Chapter 43
Forty-Three
JASPER
W hy had she signed the annulment? When had she signed the annulment? It must have been while I was out for a run this morning. She hadn’t been gone from my side since the moment I came back and found her sitting on the porch. Had she seemed more resigned than just the bullshit with her mom would have caused? And even more important: did Rylan and Dominic know?
My mind races, and my breath is ragged. I close my eyes, forcing the questions back until I can think around them, locking them down. There’s no time to ask any of them now. It’ll be days before I can get any kind of answer to most of them, anyway. I climb the staircase to Violet’s nest on wooden legs.
Dominic leans against the wall just beside the door, his head tipped back and his hands held limp at his sides. His shirt is gone, the dark gray sweats hanging low on his hips. There’s a smattering of bruises across his throat and collarbone, light enough they nearly blend in with his skin. His hair is still damp, falling on his forehead in small black waves. He looks tired and worn, more than I’ve ever seen him.
Rylan closes the door, letting the latch catch as quietly as possible. He’s also changed into a set of sweats, his hair damp, too, and sticking to his neck. The black shirt he wears clings to his skin, small droplets of water darkening it further from where he didn’t towel dry his hair quite enough.
Desire flashes through me.
Is it bad that I want them to fuck me so I can forget how awful tonight was? Probably. Heats are no fucking joke and asking them to put out again when Violet will need them both within a matter of hours is incredibly selfish.
Doesn’t change the ache in my bones or the pulse of heat through my dick, though.
“She all right?” I ask, closing the distance between us and taking Dominic’s hand in mine.
Nothing of Violet’s scent clings to either of them.
Dominic nods once without opening his eyes. His hand pulses around mine, a low purr vibrating through his throat.
“She’ll be fine. Just going to be a long several days,” Rylan says, leaning his forehead against the closed door. Acid leaches into his voice, and his hand tightens around the doorknob until his knuckles are white. “She had a heat in March. There’s no fucking way this wasn’t forced by someone.”
Dominic raises an eyebrow. “How do you know she had a heat in March?”
Rylan tenses, a growl ripping through him.
“ Mi dispiace, ” Dominic says, grabbing his friend’s forearm. Rylan relaxes and lets go of the doorknob. The smallest bit of hope blooms in the pit of my stomach at the small gesture. Maybe something good might come from this whole fucking mess. Maybe Rylan and Dominic’s friendship surviving will be enough to dull the ache of the rest of it.
I clear my throat, but Rylan talks over me. “She told me the first day I took her out.”
Surprise flashes through me. They’d talked about it so soon after reconnecting?
Dominic grunts.
“Something about it went wrong, though,” Rylan says after a minute. “It’s what pushed her to consent to matching. She’s never said what it was, just that it was bad enough to risk a bad match made by the Council.”
My stomach clenches. Not many things would push Violet into risking her mother’s attention. And matching? It was the single biggest way to do just that.
Dominic mutters a curse before opening his eyes. His voice is nothing more than gravel as he says, “Please tell me you figured out who the fuck drugged her.”
Nerves close my throat, and I force a swallow. When it doesn’t help, I nod once. Dominic squeezes my hand.
“Yeah, I figured it out,” I manage to say. My voice cracks, my mind still struggling to accept the damning truth.
Rylan palms my neck, pulling me nearer to him, kissing my temple. Dominic leans in, too, like I’m an Omega that needs comforting. They both must be absolutely exhausted. They need to sleep before Violet’s needing them again. Instead of pushing them away, though, I lean harder into them both, letting their strength hold me up as my knees collapse under me.
Dominic wraps an arm around my waist before I can actually fall.
“Shit, Jas,” Rylan says, twisting his hand into my hair. “We’ve got you. It’s going to be all right.”
I let my head fall onto his shoulder, and Dominic kisses the nape of my neck. My breath shudders out of me before hitching on a sob. Both men step closer, crowding me until their bodies are solid and warm and holding me up when everything in me wants to collapse. Dominic murmurs in Italian, soft things that I can’t manage to hear enough to pick out exact phrases.
“You did good, Jasper,” Rylan murmurs, his thumb tracing my ear.
“I didn’t even know she was in trouble,” I bite out. “I wouldn’t have known what her scent meant without you there. I… I still can’t tell the difference, and she’s sitting in the room next to me in the depths of a heat.”
Dominic tightens his arm around my waist but doesn’t stop his soft murmurings.
“You kept Dom level when he would have killed the asshole,” Rylan says, his touch never faltering. Goosebumps race down my spine. “And then we would have been in an entirely different mess. Don’t hold this on you. This isn’t your fault.”
His words are soft but firm, the thread of power through them strong enough that even my shoulders relax under it. Eventually, the soft fall of tears slows, and I blow out a breath. Rylan’s eyebrows are furrowed and concern brackets his mouth as I lift my head and take him in.
“You can’t do anything until she’s out of her heat,” I whisper. “It’s… it’s not something that the police are going to investigate. And Violet deserves to know before either of you run off and do something impulsive.”
Rylan’s inhale is sharp, his eyes searching mine as the realization settles on him.
“ é sua madre ?” Dominic’s voice is a growl that has the hair rising on my neck. “ O uno dei suoi padri ?”
I force another swallow and close my eyes. Dominic runs his lips across my neck and shoulder before biting the soft junction where they meet just hard enough that I groan.
“ Tesoro ?” he asks.
My stomach drops out at the nickname, the warm feel of it sliding over my skin and skating down my bones. Longing mixes with bitterness until I’m choking on it. I’d begged with him to make this work, to find a way to tolerate her. He’d promised me that he would.
I push the thoughts away and focus on this moment.
“Sienna,” I whisper her name, refusing to call her Violet’s mother. Not right now. “I… I don’t know if she did it alone. I think she did. Vi… her dads love her. You saw how upset he was over everything that happened.”
Dominic’s growl rumbles through his chest, vibrating against me. Even exhausted, I tense under the sound, the feral lethality of it. Rylan runs his lips down my throat, humming, and I settle into him. His cock lays hard and heavy against my hip. My pulse thrums, my blood heating, but I force my body to remain unresponsive.
“You need to sleep,” I mutter into his shoulder.
Dominic grunts and closes the last bit of distance between us, his own interest pressing against my ass. My knees weaken, and his arm tightens around me.
Fuck, I’ve missed him.
Reality slams back into me so hard, I lose my breath and flinch. Dominic freezes, his lips stilling on my shoulder, his open hand pausing where it had been working to undo my belt. Rylan’s growl starts again, and I push away from them both, not wanting to be in the middle of whatever I just accidentally triggered. Not tonight. I have nothing left in me right now.
“ Tesoro ,” Dominic growls.
Fuck. All I want is to sink into his warmth and strength. But I can’t. Not when I’m days away from having to watch Violet walk out of my life. Again.
Will we survive it? I think so. But I don’t want to have to survive it. I’d begged and pleaded so that I wouldn’t have to survive it.
I shake my head. “I can’t do this right now. Not with her in heat and the annulment sitting in our fucking living room.”
Both men freeze. A long silence stretches between us.
“Jasper,” Rylan whispers, his voice soothing. It sluices over me but doesn’t find anywhere to latch onto. Another reminder of me being a goddamn Beta.
I frown and take another step away before cracking open the door to Violet’s nest. She’s curled into herself, her back toward the door, a light pink throw blanket covering most of her body. Her shoulders move with her steady breathing. A single lamp in the far corner illuminates the room, gilding her in light so perfect it makes my knees weak.
I resist the urge to touch her by the skin of my teeth. I shove my hands into the pockets of my sweats, clenching them against the force of the need to feel that she’s really all right. If I touch her right now, it’ll probably wake her up. And there’s nothing I can do to help her through this.
As angry as I am with the men, I won’t take away the few hours of rest they’re going to have while she sleeps.
Closing the door, I blink back the sudden tears, the exhaustion of the night compounding everything else that sits on my chest like a stone. Movement behind me has me blowing out a breath.
“Jasper,” Dominic says.
I shake my head again before twisting away from the door. My lovers stand in front of me, shoulder to shoulder, their mouths identical thin lines. I dodge around both men, avoiding touching them, and start down the stairs.
“Not tonight,” I say. “I need one more night where I don’t have to actually acknowledge that she’s not mine. Again.”