Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
TRISTON
I awake all at once like a pebble dropped into the lake.
I gasp as I sit up, ignoring the way my head spins.
There’s a lingering ache behind my eyes, and my body feels like I’ve been riding nonstop for days, the soreness in my limbs more intense than even the longest days in the saddle moving the Monroe cattle through the mountains.
The room is dark, only a small light a foot above the wall to my left casting shadows.
It’s so similar to how I woke in April after the Drop that my body has phantom spasms. I clench the blanket around my hips and breathe deeply.
I need to pull myself together, figure out where I am and how I got here.
Vague memories push their ways to the surface of my mind.
The mad gaze of Tyler as he tightened his hand on my throat.
The murmuring of voices and the bright lights of a white room.
The pounding in my head from the fast beeping of a machine.
Or had it been an alarm? I can’t remember.
Warm arms that weren’t my warm arms, weren’t either of the ones I crave in my sleep and have haunted my dreams for two years.
A deep voice that wasn’t the one that sent thrills down my spine and a flush to my cheeks.
Lavender and… and vanilla. My stomach clenches.
“Triston?” Emily’s warm voice is tired, only a bare whisper. A palm presses into my thigh. “Are you all right?”
Vanilla surrounds me, bringing the promise of comfort and safety.
I tip my head back and let my eyes close, breathing in the heady scent.
A soft weight moves beside me, and then there’s a hand cupping my cheek, tipping my head forward.
I don’t open my eyes, too exhausted to do even that much despite just waking up.
Lips press against mine, soft and full and sweet.
My own scent swirls around me, potent but not overwhelming.
“The edge is gone,” Emily whispers, her lips brushing mine. “Do you need me?”
Always .
But that doesn’t feel like the right answer.
Edge to my scent? Another memory pushes to the forefront.
A small needle with the cap broken. A trail of blood on my arm.
A wracking cramp that had me gasping for breath.
A trigger medication forcing my heat to surface while at dinner with Lance.
My stomach twists, stealing my breath. The lips are back, pressing harder than before, a tongue tracing along them.
The vanilla gets stronger, soaking into my bones.
“Emily?”
“It’s me.”
Hands skate down my sides and wrap around my waist. It’s so hard to keep focused.
Despite everything, my dick hardens, responding to her scent as much as her touch.
She hums and then runs her lips along my jaw.
She pulls the sensitive skin just behind my ear between her teeth, pulling hard enough I gasp.
“Where’s Beau?”
There’s a long, heavy pause.
“At home,” she whispers.
“Home,” I echo. Her hair brushes against my cheek as she nods.
I blindly reach for her, palming the nape of her neck and twisting my hand into her hair, trying to anchor myself.
More memories swirl, mostly blurry. A swath of light that hurts my eyes, Emily’s voice reverberating through me while she talked to someone else.
The latch of a door. I can’t manage to arrange any of them in an order that makes sense.
“I… I don’t understand,” I finally admit hoarsely. Her tongue traces my Adam’s apple. I swallow heavily, tightening my hold in her hair, terrified this is some strange delusion from a Drop.
“That’s okay,” she says. “They said you might be confused when you woke up. Triggered heats can cause that.”
Triggered heat .
The memory slams into me, clear and concise. My clove scent lashes out, acrid with my fear. Emily croons, wrapping her arm around my waist, pulling me closer until my chest is flush with hers. I let my legs fall open, and then she’s there, too, her knees pressing into mine.
“You’re safe, Triston.” The words are a whisper that floats toward me. I desperately latch onto them. “Someone tried to bond you, but Lance got to you in time. We’re at the Haven in Billings.”
“Billings.”
Her head bobs with another nod. Her tongue traces the hollow of my throat.
My dick jumps. I can’t help but groan and pull her away from me.
I force my eyes open, soaking in the sight of her, my Alpha.
Her eyes have deep circles under them, and her mouth is swollen.
Her hair falls straight down her back, newly cleaned.
Her arms and back are scratched to high heaven, like she went traipsing through the underbrush of the mountains without a shirt.
I slowly trace one of the cuts, and she shivers.
Her eyes blow out, and her vanilla scent wraps around me.
“What time is it?” My voice is even more hoarse than before. Compulsively, I clear my throat.
She turns, looking over her shoulder. I follow her gaze and notice a small digital clock on a dresser beside the door to the room. Three in the morning.
“How long?”
“Five days.”
I swallow.
She continues, “The Haven called me when you got here after the doctors said you were stable. Caleb flew me in the dead of night. It… it was too long, though. You were going to be hurt if I made you wait for me to get here. So I…” Her cheeks flush.
“I gave them permission to let you be with another Alpha so you wouldn’t risk Dropping. ”
The lavender scent? Had I knotted with someone else?
“They didn’t… I don’t remember…”
She shakes her head. “You didn’t, though I wouldn’t have held it against you if you had needed that much while I was trying to get here. They called it scent therapy. Essentially just extreme cuddling. You fell asleep in his lap after about twenty minutes. When you woke up, I was here.”
A knot of dread unwinds itself, letting me breathe better.
“Since it’s the middle of the night…” Emily turns back toward me, her eyebrows furrowed with her frown. “Does that mean we can sleep? I feel…”
Her frown melts into a soft smile. “Yeah, we can do that.”
She follows me as I ease back onto my back, draping herself over me.
A memory rises, this exact arrangement, her hair tickling my nose.
I wrap my arms around her and twist until I’m on my side, nestling her against me.
I kiss her temple as a waterfall of emotions try to drown me, too strong and overwhelming for me to decipher any specific one.
Her lips are soft constants against my sternum.
“I love you,” she whispers.
“I love you, too.”
BEAU
Penny looks up from the whale bubble machine at the crunch of tires on the dirt service road.
The sun glints off the black truck. My stomach pitches, anticipation and worry weights on my sternum that are making it hard to breathe.
I gather the chalk into a small pile and then stand, brushing the worst of the dust off my hands.
“Penny bug,” I say, holding out my hand.
She quickly toddles over to me, grabbing my finger in her tight grasp.
The bunny blanket is tucked under her arm, dragging across the concrete drive just like always.
The truck stops at the end of the drive.
Caleb gets out and lifts his chin in silent greeting, then reaches across the seat, grabbing a bag.
He slings it over his shoulder as the book door opens.
Slowly, Emily and Triston exit the truck.
Neither of them look all that put together.
They’re both dressed in sweats, and Triston’s hair is messier than I’ve seen it since he came back last month.
There’s bruising that’s mostly yellowed around his throat that has anger burning through me.
Emily’s neck and shoulders are covered in scratches, and her eyes are full of exhaustion.
Even so, she turns, takes Triston’s hand, and leads him up the drive toward us.
Penny squeals when she sees them, dropping my hand and running down the drive, her blanket billowing out behind her. It’s Triston who picks her up a moment before she plows into their legs.
“Papa.” Her voice is just shy of a screech. “Papa. Mama.”
She presses her lips to Triston’s cheek in her version of a kiss, leaving behind a near-perfect circle of saliva. He chuckles and wipes his cheek with the back of his hand. Penny’s already leaning into Emily, doing the same with her.
“Hi, baby,” she says warmly. “How was your week? I missed you so much.”
She points back toward me, babbling. Emily smiles and kisses her cheeks. Penny squeals again and then drops her cheek to Emily’s shoulder, facing Triston. Caleb sets Emily’s bag next to me on the porch step.
“The flight was okay?”
He nods. “Easy. They’ll probably both need another day to fully recover. He apparently was pretty confused. It took a while to get through it.”
I pull him into a hug. He gives a surprised laugh and then hugs me back. “Thank you.”
He tightens his hold and then drops his arms.
“Of course,” he says with a small smile. “Honestly? Way less stressful than trying to cool Daphne and Phoebe down and get them reset after I had to get them down that trail leading to Lover’s Canyon. You had the harder fallout.”
I smirk and shake my head even as I remember that August day when Brielle had gone into heat suddenly in the depths of the mountains.
Caleb had taken her on a trail ride up to one of his favorites spots to ask to bond her.
Instead, her heat had broken through. It had taken nearly an hour to get her down the mountain.
And the entire time, his own instincts were clawing at him, telling him to knot and claim.
She’d been a mess when he’d gotten her to the barn, and he hadn’t been much better.
All I’d had to do was hose down the horses and get their equipment off.
“Yeah, definitely not. I can unsaddle those two in my dreams.”
He shrugs. He starts to say something else, but then my family is there.
I pull Emily into a tight hug, kissing the crown of her head when she rests her forehead against my shoulder, ignoring Penny’s squirming.
And then I pull Triston tight to me. His hands tremble on my back, but I don’t say anything, just holding him harder.
For the first time since Emily left with Caleb, I feel like I can truly breathe.