Chapter 13
Ragon calls it "an adjustment."
He doesn't say parole, but that's what it feels like.
He tells me in the living room, of course. The place where everything bad seems to get announced lately.
I'm on the same armchair I've been exiled to for weeks, hands folded in my lap like good furniture.
The others are scattered around—Eli with his laptop closed for once, Drake sprawled on the couch with one leg thrown over the arm, Marie tucked beside him, Jasper at the edge of the room like an observing shadow.
Ragon stands.
That's how you know it's official. He doesn't sit for this kind of thing.
"We're changing the restriction."
Marie's fingers tighten on Drake's forearm. Eli's shoulders drop a millimeter. Drake's foot stops bouncing.
My pulse spikes.
Restriction.
He won't call it a ban, even now.
"For the last several weeks, we've had a boundary in place to correct certain behaviors."
He doesn't look at me when he says it. He looks out over all of us, voice smooth, explaining a policy, not a punishment.
"You've done better with it than I expected."
I'm not sure if that's supposed to be praise. It sounds like an assessment on a clipboard.
"You've been respectful. You've been helpful. You've accepted Marie's presence. You've focused on constructive outlets."
Constructive outlets meaning cooking in silence and gardening instead of throwing myself at the walls.
"So we're lifting part of it. The alphas are no longer barred from offering you comfort."
The words hit my body before they hit my brain.
I go lightheaded with want.
Comfort.
Contact.
I feel it like a drug I've been detoxing from.
Eli's scent spikes with something sharp and aching. Drake's does too, briefly, before something in it twists toward Marie where she sits tucked under his arm.
"There are conditions," Ragon adds.
Of course there are.
My eyes fix on a knot in the hardwood so I don't have to look at him.
"This doesn't erase the original lesson. You will remember that there are consequences for lashing out at packmates. You will maintain the respect and restraint you've been showing. If we see the same pattern again, the boundary goes back up. Longer."
"Yes, Alpha."
My voice sounds far away.
Ragon finally looks at me. "You understand?"
"Yes, Alpha."
He studies my face for a second longer, like he's deciding how much of me is compliant and how much is just crushed.
"Good. Then we move forward. Together."
The word together feels like a joke.
He dismisses the whole thing with a nod and sits. Conversation starts back up in cautious little drips. Marie asks about the grocery budget. Drake makes a lazy comment about needing more snacks. Jasper tracks everyone with that quiet, ruthless attention.
Eli doesn't move.
I feel his gaze on me, hot and hesitant.
I don't move either.
I don't trust my body not to betray exactly how desperate I am.
Minutes drag.
Marie says something that makes Drake laugh. She taps his chest with the back of her hand; he catches her fingers and kisses them, casual and easy. His scent curls comfortably around hers.
A little part of me that hasn't gotten the memo about the ban lifting shrivels.
I stand up before I can think better of it.
"Vee?" Eli says, soft.
"I'm going to my room. Garden dirt. Need to change."
It's only half a lie. There is dirt under my nails. There's also the fact that if I stay in this room one more minute, I might cry in front of everyone.
"No one is forbidding you from—" Ragon starts.
"I know. I heard."
"Verena," he says, faint warning.
"Yes, Alpha."
I'm already moving.
I walk away on legs that feel like I stole them.
I don't make it to my room before Eli catches up.
"Vee. Hey. Hey, stop."
I stop.
I don't turn around.
"If I look at you right now, I'll do something pathetic."
"That's my favorite kind of thing you do."
The ache in my chest cracks.
I turn.
He looks wrecked.
Not dramatic-wrecked. Eli-wrecked. Eyes tired, jaw tight, curls slightly out of order like he's run his hands through them too many times. His scent hits me—tea and linen and that calm, grounding alpha thing he does—and for the first time in weeks, there's nothing blocking him from leaning into me.
"I can—" He shakes his head like words aren't enough. "We can— The ban's lifted."
"I heard."
Silence stretches.
"Do you want—"
I stare at his collarbone because looking him in the eye might kill me. "If you ask it like that, I'm going to sob."
His throat works.
"Okay. New approach."
He takes two steps forward and wraps his arms around me.
No hesitation. No half measure.
Just contact.
Full, body-length contact.
My breath leaves in a sound that's not pretty. A choking, broken little whine that's pure omega, pure please.
His scent floods my lungs. My hands fist in the back of his shirt, hauling him in like he's the only solid thing in the world.
"Oh," I say, stupidly, into his chest. "Oh. I forgot."
"Forgot?" he murmurs, tucking his nose into my hair.
"Forgot what this feels like. I've been... rationing memories."
He exhales, long and shaky, right against my scalp. "I'm so sorry. I should have fought harder. I should have—"
"No. No, because then he would have punished you too and I would have—"
"Still. I hated every second."
We stand there like that in the hallway, clinging like we're both afraid someone will walk out and tell us we're wrong.
No one does.
When he finally pulls back, just enough to see my face, his pupils are blown wide. "I'm coming with you. To your room. Unless you don't want that. In which case I'll sit outside the door and lean on it until you change your mind."
My laugh comes out watery. "You're very pushy for a nerd."
"I've had weeks to rehearse this. You're getting the full effect."
"Come on then."
The moment my door shuts behind us, every nerve in my body wakes up.
The nest is as it's been—pillows, blankets, soft things. My things. Their scents are ghosts in the fabric, not even legible to my sensitive nose. Eli's is the strongest, but even that is a memory more than a presence.
He looks at it for all of two seconds before he moves.
"Off. Please."
"What?"
"The scent spray." He points to the bottle on my nightstand. "Off. No more neutralizing. You smell like chemicals and spite."
"It was supposed to make things easier."
"For who? You, or the people who couldn't deal with your distress?"
Shame burns under my skin.The chemical spray had become my shield—a way to mask the increasing sourness seeping into my omega scent with each day I went without an alpha's touch. Let Ragon think his "boundary" wasn't breaking me. Let him believe I was fine.
"I can't... If I smell like this, it's obvious. The need. The everything. It feels like too much."
He steps closer. "Vee. You are a lot. That's the point. You are not supposed to be turned down to 'background.'"
My throat tightens.
"Okay," I whisper.
He picks up the bottle, studies it like it insulted him personally, then sets it facedown in the drawer. Closes it.
The room smells different as soon as he exhales—richer, warmer, his scent unfurling like it's been holding its breath.
My body stutters.
"Into the nest. Before you fall over."
I obey without thinking.
My knees sink into familiar give. This is where I belong. I know that with a bone-deep certainty. For weeks, it's been a place I sit in alone and try to pretend that's enough.
Eli climbs in after me, moving slowly, as if I might spook. He settles behind me, one leg on either side of my hips, his chest to my back. An alpha-shaped bracket around my smaller, twitchy body.
"Okay?" he murmurs, mouth close to my ear.
"Ask me in five minutes."
His arms wrap around my middle, firm and steady. One hand slides under my hoodie, palm spreading over my ribcage, the heat of him seeping into my skin.
I make a sound I've never made before. A sort of half-wail, half-sigh.
"Jesus. You're shaking."
"Blame your boss. I— I needed this. I didn't realize how bad until—"
Until his weight, his warmth, his scent are all around me, and my instincts, starved and frantic, finally slam against something they recognize as home.
He nuzzles into the crook of my neck, inhaling deeply. His stubble scrapes my skin, and it feels obscene and perfect. "I'm going to fix your nest. Right now. Starting with this."
He starts scenting.
Not subtle. Not polite.
Full, deliberate rubs of his jaw and mouth along my throat, my shoulder, the line of my jaw. His scent glands work overtime, laying claim, replacing neutral spray and fear with tea and warmth and Eli.
My breath stutters. My whole body arches into it like a plant toward light.
"Eli, you're going to short out my brain."
"Good. Your brain has been very mean to you lately."
He drags his nose along the curve where my neck meets my shoulder, slow and thorough. Every pass leaves behind a deeper thread of him.
Heat pools low in my belly, but it's not about sex. Not really. It's everything else—the safety, the belonging, the wordless mine that my body has been dying to hear.
I twist, needing to see him. He lets me turn in his arms, rearranging us so I'm half on top of him, knees bracketing his hips, hands fisted in his shirt.
His eyes are dark and soft and hungry all at once.
"Hi," he murmurs.
"Hi."
We stare at each other, the silence full of all the things we didn't get to say when I was kneeling on hardwood trying not to sob.
Then he cups my face in both hands and kisses my forehead.
It undoes me more than any mouth-to-mouth kiss could have.
Tears prick hot and fast. "Don't. If you're nice to me, I'll fall apart."
"Fall apart. I'll hold the pieces."
Something in me gives up the fight.
I don't sob like I did on punishment night. That was quiet, desperate, throttled. This is softer. A leak instead of a rupture. Tears slide down my cheeks as I tuck myself into his chest and let his scent rewire my nervous system.
He keeps talking in that low, soothing voice, nothing important, just steady words.