Chapter Forty-Eight
Rhea
T he light through the curtains is gold-soft. The kind of light I haven’t woken up to in… years. Maybe ever.
I blink against it, half-expecting a voiceover to whisper something about desire or untamed instinct.
Instead, I get Lucian. Which, honestly, might be the same thing.
He’s still behind me, warm and massive and inexplicably comfortable for a guy who’s mostly made of jaw tension and trauma. His arm is slung around my waist like it belongs there - like I belong there - and for the first time in actual years, my body isn’t fighting itself.
No heat. No ache. No panic. Just… calm.
I try not to overanalyze it. I try not to ruin it.
And then, predictably, he shifts.
He moves like I’m a sleeping bear he doesn’t want to startle. His arm untangles slowly, and he edges toward the side of the bed with the kind of careful silence that screams military extraction instead of just getting up for tea.
I stir anyway, because my omega instincts are nosy and emotionally codependent now, apparently. He pauses, turning halfway, and we do the world’s weirdest half-eye-contact dance.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he says.
I blink at him, hair sticking to my face. “You didn’t. I was just... pretending to be a person.”
He doesn’t smirk, exactly. But there’s a ghost of one, and I take it as a win.
He grabs a bundle of clothes off the dresser and walks back over like he’s handing me classified documents instead of a pair of sweatpants and another black T-shirt that is 100% his and 1000% going in my bag the second I get a chance.
“You can wear these,” he says, holding them out.
I accept the offering like it’s sacrament.
“Thanks. Very casual-chic. Murder-your-father-in-court-core.”
That earns a real smile - brief, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, but it’s there.
He lingers for a second too long. Not like he’s trying to intimidate me. Just… watching. And not in that hypercritical, what-are-you-hiding way he usually does. No, this is different.
Like he’s trying to memorize something about me before I disappear.
“How are you feeling?” he asks, and the question is so normal I almost short-circuit.
“Oh, you mean emotionally or, like, vaginally?”
His mouth twitches. “Dealer’s choice.”
I sit up straighter, hugging the blanket to my chest.
“Better,” I say honestly. “Less… feral. Less likely to hump a throw pillow just because someone breathes too close to me.”
Lucian tilts his head, like this is fascinating and possibly medically relevant. “So… heat’s easing?”
“Maybe. Or maybe I’ve just hit that weird in-between stage where I’m not actively dying, but also still a biological disaster.”
“That sounds about right.”
He pulls on a shirt like it’s a statement piece - precisely folded sleeves, straight collar. A man who dresses like he’s ready for a negotiation or a hostage situation.
“I’ll be downstairs,” he says, hand on the door. Then - casual, too casual - he adds: “You want tea?”
I blink. “ Tea ?”
He nods, and there’s this tiny, horrifying twitch of uncertainty on his face - as though he’s bracing for me to say no.
Like offering me Earl Grey is the most vulnerable thing he’s done in years.
It breaks something in me. Or softens it. I can’t tell which.
“...Yeah,” I say. “Okay.”
He nods once - almost grateful - and slips out the door.
And I sit there, blinking in the aftermath. Clutching this bundle of clothes that smells like power and leather and quiet control.
The shirt is soft. Probably washed a hundred times. Definitely stolen the second he leaves it unattended.
I pull it on slowly, still barefoot, still sore in every conceivable way. And yet… better. Whole-er. Almost suspiciously okay.
Which is, frankly, alarming.
Because now I have to deal with things. Like Kai and Theo. Like Ash and the conversation we definitely still haven’t had.
Like the fact that my heat might be fading, but my real-life disasters are still very much active.
There’s Lexi to contact. My fake Beta ID that's probably flagged. And my unpaid rent.
I flop backward on the bed, hair sticking up in all directions, and sigh dramatically at the ceiling.
“Okay, Rhea. Let’s pretend you’re a functioning adult now. Let’s pretend you’re not half-wrecked, emotionally entangled with four alphas, and currently hiding from both the Omega Management Board and your landlord.”
I lie there in Lucian’s shirt, smelling like knot and power and terrible decisions, and add:
“Step one: survive tea.”