Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Emily
The plate slips beneath my fingers in the soapy water, almost cracking against the sink’s edge. Behind me, the table has been cleared, the stew moved to the fridge, and the leftover sourdough slipped into a beeswax-lined bread bag.
Mixie weaves between my ankles with persistent meows.
“I already fed you dinner,” I tell her, and she responds by rubbing her black fur more insistently along my calf. “But if you’re patient, I’ll give you some treats.”
Water drips from my hands as I reach for a towel. Through the kitchen window, snow falls in thick flakes, heavier than the forecast predicted. The thermometer outside reads twenty-eight degrees, and my thoughts drift to Jared driving through this weather without proper snow tires.
A knock at the door startles me, and the towel drops to the floor as my hand flies to my throat. Jared wouldn’t knock. Could it be the police? Did the old truck slide off the road and injure him? I never should have let him leave with it snowing out.
I rush to the front door, peering through the side window. The shape outside stands tall and still, snow gathering on broad shoulders. Not Jared’s silhouette.
Then I spot the sedan sitting in the driveway, snow gathering on its hood, and my breath catches. After canceling dinner, after all the unanswered texts, after Jared went out into this storm to find him, Leif shows up at my door.
My phone sits on the counter behind me. I should text Jared, tell him Leif’s here, that he doesn’t need to keep searching. But what if he’s driving right now? The distraction of a notification could be dangerous on these roads.
Mixie meows louder, pawing at the door as if she recognizes Leif’s scent through the wood. I straighten my blouse, tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, and pull the door open.
Cold air rushes inside, carrying snowflakes that melt on the wooden floor. Leif stands rigid on the threshold, his coat dusted with snow that turns to water droplets under the porch light.
His face remains stiff, the muscles around his mouth tight. “May I come in?”
“Of course.” I step back, opening the door wider.
He enters, but pauses in the foyer, appearing uncertain.
“Would you like to sit?” I gesture toward the couch, where blankets lie folded from when Jared and I sat talking earlier.
“No.” He remains by the door, jacket still on, hands at his sides. “This won’t take long.”
The words settle between us like stones dropped in still water. Ripples of understanding spread outward. He hasn’t changed his mind about dinner, nor come to explain his absences.
He’s come to end whatever has been growing between us.
Mixie winds around his ankles, her tail curled in question marks, but he doesn’t bend to pet her. Another sign.
“Is this a conversation we can have, or have you already decided?” I ask with the steadiness gained from years of leading construction crews through crises.
His eyes flick up to meet mine, then away, landing somewhere near the hearth where flames consume a split log. “I’ve been trying to find another way.”
“Another way to what?”
“To keep this from happening.” His hand gestures between us, a short, choppy motion that encompasses everything we’ve built. “But I should have never started anything with you.”
Pain twists inside me, but I lock it down, the way I do when assessing structural damage that might be worse than it appears. “Why can’t this happen?”
Leif shakes his head as the fire pops, sending sparks up the chimney. “It doesn’t matter. I’m just sorry I let this thing between us drag on for so long. I can’t be the reason you get hurt.”
“Then stop hurting me,” I say, trying to catch the periwinkle eyes that avoid mine. “If you would just tell me—”
“I can’t, Em. This is something I have to figure out on my own.” His hand rises as if to touch me before it drops back to his side. “These past months have been... You can’t know what they’ve meant to me.”
“You’re right,” I say, while outside, snow continues to fall, blanketing the world in silence. “I can’t know because you’ve kept me at arm’s length the entire time. But if you would just let me help you fight this—”
“No,” he says again, sharper this time. “This isn’t your battle.”
“It became my battle the moment you walked into my life.” The anger I’ve been suppressing rises to the surface, not hot but cold as the winter outside. “You made it my battle when you sat at my table, when you slept in my bed, when you let me believe we were building something real.”
He flinches as if struck. “We were. We are. That’s why I have to go.”
His conviction chills me. He believes leaving will spare me pain, even as he’s cutting out my heart. But his fear is real, solid as the floor beneath our feet. Whatever pressure he’s under, whatever danger he perceives, he’s convinced that distance equals protection.
“Leaving isn’t protection, Leif.” My hands open at my sides, palms up in frustration. “It’s surrender.”
“Maybe.” His mouth twists into a bitter line. “But it’s the only option I have right now.”
I study the man before me, noting the rigid set of his shoulders, the way his fingers curl into half-fists at his sides.
Pain twists beneath my ribs, stealing my breath.
The bond, once bright with possibility, now hums like a string pulled too tight for too long, each vibration sending splinters of pain through my sternum.
“You’ve made your choice,” I say, an empty ache spreading through me like frost across a windowpane. “But I need you to understand what your distance has already cost me.”
Leif’s eyes skitter away, unable to hold mine for more than a breath, and each millimeter of that retreat carves another wound.
“When you started pulling away, canceling plans, disappearing without explanation, I told myself to be patient.” My hand rises to my sternum, where the bond pulses weakly. “I believed we were building toward a future. That whatever kept taking you away was temporary.”
A whine rises from him before he swallows it. Snowmelt drips from his coat onto my floor, each drop a tiny beat counting down our final moments.
“I trusted what we were building,” I continue, each word measured. “Not because I needed it to be true, but because I thought you had chosen it, too.”
Tears threaten, but I won’t cry. Not now. Not when clarity matters more than comfort.
“Do you know what the worst part of this is?” The bond flickers, so fragile now that a single wrong move might snap it. “It’s knowing how good we could be together, if you’d just set aside your pride in handling everything alone instead of keeping us at arm’s length.”
“I never meant to hurt you.” Leif takes a half-step forward, then stops himself. “What I feel for you, for what you and Jared offer here—”
“Don’t.” My hand rises between us. “Don’t tell me it’s real when you’ve already decided to walk away from it.”
His voice cracks, desperation splintering his usual calm. “You don’t understand.”
Frustrated, I cry out, “That’s because you won’t let us understand. You won’t give us a chance.”
The air between us floods with the scent of rain-soaked pine, his distress pheromones breaking through whatever control he’s been holding on to. My body responds, my nostrils flaring as I catch the underlying notes of longing and fear in his Omega scent.
“I want to be part of your pack. This isn’t about lack of feeling but too much of it.” His scent speaks what his words can’t, revealing the bone-deep terror of an Omega who believes he’s bringing danger to his potential packmates. “I love you.”
The confession catches me unprepared. It’s the first time those words have crossed his lips, and I take a half step forward before his next words stop me in my tracks.
“But I can’t.” His scent shifts, the rain-soaked pine receding like a tide pulling away from shore. “Staying would break everything irreparably.”
Pain fills each word as his pheromones retreat behind whatever walls he’s constructed to keep himself separate. “I’ve seen what happens when people like me drag others into their battles. The collateral damage never heals.”
There’s no doubt or fear in him, at least not over this. Just a bone-deep belief that his presence will poison what Jared and I have built.
The front door opens behind Leif, cold air and the scent of fresh snow rushing in on a gust that stirs my hair. Jared fills the doorway, snowflakes melting on his broad shoulders, his cheeks flushed from the cold.
He stops, taking in the scene before him, the distance between Leif and me, the rigid set of Leif’s shoulders, my stillness. His attention shifts from Leif to me, questioning without words.
I give a small shake of my head.
Jared steps inside and closes the door, his salt-air pheromones mingling with the woodsmoke and rosemary, creating a complex aroma that grounds me in this moment, in this place that is mine regardless of who stays or goes.
I draw a slow breath and seal away that flutter that begs me not to let my Omega go.
“I won’t ask you to stay,” I tell Leif. “Not if staying means sacrificing yourself. And not if you’re staying hurts us.”
The words aren’t surrender, but a line I should have drawn a month ago. This isn’t about keeping Leif out but keeping myself whole.
“This isn’t what I want,” Leif whispers, his composure fracturing.
“I believe you,” I say. “But you’ve made your choice clear in every canceled dinner, every unanswered text, every morning you left before dawn. You claim to have wanted this, but you’ve always had one foot out the door.”
He flinches at the truth laid bare.
In the silence, Jared steps to my side, his shoulder touching mine, his salt-air scent thickening in the air between Leif and us. Jared’s warmth radiates outward, surrounding me in warmth despite the winter chill at our door.
Leif’s nostrils flare, his eyes darting from Jared to me, tracking how my bondmate’s pheromones curl around me in an instinctive desire to shield me from hurt. Even scent-blind, it comes to Jared as natural as breathing, while Leif’s pine scent continues to retreat.
“Go fight whatever battle you think you need to take on alone,” I continue. “I won’t beg you to stay. I won’t make myself smaller when you refuse to fully enter our life.”
His composure splinters again, pain breaking through before he reins it in. Without another word, he gives Jared a nod that carries volumes of unspoken regret and turns toward the door, his steps heavy on the wooden floor.
I remain standing in the center of the cottage, not reaching after him, not calling his name, not pleading for him to reconsider.
The door opens, cold air swirling around my ankles.
Then the door closes, and the bond, that living thread connecting us, goes terribly silent. My Alpha instincts howl in protest, a primal scream that never leaves my throat as my nails bite into my palms with the effort not to chase after him.
As Jared’s arms fold around me, the absence rings louder than any sound, a void where Leif’s presence once hummed beneath my sternum.
I would have risked everything I have, everything I am, to protect Leif.
But he never gave us the chance.