Chapter 4 #2
I signal, pulling into the small lot. The place smells like ginger and fried garlic even from the street. Late morning sun flashes off glass, too bright after the gray walls of Nexus.
Inside, voices, sizzling woks, and the clatter of plates fill the space.
Jess hesitates by the counter, her weight shifting foot to foot like she’s calculating exits. One hand drifts to her opposite elbow in protection, closing herself off. Torn between fight and flight, and right now flight’s winning.
“Order whatever you want,” I tell her, keeping my voice low and even.
Her eyes dart from the menu to my face, then back, pupils slightly dilated. “I don’t know which sushi rolls to get.” She swallows. “They all sound amazing.”
“Then we’ll start simple,” Cassian says, stepping beside her. “We’ll take one of everything.”
Eli shoots him a look. “You’re trying to kill her.”
Cassian’s grin is lazy. “What other way to know what she likes. Try a bit of everything.”
I hand over my card before they can start debating. “Add three specials. And teas.”
We sit by one of the windows in the corner, Cassian taking the spot where he can see the front door while I take the chair facing the emergency exit. Jess folds her hands in her lap, posture too careful as the waiter brings both teas and waters for each of us.
She looks from one of us to the next, curiosity winning over caution.
“So,” she says after a sip of tea, “how’d the three of you end up together? You don’t move like a pack that grew up out of the same system.”
Her tone’s light, but the question isn’t. She’s asking how we work.
She’s not prying for gossip; she’s measuring how tight our walls are before she decides if she wants inside them.
Cassian leans back, arm draped over the empty chair beside him. “Rowan and I served together. I got kicked out; he didn’t. Eli showed up later and made us stop trying to destroy each other.”
Eli snorts, tearing open a packet of sugar and dumping it into his tea. “That’s the short version. The long one involves a bar fight and a bad poker debt.”
“You lost,” Cassian says.
“I let you win,” Eli replies.
Jess grins into her tea. “So basically, trauma bonding.”
“Something like that,” I say. “We fit. Packs usually start that way—people who make each other a little less reckless or fill something that’s missing in ourselves.”
The waiter brings the first plates—bowls of noodles gleaming with oil, small plates of dumplings, sushi arranged like bright jewels. Jess’s eyes widen as the smell hits her.
She picks up the chopsticks and goes for a roll. Then she douses the sushi in soy sauce, adds a smear of wasabi, then ginger, and pops it into her mouth. A quiet sound slips from her throat—half sigh, half groan—and she covers her mouth with her hand, embarrassed.
Cassian’s jaw tightens. Eli’s scent spikes with protectiveness. And something in me shifts—quiet, dangerous, like a fault line giving way.
Watching her eat feels intrusive, so I look away and focus on my own plate, grip my chopsticks harder than necessary, anything to give her privacy.
But the sound of her soft sigh when flavor hits registers low in my gut, and my cock hardens. I force myself to take a drink, the tea bitter on my tongue, grounding.
“Better?” Eli asks, amused.
She nods quickly, chewing. “This tastes amazing.”
Cassian lifts a crispy tempura strip, taps it against the edge of her plate. “Try this one. You’ll thank me.”
Jess narrows her eyes but takes it, biting the corner. “All right, I admit—that’s good.”
“Of course it’s good,” Cassian says. “I have impeccable taste.”
“You have expensive taste,” Eli corrects, stealing a dumpling before Cassian can stop him. “But everything here is good, or I wouldn’t have suggested it.”
We continue to eat, and I focus on the small motions of her. The way she licks a drop of sauce from her thumb, how she straightens the chopsticks when she’s finished with a roll, habit from someone who’s used to expensive places.
“What are you thinking?” I ask, unable to help myself. I should give her time to adjust to us, not drill her.
As she chews her sushi, she sets her chopsticks down again, buying herself time. “Just watching the hierarchy,” she says dryly, but her eyes take in Cassian first (the obvious threat), then me (the one actually in control), then Eli (the one everyone underestimates). “Calculating who bites first.”
She’s mapped us already. Knows exactly what she’s dealing with.
Eli hides a laugh behind his cup. “Some days, yeah.”
Cassian leans back, smirk tugging. “You volunteering, Omega?”
“That depends on the teeth,” she fires back, and there’s challenge in the curve of her mouth.
Eli clears his throat, pretending not to notice. “So, Jess. You already know what I do. When I’m not wrangling Omegas and Alphas at Nexus, I’m a foodie if you haven’t guessed already.”
She laughs. “Explains how you knew this place was so good.”
Cassian gestures toward him with his chopsticks. “He keeps us fed. Rowan keeps us out of jail. I build things when I’m not breaking them.”
“And you?” she asks me.
“Architecture,” I say. “Design and planning. I make sure what Cassian builds doesn’t collapse.”
“You’re the rules,” Jess says.
“I’m the framework,” I correct, and Eli snorts into his tea.
“Sounds useful.”
“Sometimes.”
We fall into a comfortable rhythm after that—passing plates, trading half-smiles, the quiet sound of chopsticks tapping porcelain. Jess leans her elbow on the table, hair sliding over her shoulder as she studies us like she’s cataloging risks and possibilities at the same time.
Her scent sweetens slightly. Content, but cautious. I take that as a win. I flag the waiter for more tea. Small things first; the rest takes time.
Cassian holds up one of the rolls with his chopsticks. "You haven't tried this one, Omega."
She leans forward slightly, into his space, not away from it, and plucks the roll from his chopsticks with her own. A claim, not a submission. "Jess."
Eli goes still. I watch Cassian war with himself—the part that refuses to get attached fighting the part that already is.
Instead of backing down, like most would, she keeps her gaze steady on his, waiting.
Since Meredith died, Cassian hasn't used an Omega's name. Not once in nine years. Sweetheart. Darling. Omega. Neutral words that didn't imply permanence. Didn't risk anything.
The one time I pushed back, asked why he wouldn't just call a woman by her actual name, he looked at me like I'd suggested we brand her.
"Because names mean something," he'd said. "And I'm not doing that again."
A few years after Meredith’s death, we tried to move on. Dated. Tried mixers. A few Omega apps. Met women through friends. Even a couple Betas who thought a mixed pack sounded exciting.
It never worked.
Some Omegas couldn't handle Cassian—too blunt, too much force. Others got nervous around me, mistaking quiet for danger. Some even tolerated Eli… right up until heat hit. Then instinct took over, and they wanted the Alphas and only the Alphas. Eli went from "sweet" to "irrelevant" in a heartbeat.
Every attempt left another fracture none of us wanted to look at.
So Cassian kept his wall. Sweetheart. Darling. Omega. Words that kept distance between want and attachment.
And then Jess leans forward, meets him eye to eye, and says her name like a line in the sand.
Cassian inclines his head, conceding the point. "Jess, then."
She pops the roll in her mouth, holding his stare the whole time. Won that round, and she knows it.
I don't pretend to know what this means yet. But nine years is a long damn time for a habit to break itself.
That alone tells me this is different. Whether that's good or terrifying, I haven't decided yet.
I watch him lean back in his chair, that lazy sprawl that makes him look harmless when he’s anything but, and offer her another piece of tempura.
She takes it without hesitation this time, no testing the weight of the gift, no calculating the cost. Just takes it.
Eli must sense the shift too, because he tops off her tea without being asked, the gesture so automatic it’s like he’s already folded her into the rhythm of us.
Cassian’s still watching her with that hooded look he gets when he refuses to let himself care, but his scent’s gone warm—amber mellowing into something almost sweet.
The sunlight through the glass catches her hair, highlighting a few copper strands among the dark brown, and the tightness around her eyes eases. She doesn’t look like a new Omega being tested—just a woman sitting with three men trying not to stare too hard.
And for reasons I don’t examine, that feels like a win.
We get back on the road with the taste of spice still hanging in the air. Traffic hums steadily.
Jess sits back, eyes half-closed, soaking in the motion. “God, that was good food. Thanks.”
A glance back at Eli as I switch lanes. His beam tells me everything.
The farther we drive, the thinner the noise gets—city giving way to open fields, then to trees.
“You live in the woods?” she asks.
“Close enough,” he says. “Quiet. Room to think.”
“And wolves,” Eli adds.
Cassian grins. “Only if you’re lucky, you’ll see them.”
“Where exactly are we going?” she asks.
“Sounds isolated.”
“It is,” Cassian says. “You’ll like it or you won’t. Most Omegas like quiet once they realize no one’s listening through the walls.”
She smirks. “Guess I’ll find out.”
She watches the trees slide past. “You don’t worry about being way out here? If something happened?”
“We’re the thing that happens out here, sweetheart,” Cassian says.
“Jess,” she corrects automatically.
His grin is slow, pleased. “Jess.”
Eli catches my eye in the mirror, and I see the same thought reflected: she’s not backing down from her boundaries. Good. Maybe she’ll be able to handle Cassian.
We drive in silence for a while, the kind that doesn’t need filling.
The city’s fully behind us now—buildings giving way to scattered houses, then to nothing but trees and the occasional mailbox marking invisible driveways.
Jess watches it all like she’s memorizing landmarks, escape routes, distances. I don’t blame her.
The road curves, taking us deeper, and I glance in the mirror to find her eyes already on mine. She’s been waiting for me to say something, I realize. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“One more thing,” I say. “If you ever need things to stop, you say ‘red.’ We stop. No debate. If you want to slow down, say ‘yellow.’ If you want more, say ‘green.’ Works for anything: conversation, touch, whatever.”
She blinks, processing. “Like traffic lights.” A pause. “So if I said ‘yellow’ right now, you’d back off with the questions?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Good to know.” She doesn’t say it, though. Keeps the card in her pocket. “And I’ll make sure later that you’re not all talk.”
Cassian’s smile widens. “She’s going to be trouble.”
“Much,” Eli adds.
Jess laughs again, soft and genuine. This time, I don’t bother hiding the smile that almost follows.
We drive, and the city fades behind us. Trees close in—tall pines, their green needles bright in the sunlight. The road curves toward home.
When the house finally comes into view, Jess sucks in a breath.
It’s not what she expected—I know by the way her fingers loosen on the seatbelt.
Dark timber and river stone, two stories of architecture built into the hillside like it grew there.
Wide porch wrapping three sides, glass that catches the sun and throws it back in shards of gold.
Built to outlast storms, yes. But also built to be a home, not a fortress.
“You built this?” she asks, and I can’t tell if she’s talking to me or Cassian.
“Designed it,” I say.
“I built it,” Cassian adds. “Every board, every stone.”
“And I decorated it and made it livable,” Eli finishes, smirking. “Because left to these two, it’d be concrete and protein powder.”
She chuckles. “Well, it looks amazing from here. I bet the inside is even better.”
The gravel drive crunches under the tires. Jess’s shoulders ease, just barely.
Cassian exhales like he’s been holding that breath since the parking lot.
Eli’s hand drifts toward the center console, a quiet reflex. His knuckles brush mine before he pulls back.
We don’t look at each other, but the connection is there, unspoken.
“Welcome home,” I say.
Jess stares out the window. “Ninety days,” she murmurs, like she’s reminding herself it’s not forever.
“Three months,” I say. “Let’s make them count.”