Chapter 12
Drake
The sound of Marie's suitcase wheels on the hardwood sets my teeth on edge.
I watch from the kitchen doorway as Ragon rolls it toward the front door, movements mechanical, efficient. Marie follows behind him, her face blotchy from crying. The wailing stopped twenty minutes ago when the registry called and she understood this was actually happening.
Now she just looks resigned.
"Please." Her voice cracks. "Can't you drop me at my cousin Mel’s? I can't go back to the registry."
Ragon doesn't look at her. "You're under registry custody now."
"Ragon, please—"
"That's the law, Marie." Flat. Final.
She stops walking and stares at her suitcase like it belongs to someone else.
I should feel something. Pity, maybe. I've heard Vee talk about the registry enough times to know what it does to an omega—the fluorescent lights, the clinical interviews, the constant sense of being evaluated and found wanting.
I don't feel it.
The biological pull is still there. The alpha instinct to go to her, purr, make the tears stop. She’s my omega.
Fuck biology. I'm done with that.
Marie was fine with Ragon sending Vee back to that same fluorescent hell. As long as it wasn't her. She never said it but I get the feeling that was her goal.
So no. I don't feel sorry for her.
She looks back once at the kitchen where Eli and Jasper sit. Jasper's coffee mug is suspended halfway to his mouth. Eli's eyes are fixed on the wood grain.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry," she says softly. "I never wanted to hurt anyone."
No one answers.
The door closes with a soft click behind them.
"He's been on the phone with lawyers for three days," Jasper says now that they’re gone. He sets his mug down. "He’s trying to find loopholes so he can report her missing without the registry finding out about the heat abandonment."
"He talks about her like a recovered asset," I say. "Not a person he failed."
Eli's eyes cut to me. "You noticed that too."
"Hard not to." I drag a hand through my hair. "Every conversation is about getting her back, not about what we did. Just recovery, like she's lost luggage."
Eli exhales slowly. "I don't know what I want anymore."
I look at him. The dark circles, and wrinkled shirt. Hands wrapped around his mug so tight his knuckles have gone white.
"Me neither," I admit.
"I love her," Eli says, still looking at his mug. "I want her back. But I also know she's probably better off wherever she is. And that kills me."
"Yeah." My throat is tight. "Same."
Jasper stands abruptly, chair scraping. "I need air."
He walks out the back and leaves it open. Cool air drifts in, wet earth and rain.
My room doesn't smell like her anymore.
I haven't changed the sheets. Her scent is gone, I know that, but I can't bring myself to wash away even the idea of it.
I sit on the edge of the mattress and drop my head into my hands.
I love Ragon. He taught me what pack loyalty looked like, what it felt like to belong somewhere without looking over your shoulder.
I love Eli. He’s my best friend and my anchor. The person who knows me better than I know myself.
I love Vee. Since the first time she stress-baked cookies at two in the morning and I found her in the kitchen, flour in her hair and panic in her eyes.
I don't know how to hold all of it at once without breaking.
***
Ragon is pacing when I find him later, phone to his ear, free hand gesturing at no one.
"I understand the legal precedent. What I'm asking is if there's any way to challenge it based on—" He stops. Listens. His jaw clenches. "Fine. I'll call back tomorrow."
He throws the phone onto the couch. It bounces and hits the floor.
"Still no luck?" I ask from the doorway.
He turns. "Every lawyer says the same thing. Heat abandonment automatically terminates custody. I asked them hypothetically.”
"Maybe that's your answer."
His eyes narrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"The law is telling you she's not yours anymore. Maybe you should listen."
"She’s been my omega for five years, Drake." His voice rises. "Five years. And that fucking pack thinks they can just take her because of some biological—"
Rage hits, clean and final.
"Your omega?" The words cut. "When was she ever yours?"
His head jerks back.
"You never bonded her, never claimed her. You kept her in a state of permanent maybe for five years while you waited for something better." The words come out unstoppable. "Then Marie showed up and you threw Vee away like she was nothing."
"I didn't throw her away." His voice goes tight. "I know I fucked up."
"You left her alone while you were with your scent match. She was in pain while we were too deep in rut to hear her. And when we tried to leave the room you wouldn't let us."
His face goes dark. "Watch yourself."
"She was in heat, Ragon. And none of us could hear her because we were too busy with Marie. Because the scent match made us forget everyone else."
He takes a step toward me. "You think I don't know that? You think I don't carry that?"
"I think you're more sorry you lost her than you are about what you did to her." I hold my ground. "I think you want her back so you can feel better about yourself. So you can prove you're still in control. But you don't actually want to make it right. You want to win."
"That's enough." Low. Dangerous.
"You've spent three days on the phone with lawyers. Not once have you asked if she's happy or if she's better off without us."
"She belongs here."
"She belonged here. Past tense. And you threw that away the second Marie walked through the door."
"You don't understand what it was like. The pull, the need—it consumed me. I'm lead. I'm more dominant. I couldn't—"
"I felt it too." The words taste bitter. "We all did. We all made the same choice. We all failed her."
His eyes flash. "Then why are you acting like you're better than me?"
"I'm not." It costs me to say it. "I'm as guilty as you, but at least I can admit it. At least I'm not pretending this is about anything other than my own ego."
Silence.
His chest heaves.
"What do you want from me, Drake?" Rough. Scraped raw.
My chest constricts.
"I don't know," I say. "I don't know what I want anymore."
He looks confused. "What does that mean?"
"I love you." From somewhere deep and true. "I love Eli. I love this pack. But I can't—"
My throat closes.
"I'm leaving."
He freezes.
"What?"
"I can't stay under your lead. Not when I don't trust where you're taking us. Not anymore."
"You're pack." Desperate.
"I know what I was."
His face twists. "I need you. We're brothers."
"Where was that need when Vee was hurting and I wanted to go to her but you wouldn't let me?"
He winces.
"You want me to stay because the pack is falling apart and you need someone to hold it together. But I'm done being that. The hope has gone out of me, Ragon."
He’s silent for a minute, absorbing.
Then dominance hits me like a wall.
It rises off him in waves—pine smoke flooding the room, filling my lungs, pressing down with physical force. The weight of pack hierarchy asserting itself. Every instinct I have screams to submit, to bow, to accept my place beneath it.
Not today.
I shove him.
Hard. Both palms to his chest. He stumbles backward, genuine shock crossing his face before his back hits the wall. In all the years together I've never done that. Not once.
The shock lasts a second, then he comes back.
His fist catches my jaw with a crack. Pain explodes, bright and sharp. Blood floods my mouth.
I swing back. My knuckles find his cheekbone and skin splits. He drives his elbow into my ribs and the air leaves me. My fist connects with his lip and I feel the give of it.
He hits my nose. The crack comes before the pain, and then the blood.
We're both breathing hard, both bleeding. It's not a real fight—we're not trained for this, have no idea how to hurt each other efficiently. It's two men who love each other destroying something irreparable, and it goes on until neither of us has anything left to say with our hands.
I step back, breathing hard.
Eli is in the doorway with his arms crossed and face blank. He’s watching his pack come apart and not moving to stop it. He knows it needs to happen.
I'm shaking when I speak. "I'm sorry."
It's inadequate. I say it anyway.
Then I reach inside and find the bond.
It's woven through everything—bones, blood, years of loyalty knotted into something that was supposed to last. I grab it and I pull.
The pain is immediate and total. Ragon fights it—he doesn't let go, doesn't make it easy, and that's the difference, that's what makes it tear instead of break clean.
Everyone knows this. Subordinate alphas almost never try a forced break precisely because of this, because when the lead holds on you feel every second of their resistance before the bond gives. I'm going to be sick for days.
I knew that going in.
Something fractures and my vision whites out. My knees buckle and I lock them and through the roaring in my ears I hear Ragon make a sound I've never heard from him—low and broken and not quite human.
The emptiness where the bond was opens up immediately. A hollow that radiates outward.
Ragon is on his knees in the middle of his own living room, one hand pressed to his chest, breathing like a drowning man. The most controlled alpha I've ever known, undone.
I walk past him.
Eli is still in the doorway. Our eyes meet in understanding and grief.
He's staying because someone has to, or maybe just because he's not ready, or maybe because Eli has always been the one who sees things through to the bitter end.
I don't have a word for the look on his face.
I'll probably think about it for a long time.
Neither of us speaks.
I walk out.
Three blocks away I have to pull over.
The nausea hits in a wave so complete I barely get the door open. When it passes I lean my head against the steering wheel and breathe.
My knuckles are split. My jaw throbs and my ribs ache. The emptiness in my chest is worse than all of it.
I loved him. I still do. Love doesn't stop because you leave. It just stops being enough of a reason to stay.
I lift my head and look at the rain-blurred street.
I have to find her. I have to tell her I'm sorry. I have to ask if there's any part of her that still wants me, after everything we did.
If she says no, I'll accept it.
But I have to ask.
I wipe my mouth and drive into the rain.