Chapter Thirty-Three
Sera
The light through the curtains has shifted from pale gray to full gold.
Mid-morning. I’ve stared at the ceiling long enough to watch the shadows crawl across the walls of the guest bedroom.
Guest bedroom. I’m not calling it mine.
I won’t be here long enough for that. My duffel is still zipped in the corner like proof.
I retreated up here straight from the study.
Retreated. That’s a nice way to say ‘running away,’ I guess.
The memory of Lex’s mouth warm on mine, his grip mapped along my ribcage my ribcage is raw enough he might have permanently branded me.
I closed the door, laid out on the bed and listed out all the reasons the right call was to walk away.
Lex had looked at me in the study like I was someone he'd been waiting for. Like the answer to a question he'd been carrying around for years, which is insane, and I know it's insane, and I also can't stop replaying the way he'd said you like it was the whole argument settled.
Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?
I'd fisted his shirt over that. Walked him back a step. And then I'd kissed him, because apparently I had no impulse control.
I told him whatever this was between us was for Espie and Aubrey, about keeping the window open for them while things were fragile.
All true. Not the whole truth. I know how this goes.
I know what I am. A curiosity. A rare card someone collects to prove they handled one, interesting for a few weeks until the novelty wears off.
I ran upstairs and locked my door because I'm a coward.
They've knocked twice. Kev first, three measured raps, his oakwood and whiskey drifting under the door before he even spoke. Sera. Come out when you're ready. Then Ezra, his scent sitting in the gap for a few seconds before his footsteps moved away. I haven't answered either of them.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand. I pick it up expecting Levi.
It's not Levi.
EZRA
It's Aubrey. I know you're in there hiding from us.
Whatever you think you're protecting us from, you're wrong.
Put your big girl panties on and come out.
I read it twice.
Then I read it a third time, because the first two times I'm mostly just staring at the words, reconciling them with my omega. Who has apparently decided that if I won't come to him, he'll drag me out through the phone screen.
I laugh before I can stop it. Short and startled and real.
Big girl panties.
Hot guilt follows the momentary shock. My omega had to text me to see me. That… isn’t good enough.
I swing my legs off the bed and stand, then sway because heated scents drift beneath the door. Flooded with grief and heat and arousal and pure, untarnished want.
Fuck.
My omega in need. My omega being tended by an alpha..
I’m not in my body as I walk downstairs. Aubrey speaks quietly. I can’t make out the words but I understand the tone.
Omega in need.
I should turn around. I know I should turn around and lock myself back inside the room, but I don’t. I step onto the landing. Through the kitchen, into the living area.
Aubrey straddles Ezra, his hands fisted in the front of Ezra's Henley, his back arching as Ezra kisses his neck, one hand cradling the back of his skull and the other moving between them. Ezra’s fist pumps up and down, stroking Aubrey’s cock.
I should go back upstairs.
Aubrey makes a sound that stops every thought I have.
Low and male and urgent, his hips rocking into Ezra's grip, his fingers white-knuckled in the fabric of Ezra's shirt.
Ezra murmurs low against his throat, a sound more than a word, and Aubrey shudders and says please in a voice stripped of everything except want. Gods, the two of them.
Ezra is still fully dressed, unhurried, his whole attention on Aubrey like there is nothing else in the world worth looking at.
And Aubrey is coming undone in his lap, throat bared, hips rolling in a slow desperate rhythm, and he is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
The two of them together are extraordinary.
My clit throbs, the sensation spreading through my body. Wet heat gathers between my thighs and I resist the urge to plunge my hand into my pants and tease myself.
I step toward them, then grip the doorframe hard enough to feel the edge bite into my palm. You're not going in there.
Ezra's hand moves faster. Aubrey's breath comes apart, stuttering into broken sounds, his whole body drawing tight.
His spine curves. His thighs clench around Ezra's hips.
He tips over the edge, mouth falling open, a cry tearing out of him, spilling over Ezra's fist in long shuddering pulses.
Ezra holds him through every one of them, his hand slowing, his other arm wrapping tight around Aubrey's back as Aubrey's body goes slack and heavy with release.
I want to be in that room so badly. I want my hands on both of them. I want to be the one Aubrey collapses against, want to feel Ezra's arm brush mine as we hold him between us.
Ezra cleans his hand and then Aubrey with tissues, then draws Aubrey against his chest. Aubrey goes boneless into him, face pressing into the curve of his throat.
His shoulders start to shake. The tears come quietly, without fight, and Ezra holds him tighter and strokes his back slowly, not trying to stop it, holding him through it.
The gentleness of it guts me. Ezra tucks his chin over Aubrey's head and closes his eyes and holds him, like Aubrey's tears are not a problem to be managed but a thing that's allowed to exist.
He’s better at this than I am. My clock has reached its last second. I step back onto a squeaky floorboard. Aubrey lifts his head.
He finds me in the doorway. Red-rimmed, lashes wet, cheeks flushed and still damp. He doesn’t make any attempt to hide what they’ve been doing.
“How long have you been standing there?” His voice is rough from crying but unhurried.
“Not long.”
He holds my gaze. “You should have come in.”
“I didn't want to interrupt.”
“You're our alpha,” he says. “You don't interrupt. You belong.” He pauses. “Which you would know, if you'd come out of your room.”
My throat constricts.
There it is.
“Aubrey—”
He shifts in Ezra's lap, turning himself to face me more fully, and holds out his hand.
“Come here,” he says. “Come sit with us.”
His slightly crooked fingers are trembling, that baseline tremor that never fully leaves, and they're reaching toward me anyway across the room. Everything in me wants to go to him. That's precisely the problem.
“I don't think that's a good idea.”
“I didn't ask what you think.” His voice is soft but there's iron underneath it. “I asked you to come sit with us. Come here, Sera.”
My name in his mouth. Quiet and certain and using my name like an answer to a question I haven't asked yet. I cross the room.
I sit on the couch beside them, close enough to feel Aubrey’s warmth against my arm. He reaches for my hand, turns it over and traces my knuckles.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Ezra says.
It was the easiest and the hardest thing I’ve done in my life.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I don't move. It buzzes again. Then again. I pull out the phone. Three messages from Levi, timestamps stacked.
LEVI
We have confirmation. The site’s been stationary for three days.
We’ve got a forty-eight-hour window at best before they move.
I might have a match for your missing person.
The next message came with coordinates and a warning to wait for backup.
I was halfway to the door before I finished reading it.
I open the attachment and my stomach drops.
Levi thinks the site is connected to Isla Wilson’s disappearance.
Omega. Nineteen years old. Blonde hair, green eyes, 5'4”.
Missing from Ashvale eight months ago. Last seen leaving her part-time job at a coffee shop, walking toward the bus stop she took every night.
Her mother gripped a cold coffee mug so hard her knuckles went white when she reported her missing daughter. She's only just come back to us properly. After everything that happened at Hearth, she was doing so well. The job was her idea.
Haven shutting down in Canton City had sent shockwaves across the country. New oversight, new intake rules, new paperwork I'd helped draft, convinced it would make a difference. Isla Wilson had walked out of Hearth, Silverpine County's omega sanctuary, and vanished.
I told her mother I wouldn't give up. I never brought her daughter home.
Another message buzzes.
LEVI
S. I know what you're thinking. You have a team. You have me. You also have a pack now and two omegas who are going to feel it if you don't come back. Call me before you move. Doing this alone is not a request.
Aubrey hasn't let go of my hand. His thumb has stopped moving and he's very still, reading the set of my jaw, the way I'm holding my phone, the thing I haven't said yet.
“Don't leave. I need you, Alpha,” Aubrey says. “I… want you.”
Leaving is the kindest thing I know how to do. I’m out of seconds. I ease my fingers out from his and stand. I can’t look at his face. It takes every ounce of willpower I have to step away.
“You are wanted here, Sera. Not for what you do. Just you,” Ezra says.
“We both know this is best.” I duck my head as I cross the floor to the front door. Reach for the handle.
“Please, alpha,” Aubrey whispers.
I stand for a moment, gathering my courage. “I’m sorry I can’t be the Alpha you deserve.”
I open the door and step into a life that will be filled with regret because now I know exactly what I’m leaving behind.
Everything.