35. Calliope
Calliope
I wake reaching across an empty side of the bed. The room is dark enough that the furniture has lost its edges, and a thin strip of hallway light reaches beneath the door, cutting across the floor without touching the bed.
Theo is curled against my side with one knee between mine and his face near my shoulder. His breathing is slow, his skin warmer than usual where his arm lies across my waist, and the temporary bite at his shoulder carries the faintest trace of Idris beneath the sweetness of his scent.
The rest of the bed is empty, and my hand begins searching before I am fully awake.
I reach across the sheets behind Theo and find cooling fabric where Idris had been, then sweep my palm toward the other side and touch the edge of a blanket folded back where Sloane left it.
Dash’s pillow remains near the foot of the bed because he climbed in last and settled wherever there was room, but his body is gone too.
I know I am in Dash’s house. The bedroom door is open, the hallway light is on, and Theo is breathing against me with his hand tangled in my shirt. None of those facts stop the cold that spreads beneath my ribs.
For one fractured moment, I am back in the old house after Theo’s first heat.
The air is wrong, the door will not open, and my phone is full of words that sound like people I love deciding I no longer belong with them.
Everyone has made a choice while I was somewhere else, and I have woken after the leaving is already complete.
My fingers close around the bracelet at my wrist. Four pale sections circle the dark metal, each one quiet in the darkness until Idris' begins to glow, steady and soft against my skin. Dash’s follows a moment later, and the sight tells me they are thinking of me even though it can't tell me where they are.
Theo’s section remains dark because his pendant is somewhere beneath the blankets. I can feel the chain shift lightly against his chest when he breathes, and I slide my hand into his hair as if touching him will keep the room attached to itself.
Sloane’s section stays dark.
I stare at it while my mind offers ordinary possibilities.
He could be downstairs getting water, in the bathroom, or in the office with Idris because neither of them knows how to leave a security update alone once it reaches their hands.
My body ignores every explanation and hears only the absence beside me.
I touch the moonstone at my throat and force myself to breathe. The pendant gives a faint vibration against my skin, reminding me that no Alpha command is pressing into my thoughts and Garrett is nowhere in the room.
Theo stirs when I push myself upright. His arm tightens around my waist, and he makes a quiet sound before settling again with his cheek against my thigh. I keep one hand in his hair while the other returns to the bracelet, watching the dark section that belongs to Sloane.
His light comes on so suddenly that my breath catches. It stays bright for several seconds, fades, then returns as though he has pressed his thumb to the paired band twice to make sure I see it.
The bond shifts beneath my ribs at the same time.
It has remained faint since we found each other, damaged by silence and three months of believing the worst, but now it pulls with enough force that I know he has felt something change in me.
No words cross the connection, only a sharp flare of alarm followed by Sloane reaching toward me with everything he has.
Footsteps move quickly through the hallway, and Sloane appears in the doorway wearing soft pants and the shirt he fell asleep in.
His hair is disordered, his phone is still in one hand, and he stops as soon as he sees me sitting upright with Theo across my lap and my fingers wrapped around the bracelet.
“Callie,” he says, his voice low and roughened by sleep as he places the phone on the dresser. He remains near the doorway instead of crossing the room and asks, “Can I sit with you?”
I nod because my throat feels too tight for speech, and Sloane approaches slowly before lowering himself onto the edge of the mattress.
He leaves a careful space between us until I reach for his hand, and when his fingers close around mine, he loosens them enough that I can decide how firmly I want him to hold on.
“I felt you through the bond,” he says, looking from my face to the empty places in the bed and then to the bracelet beneath our joined hands. “I was downstairs. Kade sent an update, and I thought I could read it without waking anyone.”
My gaze shifts toward the open door as I ask where Idris and Dash went. Sloane answers without hesitation, telling me Idris is in the office with Zana on the phone and Dash followed them downstairs because he heard movement and decided to make tea before everyone returned.
“You were all still in the house,” I say, needing to hear the fact in my own voice. “I saw the lights, and I knew you were close.”
Sloane waits while I search for the rest. He does not tell me to calm down or remind me that I am safe, and his thumb moves once over my knuckles while Theo sleeps across my legs.
“My body thought I had woken up after everyone was already gone,” I finally say. “I knew where I was, and I knew Theo was here, but it still felt like I had missed the moment when everything changed.”
Sloane’s face folds around the confession. He looks toward the empty side of the bed as though he can see what it became during the few minutes before he returned.
“I left because the house felt settled,” he says. “You were asleep, Theo was with you, and I thought I could handle one call without disturbing the room.” His fingers tighten before he catches himself and eases the pressure again. “I forgot that settled does not feel the same to you yet.”
“I don't want everyone trapped in bed because I might wake up,” I tell him, and the fear that he will hear obligation instead of need sharpens my voice more than I intend.
“That isn't what I hear you asking for.” Sloane shifts closer by an inch and keeps his gaze on mine. “You need to know when the shape changes. You need the chance to reach us before an empty room becomes the only explanation your body can find.”
The accuracy of it hurts, and I lower my eyes to our hands. His bracelet light reflects faintly against the metal around my wrist while I admit that I am scared one day I will wake up and the leaving will already be finished.
“Everyone will have gone somewhere I can't follow, and I will only find out afterward,” I say. The words scrape their way free, though once they exist between us, my chest loosens by the smallest amount.
Sloane lifts our joined hands and presses his mouth against my knuckles. The kiss lingers, his breath warm against my skin, and when he lowers our hands again, his eyes are wet.
“We’re going to fuck up sometimes, baby,” he says, his voice breaking slightly around the truth. “We’re going to make mistakes, and sometimes one of us will misunderstand what you need.”
Theo shifts at the sound of Sloane’s voice and presses closer across my lap. Sloane glances at him before returning his attention to me, his expression steady despite the grief moving underneath it.
“But we won’t disappear and leave you to figure out what happened,” he continues. “We’ll tell you where we are going, answer when you reach for us, and come back to face the hurt with you. You won’t be left alone with silence while the rest of us decide what the silence means.”
My eyes burn, and I turn my face away before the tears can fall. Sloane lets me have the movement without pretending he missed it, and he tells me that he should have woken me long enough to say he was going downstairs.
“A sentence would have been enough,” he says. “I thought five minutes wouldn’t matter, and I was wrong.”
“You came back,” I whisper, and the bond answers with another low pull beneath my ribs. The words are simple, but something in Sloane’s face changes as if I have placed a fragile piece of our old life into his hands.
“I came back because I felt you reach,” he says. “I would have come back even if the bond had stayed quiet. Now I know how much those minutes mattered.”
I shift toward him, and Theo grumbles when my leg moves beneath his head before curling more tightly around my thigh. Sloane watches me adjust him, waiting until I ask him to stay in the bed.
“I will,” he answers, and he moves only after I lean back and make space beside me.
The mattress dips beneath his weight, and I settle against his chest while Theo remains curled across both of us. Sloane’s arm comes around my waist after I guide it there, his palm spreading over my stomach with a steadiness that lets me feel every breath he takes.
His section of the bracelet lights again. Sloane looks down at the glow and lifts the paired band on his finger, telling me he kept touching it on the way upstairs because he didn't know whether I could see it in the dark.
“I saw it,” I tell him. “It told me you were still connected to me, but it didn't make the empty bed feel full.”
“Then the light did its job, and I still needed to come find you.” Sloane presses his mouth into my hair and remains there as footsteps pause beyond the doorway.
Idris appears first with his phone held low at his side, and Dash follows carrying a tray with tea, water, and a small plate of crackers. Both men stop when they see the way I am folded against Sloane.
Idris studies my face before looking at the bracelet, his section still glowing because his thumb rests against the matching piece. He tells me he left to take Zana’s call and should have woken me long enough to explain where he was going.
Dash sets the tray on the dresser and looks across the empty places in the bed. Understanding settles into his expression as he tells me he heard them downstairs and followed because he thought bringing something back would help.
“It does help,” I say. “I woke up, and only Theo was here.”