Floating #2
The room goes quiet as he taps the screen of his phone, and I realize there’s a high thin ringing in my ears. Something in my chest tightens and my hand slowly falls away from the ice on Owen’s face. Thankfully, he doesn't seem to notice. The beta is too busy staring at Nico.
"You need to get home," Nico says as his eyes lock on Owen's bruised face.
"Right now. Crispin attacked our beta." There’s a pause and I hear Adrian’s voice rumble on the other end.
"I mean he put his fist in Owen's face, Adrian. He’s got a black eye and a bloody nose." There’s another pause, and Nico’s jaw flexes hard. "Yeah, I know. Just get home."
Time seems to stand still as we wait quietly for both alphas to get home, but thankfully, Adrian and Mack make it home in twenty minutes flat.
The front door bangs open as both alphas come through it fast, and for a second the whole house is in motion.
They both go straight to Owen.
Adrian drops to a crouch in front of the couch and takes Owen's face in his hands, turning it toward the light the way Nico did. Mack stands over them, one hand gripping Owen's shoulder, pure rage pouring off him.
"I'm all right," Owen says, for what has to be the tenth time. "I promise. It's just a nose."
"It's not just a nose," Adrian says quietly.
I watch Adrian's hands cradle Owen's jaw, gentle, tilting his face toward the lamp, and something cold and fast rips through me.
Crispin’s hand clamps down on my face, his fingers digging into my cheeks, crushing the inside of my mouth against my teeth. The copper taste. His face. His voice. His hands.
I flinch hard, a full-body jerk as my breath catches in my throat.
"Lyra?" Nico's voice cuts through the memory, and I blink hard.
Cripsin’s ugly face quickly falls away and I'm back in my own living room, surrounded by my pack.
Nico's looking right at me, only at me, and our bond floods with his worry, warm and immediate, reaching for me across the room.
"I'm here," I manage a quick smile. "I'm okay. I just went somewhere for a second."
But they're all looking at me now.
All four of them, their attention swung off Owen's bloodied face and onto me. Heat crawls up my neck, wishing they’d all look away.
Owen's the one who got hurt today. He’s the one with the bruise and bloody nose, and here I am pulling all their attention over a stupid memory.
Even Owen’s looking at me with those soft hazel eyes, like I'm the one who needs tending.
“Come here.” Owen shifts, and reaches for me without a word. His hands close gently around my arm, and pull me into his lap. I go easily, folding into him, and he wraps himself around me and tucks my head beneath his chin.
My face goes straight to the beta’s neck.
I nose along the warm line of his throat until I find the small spot low on his neck where his scent gland sits. It's nowhere near as big as an alpha's, or my own. His is more faint and shallow, but I seek it out anyway, and press my nose right against it.
Immediately, his comforting scent floods me. Lemon and sage, clean and quiet, and my whole body lets go at once. The tremor in my hands stills and the very last of that shitty memory washes back out of me.
I breathe my beta in and sink, boneless, into the safety of his arms.
Adrian’s large, warm hand settles on my back. He caresses me, moving his hand up and down my spine.
"You okay, sweetheart?" he asks softly.
"I'm okay." I don't lift my head from Owen's neck. "I promise."
Owen's arms tighten around me, drawing me in closer, and I feel him press his cheek to the top of my head.
He holds me like he can't quite get me close enough, like he needed this every bit as much as I did, and I realize he probably did.
He's the one who was assaulted by that piece of shit right in his own office.
So I stay right where I am, and I let him hold on.
"There you go," Owen murmurs into my hair. "I've got you. I'm fine. We're all fine." But I have a feeling he’s not really talking to me.
Nico crosses to the couch and lowers himself down beside Owen. He slides one hand up to the back of the beta’s neck, settling it there, and I feel his attention split, half on Owen, half on me tucked into Owen's other side. Checking us both at once.
"Tell them what you told me," Nico says quietly.
Owen walks Adrian and Mack through it, his voice flat and worn. I keep my face pressed to his throat while he talks, and by the time he gets to the threat against my father, the whole room has gone still.
"That fucker can't be allowed to make that call to Aldric," Nico finally says.
"He won't." Mack’s voice almost sounds cheerful, but there's nothing easy left in his face. "That fucker won’t get a chance.”
I press my cheek harder into Owen's shoulder and make myself breathe. I'm steadier now. The scent of my beta has smoothed the worst of it out of me, and I'm not shaking anymore, but there's a cold certainty sitting in my gut that none of them seem to feel.
"You don't understand what he is," I say. "None of you do. He’s so much worse.”
"Then tell us," Adrian says gently.
I open my mouth and close my eyes, forcing myself to finally say those awful words out loud. "It was him." My voice comes out small and flat. "That night. He’s the one who hurt me."
Owen goes rigid beneath my cheek. His arm tightens around me and his breath stops, going completely still.
But all three alphas look livid. Enraged. Adrian’s eyes go dark, Mack goes completely still, and Nico lets out a deep rolling growl.
I hate this. I hate how angry everyone is, and how bloodthirsty the air has become. But I have no clue how to make it better, so I just say what I feel. "I just wish he was dead."
"That can be arranged,” Mack growls softly, and my head comes up off Owen's shoulder.
"That's not funny."
But nobody's laughing. Especially not Nico, who's looking across the room at Mack with an expression I've never seen on him before. Flat and cold and certain, the two of them sharing a very intense look.
A chill crawls straight up my spine.
Is Mack not kidding?
They're planning something, right now, without a word passing between them, and I feel it settle over the room like a drop in pressure before a storm.
"You can’t meet him," I blurt out. "He's dangerous.”
"So are we." Mack's voice is firm but quiet.
“No.” I shake my head, frustrated that they don’t understand.
"You don't get it. Crispin owns judges. He ruins people for sport. Like it’s nothing.
My god, he punched Owen in his own office without a care in the world.
" My words start coming out faster. "I don't want any of you near him.
I don't. Please, can we just leave? Tonight.
We pack up and go to Halven, and we don't stop until we're far away from here and we never come back. "
"Sweetheart." Adrian reaches for me, his thumb brushing over the edge of my jaw. "I wish that would work. I do. But running won’t stop a man like Crispin Maleth.." He gives me a sad smile. "With the resources he's got, he'd find us. Maybe not right away. But eventually. And we can’t run forever.”
He's right, and I fucking hate it.
"Then what do we do?" My voice cracks. "Because I don't want you anywhere near him. I can't lose any of you to that man. I won't survive it." Hot tears fill my eyes, but thankfully, they don't fall.
The room goes quiet. Then Mack shifts, and when I look up at him, that easy warmth is gone from his face. He looks so serious.
"I think I've got an idea." His green eyes move to Nico, then to Adrian, and hold. "But I'll tell you right now, it's gonna take an ungodly amount of self-control from the both of you. More than you think you've got."
Another one of those weird looks passes between the three of them, a whole conversation I'm not part of.
I immediately frown, knowing that anything outside of murder won’t work, and as much as I’d love that, I simply wouldn’t be able to live with myself if they did something so horrible because of me.
"What are you thinking?" Owen asks, wrapping his arms tight around my middle.
“Well,” Mack says. “I think I might have a way that we can reason with the asshole.”