Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
ROAN
Iwoke slowly.
Not because I was tired—but because I didn’t want to wake.
For the first time in what felt like weeks, the weight in my chest wasn’t crushing.
The room was quiet. Warm. My body was heavy, arms wrapped around the solid heat of a blanket-wrapped Wren, her weight pressed just enough against mine to anchor me.
I could still feel the echo of her restlessness from earlier, the way she’d shifted in her sleep—how even unconscious, she seemed to seek me out.
And I had held the line.
Hadn't touched skin. Hadn’t let myself give in, even when every instinct screamed for contact, scent, closeness. I’d stayed exactly where I needed to be.
Until now.
Because now—now her voice was cutting through the haze of sleep, low and raw and husky with disuse and heat, and every cell in my body responded to it like a shot of lightning to the spine.
I didn’t move. Kept my breathing even. Eyes closed.
But inside, my awareness snapped into brutal clarity.
She was speaking to Jay. Her voice was quiet, but the acoustics of the room—plus the heightened edge of my senses—let me hear every word.
“I was twenty when it started to… manifest.”
The sound of her voice. That tone. The truth in it. It did things to me I wasn’t proud of.
I gritted my teeth, fisted my restraint tighter. Tried not to focus on the curve of her body wrapped in my arms. Tried not to breathe too deeply—her scent was still thick in the air, impossibly sweet, persistent, dangerous.
I didn’t want to hear her confession. But I couldn’t turn away from it either.
“I’d spent my whole life thinking I was a beta. Hell, so did everyone else. My tests always came back inconclusive. Then one day, it wasn’t inconclusive anymore.”
My fists curled tighter, careful not to shift even a millimeter against her back. Her voice—gods, her voice—was breaking in all the wrong places.
I could feel the words vibrating in her chest against my arm.
“I was working for a company that didn’t tolerate… complications. Female employees were fine. Betas, even better. But omegas? Liability. Distraction. Weak link. There wasn’t a place for one on a security team, and I’d just fought my way into mine.”
A muscle jumped in my jaw. Complication. Weak link.
I wanted to find whoever taught her that word belonged to her and break their goddamn spine.
“So I made it go away.”
That hit me harder than it should have. Even knowing—suspecting—what she’d done, hearing her say it so plainly gutted something in me. The way she laughed—small, bitter, like the joke had always been on her—tightened something in my throat.
“Found a man who knew a man who knew a chemist. Paid too much. Didn’t care. The first batch burned like acid, but it worked. I passed for beta again.”
She’d poisoned herself.
For a job. For safety. For us.
“After—I just… kept doing it. Year after year. I told myself it was safer. Smarter. That I was protecting my job. Protecting them.”
Them. She meant us.
I opened my eyes—just barely—and looked down at the curve of her shoulder, where her head tilted toward Jay. She was still wrapped tightly in the blanket I’d cocooned her in. Her body was flushed, slick with heat, but not trembling. Not fighting me anymore.
“I didn’t want anyone to see me differently. Least of all him.”
The last hit me harder than a puck to the gut. I didn’t react. Couldn’t. Not without shattering every ounce of calm I’d clawed together since this began.
She’d meant me.
And I hadn’t known. I should have. I should’ve seen it. Her quiet strength. Her control. The way she never slipped—never let anything through unless she wanted it seen. I’d thought it was professionalism. Temperance. Maybe even pride.
But it had been survival.
Jay didn’t say anything, didn’t move, and that—gods, that was exactly right. Exactly what she needed. Not comfort. Not pity.
“Eventually, I started to believe the lie. That I was just a slightly off-kilter beta who got headaches and insomnia sometimes. It was easier than admitting I’d spent ten years poisoning myself to keep a secret no one had asked me to keep.”
I could feel her heart beating. The faint, uneven flutter of it against my arm. Like it wasn’t quite sure what it was allowed to do anymore.
“You say it like it was past tense,” Jay murmured.
Her answer came soft. Almost broken.
“Because it is. I stopped this week.”
And that—that—told me everything I needed to know about what we were really dealing with.
She knew this heat would come.
She knew it would hurt.
She knew it might kill her—and she did it anyway.
“You knew what it would do.”
“Yeah.”
“You did it anyway.”
“Yeah.”
“Then you knew this was coming.”
“I didn’t know it would be this. I didn’t think I’d—”
She didn’t finish.
She didn’t have to.
I didn’t think I’d need him. Need you.
That’s what I heard.
All I wanted in that moment was to touch her. Just my hand. Just one second. Her hair, her back, anything to let her know I was awake and I was here and I wasn’t going anywhere.
But I didn’t.
I stayed still.
Because what she needed right now wasn’t my reaction.
It was space. The kind she hadn’t had in a decade.
When she was ready—when the heat passed and her body stopped screaming—I would ask the questions burning through my chest. The ones I had every damn right to ask now.
But not until then.
Not while she was still fighting the fallout of survival.
She’d trusted someone with the truth.
Even if it wasn’t me, not yet… that mattered.
When she was ready, I’d be here. Arms open. Patience intact. But not blind. Not anymore.
She went quiet again.
For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the subtle rustle of her breath against the blanket, the whisper of cloth as Jay set the water bottle aside.
Then, just as I thought she might close herself off again, she said it.
Soft. Unsteady. The closest thing to lost I’d ever heard from her.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
That was it.
Not whispered like a secret. Just laid bare. Raw. No walls left.
I opened my eyes.
Jay saw it first. His head turned just slightly, like he’d known all along I was awake and had been waiting for me to step forward.
Wren didn’t notice as swiftly, then she glanced up and met my gaze. It was a physical blow that reached right into my soul. Once I knew I had her attention, I answered her earlier statement. “Then we learn.”
She jolted a little in my arms, instinctively trying to turn—only to remember the blanket still wrapped her in place. The same blanket I’d used to keep us both safe.
She tilted her head to look at me again, wide-eyed, pupils still blown wide from the heat. Her cheeks flushed, hair sticking to her forehead. She looked exhausted. Overheated. Vulnerable in a way I’d never seen her.
I held her a little more firmly, just to keep her steady.
“I—” she started, then swallowed hard. “How long have you—?”
“Long enough,” I said quietly. “But not as long as I should’ve.”
Her throat worked as she looked at me, and I could see the walls trying to rebuild themselves—brick by brick.
I didn’t let them.
“You think we haven’t been watching you tear yourself apart for years?” I asked, keeping my voice low, careful. “Jay. Rhett. Me. You’ve carried so much alone, Wren. You never had to.”
She didn’t answer.
Didn’t deny it, either.
Jay didn’t speak. He stood, quietly collecting the empty food container, moving to give us space without being obvious about it. But his eyes met mine for a second—something silent and sharp passed between us.
He nodded once and stepped away.
I turned my focus back to her.
“You don’t have to know how to do this,” I told her. “You’ve spent a decade surviving. I don’t expect you to switch that off just because you’re finally safe.”
Her brows knit together like she didn’t know whether to argue or cry—or maybe both.
“Is that what this is?” she asked hoarsely. “Safe?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head, just a little. “It doesn’t feel like it.”
“Because your body’s at war with you. You’re too close to the fire to feel anything else.”
“And when I’m not?”
I hesitated, but only for a second.
“Then we’ll talk. All of it. Suppressants. Secrets. What this means. You won’t have to guess.”
Her breathing hitched.
I reached up and gently tucked a piece of damp hair behind her ear—careful not to touch skin. She let me. Her eyes didn’t leave mine.
“Wren,” I said, quieter now. “You didn’t fail us. You protected yourself the only way you knew how. I wish you hadn’t needed to. But I don’t blame you for surviving.”
Her eyes shimmered—not with tears, not quite. But close.
“You should be angry with me.”
I was.
But not for the reasons she thought.
“I will be,” I said, honest. “Later. When you’re not burning up. When you can stand and argue with me. But not now. Not when you’re hurting.”
That seemed to break something in her—not a collapse, but a release. Her shoulders slumped, some of the tension bleeding out of her limbs. The fight in her quieted. Not gone, but resting.
Finally, she closed her eyes again.
“I don’t know what to do with you,” she murmured.
“You don’t have to,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
None of us were. Not for anything.
Though she went quiet, she didn’t fall asleep right away.
Even though her body was spent, and the food had taken the edge off, the burn of heat still rolled off her in thick, feverish waves. She shifted slightly in my arms, just enough to press the crown of her head against my throat again. Her exhale was a long, shaky sigh.
Then her voice, soft and hoarse.
“I could have… handled this differently.”
My arms tightened instinctively around her. “You did what you had to.”
“No.” Her laugh was quiet and flat. “I mean now. This week.”
That pulled my attention sharp. I glanced down. Her eyes were open again, staring across the room, unfocused but restless.