches the whole time, eyes fixed on her with rigid, exhausted vigilance.
When Ezra reaches for him, he goes. Slow. Effortful. Like getting off the floor takes everything he has. He only does it because Espie is already waiting for him.
His hand finds hers and locks on, and the nurses have the sense not to try separating them.
We push the chairs out side by side and wheel them toward the elevator and the basement parking lot.
Kev walks ahead, clearing the path, broad shoulders tense.
Lex and Ezra push the chairs, keeping them close.
I bring up the rear, tracking every doorway we pass, every staff member who turns to look, counting steps between us and the exit.
Thirty-two steps to the elevator. Two sets of double doors. One security desk, unmanned.
People stare as we pass. A nurse steps toward us, clipboard raised, and Kev growls at her without breaking stride. She backs off.
The elevator is too small. Way too small for six people.
The doors close and I'm trapped in a metal box with three male alphas and my mate's scent saturating every inch of air.
Kev stands at the front, back to me, watching the numbers tick down.
His oakwood and whiskey have gone thick enough to taste on the back of my tongue.
Lex breathes through his mouth, jaw clenched so tight the muscle jumps.
Ezra has wedged himself between the omegas and the door.
“Only two more floors to go,” Kev says, low and even, pitched at the omegas.
Lex exhales, short and ragged. “This might be the longest thirty seconds of my life.”
Nobody argues with him.
The elevator dings. I push out into the parking garage and drag in air that tastes of exhaust and concrete.
Kev's car is a dark SUV with tinted windows, parked near the elevator bank.
Ezra opens the back door and helps the omegas inside, one hand hovering at Espie's elbow without quite touching, talking them through every movement in a low voice.
They settle together in the middle of the backseat, still wrapped around each other.
Kev looks at me. “Do you have a car here?”
I nod. I’d have to look for it. The last two weeks were years, “It’s here, somewhere.”
“Would you like to follow, or ride with us?” Kev asks.
Lex is already folding himself into the front passenger seat, long limbs finding the space awkwardly. Ezra stands by the back door, waiting.
I could take my car. Stay separate, keep my hands on the wheel of something that's mine. But if something happens on the drive, I won't be there.
“I'll ride with you. I’ll pick mine up late.”
“Knowing Blackwood, he’ll have it delivered,” Ezra says, sliding into the backseat behind the driver.
I climb in behind Lex. The door closes, solid and final, the lock catching. I'm inside their car, inside their scent.
Kev starts the car and pulls out of the parking garage. We rise up the ramp and the afternoon light comes in through the tinted glass. Nobody speaks.
My mates are curled into each other in the backseat, barely keeping their eyes open.
They’re so exhausted. Espie is mine. She is also Aubrey’s and he is also mine.
He's holding her as his only fixed point, and I know that feeling, I do, I've had it for six weeks, I just — I turn and look out the window instead.
Kev catches my eye in the rearview mirror. “Our house is twenty minutes away,” he says. “Maybe less, depending on traffic.”
I nod.
Lex turns slightly in his seat, glancing back at the omegas. His bergamot has gone grief-heavy, dark and bruised at the edges. “They're sleeping. That's good. Probably the first real sleep either of them has had in—” He stops. Swallows. “In a long time.”
“She hasn't slept more than two hours at a stretch since I pulled her out,” I say. “She suffers nightmares. Flashbacks. She screams in her sleep.”
“Aubrey doesn't scream.” Lex's voice is barely audible. “He just... stops. Goes still.”
The silence settles over me like weight.
“How long has he been like that?” I say.
Lex doesn't ask what I mean. “Since Kev pulled him out of that rescue mission.”
The one where Axel Turns was ended. And Leah and Aubrey’s nightmare both ended and began. I make a mental note to ask Leah to visit Espie again. Hoping that will help. At this stage, I’ll take anything.
Ezra indicates my cheek. “Espie caught you.”
I touch my cheekbone. Tender, probably bruising already. “She didn't mean to.”
Outside, people move through their lives untouched. A woman laughing into her phone on the corner. A kid on a scooter cutting through traffic while his father shouts after him. Normality everywhere I look. Like the world didn't just split open in a hospital corridor.
I don't know what I'm walking into. Don't know these alphas. Don't know if I can trust them not to shut me out once we're on their territory. Don't know anything except that my mates are in this car, and where they go, I go too.
Even if it means giving up the only life I've ever known.
Even if it means walking into a house full of male alphas with my pulse trying to climb out of my throat.