Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Holden
Ican sense the tension in Sasha.
It has consumed him like a raging tornado since the game against the Gators a few weeks ago, following him from room to room, practice to practice, never quite meeting the ground but never easing either.
Usually, I know what version of my Alpha I’m waking up beside.
The broody one. The perfectly lovable one who tries to hide his feelings.
The one pretending everything is fine because that’s easier than admitting he still wakes in the middle of the night, choking on fucking memories.
Or my personal favorite, the version who pretends he isn’t listening while Dominic and I fuck in the shower.
I know he loves that shit. The grumpy bastard will stomp around our home muttering under his breath about us using all the hot water, all while lingering just long enough outside the bathroom door that Dom and I know he’s hoping one of us will drag him in.
He’d deny it until the day he dies, but he’s a terrible liar.
Normally, all it takes is one teasing comment from either of us for him to crack. A roll of his eyes. A sarcastic remark. Maybe even that tiny smile he fights so damn hard to hide whenever he thinks neither of us is looking. Lately, we’ve got nothing. Silence.
Not the comfortable kind we’ve spent years building together, where words aren’t necessary because we already know what the others are thinking. The kind that feels wrong. Like I’m standing beside the love of my life, yet somehow he’s a thousand miles away.
I’ve spent the better part of fifteen years learning every version of Sasha and Dominic.
Long before we were drafted. Long before NHL.
Back when we were nothing more than a bunch of dumb teenagers trying to survive high school without getting suspended every other week.
We found each other before fate ever found us.
Before designation mattered. We chose each other first.
I know the way their mouths twitch when they’re trying not to laugh at my admittedly incredible sense of humor.
We’ve been there for each other through it all.
When my sister and mother cut ties with me because they didn’t approve of my pack, something about them being dangerous, Sasha and Dom were the ones to talk me down.
Willing to walk away if it meant I had them in my life.
That was never going to happen because you couldn’t pay me to give up my guys.
They’re everything to me, and my sister can either get on board or fuck all the way off.
She chose the latter, and that’s no longer my problem.
We stick together. That is what a pack does.
It isn’t just biology or instinct. It’s also a choice. One I’d make over and over again in every type of reality that exists.
It’s the same for Dominic too, except he grew up never knowing his real parents.
The closest thing he had to a family was us.
We spent years chasing every lead we could find after we signed our first contracts.
Every private investigator around. Every public record.
We thought money would buy us answers. Instead, it brought closure.
His biological parents had both died before he was old enough to remember them.
And when the couple who adopted him were killed in a car accident just after he turned eighteen, Sasha and I never even discussed what came next.
Dominic packed his bags and came home to us.
We didn’t have a penthouse back then, but it didn’t matter where we lived.
I’d live under a tarp with them if I had to.
These things aren’t what make a home to me. They do.
Which is exactly why watching Sasha disappear into himself feels like watching the foundations beneath our pack begin to crack. And I don’t know how to stop it.
Sasha has been far too uptight since the game against the Gators a few weeks ago.
Both Dom and I tried to coax something out of him, anything, but to no avail.
Every conversation dies before it has the chance to become one, every question is met with a shrug or a grunt that tells us to leave it alone. And we do.
All we know is, it has something to do with Lennon.
It isn’t news that they fucked in her office the night of the Gators game.
The way Lennon handled him was effortless.
Natural. Like she’d reached the part of him Dominic and I have spent years trying to protect.
Maybe that’s what scares me the most. It did everything but convince me that this whole vendetta plan against her is worth it.
It has never felt right, scaring her the way we have been.
The threatening text messages. The naked photos.
Not to mention Sasha literally sticking his cock in her mouth while she slept.
Fucking asshole, though I’m not surprised.
But something tells me our Little Bird would be into it. If what I heard outside her office is anything to go by. She’s far from fucking innocent. And dare I admit it, she’s more suited for us than Sasha will ever care to admit.
I agreed to rattle her. I agreed that her life was nothing more than a means to an end in the war raging inside our Alpha.
But somewhere along the way, we stopped chasing her.
We haven’t so much as infiltrated the camera that Dom hacked into, which her friend had installed not long after she moved here.
Watching her fear had been the biggest turn on, especially knowing Sasha was just as into it, though I’d put money on that being for reasons he’s not ready to admit to himself yet.
At least, that’s what I kept telling myself
I liked that she was scared. I wanted her to understand the kind of man her father was and to pay for the fucking mess her being here has put Sasha through.
Fuck around with her a little bit and have our fun.
Yet, when we invaded her nest and left the dead cardinal behind, that felt like a step too far.
Would I do it again? Yes. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t fucked up.
I know just how sacred an Omega's nest is. It's their safe place. A place where they are able to spend their heat in an environment where they are able to be regulated.
We ruined that for her.
I can see it in the way she moves. In the way everything we’ve been doing to her behind the scenes has settled beneath her skin.
The bags under her eyes each morning at practice are heavy, proving just how little sleep she’s been getting.
She hesitates before unlocking her office.
While I think that’s partly because it belonged to her father, I also believe it’s because she’s checking behind every corner, searching every dark shadow for signs that someone is watching.
That they’d pop out and make good on their threats. Our threats.
At one point, the idea of being the reason she lay awake every night had lit a fire inside me. Now it just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. There’s a difference between occupying someone’s thoughts and stealing their peace. And as it turns out, I’m not as okay with it as I thought I’d be.
I want Lennon to think of me—of us when she touches herself.
To envision me when she brings herself closer to the edge, her clit throbbing with fucking need because what she really wants is to feel my tongue.
I want to be the name on her lips when she comes, and I want her to hate it.
I want every thought, every visceral imagining to bring her ruin.
I don’t want her looking over her shoulder because she’s afraid of me.
I want her to look for me. To seek me out in a crowd.
I want her to imagine what my cock tastes like, dripping with my guys' combined release. I want her to clean it up after they’re done with me, and hate that she just can’t get enough.
Because that’s how it feels to be me. Wanting my scent match from a distance, and knowing there’s no chance in hell she’ll be mine in the way fate intended. The way our instincts beg for us to be.
“I’ve fucking got it!” Sasha yells, running down the stairs and into the living room where Dom and I have been absently watching a movie. There is an iPad in his hand and a far too cheerful look on his face. One I don’t think I’ve seen in months.
If I’m honest, that worries me more than his silence.
Plopping himself down between us, he pulls up what appears to be an email.
“A few weeks ago, I decided to hire a private investigator to do some more digging into Gilmore. I just got the email through and that motherfucker delivered.”
I glance at Sasha, eyes wide.
Who the fuck?
“Okay…” I say, not really knowing what I am even meant to say to him right now. He doesn’t seem to care as he begins flicking through the attachments.
“I just had a feeling that there was something more to Lennon and her story. You both know just how much of a shady fucker Patrick was, and I had to get more information. Something concrete on her before I do what needs to be done.”
He chuckles, the sound sending a chill down my spine.
“Did you know that Patrick isn’t actually Lennon’s biological father?”
Dominic clears his throat, and I think I'm going to pass the fuck out.
“Ah, no. I did not. Though we already know her birth mother had multiple partners, so there’s a strong possibility.
“The thing is, Patrick was never registered to a pack.”
I frown, my mind racing as I try to connect the dots and figure out what Sasha is actually saying.
“The PI was able to track down her birth certificate. The real birth certificate.”
I gape at him as he finally selects the document, zooming in to show her last name.
Her real last name.
Lennon Welsh.