Chapter 15
Helena
It’s not even five, but the flat is already filling with the fractured blue of coastal dawn.
The air inside is chilly and perfectly still—except for the soft, staticky snore leaking from behind the bedroom door.
Zane never snores when he’s on duty. I’m not sure he even sleeps, ordinarily.
But something about the last few days has loosened him enough for him to fall into a coma, stretched out on his back with an arm flung over his eyes.
I could stand at the threshold and watch him forever, but that would probably defeat the purpose of my escape.
I grab my hoodie from the hook by the kitchen, ease the door open, and slip in.
Zane doesn’t stir, though I swear his nose twitches, like some predatory animal cataloguing scents even in dreams. I drift to the bedside and press my lips to Zane’s forehead.
He doesn’t move. If anything, he seems to settle deeper, the lines in his face smoothing out.
I wonder if he dreams of me. If he ever lets himself.
I slip back out and leave a note on the fridge. Gone to the beach. Don’t worry. —H.
The front door closes with a soft clack that echoes up and down the silent lane. Nobody in Seamuse Village is awake yet, save for the bakery crew and a couple of elderly fishermen prepping their boats. Even the gulls haven’t started their shrieking yet.
I cross the narrow street, damp tarmac under my bare feet, and climb the low dunes down to the beach.
The wind is cold. It slices the last shreds of sleep from my head. I like it that way.
I walk until I’m almost at the waterline, then flop down into the sand.
The beach is empty for at least a mile in either direction, the tide just beginning its retreat.
The only sound is the heavy, slow churn of the waves.
The ocean smells different at sunrise—softer, somehow, like the world is breathing out instead of in.
I hug my knees and look out across the water. I’ve been smiling since last night. The muscles in my cheeks hurt a little. It’s absurd but does not negate the fact that I may have just started building this pack. Drawn them in, just as Zane suggested.
A pack.
When I came to Seamuse, I was trying to escape pack life. But here I am, dancing at the edges of it.
I keep trying to tell myself it’s only the freedom of summer and the lack of direct family input. But the truth is, I’m falling for all three of them—Zane, Lucas, and Cole. Have been falling for Zane for years if I’m being honest. And I have no idea what I’m supposed to do about it.
There’s this old saying that when omegas go away to the shore for the summer, the sea gets in their blood and makes them reckless.
It was tossed around Omega Finish School so often.
I always thought that was a dramatic copout for why our family line in particular, along with others, kept producing scandal after scandal.
But sitting here, with the wind making my eyes sting and my hands gritty with wet sand, I understand it now.
The sea has a way of washing all the rules away.
Zane has caught me the most off guard despite being such an obvious tell.
I used to think Zane stayed close because it was his job, but it’s more than that.
When my own parents barely remembered my birthday last year, Zane made me cupcakes from a boxed mix and sang to me, horribly, in our kitchen.
He could have been a thousand miles away and he still would have found a way to make me feel safe.
Lucas is the opposite. Lucas is sunlight in human form. He doesn’t know how to be cool, but he knows how to be kind.
And Cole. Cole is easy to overlook at first, with his quiet hands and his way of fading into the background, but that’s just because he doesn’t need attention.
He’s the center of gravity for everyone around him.
That’s how this community feels about both him and his bakery.
He takes the world as it is and makes it better, one Cornish pasty at a time.
Three scent-matched alphas. It’s like something out of a fairy tale—or a cautionary tale. I bet my father would say the latter. When I try to picture my future, I see all three of them with me. Not a royal or high society pack of alphas. Not the city.
I see Seamuse. And them.
Both of these things are unfortunately not father-approved.
But maybe they would be.
Ranier bonded with a commoner omega, and Emery has made his life and the life of their whole pack so much better since.
Why can’t the same be true for Zane, Lucas, and Cole?
I rest my chin on my knees and watch as the sunlight starts to break over the water, a slow gold creeping across the surface. It’s so beautiful, it stirs stress coiled tight within my chest and unravels it strain by strain.
Something heavy lands near my feet. I jump, reflexively tensing for a sneak attack, but it’s just a seagull. A big, scruffy one, missing half its tail feathers. It cocks its head and eyes me like I’m the most interesting rock on the beach.
I wait for it to go for my granola bar, but it just stands there, one orange foot in the air, looking like it’s contemplating the meaning of life. Then, after a minute, it sits. Right next to me. Like we’re both in on some secret.
I laugh. The sound is weirdly loud in the hush of early morning.
“Sorry, friend. I don’t have any chips.”
The gull blinks, unimpressed, and tucks its head under a wing.
I take it as a sign. If even the world’s most persistent scavenger can chill out for a minute, maybe I can, too.
And if the seagulls are done shitting on me and instead want to hang out, maybe I’ve been accepted in Seamuse Village, after all.
For a long time, I just sit there, the wind leeching heat from my ears and nose, the sea rolling and unrolling itself in the distance.
Eventually, the gull wakes up and stalks away.
I brush the sand off my hands and wander down to the shoreline.
The tide is farther out now, the rocks exposed and slippery with seaweed.
I look for tide pools, for a sign, for something.
What I find is a bit of blue sea glass, worn smooth and nearly perfect. I roll it between my fingers, thinking of Zane’s eyes, and then Lucas’s, and how they all look at me as if I were the only thing in the world.
When I finally trudge back up the dunes, I can see the lights on in the flat. Zane is waiting in the doorway, arms folded, silhouette sharp against the warmth of the kitchen.
I walk toward him. “Morning.”
“You’re beautiful.” The tone in his voice—soft and with a little awe—sends a knowing shiver through my body.
I’m where I’m meant to be.
I step into his arms. He kisses the sand off my cheek, slow and sweet, like we have all the time in the world.
I hope we do.
Cole’s bakery is thick with the scent of fresh bread.
The display case is stacked with enough Cornish pasties to feed a small army.
Cole stands behind the counter, forearms dusted with flour, hair sticking up at odd angles, like he’d just woken up from a nap in a flour sack.
He’s running the place solo today, it seems, with Esmé and Gage nowhere in sight.
Lucas is already there too, perched at the corner table before his morning lifeguarding shift.
His sun-bleached hair is barely contained by a battered ballcap.
He’s working through a mountain of scrambled eggs while keeping one eye on the front door and the other on his phone.
He looks up when Zane and I come in and grins so wide, his entire face crinkles up.
“Morning!” he calls as he waves us over.
Zane orders coffee for both of us, black for him and the sickeningly sweet stuff I love for me.
Cole pulls a tray of sausage rolls out of the oven and brings them over, hands trembling only a little from the heat. He slides into the booth next to me and offers a lopsided, shy smile. “Morning, little devil.”
Zane’s eyebrow raises, but he doesn’t comment.
I sheepishly grin at all three of them. “Those smell divine. May I?”
Cole hands a sausage roll over. “Of course.”
I take a bite, and it’s so good. “Ohmygod.”
Cole beams, visibly relieved. Zane, meanwhile, sips his coffee and scans the bakery in that careful, methodical way he does everywhere we go.
Even on what is effectively a summer off with how safe Seamuse is, he’s on high alert.
The only hint of his softer side is the gentle press of his knee against mine under the table.
We talk about nothing and everything until, mid-laugh, Zane’s phone starts vibrating on the table. Not just a single buzz, but a sustained, rapid-fire barrage that’s very unlike anything I’ve seen on Zane’s phone. He glances at the screen and his whole face tightens.
A split second later, my phone joins in.
Zane snatches his phone up and scans the screen. “Ignore it,” he mutters to me, but I can already see my father’s name in the notification bar, followed by a string of unread messages, some in all caps.
I reach for my phone, but Zane covers my hand with his. His grip is strong, steady. “Give me a second.”
Zane slides his phone across the table so we can all see. The top of the screen is filled with pings from my father, but what catches my eye is the subject line on a forwarded email: “ROYALS ANONYMOUS: The Starling Heiress Has Flown the Coop.”
Lucas lets out a low whistle. “I thought Royals Anonymous died. Why are they posting about you?”
Zane’s jaw ticks. “Isn’t your brother-in-law supposed to be running that into the ground? I’m going to kill him.”
I raise a hand. “Wyatt shut that down long before they got engaged.” I stare at the screen. “He promised everyone. That can’t be him.”
Cole gently places a hand on my arm. “Maybe someone revived it? People can be persistent about gossip.”
Zane scrolls down the full length of the post. I don’t read the whole thing but catch enough to get the gist. It’s a sharp, snarky blog post about how I—“Helena Starling, fresh out of Omega Finishing School, beloved daughter of the illustrious Starling line”—am rumored to be “skipping out on Omega Selection Day” to have a “Cornish Summer of Sin.” There are pictures: me walking on the beach, grabbing lunch with Lucas, leaving the bakery at closing with Zane, and a blurry shot of me looking absolutely feral in the town’s only nightclub.
From cameras neither Lucas nor I ever saw. The captions are ruthless.
I swallow hard. “Wyatt didn’t write that.” That’s the only insight I glean from this. “He would never. He’s also not that witty.”
Zane furiously swipes away from the blog post and back to some group chat with at least one other Ravenwood Shield Security member.
Cole frowns, serious. “Is this dangerous for you?”
I shake my head. “Not on its own, and we haven’t run into any issues here—or anywhere, ever, really.”
But Zane is already deep into logistics mode, clearly treating this like a massive threat. He looks at me with a grim set to his mouth. “Your father’s about to call again.”
As if on cue, my phone vibrates in my hand. I don’t answer but watch as the missed call banner rolls over into a new one. Then another. Then a text: PICK UP NOW.
I look at Zane. “Should I?”
He nods. “Let’s get it over with.”
I accept the call and brace myself.
My father’s voice is ice cold. “Helena. You are to return home immediately. Do you understand the severity of the situation?”
I don’t bother pretending I don’t. “Father, it’s a blog. No one cares. I haven’t done anything wrong—”
He cuts me off. “This is not about blame. It’s about optics ahead of Omega Selection Day.
You are to secure a royal match and that won’t happen with headlines like these.
” He pauses his tirade long enough that I hear the sounds of several people shuffling around him.
“You will be on the next train back home. Zane will escort you. I’ve already arranged it with your mother. ”
I glance at Zane, who is listening intently, his expression carved from marble. “I don’t want to leave. I’m not ready.”
“You don’t have a choice. The family’s reputation—”
“I don’t care about the family’s reputation!” The words come out sharper than I intended, and the entire bakery goes silent, even Lucas. I force myself to breathe, slow and shallow. “I care about my life. I want to stay here. For the rest of the summer, at least.”
A pause. “You are being selfish, Helena.”
“Maybe, but I’m also being honest.”
He hangs up without another word. I watch the call end, then set my phone down on the table like it might detonate.
Zane’s phone starts vibrating next. He stands, mouth a hard line, and steps outside to take the call. The door swings closed behind him, muting the sudden burst of angry words I hear from the other end.
Lucas is the first to speak. “That was…intense.”
I wipe my hands on a napkin. Only then do I realize I’m shaking. “He’s not mad. He’s just stuck in the past. My brother has done far worse.”
Ranier gambled for fun. Crashed more than one car and a motorcycle. But I’m the one who can’t have a summer away? Old childhood wounds burn bright. Especially since they carried on far into adulthood.
Cole scoots closer. “Is there anything we can do?”
I look at both him and Lucas, and for the first time, I see how utterly out of their depth they are. They care, but they don’t know how to fix this. High society is far removed from Seamuse Village. But maybe a high society fix isn’t what I need, anyway.
I shake my head. “This is my mess. I’ll clean it up.”
Lucas taps my arm. “We’ve got your back, though. If anyone tries to mess with you, they’re going through all three of us.”
I smile, but it’s brittle. My heart is pounding, not from fear, but from this wild, blooming determination.
I do not want to go back home. Not to face Omega Selection Day and any pack prospects that aren’t these three men. Until coming to Seamuse, I hadn’t wanted any of it at all.
When Zane comes back in, he looks even more closed off than before. His eyes flick to me, then to Cole and Lucas, then back to me. He doesn’t say anything for a long time.
I can feel the weight of it—the expectations, the ancient machinery of our family’s legacy grinding into gear. I’m supposed to obey. That’s what omegas do. That’s what I was trained for.
But sitting here, with three people who see me as more than a pawn in someone else’s game, I realize I’m not going anywhere.
I squeeze Zane’s hand under the table. “I’m not leaving.”
He looks at me, the sternness in his face cracking and melting away. “Then neither am I.”
I nod. There’s nothing left to say.
Somewhere outside, the gulls start up their racket, as if the whole world were gossiping about me. I let them.
I’m not running away from this.
But I do wonder, as I take another bite of the vegan pasty, if my father just sealed my fate—or set me free.