Chapter 37 Thirty-three
Thirty-three
Brooks
The evening air was chilly, but passing the night on the rooftop patio was still preferable to staying in the Maddox apartment downstairs.
Taryn hadn’t set foot inside since the break-in, and even in the midst of our current strife I wouldn’t dream of asking her to now.
So I’d gone down and fetched a handful of blankets and sweaters from said apartment to keep us at least somewhat comfortable.
Brea prodded her a little more, but Taryn gave her nothing. Her voice, once again, dried up. Eventually, our omega curled up on the sofa and fell asleep like she was perfectly at home on a scratchy outdoor couch in the crisp fall evening.
The slight breeze made my teary eyes ache.
I may’ve gone into physical medicine, but I’d done enough psych rotations to recognize increased risk-taking and self-destructive behavior when I saw it.
Our girl was struggling, and she refused to reach out to us.
If you gave me a broken bone, and I could set it. A snakebite got anti-venom. Stitches, IVs, transfusions, antibiotics. All useless on these mental wounds.
I'd never felt so useless in my life.
Lin
“I fucking yelled at her, Caine.”
Guilt ate at me like a tapeworm, devouring me from the inside. Between that and the alphadrenaline after-effects, my hands shook enough that the ice rattled in my glass.
“You’re adjusting like she’s adjusting,” he answered with a soothing rub between my shoulder blades. “She’ll apologize, and so will you, and we’ll find a way forward.”
This wasn’t me. I didn’t lose my cool on someone I loved. I didn’t shout and make people jump between me and an omega like I was a threat to her. I didn’t make my omega flinch with hurtful words.
I tipped my glass back and relished the burn of whiskey in my throat.
Before she’d walked in, I’d chosen my words so carefully. Cool, even-keeled but candid. Sharing how upset and scared her choice made me, asking her to explain why she’d done what she did.
Then she’d walked in. My alpha, who’d been laying so quietly in wait I hadn’t realized he was even there, had pounced. She'd be within her rights to never cross that threshold again. Any of them would. The thought of it slaughtered me.
“Fuck, I’m exhausted.” I scrubbed at my face with my palm. “I can’t lose her, Caine.”
He huffed a laugh, which surprised me enough to jog me from my self-pity. “She’s wearing our bites now. Come what may, she’s ours.”
I traced the ridges of her bite on my shoulder beneath my shirt. The full connection of the bond depended on proximity, but my mark would stay on her skin always, a primal tattoo. My claim to her, body and mind and soul. And hers on me.
My alpha was hurt and angry. Wild animals lashed out when they were hurt and angry. Brooks had told me I was always me, always whole, man and wolf, no matter the ratio. Maybe he was right.
Still, though, I had to get my house in order. Because what happened tonight? It wouldn’t happen again. I’d swear it to all four of them, on my own damn life.
Taryn
The trees had hands.
The hands had fingers.
The fingers were knives.
The knives were sharp.
Sharp on my skin.
Sharp in my hair.
Sharp in my heart.
Shadows and blood. Blood like shadows. Dripped down onto a forest floor that breathed like a beast below me.
Enemies above. Enemies below. Enemies around. Enemies inside.
Where do you run and hide when the ground itself isn’t safe?
Where is safe. What is safe. Lie. Fiction. Fantasy.
Brea
No one should look so stressed while they slept. Taryn lay curled up on the patio couch beside me, the sleeves of her sweatshirt pulled down over her fisted hands, chin tucked against her chest, brow furrowed. She looked like she was sheltering from a bomb blast, not dozing on a chilly fall night.
Brooks sat on the opposite sofa, drowsy but still awake.
“Still feeling like we’re in an anti-climax?” I asked softly.
He placated me with a halfhearted smirk. “Hell, I’d kill for anti-climax about now.”
I looked back to Taryn. My light. My life. She’d been my salvation not so long ago. When my life had been an inescapable cage, she’d picked the lock and set me free.
Now she lived in a cage I had no earthly clue how to open.
“For what it’s worth,” Brooks said, jolting me from my thoughts, “Lin’s beating himself up in the bond right now. He feels awful.”
I sighed, moving to sit next to him. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders immediately, pulling me against his warm torso. “I don’t want any of them beating themselves up.”
It was bad luck that we were navigating how to live as a pack at the same time as how to process all the everything that had happened to us.
If it were as easy as being in love, we’d be golden, because the love was there.
Deep, abiding love. The kind that made each of us willing to suffer or die for the others.
We’d each proven that in one way or another.
Being a pack required more, though. We were still learning each other’s dynamics, how to best support and uplift each other, how to solve problems, how to be angry with each other and how to come back together afterward. It was enough to stretch any person thin.
Add in the mystery ingredient of trauma, and no wonder we were all ready to snap.
Brooks rubbed his palm up and down my arm. “We’ve been through worse,” he said. “We’ll get through this.”
Oh, how I loved my sweet, sunshine beta. “We better.” I rested my head on his shoulder. “Because I’m not willing to give any of you up.”
Caine
Sunrise over Farendale was a sight to see. Lin had finally drifted to sleep a few hours before, and I’d passed the rest of the dark hours traipsing between him and the group on the roof, making sure everyone was safe and well.
Well, well-ish.
Brooks and Brea cuddled together on one sofa, and Taryn lay in a fetal position on the other. She was the only one to stir as the first sunrays crawled over the patio. She sat up and stretched, squinting her eyes as she caught sight of me. “Morning,” she mumbled.
I approached her, resting my hand on the back of her head. “Morning, sunshine.”
She screwed up her face. “I thought things were supposed to feel better in the morning.” She sighed. “I still feel like shit.”
“Well, that may be you, or it may be Lin in the bond,” I said quietly to avoid rousing the others. “Because he’s feeling like shit.”
“What? No!” she said, jumping up. “It’s not his—he didn’t—dammit!” She stormed past me and disappeared through the rooftop door. I followed after her, ignoring the sounds of Brea and Brooks rustling behind me.
I entered the apartment just a few steps behind Taryn, yet she’d already koala’d herself to Lin’s front.
“Imsorryimsorryimsorry,” she repeated against his chest.
His face was buried in the crown of her hair. “It’s okay, love. I’m sorry too.”
“God, I’m just—I didn’t think—I was just so mad and it was bubbling out of me like poison and I thought that was how I’d get it all out. Lin, please, I am so sorry, and of course I care that you’re hurting, I never wanted to hurt you or put you in danger, any of you, and I’m—”
“Breathe, Omega,” I said from behind.
"I'm sorry too, Taryn," he whispered against her dark hair.
"I've done a piss-poor job handling my emotions lately, and that's not your fault.
Never your fault." One hand gripped the back of her head as he pressed a kiss to her crown.
"I won't promise I'll never be mad at you again.
But I will never lash out at you like that again. I swear it."
She took a deep breath in, and the morning air grew quiet once more. “I don’t know how to do this,” she finally whispered. “I don’t know how to protect myself and you and the other omegas.”
Lin brushed his fingers across her cheek.
“I don’t either,” he admitted, eyes shining.
“But we’re going to keep hunting for the answers.
And we’ll do it together, okay?” Taryn nodded before throwing herself back to him, and his arms wrapped back around her, and they clung to each other as all the angry words and bad feelings dissipated like dew from grass.
An hour later, four of us sat around the island. Lin and Brooks finished up the last batch of waffles. Brea was in the shower, and I watched Taryn tease Brooks with the last cup of coffee as I finished my third waffle.
A knock at the door interrupted us. Lin wiped his hands on a towel, kissed Brooks on the cheek, then went to answer it. A jolt of surprise surged through the bond just before Lin said, “Good morning, officers.”
I turned in my seat, as did Taryn, to look toward the front doorway.
“Mr. Arceneaux,” a familiar voice said. “We’re here with a warrant to arrest Taryn Maddox.”