Chapter 3
Vee
I wake in pieces.
Malcolm's purr registers first. Deep and steady. It sinks into my bones before I'm conscious enough to open my eyes.
Then the ache. Everywhere. My thighs, hips, throat.
I'm curled against his chest. His arm is heavy across my waist. The room smells like coffee and wildflowers and sweat and sex.
"Hey," he murmurs when I stir. "You with me?"
I make a sound that might be yes.
"Good. Drink this."
He helps me sit up enough to sip water from a bottle. My hands shake and he steadies them.
The water is cold, perfect and gone too fast.
"More?" he asks.
I nod.
He reaches for another bottle on the nightstand. I drink half of it before the heat surges back in.
I gasp and curl forward. The bottle slips from my fingers. Malcolm catches it before it spills.
His hand spans my lower back. "There you are."
The heat surges back fast. Vicious. My body doesn't care that I just woke up, that I'm sore or that I can barely think.
It just needs.
Malcolm shifts me onto my back and moves between my legs. When he pushes inside I sob with relief.
He fucks me into the mattress with hard strokes that never seem to let up. I gasp and moan and whine for every one of them.
He knots deep and I come apart twice before the world goes quiet again.
Then I pass out again.
***
The next time I wake Finn is there.
He's sitting on the edge of the bed. Fully clothed. His hand is cool on my forehead.
"Hey, sweetheart," he says softly. "How are you feeling?"
"Tired."
"Sweet girl. You're doing so well."
I blink up at him. "Where's Malcolm?"
"Resting. He's been with you for hours." He says it softly. "You're doing so good, Vee. I’ll help you now."
"Alex?"
Finn's expression softens. "Still outside the door. He's not going anywhere."
I don't know if what I feel is relief or sadness or just exhaustion.
"Why won't he come in?" I hate how whiny my voice sounds.
"He will. When it's safe. I promise. He's doing this for you, Vee. So you'll have a choice if everything works out."
I don't understand but I'm too tired to push.
Finn helps me sit up. There's a protein bar on the nightstand. He unwraps it and hands it to me.
"Eat."
I take a bite. It tastes like cardboard but my stomach doesn't care. I'm starving.
Finn watches me eat with that careful attention he always has. Like he's cataloging every small thing.
When I'm done he takes the wrapper and sets it aside.
"Do you need anything else? Water? Bathroom?"
"Bathroom."
He helps me stand. My legs barely hold me. He keeps an arm around my waist as we cross to the attached bathroom.
"I've got it from here," I say.
He nods and steps outside. Pulls the door mostly closed but leaves it cracked.
I use the toilet. Wash my hands. Catch sight of myself in the mirror.
I look wrecked.
Hair tangled. Eyes glassy. Skin flushed. My neck is bare but I can see faint marks on my skin where Malcolm's teeth scraped.
No bites. No claims.
Just temporary.
The thought should make me feel relief maybe. Or disappointment.
Instead I just feel empty.
I splash water on my face and go back out.
Finn is waiting. He helps me back to bed.
"Do you want me to stay?" he asks.
"Yes."
He kicks off his shoes and climbs in beside me. Pulls me against his chest. His scent is warm and familiar.
No overwhelming alpha pheromones. It's good for the calm moments since his scent doesn’t kickstart my cramps.
I close my eyes and let myself drift.
***
Time stops meaning anything.
I wake periodically and Malcolm is there. Or Finn is there. Or sometimes both.
They feed me. Give me water. Help me to the bathroom.
Malcolm takes me through the waves. His body over mine. That deep relief that comes and goes too fast.
Finn fills the gaps. His mouth. His hands. His patient attention that makes me feel seen even when I can barely think.
At some point I ask for Alex again.
"He's still there," Malcolm says. "Right outside."
"Why can't he come in?" I keep asking it, even though I know they won't answer.
They keep giving the same answer. But he's my alpha.
We're matched. Why is he rejecting me? It's like deja vu.
My first pack returned me because they found their scent match.
Ragon's pack abandoned me for theirs. But Alex is my scent match.
And he still won't come in. What is so fundamentally wrong with me that no alpha wants to keep me?
I want to argue with Malcolm but the next wave seizes me before I can form the words.
He covers me. Holds me through it. When I finally come down I'm crying and I don't remember starting.
***
Guilt surfaces in the quiet moments.
Between waves when I'm lucid enough to think.
I'm with another pack.
Ragon's pack is across the yard and I'm here in an almost stranger's bed with an alpha I barely know. Letting their beta touch me. Craving the other alpha just outside the door.
My stomach twists.
Ragon will be furious.
The thought comes with a surge of fear that makes my heart race.
He's punished me for so much less. For existing near Marie. For taking up space.
What will he do when he finds out about this?
The nest punishment flashes through my mind. Their combined scents in my safe space. Being forced to watch. To hear. To feel.
My breathing quickens.
"Hey." Finn's hand cups my face. "Where'd you go?"
"I'm going to be in so much trouble."
His brow furrows. "What?"
"Ragon. When he finds out. He's going to—" My voice cracks. "He's going to punish me."
"No he's not."
"You don't know him. You don't know what he—"
"Vee,” Finn says. "You're not going back there."
The words don't make sense.
"I have to. He's my alpha."
"Not anymore."
I stare at him. "What?"
"We'll explain everything. I promise. But you're safe here. Ragon can't touch you."
I want to believe him.
But I've heard promises before. And I don't know if I want it to be true. I love my pack.
Don't I?
There was never this with them. Not like this. There’s a difference between fucking a scent match and fucking an alpha I love—they're both intense, but this is deeper, something that bypasses thought entirely. This must be what my alphas felt with Marie. This must be why they stopped seeing me.
I understand it now. I hate that I understand it.
But it isn’t the same. It must not be.
Because even with my body calling hard for Malcolm, even craving Alex through the wall, I still feel the pull toward my own pack. This doesn't erase five years. So why did the pull to Marie erase me for them?
I'm still angry. I don't think I want to go back. But I still care, and I don't know what to do with that.
The heat crashes back in before I can finish the thought. Finn's hands find me, his attention focused and complete, and everything else disappears.
When I come down I'm too exhausted to remember what I was afraid of.
***
I wake to voices below me. Through the floor, maybe, or through the walls. The heat makes it hard to locate sound.
"—should have told her the truth a long time ago—"
Finn. Frustrated. Pacing, maybe. I can picture him running his hands through that messy hair.
"—never should have let it get this far—"
Malcolm. His voice is harder to hear. Quieter by nature. But there's guilt in it. It’s heavy.
"—no one expected it escalate like this, for them to fucking abandon her in heat—"
“—fuck the flag, fuck the registry, it’s worth it—"
I don't know what that's about. Are they talking about Ragon? Marie? Me?
My brain grasps at the fragments, trying to assemble meaning, but the heat pulls me back under before I can make sense of any of it.
I'll remember later.
***
Finn is holding my head up, helping me drink. The water is cool against my raw throat. I manage a few swallows before my stomach revolts.
I barely make it to the edge of the bed before I'm sick.
Shame floods through me, hot and immediate. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"
"Don't." His voice is sharp enough to cut through the fog. "Don't apologize for being in heat."
I blink at him, still trembling.
His expression softens, but the anger underneath doesn't fade. It's just not pointed at me. It's pointed at whoever taught me to apologize for my body's needs. At the months of conditioning that made sorry my first instinct.
"You're not an inconvenience," he says, quieter now. "You're not a burden. Your body is doing exactly what it's supposed to do. The only thing you need to apologize for is nothing."
I don't know what to do with that.
He cleans up without complaint, brings fresh water, moves me back against the pillows. His hands are gentle and efficient. No judgment. No disgust.
Just care.
I cry again. Quieter this time. He pretends not to notice.
***
I startle awake to Finn's voice, urgent: "We need to move. Tonight."
Another voice. Deeper. Authoritative. Not Malcolm, not Alex. Someone I recognize but can't place through the haze. It reminds me of penguins at the zoo. The same voice I heard there once.
They're outside the door, voices muffled but still loud enough for me to catch their words.
"I have a place up north. Off the grid."
"Is it safe?"
"Safer than here. The registry can't track you there. Ragon won't find you."
Silence. Then Malcolm: "She can't travel like this."
"She can if she's knotted along the way. It'll keep her stable enough to make the drive."
My brain tries to process. Moving. Leaving. Going somewhere.
Away from here.
Away from Ragon. Drake. Eli.
The thought should terrify me. It doesn't. I'm too far gone for terror. All I feel is the exhausted relief of someone else making the decision for me.
I'll be angry about that later, probably.
Right now, I just want to stop hurting.
***
I surface on Malcolm's lap in a moving vehicle.
He's still inside me, softening, his arms wrapped around me—one hand across my lower back, the other cradling my head against his shoulder. He doesn't care about the state of his jeans that I’m currently soaking. I'm barely aware enough to care about anything.
The world outside the windows is dark. Headlights cut through the black, illuminating nothing but road and trees and the occasional flash of a sign. I don't know where we are. I don't know how long we've been driving.
Finn at the wheel. His shape in the dashboard light.
Alex in the passenger seat. The back of his head.
Juniper and coffee together. My body knows before my mind does. Arousal stirs low, reaching for him even now.
I make a sound.
Alex goes very still. Doesn't turn.
Malcolm's arms tighten around me. "Almost there," he murmurs against my hair. "Just a little longer. Don’t worry."
I think of Ragon in that house. Sitting in the dark, not knowing I’m being taken away.
The words won't come for anything else. The heat pulls me back under and I go, Malcolm's heartbeat under my ear. His warmth everywhere. His scent is the last thing I hold onto.
I don't know where I'm going.
I only know that I'm leaving.
And right now, I think that's okay.