Chapter 17
17
CONNOR
I hold back Ace’s hair as he dry heaves in the toilet, his lavender scent spoiled and sour.
“This has to fucking stop,” he snarls. “This has to.”
I rub his back, my lips pulled into a thin line. “It will.”
But there’s no end in sight. It’s been a week without our Omega, and every moment spent without her is agony.
It’s made both of us sick in different ways. My thoughts won’t stop racing with horrific intrusive images that make me convinced I’m losing my mind.
I think I see her everywhere.
The scent of cookies fills our house at random times.
I could swear there’s a flash of blonde hair turning the corner to our bedroom, but the room is empty when I step inside.
I force Ace and myself to eat, but food doesn’t have a taste.
“I need her,” Ace whispers, sitting back and kneeling on the tile floor. “I need her, Connor.”
“I know.” All I can do is rub his back in soothing circles. “We cannot push her, no matter how much we want to.”
We’re only three blocks away from her, yet the mating bond is still making both of us sick. Ace has a fever, and chills wrack his body.
It’s been like that since she kicked us out after her Heat, which ended abruptly the next day after the mating bites.
I don’t know who I’m mad at more—myself, or Ace.
Ace, who bit her in the parking lot of the garage, then got into a fistfight with Ben.
Yet I’m no better than Ace. Devyn begged me to bite her while we were in her nest, and I did without a second thought.
I should have thought about her instead of my selfish inner Alpha that was desperate for her.
I fucked up badly, and so did Ace.
Apparently, Ben did too, because for the past week Devyn’s been staying at her best friend April’s mother’s house.
We’ve all been miserable—so miserable that even being less than a mile away from her is still torturous.
Ace trembles as he lies on our new bathroom floor, pressing his head into the cool tile. “I’m sorry,” he grumbles.
I continue to rub soothing circles on his back. “It’s fine.”
He huffs. “It’s not fucking fine. I can feel how pissed off you are. This mating bond won’t let you hide your shit from me anymore.”
I shake my head. “What do you want me to say?” I mutter. “Do you want me to get into a fight with you? Would that make you feel better?”
He doubles over the toilet bowl and retches again. “Yeah,” he chokes out, after he’s done expelling whatever is left of the contents of his stomach. “It would.”
“I’m not going to do that, Ace.”
“But you want to,” he croaks.
“Yeah. I do.”
We stayed with Devyn all through her Heat, but once her pheromones wore off and she was back to herself, she saw the bruising on both Ace and Ben.
When she found out what had happened, she kicked Ace and me out with tears in her eyes.
We promised her there would never be violence, and we managed to break that promise in less than a month.
Later that day, I received a message from Ben that she was gone, and that’s when I went house hunting.
“I split my knuckles on that fucker,” Ace continues. “He blocked me from getting out of his kitchen.”
I thin my lips into a line. “I love you,” I say. “And I’ll always defend you, but that was one of your less rational moments.”
Ace chuckles humorlessly. “Right. Rational.” He hauls himself off the floor and stumbles to the sink, looking at his reflection in the mirror. “Fuck me. I look like shit.”
I don’t disagree with him, and I turn on the new shower while he brushes his teeth.
We both could use washing up.
Neither of us looks good.
We’re lucky this house was even for sale. Tammy’s neighborhood is popular and sought after in Isleton, so the timing was just right when I called up my realtor last minute.
We made a cash offer so enticing the sellers accepted immediately.
It was impossible to try to move our stuff into this house in less than a week—so we bought it as is, already furnished.
It even has a nesting room all ready to go, when—if—we can make this work with Devyn.
Ace trembles as he leans over the bathroom sink, spitting out the toothpaste. “I don’t know how long I can keep doing this,” he warns me. “I’m ready to go over there now. ”
I want to, too.
“You know what Ben told us,” I say. “It will make it worse. It will hurt her. ”
Ace closes his eyes and grimaces. “Yeah,” he whispers.
Experiencing Devyn’s, Ace’s, and Ben’s pain on top of my own is almost too much to bear.
I drag Ace to the shower, helping him in, and he leans his head into my neck. I wrap my arms around him, pressing his chest against mine.
“Hurts,” he groans as the hot water beats down his back.
“I know.”
This is what we do, though.
Every time one of us falls apart, the other one picks them up.
It’s never happened where both of us are falling apart at the same time, though.
I’m barely hanging on myself as I begin to wash him, shampooing his hair and massaging his scalp. He sighs in my hold, and I step back to look at him.
His eyes are bloodshot as he regards me. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, barely audible above the water beating down on us.
I cup his face, run my hand down his stubbled cheek, and kiss him softly. “We’ll get through this,” I murmur. “We will .”
Even if I don’t believe it myself.
“I love you, Con,” he says. His cock presses against my thigh, and mine hardens in response.
We’re both a mess.
Our kisses are sloppy and urgent, the mint of his toothpaste mixing with his lavender in a delicious way. We groan into each other’s mouths, and Ace presses my cock against his and grips us both with his fist, working us together.
He bites my lip, then licks the pain away with his piercing.
We’re a flurry of need and pain, and we give and take from each other.
Ace continues touching us, working our cocks together until he hisses. He comes quickly with a cry, spilling all over the both of us, and I follow shortly after.
But it doesn’t take away the ache from the mating bond.
Our Omega is still out there without us.
Once we’re both cleaned and wrapped in towels, I lead Ace to our new bedroom. We end up curled on the bed, his head on my chest.
“Can you purr for me?” he asks quietly.
I nod, stroke his hair, and let my chest rumble him to sleep.
I’m supposed to be the pack leader—the balance between Ben and Ace, and the one meant to stay rational through this whole ordeal.
But my control and sanity are slipping every moment I don’t hear from or see Devyn.
Giving her the distance that she’s asked for is painful, but it would be worse if we didn’t honor her wishes.
I just don’t know how long we can keep doing this.
* * *
Another day passes.
Another twenty-four hours of straight hell.
I focus on my work as best I can. I hold meetings with other vendors, and I visit cafés outside of Isleton to discuss the distribution of Con Coffee.
I take Ace with me, so he’s not left alone in our new house.
I can’t have him spiraling without me.
He’s been silent the entire day, which is deeply out of character and concerning.
It’s as if merely existing without Devyn is too much for him.
Even though I purred for him the entire night, he kept waking up every few hours and gasping for air.
It terrifies me, and I did the only thing I could think of that might make this better.
I invited Ben over tonight so we could all be on the same page.
We have to figure out a plan to earn Devyn’s forgiveness and show her how much she means to us.
Ace may have his own hangups about Ben, but he’s our best resource, and he’s our packmate.
“Those letters were a good idea,” I tell Ace as we head back to Isleton for the evening.
Writing out everything to Devyn, explaining ourselves as much as we could without being there, was Ace’s suggestion. Ben agreed with it, and he’s been the one leaving our letters inside Tammy’s mailbox.
I don’t know how he’s managed to go near the house and not try to see her. He has more resolve than I do.
Since we haven’t seen each other since the mating bite, I did my best in those letters to tell Devyn how I feel about her.
I also told her about the scared boy I used to be, growing up with insane expectations and the constant fear of never being enough. I told her that there’s nothing more I want than to be a family with her, Ben, and Ace.
I wrote and wrote, and so did Ace and Ben.
I hope she reads them.
After all, Ace may blame himself, but this is truly my fault.
The minute that parking garage was mentioned, I should have had it fixed myself. It would have taken a simple phone call, and Devyn wouldn’t have been trapped down there.
I didn’t talk to Ace about what his expectations were for a mating bite.
And worst of all, I gave in to my baser instinct and mated Devyn without a second thought.
Some pack leader I am.
Ace grimaces. “Those letters didn’t help,” he murmurs, and I’m thankful that I get to hear his voice again.
“Well, we’ll find out tonight,” I say. “Ben is coming over. We all need to talk.”
“We’re doing what ?”
“He’s our packmate, whether you like it or not. We need to discuss how we’re going to fix this.”
He huffs. “You could have told me.”
“I just did.”
“You could have told me earlier.”
“I didn’t want you to obsess about it,” I say, “or have something else weigh unnecessarily heavy on you.”
He takes my free hand that’s resting on my thigh and interlaces our fingers.
“Thanks, pumpkin,” he mutters. “I guess.”
I have to stay positive for Ace, even though I’m not sure how this meeting will go.
But if we can’t repair this rift between us, it won’t be a healthy pack for Devyn.
Ace doesn’t speak again until we pull up to the driveway. He sighs deeply when I park; then I turn to look at him.
His eyes are tired and devoid of the spark of mischief he usually has.
It makes my heart ache.
“I don’t hate Ben, you know,” he says. “I’m just jealous of him.”
“I know you are.”
“He got to meet her first. He’s been with her this whole time. I’m just fucking jealous .”
I nod. “I don’t blame you.”
He chuckles, then brings my hand to his lips. “We’re bonded for life,” he mutters. “What. The. Fuck. A detective and a convict.”
I shake my head. “No. You’re just Ben and Ace.”
He shoots me a look. “Why are you being so supportive and intuitive all of a sudden? Where’s my workaholic, preppy, grumpy boyfriend?”
“Still here. Just trying to keep it all together.”
Ace sighs heavily. “I love you, pumpkin.”
I grimace at the name. “I love you too, Ansel .”
He narrows his eyes and lets out a low growl. “Just so you know, I’m never going to stop calling you pumpkin. Maybe I’ll get Devyn to use it, too.”
“If Devyn calls us anything besides assholes, I’ll be happy. I’ll take anything at this point.” He lets go of my hand, and we exit the car and head into our new home.
All that’s left to do is wait for Ben to arrive.