Chapter 29
Vee
I wake up at five in the morning and lie there staring at nothing for an hour before I give up on sleep entirely.
The hearing starts at nine.
It's five-fourteen.
I get up, pad downstairs, and find Rhys already in the kitchen. He's standing at the counter in the dark with a glass of water, looking out the window at nothing. He turns when he hears me on the stairs and his face softens.
He holds his glass out.
I take it and drink half.
We stand in the kitchen in the dark without talking, and it helps more than talking would have.
By seven the whole house is awake and by eight I have made myself unbearable.
I'm not doing it on purpose. I'm just… moving. From the kitchen to the living room to the porch and back, unable to stay anywhere for longer than three minutes, picking things up and putting them down without knowing why I picked them up in the first place.
"Vee," Finn says patiently, watching me rearrange the books on the shelf for the second time. "You're going to wear a hole in the floor."
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You've moved those books four times."
"I'm organizing."
"You're catastrophizing. Sit down."
I sit down. Then stand back up forty seconds later.
Malcolm appears in the doorway and takes one look at me. "Chase is going to win."
"You don't know that."
"I do know that. I've seen most of the evidence. It's airtight."
"The registry can be unpredictable. Chase said so himself."
"Chase said that months ago. He's confident now."
"But what if—"
"He's going to win, Vee."
I look at him. "But what if he doesn't? What if they rule in Ragon's favor? What if they decide guardianship stays with him and I have to—" I stop. The words get stuck somewhere in my chest. "Will you hide me? If it goes wrong. Could we just—run somewhere? Go somewhere they can't find us?"
The room is very quiet.
Malcolm crosses to me and takes my face in his hands. His scent wraps around me and I breathe it in deliberately, trying to let it do what it usually does.
"Listen to me," he says. "No one is making you go back to Ragon. I don't care what the registry says. You are not going back there."
"But the flag—Alex's flag—"
"I don't care about the flag,” he says. "If it comes to it, we'll figure something out. But it's not going to come to it."
"Malcolm—"
"Vee." He locks his eyes onto mine. "No one is taking you anywhere you don't want to go. That's done. That's over. You are going to choose from now on. Do you understand me? We will find a way. No matter what."
I look at him for a long moment.
Then I nod.
He releases my face and goes back to whatever he was doing, which was also nothing, just orbiting me at a slightly larger radius.
The morning moves like cold syrup.
Alex reminds me three times that Chase is optimistic.
Finn makes tea I don't drink and sits beside me on the couch and lets me spiral without trying to talk me out of it, which is somehow more helpful than words.
Rhys doesn't say much but at some point he positions himself in the armchair across from me and stays there, a steady presence, and every time the anxiety spikes I find my eyes going to him and the knot loosens slightly.
Around ten I give up on the couch and go to Rhys instead.
I just climb into his lap without asking. He shifts to make room for me, arms coming around me with that automatic careful certainty he always has, his chin resting on the top of my head.
"What if it goes wrong," I say into his chest.
His purr starts, the broken depth of it vibrating through his sternum into mine, soothing in a way he knows I need right now.
"Then we handle it," he says.
"How?"
He's quiet. Then: "Together."
It's not a detailed plan; it's not a guarantee. But how he says it—flat and certain, like it's just a fact he's reporting—calms me in a way that nothing else has managed all morning.
I stay in his lap.
The hours pass.
Chase's car pulls up at two-seventeen.
I'm out of Rhys's lap and on my feet before the engine cuts.
Through the window I can see both of them—Chase in the driver's seat, Arden getting out of the passenger side. Their shoulders are loose, their steps unhurried… it's the body language of positivity.
I'm practically bouncing on my toes by the time the door opens.
Chase comes in first.
He looks at me.
And he smiles.
It's not a big smile. Chase doesn't do big smiles. But it's real and warm and the expression of a man who has spent months working toward something and has just watched it land.
The breath goes out of me all at once.
"They ruled against him," I say. Not a question.
"They ruled against him," Chase confirms. "Guardianship removed, effective immediately. He's been fined and given extensive community service."
I turn and throw myself at Alex.
No warning, no hesitation—I just go straight to him.
His arms catch me and close around me and I hold on with both hands fisted in his shirt.
His face comes down against the top of my head and he holds me there like he doesn't care about anything else in this moment.
The flag, the registry, the careful distance he's been maintaining for months… none of it matters at this very second.
Just this.
I hold on for a long time.
When I finally pull back his eyes are bright and he doesn't say anything and I don't either. He sits down in the armchair, pulls me into his lap and turns me so I can face the room. His arms stay around me and I let them.
Arden takes a seat. Chase settles across from us, and they walk us through it—Jasper's testimony, Eli's testimony, the recordings, the board's response, the female alpha who delivered the verdict with disdain she didn't bother to conceal.
Drake listens from his chair by the window. When Chase explains the classes he and Eli will need to complete, Drake's expression is solemn but clear.
"Good," he says. "That's right."
Chase's expression softens slightly toward Drake, not quite forgiveness but perhaps the first step on that path. "You and Eli are fortunate. There's a road back if you take it seriously."
Drake nods. "I will."
"I know." Chase means it. I can tell.
Then Chase turns to me.
"Vee." He pauses. "There's something else."
I look at him.
"Ragon has been flagged. The same restriction Alex carries." His chooses his words slowly. "No omega contact. He is not permitted to take custody of an omega in the future."
The room is quiet.
I sit with it.
Ragon carries a flag now.
Because of what he did. Because of what happened to me. He's on the other side of the same wall that's been keeping Alex from me, except Alex got his trying to protect someone and Ragon got his from destroying someone. It's the same flag but they are not the same thing.
"He has no one now," I say. The words come out quieter than I expect.
"No," Chase agrees. "He doesn't. Jasper informed me Eli broke his bond as well."
Drake sucks in a breath from his corner.
I think about Ragon before Marie. The man that used to take me to the zoo because he knew I loved it. The alpha that smiled from the lakeshore at Drake dunking me in the water. The one that patted my forehead with a cold cloth when I was sick.
That man is gone. I've known that for a long time. But knowing it doesn't mean I can't grieve him. It doesn't mean I can't feel the sadness of someone I once loved becoming someone I had to be protected from.
He's lost everything. His pack is gone—Drake is here, Eli testified against him and then left, Jasper never his to begin with.
His scent match is back at the registry.
His omega was removed by a board who looked at him with disdain.
And now the flag, ensuring he has to sit with what he's done for the rest of his life.
I hope he moves on someday. I hope he finds his way back to the man he was before whatever broke in him decided to break on me. I hope he forms a pack without an omega, learns how to be a pack lead worth having, figures out what it means to actually care for someone.
I hope he gets there.
I just don't want to be there to see it.
"I don't regret it," I say. "The hearing. Any of it." I look at Chase. "I know I deserved better than what he gave me. Even before all of this… I never deserved to have to wait in limbo for five years. I didn't see it then, but I know that now." I pause. "But I'm still sad for him."
Chase nods. "That's allowed."
"That's healthy," Arden adds.
I lean back against Alex's chest.
His arms tighten slightly.
"What happens now?" I ask. "With the registry?"
Chase leans forward slightly. "As far as the registry knows, you'll be under my guardianship temporarily.
They were eager to accept my request for temporary guardianship now that the heat is on them.
How utterly fitting." His spits out the last words, then his voice goes soft.
"But you don't have to go anywhere, Vee.
Not right now. This house, Alex's pack—nothing changes unless you want it to.
" He glances at Alex, then back to me. "And with Ragon's situation resolved, I can put all my resources toward getting Alex's flag removed. "
I nod, feeling my muscles relax. I haven't committed to anything permanent, but the door might be open soon. For now, that's a relief.
"Jasper and Eli are on their way," Chase says after a moment.
The room shifts.
Malcolm's jaw locks. Rhys freezes in his armchair, a predator's stillness.
I feel it before I see it—the tension climbing in the room, both of them orienting toward the door like something is incoming that needs to be managed.
"Hey." I say it to both of them. "They're not here to hurt me."
Malcolm looks at me. "You don't know that."
"I do know that. They testified against Ragon. They've been helping Chase for weeks. They drove here to talk to me." I keep my voice even. "I want to see them. I want closure. And I need you both to let me have it."