16. Scarlet Sage
Scarlet Sage
During the drive from Sweet Tooth, my omega decides survival looks a lot like sitting between them.
I should feel terrible after the bakery.
I was accused in public, watched a bonded omega nearly tear herself apart from fear, and heard the word bondbreaker crawl through a room full of people who have known me since I wore crooked pigtails and stole peach slices from festival booths.
Instead, tucked in Wes’s SUV with the engine humming beneath my boots, I feel grounded and entirely too aware of the men beside me.
Wes’s cedar wraps through the air every time he shifts behind the wheel, and Roman’s spice settles warm at my other side, because I refused the passenger seat and climbed into the back with him.
My hand rests on his thigh. I put it there five minutes ago, when a truck slowed beside us and the driver stared too long. Roman covered my fingers with his for a moment before returning to his sketchbook.
My body remembers Roman’s mouth from this morning and the way Wes’s hand felt at my back when the bakery turned against me.
That should make being near them feel easier but it raises the stakes.
Before, I could pretend I only wanted relief from the depleted ache beneath my skin.
Now I know what it feels like when these men take care of me.
Given my history, I have no business letting a pack become the place my body reaches for when the world turns ugly. Around me, love always breaks, and I don’t want them to suffer my fate.
Wes turns onto my dirt road, and the swamp closes around us in familiar green walls. Moss hangs from the trees like old lace, and water flashes dark through the cypress knees. An osprey rises from the ditch, all wings and offended grace.
Roman’s thumb brushes once over my knuckles. “You’ve been quiet.”
“I’m composing an angry letter to the town’s hospitality committee.”
“Strong opening?”
“It has footnotes.”
Wes pulls into my driveway before Roman can encourage me further.
The first thing I notice is the greenhouse, then the paint. My breath leaves me in a thin, ugly rush. Red letters slash across the glass wall in wet, uneven lines.
Bondbreaker
Below the word, someone painted a pair of crude eyes.
My marigolds are destroyed beneath it, every flower in the bed ripped up and crushed into the mud.
Orange petals cling to the path, and black soil is streaked across the porch steps.
The spray paint smell carries through the heat, chemical sharp over crushed stems and swamp water.
For a few seconds, I can’t move. It takes everything I have to keep from letting panic take me under. A whine builds in my throat, and I force it back down.
My grandmother planted marigolds there every spring because she said the house deserved cheerful things even when the world had poor manners.
Wes is out of the truck before I fully process that he has parked. Roman releases my hand only to open my door. He follows, quieter now, the humor gone from his face.
My boots sink into the soggy dirt. “Well,” I say, because apparently my mouth doesn’t have an off switch. “Today could have gone better.”
Neither man laughs.
Wes walks toward the greenhouse and crouches near the ruined bed. His gaze moves over the ground with steady focus, taking in the paint, footprints, broken latch, and flattened grass near the side yard.
Roman stops beside me. “Did you touch anything?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Don’t be fooled. I was busy having a tiny murder fantasy.”
His mouth curves, but concern remains in his eyes. “Very healthy.”
Wes looks back at us. “Two people.”
My stomach knots. “How do you know?”
“Two tread patterns: one heavier near the greenhouse, one lighter near the driveway.” He points toward a faint print at the grass line. “The second person stayed back.” His attention returns to the broken greenhouse latch. “They didn’t only come here to paint a threat. Somebody went inside.”
“A lookout,” Roman says.
People came to my house while I was gone, crossed the yard, stepped through my flowers, and marked the place my grandmother left me with the name this town has been trying to make stick since I was a child.
Wes stands and scans the property. He checks the porch first, then the side gate, then the latch on my kitchen window.
Controlled purpose replaces everything else in him, his expression growing colder at every weakness he finds.
It’s alarming. It’s also intimate in a way that makes my skin feel too tight.
“You don’t have outdoor lights on the water side,” he says.
“I have stars.”
“You have blind spots.”
“I also have a broom and a bad attitude.”
Roman lifts his brows. “I’m starting to suspect the broom may not meet task-force standards.”
“I refuse to be judged by a man who arrived with a field satchel.”
Wes doesn’t look amused. “You’re not staying here alone until this is handled.”
My omega hears protection and moves toward it before the rest of me can decide whether it’s a comfort or danger. I fold my arms. “That sounded dangerously close to a decree.”
“It was an assessment.”
“Alpha men love calling decrees assessments.”
Roman coughs into his hand.
Wes looks at me fully. “People came onto your property and threatened you.”
“I can read, yes.”
“They escalated.”
“So did your tone.”
His gaze drops briefly to my mouth. Heat flares low and fierce. It’s the wrong timing for every reason I can name. His attention shifts back to the greenhouse. “Inside,” Wes says.
I blink. “Excuse me?”
“Or the truck. Pick one.”
The softness in me folds up fast. “I’m not a houseplant you can move out of harsh weather.”
“No.” He steps closer. “You’re an omega whose home was violated by people who wanted you to come back and see it. Any other omega would have dropped by now, and you’re here arguing with me about broken latches.”
Every word feels sharp and personal because they are true. I hate that most of all.
“You think I don’t know that?” My voice rises. “You think I don’t feel them here? Their boots in my yard? Their paint on my glass? Their hands in my grandmother’s flowers?”
Wes reaches for me but stops. The restraint makes me angrier than if he grabbed me. At least then I could fight the wrong target.
“The search warrant already made this place stop feeling like mine,” I say. “Now this.”
Roman’s expression tightens.
“I have to make do with what I’ve got. I don’t get to collapse because someone scares me or fold because my house smells wrong. No matter what happens I never get to crawl under a table and wait for the world to stop poking me.”
My throat burns.
My instincts are screaming for enclosed space, locked doors, and familiar scent. My body wants Roman’s hand at my back and Wes between me and the damage.
Wes takes one careful step forward.
I take one back, and my spine meets the truck door.
His eyes darken, but he doesn’t touch me. He plants one hand against the truck beside my shoulder, close enough that cedar envelopes me.
My body recognizes shelter and leans toward it.
“I intend to keep you safe,” he says.
“Congratulations.”
His mouth tightens at the edge. “Even when you’re reckless.”
My temper snaps. “I’m not reckless. I’m cornered.”
The alpha certainty in his face cracks, and beneath it is worry so clean and furious, it steals my next breath. “I know,” he says.
It’s the wrong answer and the right one at once. I grab the front of his shirt and kiss him.
Wes’s hand closes around my waist while the other slides into my hair. He kisses me with controlled force, his mouth demanding, giving me exactly enough pressure to push back against.
Cedar fills my lungs. My body goes soft everywhere my anger wants to stay sharp. I pull him closer instead of pretending I don’t know what I’m asking for. His thigh presses between mine, and pleasure sparks low through my panic. Wes makes a rough sound against my mouth.
For several breaths, the ruined yard disappears.
Then Roman’s fingers close gently around my wrist, grounding me. Cardamom and cinnamon move through the cedar, and I turn my hand beneath his until our fingers link. The contact brings the rest of the world back. Paint. Broken flowers. My house.
I break the kiss.
Wes’s breathing is rough. Mine is worse.
I stay close enough that my mouth brushes his jaw when I speak. “If I let instinct choose every response, I’d never leave the space between you.”
Roman’s thumb moves along my knuckles.
“Then don’t.” Wes looks at me for a long moment. “Ask,” he says. “Argue. Tell us no. But don’t make being afraid the same as being alone.”
My eyes sting. I refuse to acknowledge that development.
Roman steps closer, his shoulder brushing mine while he looks over the damage. “Let’s make the house harder to approach before we debate the full philosophy of alpha management.”
“Coward,” I tell him.
“Professional mediator.”
Wes releases my waist by degrees. The absence of his hand leaves my body colder, but Roman is still linked with me, and Wes doesn’t step far.
“I’ll fix the latches,” Wes says.
It sounds like the matter is closed. The annoying part is that he is right. The fact that he will simply take care of it without turning the act into a debt stitches warmth into my chest.
Roman pulls out his phone and photographs the greenhouse, the trampled marigolds, and the prints near the grass line. Every few seconds, his gaze returns to me.
I hate that he’s checking. I hate more that it helps.
Wes disappears onto the porch with his field kit.
Roman finishes photographing the paint and comes to me. “Can I touch you?”
“Yes.”
He steps behind me and wraps both arms around my waist, resting his chin near my temple. He holds space for me, with no attempt to fix my anger or make my grief smaller. I lean back into him. His scent settles around me, and I purr before I can stop it.
Wes looks over from the porch. Our eyes meet.
He crosses the yard, stops in front of me, and brushes his knuckles across my cheek. “Inside or out here?” he asks.
“Out here,” I say. “Until you finish documenting it.”
He nods.
Roman keeps holding me while Wes returns to the porch.
I stand in the yard with cedar still on my mouth and Roman’s arms around me.
Someone has violated my home, gone inside my greenhouse, and left the ugliest name this town has ever given me across the glass.
Through all of it, I keep reaching for Wes and Roman.
I’m running out of ways to pretend that choice means nothing.