Chapter Fifty-Five
Rhea
T he bed smells like him.
Lucian .
Leather and steel and smug superiority - but under it all, something warmer. Something I’ve started to think of as home.
The sheets are rumpled, the air thick with the scent of bond and sex and… well, us . It’s overwhelming in the kind of way that makes you want to lie still forever and hope no one asks you to move. Lucian’s arms are wrapped around me, one hand splayed over my belly like he’s claiming the entire lower half of my body for the alpha nation.
I should feel claustrophobic. I should feel unmoored.
But all I feel is safe. And deeply, deeply sore.
I stretch a little and immediately regret it. My thighs ache. My back twinges. I might never recover full range of motion.
Lucian shifts behind me, pressing his nose to the back of my neck.
“You’re awake,” he murmurs.
“Barely,” I croak. “You broke my pelvic floor.”
He chuckles, low and unbothered, brushing a kiss along my shoulder like that somehow makes up for wrecking me from five separate angles.
We lie there in the quiet, until I say the thing that’s been crawling up my spine since the moment I opened my eyes.
“What happens now?”
Lucian's hand stills. His voice is calm, but there's tension underneath.
“Now, we figure it out. Together.”
I roll onto my back so I can see him. “That’s… very vague for a man with spreadsheets and an emotional kill switch.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Do you want a spreadsheet for your post-heat existential crisis?”
“…Maybe.”
He just stares, unamused. I sigh and rub my face.
“I just - seven years I kept my head down. I ran from heat, from registration, from… everything. And now I’m here, with you guys, and I’m...” I swallow hard. “I’m happy. But I don’t know how to live outside this house anymore. The world isn’t just going to let me come waltzing back like ‘Oops, my bad, just out here committing omega felonies but it’s cool now, I’ve got a boyfriend harem.’”
Lucian’s expression doesn’t change. But his hand shifts, coming up to brush a thumb along my jaw.
“You’re not alone,” he says. “We’ll handle it. One thing at a time.”
“Lucian,” I whisper. “Your father works for the OMB. I spent seven years breaking their rules. Do you think he’s just going to shake my hand and offer me a seat at the family dinner table?”
“No,” he says calmly. “But he’ll understand what it means when I stand beside you.”
My stomach flips. “So you are going to tell him?”
“I have to. Soon. And he’ll want to meet you. Assess you.” His voice hardens. “He’ll see what I see. And if he doesn’t - then he’ll learn.”
Cool . No pressure. Just a meeting with the guy who oversees the organization that could’ve locked me in a scent-suppression cell for most of my adult life. Love that for me.
“I can’t pretend that part’s not terrifying,” I admit.
“You don’t have to pretend,” he says. “Just stand with us. You’re not the one who should be afraid.”
I nod, but it’s the slow kind. The kind that says I hear you , not I believe you.
Because deep down, I don’t know what happens when I walk out that door. Not really.
My phone buzzes from the nightstand, and I lurch upright with a groan and grab it.
One message. From Lexi.
If these assholes have locked you in a knot dungeon, blink twice.
My throat tightens. Then I laugh. Sharp, breathy, too full of everything.
Lucian watches me read the text. “Lexi?”
“Yeah,” I say softly. “She’s going to kill me. And then maybe cry. And then kill me again.”
“She knows?”
“She knows now. Kai and Theo made sure she got the message. But still.” I rub a hand over my face. “I disappeared on her. My best friend. And now I have to explain that I've been hiding the truth from her for seven years, bonded four alphas in less than two weeks, ran out of suppressants, and basically set fire to the rulebook.”
Lucian just nods like that’s fine. “You’ll talk to her. She’ll see how strong you are. And what this means.”
“You say that like she’s not going to show up here with a bat.”
“She’s welcome to try.”
I roll my eyes. “Great. That’ll go over well.”
He grins, and for a second, I actually believe it’ll all be okay.
A groan comes from the couch.
“Why are you people awake ?” Kai sits up like a hungover frat god, shirtless and deeply offended by morning. “Do you even know how much cardio we did last night?”
Ash snorts from the armchair without opening his eyes. “You did thirty percent of the work and ninety percent of the talking.”
“Which is impressive, frankly,” Theo says from the foot of the bed, stretching. “You should be proud.”
“I am,” Kai says brightly. “I’m also starving. And slightly traumatized.”
“You started the trauma,” I mutter, hauling myself to my feet and grabbing the nearest shirt. Lucian’s, again. It smells like sex and sin and security clearance.
Downstairs, we do what we always do now: we cook. We eat. We bicker. We hover.
Theo slides pancakes onto a plate with the care of a man doing penance. Kai steals a sausage link and gets a smack. Ash keeps watching the windows like someone might try to breach the compound.
And Lucian? He pours coffee. He kisses the back of my neck. And he doesn’t flinch when I say, “We have to face the real world soon.”
He just says, “Then we will.”
I nod, but there’s a rock in my stomach. The OMB. My apartment. My missing freelance gigs. My suppressants supplier probably thinks I died. My landlord definitely thinks I skipped town. The whole city might already be whispering about what happened at the gala. About the girl who vanished.
And about the alphas she left with.
Everything’s changed. And now, we have to live in that change.
Theo sets a plate in front of me. “One day at a time?”
Ash leans against the counter, arms crossed. “Start with today.”
Kai dumps syrup over his entire plate like it’s a sugar crime scene. “And maybe tomorrow we explain to Lexi that she’s not allowed to murder us until we’ve at least done laundry.”
Lucian catches my gaze across the room, his voice quiet but steady. “We do this together.”
I look around at them.
My Alphas. My chaos.
My terrifying, impossible, perfect mess of a future.
And I believe it. Not because I’m sure, but because I don’t have to be sure alone.
I stand. My hand slides over the mark on my neck, then the ones above my heart, my shoulder. I breathe in deep.
“I’ll call Lexi today,” I say. “And tomorrow… we figure out what the hell we’re doing with my landlord, the OMB, and the press.”
“Press?” Kai perks up. “Should I wear something tight?”
“Please don’t,” Ash mutters.
“I’m just saying, if we’re going public -”
“We’re not going public,” Lucian cuts in. “Not yet.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Not yet?”
He shrugs. “Not if we have to. Let's just... see where we're at first. Let them speculate. And when we’re ready, we do it our way.”
Theo nods. “Together.”
The word echoes like a promise.
Together.
One day at a time.
And maybe - just maybe - that’s enough.
The End