38. Wes Osprey
Wes Osprey
The line goes dead while Scarlet is still holding the phone to her ear.
You found the wrong path.
I lock the front door, throw the dead bolt, and move through the cottage, checking every window. Roman calls Tom from the kitchen, giving him the number, the time, and the exact words while Scarlet stands beside the table in one of Roman’s shirts with a quilt wrapped around her shoulders.
She has gone pale beneath her freckles.
I reach the window overlooking the porch and check the camera feed. Myrtle’s sedan is already gone. The casserole remains beneath its white cloth cover, untouched on the porch.
“Wes,” Roman says behind me, his voice low.
I turn and see Scarlet’s knees fold. Before she reaches the floor, I’ve crossed the kitchen. Her body collapses against mine without resistance. She doesn’t catch herself or insist she can stand. Her head falls against my chest, her arms hanging loose beneath the quilt.
“Scarlet.”
Her eyes remain open, but they don’t focus. She has gone into full omega collapse. My fierce warrior’s body has finally given out. As I lift her, the quilt slips, exposing one bare thigh beneath Roman’s borrowed shirt. Her skin is cool where my hand supports her legs.
My alpha’s purr tears out of me. It’s too loud for the old house, too rough to be soothing at first. The sound comes from the part of me that has spent days watching her hurt, while she fights the world, and has reached the end of its tolerance.
Roman ends the call and follows us into the living room.
The makeshift nest covers the couch and part of the rug, built only last night after we brought her home.
Her own blankets form the base. My shirts and Roman’s are tucked around the pillows because she needed our scents near her while she slept.
I sit gently onto the corner of the couch and brace Scarlet against my chest and across my lap. Her cheek rests over my heart. One arm lies between us, limp and warm beneath the quilt.
Roman kneels beside the couch and touches two fingers beneath her ear. “Pulse is fast.”
“She’s out.”
“She’s awake.”
Her lashes move, but she doesn’t answer.
Roman smooths hair away from her face. “She dropped. Let her body come back on its own.”
I tighten my hold, and a purr rolls through my chest without pause. Scarlet feels it where she is pressed against me, every vibration carrying the same instinctive command. Safe. Stay. Mine to protect.
My alpha has wanted her in my arms since the first moment I scented how long she had gone without care. I thought I understood that need then. I didn’t understand shit.
She had the worst heat of her life under my watch.
Her body burned through every safeguard she had built during years of cycles alone.
She lost Roman’s scent. A stranger entered her greenhouse while she was knotted and vulnerable.
Cameras watched her home. Reporters showed the cottage to anyone willing to look.
Now someone called because she reads her grandmother’s maps too well.
She doesn’t deserve any of this. She deserves a locked door that means safety, a nest no one invades, and a heat that ends in sleep instead of evidence bags and deputies. She deserves to be an omega without the world finding a way to punish her for needing care.
Roman climbs onto the couch beside us. He lifts Scarlet’s feet into his lap and covers them with the quilt before rubbing warmth into them through the fabric.
My purr deepens.
Roman looks at me across her body. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m holding her.”
“Both can be true.”
I press my mouth against Scarlet’s hair. “I need her safe, Ro, and this case closed.”
“I know, Alpha. Me too.” Roman’s thumb moves along the sole of her foot in slow strokes. “Tom is tracing the call. He’ll send a unit down the county road.”
“Myrtle knew Scarlet was unwell.”
“She did.”
“And she has access to the part of this case that keeps pointing back to Heritage Hall. Scarlet’s grandmother’s records. Preservation materials. The museum transfer.”
Roman watches Scarlet rather than me. “The timing is suspicious, but Myrtle wasn’t using a phone when she walked to her car.”
“I know.” I look toward the porch where her casserole still waits. “I don’t need her to be behind every piece of this. I need to know what she did with the pieces she could reach. And, I still don’t like her being near Scarlet.”
“That’s not the same as evidence.”
“I’m aware.”
Roman’s gaze lifts to mine. “Are you?” The question would irritate me under other circumstances.
Scarlet’s weight across my lap keeps me honest.
“I know the difference,” I say. “My instincts just don’t care about the difference.”
Roman’s expression softens. “You’ve had a bad week.”
“She stopped knowing you.”
Roman’s hand pauses against Scarlet’s foot. “Yes.”
“I left both of you while she was in heat.”
“You came back.”
“I should never have gone.”
Roman leans closer, careful not to jostle Scarlet. “You can’t be everywhere, Wes.”
“I can be where she is.”
“She needs a pack, not a guard posted over her bed.”
“I can be both.”
“You can.” Roman lays his palm against the back of my neck. “You also have to let us hold you when it becomes too much.”
My purr stutters.
His thumb strokes beneath my hair.
Scarlet shifts between us. A small breath leaves her, followed by a broken sound that cuts through me cleanly. Her fingers close around my shirt.
“Sweetheart.”
Her face turns toward my chest. Then she sobs.
The first cry bends her whole body. I gather her closer, one arm beneath her legs and the other across her back, while Roman moves against her other side. His hand cups the back of her head.
Scarlet cries without restraint. The sound pours out of her in raw, shaking waves. Tears soak through my shirt. Her scent floods the nest with fear, exhaustion, and grief, sharpened by the last traces of a heat that asked more from her than anybody should have to give.
I purr harder. Roman joins me.
Our frequencies fill the room, mine low and heavy, his warmer and steadier around the edges. Scarlet curls tighter on my lap until she is pressed between us. She gasps. “I don’t understand it.”
Roman strokes her hair away from her wet face. “The call?”
“My grandmother.” She drags in air but loses it to another sob. “The map. The release path. She wrote warnings everywhere, but she never wrote what I’m supposed to do.”
“You don’t have to solve it tonight,” I tell her.
“The Love Stone is gone. People are sick. Someone keeps coming to my house.” Her nails catch in my shirt. “My heat was terrifying.”
My body locks around her, and Scarlet lifts her face. Tears cling to her lashes and track over flushed cheeks.
“I’ve had awful heats before, fifteen of them. I know how bad they can get.” Her voice breaks. “This one was worse, but you were there. Both of you were there. Even when I couldn’t recognize Roman, I knew someone had me. I was never alone.”
Roman’s purr catches, and she grabs for him. He takes her hand and presses it against his chest. “You had us, love.”
“I always had to survive them by myself.” Her lower lip trembles. “This time, I didn’t. You fed me, held me, and kept me safe, and now I want one goddamn minute to be an omega who gets to rest after a heat.”
“You get more than a minute,” I say.
“I don’t think the world is going to give it to me.”
“The world doesn’t decide what you get from us.”
She looks at me. I wipe the tears from beneath her eyes with my thumb. “You can come apart in my arms whenever you need to, my little omega. I will hold every piece until you’re ready for them again.”
Roman kisses her temple. “You never have to earn softness here.”
Scarlet closes her eyes. Her next breath shudders, but it reaches deeper. “I love you,” she whispers.
Neither of us move.
The words are quiet enough that I could pretend I misheard them. My alpha knows better.
Scarlet opens her eyes again, frightened by what she said and too exhausted to take it back. “I love both of you.” Her fingers tighten over Roman’s heart. “You keep showing up beside me no matter how badly I show up.”
“I’ve loved you since you let me see you at the dock.” Roman’s eyes shine. He bends and kisses her with tenderness that makes her cry again, though these tears fall more slowly. When he releases her, she turns toward me.
I hold her face between my hands. “You could never show up wrong for us, sweetheart. I’ve fallen in love with every version.”
Her mouth meets mine, and salt touches my tongue. She kisses me gently, with tears cooling on her skin and her body held securely across my lap. Roman keeps one hand in her hair and the other against my shoulder, connecting all three of us.
I kiss her until her trembling eases.
Then I stand with her in my arms. “You need a nice long bath.”
“I already had one.”
“You cried through my shirt,” Roman says.
“That sounds like your problem.” The smallest trace of warmth returns to her voice.
“It is. I plan to solve it upstairs.”
Roman gathers the quilt around her while I carry her out of the nest and up the stairs.
The bathroom fills with steam.
Roman climbs into the deep tub first and settles against the sloped back before opening his arms. I lower Scarlet between his legs. She leans against his chest while hot water rises over her stomach.
Roman washes the tears from her face with a soft cloth. I sit on the edge of the tub and work shampoo through her hair. Scarlet’s eyes drift closed as I massage her scalp. Her body rests heavily against Roman’s.
He kisses her shoulder.
She catches his hand beneath the water and brings it to her stomach. “Thank you,” she says.
“For the bath?” he asks.
“For knowing I needed to be held before I knew how to ask.”
Roman presses his mouth below her ear. “Always, my sweet little menace.”
I rinse the shampoo from her hair and smooth it down her back.
Scarlet turns her head toward me. “And thank you for always trying to protect me in your alpha way. It’s endearing.”
My hand pauses against her neck, and my scent answers with a possessive swell that thickens the cedar in the steam.
Scarlet breathes it in. Her thighs shift beneath the water, and her omega perfume answers. Roman’s hand travels lower across her stomach but stops before sliding between her legs.
“Still sore?” he asks.
“Yes.” Scarlet looks at me. “But I want one good thing that belongs to today.”
I lean over the tub and kiss her.
Roman keeps her supported against his chest while his fingers slide lower. He touches her gently, avoiding every tender place, stroking her clit with slow circles beneath the water.
I draw back enough to watch Scarlet’s face as she sighs. I cup one breast through the water, teasing her nipple with my thumb while Roman works between her thighs. There is no heat frenzy in the way she responds. Her body opens gradually, guided by pleasure instead of pain.
“Look at me, little omega.”
Her green eyes find mine.
Roman kisses the side of her neck. His fingers move faster.
Scarlet’s breath catches.
I keep my palm around her breast and my mouth close to hers while the pleasure builds. “That’s it, sweetheart. Let us give you this.”
Her hand closes around my wrist. Roman holds her tighter when she comes.
The orgasm rolls through her quickly, gentle enough not to strain her recovering body. She trembles against him and releases a soft cry into my mouth.
My alpha settles at the sound. I needed this as much as she did, just a moment when her body reaches for us and finds pleasure instead of fever. A moment when our pack can give her what she needs.
Roman kisses her shoulder while his hand slows.
Scarlet’s eyes remain closed. “That was today’s good thing,” she whispers.
“One of them,” Roman says.
My phone rings on the counter.
Scarlet groans softly but doesn’t move from Roman’s arms.
I answer. Tom has the trace results and a report from the outside analyst. The call came through a prepaid relay. The strongest signal bounced south of town near the old access corridor, covering Heritage Hall, several festival buildings, and the service road.
The analyst found more. Every suspicious transaction came from the preservation office terminal inside Sweetheart Haven Heritage Hall: the archive request for Scarlet’s grandmother’s files, the museum transfer that moved the sealed container six days before the Love Stone was reported missing, and the temporary codes Rusk used at the preservation shed.
Three different crimes, one preservation office. Whoever used that terminal supplied the history and the access. Rusk did the dirty work after.
Scarlet opens her eyes.
Roman’s arms tighten around her.
Tom confirms the terminal has not been secured. Heritage Hall closes for the day in less than two hours.
“I’m requesting consent now,” he says. “If they refuse, I’ll start on a warrant.”
I end the call.
Scarlet begins to sit forward.
Roman keeps one hand against her stomach. “Slowly, love.”
“We’re going.”
“You just collapsed,” I say.
“I came back.”
“You’re still recovering.”
“I am.” Her gaze moves between us. “Because you’re taking care of me.” The gratitude in her voice disarms the refusal forming in my throat.
“I don’t want to leave either of you,” she says. “I don’t want to walk into Heritage Hall alone, and I don’t have to. You taught me that during my heat.”
Roman rests his cheek against her wet hair.
Scarlet reaches for my hand. “I need this resolved. I need to know what my grandmother was trying to tell me before whoever called gets there first.”
My alpha wants her wrapped in towels and carried into bed. The rest of me understands. “You stay between us,” I say. “You drink water before we leave. You tell us the first moment you feel tired.”
“I will.”
“And you take the blanket.”
Scarlet looks back at me. “Alpha.” Her smile is small and exhausted but real. “I’m not wearing a blanket.”
“Let’s negotiate after you get dressed.” I lift her from Roman’s arms and wrap her in the thickest towel I can find.
She lays her head against my shoulder while Roman climbs out behind us.
For one more minute, we remain together in the warm bathroom, our scents heavy in the steam and Scarlet safely held between us.
Then we dress her, feed her, and take our omega to finish what the town started.