Chapter 36 #2
“Don’t worry about Blake,” I say, voice dropping into that place inside me that plans violence. “No one is putting a hand on you without going through me, Jess. Not him, not his bosses, not some bored Nexus council member who thinks you’re a resource.”
Her breath catches. Fear flickers in her scent for half a heartbeat, then melts into something steadier. Trust.
“I know,” she whispers. “I believe you.”
“Good.” My jaw clenches until it aches. “I’ll put them in the ground and build myself a deck over them. Have beers on their graves.”
Her laugh comes out wet, a little broken. “Very you.”
The door opens without a knock.
“We’re instituting a knocking rule,” I call, but I don’t look away from her.
“We’ve all seen everything there is to see, Cassian,” Eli says as he steps in, towel looped around his neck, hair damp. He’s holding three bottles of Gatorade like he raided a sports drink shrine. “At this point, modesty’s a myth.”
Rowan fills the doorway behind him, broad shoulders, t-shirt clinging to still-damp skin. The sharp, clean bite of his soap slices through the dense nest scent, making me suddenly aware of how rough Jess and I probably smell.
His eyes go straight to Jess, and the way she’s draped over me, worn-out but not burning.
“Temperature?” he asks quietly.
“Down,” I answer. “Instinct’s not chewing our faces off anymore.”
Jess turns her head toward them, cheek still pressed to my chest. “You guys smell like rain,” she mumbles.
Eli’s grin is instant and stupidly bright. Relief makes him reckless. “That’s ocean breeze for sensitive skin, actually. Don’t be jealous of my self-care routine.”
Rowan gives him a look, then moves closer to the nest. His gaze catches on the empty bottles, the wrappers, the general carnage. His mouth tightens, the way it does when he calculates risk.
“You two drink anything while we were gone?” he asks.
I nudge a half-empty water bottle closer with my foot. “We didn’t die. That count?”
“Barely,” Eli mutters. He climbs onto the nest on Jess’s far side, careful as if she’s made of blown glass. He cracks a bottle and holds it out. “Hey, sunshine. Tiny sips, okay?”
Jess scrunches her face like the word “sunshine” personally offends her and pushes herself up on my chest. Her arms shake with the effort. I slide a hand from her back to her waist, steadying her.
Her fingers fumble on the bottle cap. I cover her hands with mine, twist the bottle open, bring it to her lips. She drinks, throat working, eyes half-closed. A trickle slides down her chin. I catch it with my thumb without thinking.
“Good girl,” I murmur. The praise slips out, low and rough.
Heat flashes through her scent, quick and sharp. Her lashes flutter. Eli pretends he doesn’t notice, but the corner of his mouth tips up.
Rowan sits on the edge of the nest, close enough that his knee brushes Jess’s calf. His hand finds her ankle, big fingers wrapping around the fragile line of bone, thumb rubbing slow, grounding circles there.
“How’s your head?” he asks. “Fog? Nausea? Any spikes?”
“Foggy,” she admits. “Like the roller coaster finally stopped, but my stomach hasn’t caught up yet.”
“Four-day and a day roller coaster,” Eli adds. “World record for a first-time heat, would not recommend to amateurs unless they’re you.”
Jess’s laugh is quiet but real. It vibrates against my chest, a sound I could get addicted to.
Rowan’s eyes lighten, tension easing out of his shoulders. “You still remember you can say no?” he asks. “Even if your body tries to override it. That doesn’t stop mattering just because the worst is over.”
Jess looks at him, then at Eli, then at me. One, two, three. She’s tired, but this part, she takes seriously.
“I know,” she says. Her voice is small but steady. “I can say no. I will if I need to. Right now I…” She swallows. “I’m good. With you. With this. “And I remember: red, yellow, green. I’ve been green the whole time. Solidly green. Now I’m more... yellow territory. Need to tap out for a bit.”
Something tightens under my sternum. Eli exhales, long and shaky, like he’s been holding that breath for days. Rowan dips his head, forehead brushing Jess’s shin for a second in a silent yes.
Her hand slips off the bottle and lands back over my heart like it belongs there. It thuds hard in response, idiot thing.
Exhaustion pulls at her features, dragging her eyes half-closed again. She fights it, stubborn little line between her brows.
“Sleep,” I tell her, smoothing a hand up and down her spine. “You’re done. You did good.”
“M’not tired,” she lies. Her blinking slows. Her body melts heavier into mine anyway.
“Liar,” Eli says gently. He reaches over and brushes tangled hair away from her face, fingers light. “We’ve got you. Nest isn’t going anywhere.”
Her lips move around my name, messy and slurred. “Cassian…”
“Yeah,” I keep my voice low, softer than I mean to. “I’m here.”
“I…” The rest of the sentence dissolves into a sigh.
She finally tips over the edge. Her muscles sag, truly slack for the first time since this started. Breathing deep. Scent going syrupy-soft, no edge, no spike. Out.
“Okay,” Rowan says quietly. Work mode now. “We should clean up what we can without moving her too much. She needs rest. And actual food when she wakes.”
“I’ll hit the kitchen,” Eli volunteers immediately. “Something bland. And coffee. And like…five more gallons of water.”
He squeezes Jess’s shoulder once, presses a quick kiss to her temple, and untangles himself from the nest, but she doesn’t stir. He pads out, humming under his breath, energy crackling off him now that the worst of the pressure’s gone.
Rowan stands to toss empty bottles and wrappers in the trash and straighten the pile of blankets. Efficient. Controlled. His hand keeps brushing Jess’s ankle every time he passes, like he can’t not touch her.
I stay put.
She’s sprawled half over me, one arm across my ribs, face buried against my chest. Moving her feels like trying to lift a whole building without scaffolding.
Rowan comes back to the side of the nest and meets my eyes. “You good to hold her while I put clean sheets on her bed in case she wants it instead of the nest now?” he asks.
“Got her,” I say.
I cage Jess to me, one arm banded around her back, the other under her knees. Rowan strips the mattress and swaps in fresh bedding. Most of her covers are wrapped around her nest.
When he’s done, he sits again, closer this time, knees bumping my hip. His hand rests lightly on Jess’s shin.
“Thank you,” he says, voice rougher than usual.
“For what?” I ask.
“For being the one she clung to when we couldn’t move,” he says. “For not…checking out. Sometimes it’s easier, in heat, to just let instinct run the show.”
“Yeah, well.” I look down at Jess, at the way her mouth is softened in sleep, at the faint marks along her neck and shoulder that scream mine, ours, pack. “Instinct’s loud. But it’s not stupid. It picked her. Only right I show the fuck up, too.”
He huffs something like a laugh. “She got under your skin,” he says.
“Under?” I snort quietly. “Try ripped out a wall and moved in.”
His gaze sharpens. He hears more than I say, always has. “That a problem?”
My brain jumps to Blake—his stare crawling over her, the memory of Meredith, the blood he never paid for except what Rowan and I forced from him.
Then I look at Jess. This soft, stubborn chaos-gremlin who talks back, who pokes holes in my bullshit, who rides out four and a half days of sex-orgie-marathon sex still worries if we’re okay.
“Yeah,” I say. “Big problem. For anyone who thinks they’re going to touch her.”
Rowan’s mouth curves, sharp and satisfied. “Good,” he says.
Eli’s footsteps come back down the hall, lighter than before. “Don’t freak out,” he stage whispers from the doorway. “I brought toast, not a feast.”
He leans against the frame, watching Jess with something open and raw in his eyes. “Is she out?”
“Coma,” I say. “She’s done.”
“Good.” He swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing. “She deserves to sleep without her body trying to set itself on fire.”
He sets the tray down on the dresser, then crawls back into the nest, careful as ever. This time, he slides in behind Jess, spooning her from the side, one arm curved above, not quite touching, like he’s afraid he’ll wake her.
Rowan shifts to the other side, stretching out longways near the foot of the bed, head near her feet, hand still on her ankle. Guard dog position. He’ll wake up if she so much as sighs wrong.
I adjust, just enough to get my neck at a better angle, but not enough to risk her rolling off. She settles before I even finish moving, body instinctively finding the lowest point of me like I’m gravity.
My arm stays locked around her. My palm splayed over her ribs counts every breath.
It slams into me then, like a beam dropped from a height.
I’ve spent my whole life making sure things stand. Checking joists, making sure foundations are poured deep, listening for those tiny cracks that mean a structure’s about to fail.
Somewhere between calling her sweetheart and holding her while she burned, I made Jess the center post inside my chest. The one everything leans on.
If someone takes a swing at that? The whole damn house comes down.
On them.
“Mine,” I think, the word settling into bone. Not the wild, possessive snarl from earlier. Something heavier. Truer.
Mine to protect. Mine to build around. Mine to come home to.
And under that, stubborn and solid as poured concrete:
I love you.
I don’t say it. Not with Rowan and Eli half-awake around us, not with her knocked out cold. It’s not time yet. She deserves to hear it when she can look me in the eye and tell me to fuck off if she wants.
But I know it now. No pretending it’s just instinct. No hiding behind cute nicknames and logistics.
I lean down and press my mouth to her hair, breathing her in. One kiss. One mark only, I know the weight of.
“Sleep, Jess,” I murmur, so quiet it’s just for her and the walls. “I’ve got you.”
My eyes burn like I’ve been staring into a welding torch too long. My body finally starts to give up the fight and sink.
Outside this room, there’s Blake. There’s Nexus. There’s a whole list of problems waiting to test what I just decided.
Let them.
I tighten my hold on Jess, on my pack, and let the dark pull me under with them. Already planning what I’ll build—and what I’ll tear down—to keep her safe.