Chapter 5 Xaden #2
Violet is the kind of beautiful that stops traffic and starts wars.
Dark hair that catches light like silk, eyes the color of winter sky, and bone structure that belongs in a museum.
But it's not her beauty that has Garrick tied in knots.
It's something else, which sets off every protective instinct our stubborn baker has spent years suppressing.
“She’s also trouble,” I say, keeping my voice dry. “The kind that unpacks and overstays.” Makes you forget why you swore off Omegas in the first place.
"All the more reason to help her," Liam counters, pouring coffee into three mugs with the automatic precision of someone who's done this thousands of times. "She needs a pack, Xaden. Someone to have her back while she figures out what comes next."
Liam won’t meet my eyes, which is a confession in itself. He’s got that silent-set look about him, shoulders squared but too still like he’s already picked a side and doesn’t want to argue about it.
So Garrick’s not the only one she’s gotten under the skin.
“Tell me something, Liam,” I say, keeping my voice level the one I use when negotiations are about to blow-up in our faces. “Are you seriously about to pitch Omega adoption like it’s a rescue mission?”
The thing about Liam is that he's the pack mediator, the one who smooths over conflicts and makes sure everyone feels heard.
But beneath that gentle exterior is an alpha who once spent three days tracking a stolen dog through hostile territory because a kid asked him to.
When Liam decides something needs protecting, he becomes immovable.
"I'm suggesting we do what any decent pack would do," he says, handing me a mug. "We protect someone who needs protecting."
"And what happens when she leaves?" I ask, taking another sip. "Because she will, Liam. Women like Violet don't stick around small mountain towns. They fix their cars, say thank you politely for the hospitality, and disappear into the sunset."
"Maybe," he concedes. "Or she finds something here worth staying for."
Before I can respond to that particular piece of optimism, the front door opens and Garrick walks in. He looks like he's been wrestling with demons and lost.
"Coffee's ready," Liam offers, gesturing toward the kitchen.
Garrick grunts his appreciation and pours himself a mug, adding an obscene amount of sugar that he'll deny using if anyone asks. He takes the chair closest to the fireplace, then he lights it up.
We sit in comfortable silence for a few minutes, each lost in our own thoughts. The fire crackles and pops, filling the space with warmth and the kind of peaceful atmosphere that makes problems seem manageable.
It's Garrick who breaks the silence, naturally.
"She can't stay," he says, staring into his coffee like it holds the secrets of the universe.
"Why not?" Liam asks, though his tone suggests he already knows this is going to be a battle.
"Because she doesn't belong here." Garrick's tone is flat, matter-of-fact, completely at odds with the tension radiating from his shoulders. "She's educated, sophisticated, probably used to city life. What the hell would someone like that want with a place like Cedar Ridge?"
I exchange a glance with Liam. There's more to this than simple logistics, but Garrick's never been one to volunteer emotional intelligence. Better to let him work through his own reasoning.
"She seems to appreciate good food," I offer mildly. "And she didn't run when Meredith strong-armed her into accepting help."
"Desperation makes people do strange things."
"So does instinct," Liam counters. "Maybe she ended up here because this is where she needs to be or fate has other ideas for not only her, but us too."
Garrick makes a sound that might be laughter if it didn't sound so bitter. "Right. The universe conspired to bring us a traumatized omega so we could all play house together."
"Stranger things have happened," I say, though I'm already calculating the probability of this ending well for any of us. "I'm just saying that sometimes fate has a sense of humor."
"Fate," Garrick repeats, like the word tastes bad. “It’s what happens to people who don't plan ahead."
This is coming from the same guy who almost gave up baking entirely after Rebecca left. The man was a mess, not that he let it show much. Liam and I had to step in. Call it what you want, but it was basically an intervention. Still, it was Meredith who really turned things around.
She didn’t push. She just started showing up. Took Garrick out on walks. Got him back in the kitchen. Let him move at his own pace, but never let him disappear. She brought him back to life, piece by piece.
Liam and I tried, but Meredith saw what we didn’t.
If it was only us helping him recover, he'd never fully trust another woman again. The only person who could help him believe in women was a woman. She introduced him to meditation, sound healing, some yoga philosophy I still don’t understand. He took to it quietly, but seriously.
Now he’s up before the sun. Not just to open the bakery. He meditates first. Focuses. Re-centers. That’s how he works now. Sharp. Steady. Like a soldier who found a new mission.
"Okay," I say instead, setting my mug on the coffee table and leaning forward. Time to take control of this conversation before it devolves into emotional chaos. "Let's approach this strategically. What are the facts?"
Liam perks up. He likes it when I go into tactical mode because it usually means I'm taking a situation seriously rather than just manipulating it for entertainment.
"Fact one," I continue, ticking off points on my fingers like I'm briefing a mission. "Violet is running from an abusive situation. She's scared, broke, and alone."
"Fact two: she's in Cedar Ridge, and doesn’t have much resources. She needs help whether she wants to admit it or not."
"Fact three: Meredith has already decided she's staying, at least temporarily. And she always gets what she wants.” I pause for effect. "Anyone want to argue with that?"
Neither of them responds, because we all know better than to bet against Meredith Blackwell when she's made up her mind about something.
"Fact four," Liam adds quietly, "we're a pack without an omega."
Both Garrick and I stare at him. He's not meeting our eyes. This is dangerous territory, the kind of conversation that changes everything.
"And we’ve been fine with just us," I say, though I have a feeling I already know where this is going. And whether I want to follow him there.
"When she walked into the bakery something just..
. clicked into place." He pauses, gathering his thoughts.
"What’s our end game? Sure, we've all been rejected by an omega for one reason or another and that's kind of how we became a pack in the first place.
But we've never discussed the future. The next stages in our lives. "
I don’t get those kinds of feelings. I train them out.
So the fact that I’m having one now?
Yeah. That’s the part that worries me.
"Let's face it, Xaden," Liam continues, his voice gentle but relentless. "When you came out of the military and came here, the first thing you wanted was an omega."
I sigh because Liam has this annoying habit of cutting straight to the heart of things.
"Yeah. And she ran off to join a convent rather than bind herself to me.
Apparently, I'm so compelling that I made her choose celibacy over a future with an alpha.
" The words taste bitter, even after all this time.
"What about you, Liam? Your ex said you cared more about the animals than you did her. "
He nods, accepting the hit. "Maybe Violet is the one. But who says we won't have the same story repeating in a few months? But this time we’ll be the rejected pack." He meets my eyes.
"It doesn't matter," Garrick says, but his voice lacks conviction. "Pack bonds don't work that way. You can't just claim someone because you feel sorry for them."
"It's not pity," Liam insists. "It's recognition. She belongs with us, Garrick. I know it sounds crazy, but..."
"It doesn't," I interrupt because someone needs to say it.
"She's leaving," Garrick says again, but he sounds less certain now.
"Maybe," I concede, already running calculations on how to stack the deck in our favor. "But maybe not, if she has a reason to stay."
"Like what?"
"Like a pack that gives a damn about her wellbeing. A community that doesn't ask questions about her past. A baker who makes soup that tastes like home."
Garrick's scent shifts again, coffee notes warming toward something richer and more complex. He's not ready to admit anything yet, but he's thinking about it. In my experience, getting Garrick to think about something is half the battle.
Progress.
"I need to check on the overnight bread," he says suddenly, standing with the kind of restless energy that means he's reached his limit for emotional conversations.
He's halfway to the door before Liam speaks up.
"Garrick."
Our baker pauses but doesn't turn around.
"She's safe here," Liam says softly. "Whatever happened to her before, it can't touch her here. Not with us."
For a moment, I think Garrick might actually respond. Instead, he just nods once and disappears into the night.
Liam and I sit in the resulting silence, each processing the evening's revelations in our own way. The fire has burned down to embers, casting dancing shadows across the room that remind me of other nights, other conversations about the future of our little pack.
"Think he'll bolt?" Liam asks eventually.
It's a fair question. Garrick has a history of running when emotions get too complicated. He's done it before, disappeared for days while he sorted through whatever demons were chasing him. But he always comes back. Always.
"He might," I admit, though I'm already planning contingencies. "But not tonight. He has just put bread in the oven, and Garrick doesn't abandon food."
"And tomorrow?"
I consider this, weighing what I know about our stubborn baker against the unprecedented situation we find ourselves in.
“He'll find excuses to check on her. Bring her food, make sure she's settling in okay, probably lecture her about proper nutrition while he's at it."
"And then?"
"Then we wait and see if Violet is brave enough to take a chance on three broken alphas and a town full of meddling locals."
Liam's quiet for a long moment, staring into the dying fire like it holds answers to questions he hasn't figured out how to ask yet.
"What if she is?" he says finally. “And stays?"
"Then everything changes," I say simply. "And we figure out what comes next."
Because that's what you do when fate drops a beautiful, damaged omega into your carefully ordered life. You adapt. You strategize. You hope like hell that this time, things might turn out different.
Violet might be trouble, but she's our trouble now.
And if we're not careful, she just might break us all.