Chapter Forty-Seven
Rhea
T he room looks like it’s been hit by a very horny tornado.
Sheets hanging off the bed. Dresser skewed like it tried to escape halfway through. Lamp? Dead. May it rest in shattered, questionably expensive peace.
And me?
I’m still impaled on an alpha like a decorative cocktail olive.
Lucian’s knot is still swollen, still locked inside me, still… doing things that are deeply unfair to my ability to function. Emotionally or otherwise.
I collapse forward with all the grace of a tranquilized giraffe, legs jelly, thighs soaked, brain fried. Lucian shifts underneath me with a grunt and wraps those too-big, too-strong arms around me like he’s trying to pass as emotionally competent.
One of his hands finds my hip - gentle now, because apparently he flips into Tender Mode post-destruction. The other wraps across my waist, anchoring me to the alpha equivalent of a human furnace.
My cheek hits his chest, and I blink at a sweat-slick patch of skin and try not to cry or laugh or - god, I don’t even know - sneeze? Black out? Declare taxes?
It’s all on the table.
And then, because my life is a rom-com written by someone with a severe dominance kink, he kisses my hair.
Like… softly.
As though I didn’t just scream his name and beg him to knot me so hard the bedframe audibly resigned.
His other hand slides into my hair - fingers combing through the tangles, smoothing them back like I’m something delicate. Reverent.
Which is extremely confusing considering he railed me into the dresser less than fifteen minutes ago.
I should say something. A joke. A snark. Literally anything except the soft, pathetic whimper that escapes me like I’m in the world’s filthiest Hallmark movie.
Lucian doesn’t speak. He just pulls me tighter and presses another kiss to my temple as though it doesn’t cost him five years off his lifespan.
I breathe him in as I lie there. Sticky. Shaky. Barely emotionally stable.
And I realize - horrifyingly - that I might actually like this.
The quiet. The warmth. The fact that his knot is still very much a logistical issue I’ll be dealing with for the next however-many-minutes it takes for biology to remember I’m not built like a glow stick.
The bond hums. Not sharp. Not invasive. Just... present. And so is he.
My throat closes up as tears press behind my eyes, sharp and hot and unwanted. I blink them away.
I don’t cry. I’ve never cried for a man in my life.
But this…
This is too much.
The softness of his touch. The absence of anger.
The way he’s still inside me and holding me like he wants to keep me there forever.
Neither of us speaks, but the bond? The bond says everything .
And for once, I let it be enough.
*
Sleep sneaks up on me this time. Not like before, when it came clawing with exhaustion and heat, when my body folded in on itself like an overcooked noodle and just gave up.
No, this time it comes warm. Gentle.
Lucian is still beneath me. Still inside me, knot and all, because apparently that’s a real thing I now factor into my nap schedule. His breath is steady against my hair. His skin is hot, his arms heavy, and for the first time in heaven knows how long, I don’t feel like I’m bracing for impact.
I don’t feel like I’m one wrong word away from unraveling.
I just… am .
And it’s not a disaster.
His chest rises and falls beneath mine. His arms are wrapped tight around my back. And there’s this terrifying, beautiful thought that settles over me like dew:
I’m safe here. Like, actually safe. Not fake-it-til-you-make-it, not Lexi-passing-me-a-shot-and-saying-“ you’re fine, babe ” kind of safe.
Real safe.
Which is terrifying, because now I want it. Now I want them - all of them - and wanting something this much means it can be taken away.
But for the moment, I let myself have it. Just a minute of peace. Of stillness. Of not spiraling.
A full-body exhale.
And then, Lucian moves.
Just a shift. A subtle, careful little tug of his hips like he’s trying to sneak out of me without waking the very exhausted, emotionally fragile omega he absolutely just folded in half.
“Lucian?” I mumble, half-asleep and full of bond-laced regret that I didn’t eat more toast earlier. “Are you trying to sneak out ?”
He freezes like a kid caught stealing cookies. His hand stills on my thigh.
I blink blearily in the low light. “I swear to god, if you roll away while your knot is still in me, I will find a way to sue you for emotional damage.”
Lucian exhales, long and low, and gently pulls me down with him. Not out of me, thank god - no, just repositioning.
Onto his chest first, then he rolls us until I’m curled on my side, back against his chest.
Big spoon: alpha edition.
His arm wraps around my waist. His face presses into my hair like he’s trying to disappear inside it.
And for some reason… that’s what breaks me.
Not the knot. Not the sex. Not the emotional rollercoaster I’ve been riding with no seatbelt for the past however many days.
This.
Him, tucked against me like I’m something he wants to keep warm. Like I’m not too much. Like I’m not too broken. Like I don’t come with a full set of emotional baggage and illegal suppressants and a pack of alphas who weren’t supposed to exist in my life.
His hand starts rubbing gentle little circles on my stomach like it’s no big deal, as if it’s not the most intimate, terrifyingly sweet thing anyone has ever done to me.
I almost start crying.
But I don’t. Because I’m not sad. I’m not even scared. I’m just… cracked open.
Everything in me is soft and pink and raw, and I feel that pulse beneath my ribs again.
A heartbeat I didn’t know was mine.
“...Can you feel that too?”
Lucian hums low behind me. “Yeah.”
I turn just enough to meet his eyes over my shoulder.
“It’s new,” I say. “I didn’t know it would feel like this. I don’t know how any of this works.”
His lips tilt into something just shy of a smile. “Neither do I.”
I blink. “Wait. You ? Lucian Vale? Mr. Ice Spine and Death Stare? You don’t know what you’re doing?”
That earns me a breathy laugh - small, but real. “Apparently, I’ve got a lot to learn.”
“Well,” I murmur, grinning into the dark, “that makes two of us. Though in fairness, I have been faking it for seven years, so technically I’m ahead on hours.”
He squeezes my waist gently. “You’re doing just fine.”
That . That right there? The calm, simple way he says it?
I almost sob.
Instead, I take another deep breath. Let it fill every part of me. Let myself feel what I’ve been too scared to say aloud.
I’m not alone anymore.
“I never meant for any of this,” I whisper.
His arm tightens around me. “I know.”
There’s no edge to it. No resentment.
I close my eyes again as my head fall back against his shoulder.
And for once, I let myself go. I let myself believe that I’m not a mistake. That I’m not broken.
That I don’t have to earn being held.
And when sleep finally finds me, wrapped in a bond I didn’t ask for but couldn’t survive without, it feels like coming home.