Chapter 24
Kade
I've been awake since midnight, moving through the apartment in the slow, useless way a body moves when it has nowhere to put itself and nothing to fix.
I checked the locks twice. I made tea I didn't drink.
I sat with Emrys until he finally went under in the nest, his hand fisted in my shirt, and then I eased free and came back out to the dark living room to wait, because waiting is the only thing left when the person you'd put yourself between and the whole world is somewhere you can't reach.
Skylar told me what tonight was before he left.
Not all of it. Enough. A warehouse, a federal team, the man who broke Hex out.
He said it like a status update, calm and clipped, the way he says everything when he's already decided he's going alone.
I let him go because stopping him wasn't mine to do. That didn't make the hours any shorter.
So when the door opens just after two and his scent reaches me before he does, I'm off the couch before I've decided to move.
He stumbles in, still pulling at his coat, and I'm on him before he gets it halfway off. The relief that he's home safe hits me so hard it comes out sideways, sharp and loud.
"Why the fuck didn't you say anything about a serial killer being in that warehouse?
" I demand, my voice low but rough. My hands are already on his shoulders, checking him over even as the words come out.
"You walked into that with no backup from us.
You could've been hurt. You could've been killed. "
Skylar lets me push him back against the wall.
He doesn't fight it. His scent is layered with exhaustion, gunpowder, and something sharper underneath, the adrenaline still fading from his system.
He smells like the warehouse, like the night, like everything I couldn't protect him from while he was out there.
"I didn't want to worry you," he says quietly. The honesty in it disarms me more than any excuse would have. “Besides, I’m a detective. It’s part of my job.” He lets out a heavy sigh, his earlier confessions about the packs he left coming back to me.
I press my forehead to his and just breathe him in for a moment, because my hands need something to do that isn't shaking. Cedar and whiskey against his amber and sandalwood.
"What happened?"
I feel him decide whether to give me the status-update version. I keep my forehead against his and wait, and maybe that's what does it, the not-letting-go, because when he answers it isn't clipped.
"Hex pulled a gun on Caldwell," he says.
"Caldwell shot him. I was ten feet away.
He went down before he got it raised." A breath.
"I've spent years of my life chasing that man.
I thought when it ended I'd feel something.
I watched him die in a warehouse and I felt .
.. nothing. I just wanted to come home."
His voice doesn't break. That's worse. He says it flat and even, the way a man talks about something he hasn't let himself look at yet, and I understand the flatness because I've worn it.
"You came home," I say.
"It’s the only thing I wanted."
My hands slide down his arms and back up, checking for anything out of place.
There's nothing. He's whole. He's here. The fear I've been carrying since he left doesn't leave so much as change shape, going from what if he doesn't come back to he came back and he's standing here saying he felt nothing, and I don't have a clean way to hold either one.
"I always thought my work was the dangerous one," I say, quieter now. "Private security. High-risk clients. I never expected the job that was supposed to be safe to be the one that put you in a room with a killer."
Skylar's hands come up to rest on my chest. He's still in his vest, the weight of the night still clinging to him.
"It's over," he says. "Most of it anyway.
We still have to figure out what Declan knows so we can shut down the Cardinal Network for good.
Following the money is going to come in handy. "
I hate hearing that there’s still something to this investigation but I’m hoping the worst of it is over.
Slowly, I dip my nose to his cheek, scenting my Beta, letting my nose drag lower along the side of his throat where his pulse still beats too fast. The relief tips into something else.
Something warmer. Something that's been building since the moment he walked out the door earlier tonight.
My hands settle on his hips and I pull him closer, pressing him fully against me.
Skylar makes a soft sound and tilts his head, giving me better access.
The tension in his body shifts from exhaustion into something more alive.
I don't ask. I simply turn him and walk him backward toward the kitchen counter.
He goes willingly, his hands fisting in my shirt.
When his back hits the edge of the counter I lift him onto it in one smooth motion.
He's still in half his gear and I don't care.
I push his shirt up and run my hands over his skin, needing to feel that he's real and warm and here.
Skylar's head tips back as I mouth at his throat, and the sound he makes goes straight through me.
"Fuck, Kade," he breathes. His legs spread to make room for me between them. "I'm okay. I promise I'm okay."
"I need to feel it," I say against his skin. My voice is rough. "I need to feel that you're here."
I work his pants open with impatient hands.
Skylar helps, lifting his hips so I can shove them down far enough.
He's already hard, and the scent of his arousal mixes with the fading adrenaline in a way that makes my head spin.
I wrap my hand around him and stroke once, slow and firm, watching the way his eyes flutter shut.
"Kade," he says again, quieter this time. "Please."
I don't make him wait. I work him open with fingers slick with lube, until he's pushing back against my hand and cursing under his breath.
Then I free myself from my own pants and press in close, pushing forward slowly until I'm buried inside him in one long thrust. Skylar's back arches against the counter.
His hands grab at my shoulders, fingers digging in.
"Fuck," he gasps. "God, yes."
I don't go gentle. I can't. The fear is still too close to the surface, and the only way I know how to burn it out is like this — deep and steady and claiming.
And under the fear, something I let myself feel for one clear second: this is the first time he's let me all the way in.
The night in the nest, I stayed between his thighs.
He gave Emrys everything and gave me the edges, careful even when he was coming apart.
Now there's no case to manage, no exit half-planned, nothing held back.
He's open under my hands because he chose to be.
I fuck him against the counter with long, hard strokes, one hand braced on the edge of the counter and the other gripping his hip hard enough to leave marks.
Skylar takes it, legs wrapped around my waist, meeting every thrust with a low, broken sound that goes straight to my spine.
"You scared the shit out of me," I growl against his throat. "Don't do that again."
"I won't," he pants. "I swear. Just—harder. Please."
I give him what he asks for. The counter creaks under us.
His vest is still half-on, his shirt rucked up under his arms, and the sight of him like this, open and trusting and letting me have him, does something to me I can't name.
I lean in and bite at his collarbone, not hard enough to break skin, just enough to mark. Skylar moans and clenches around me.
I'm still buried inside him, forehead pressed to his shoulder, when Emrys's voice drifts in from the hallway.
"I think this might be my new favorite show."
Skylar freezes. I lift my head and turn just enough to see Emrys leaning in the doorway in nothing but one of my shirts, hair a mess, eyes bright with amusement even though he's clearly still half-asleep.
The sight of him breaks the last of the tension in the room.
Skylar starts laughing first — that real, unguarded laugh I've only heard a handful of times — and I feel it vibrate through both of us.
I can't help it. I laugh too, low and rough against Skylar's skin.
Emrys crosses the kitchen and slides onto the counter beside us without hesitation. He reaches out and brushes Skylar's hair back from his forehead, then leans in to kiss me, soft and sweet. When he pulls back he rests his head against Skylar's shoulder and lets out a long, contented sigh.
"You're both home," he says simply. "That's all that matters."
I ease out of Skylar carefully and help him down from the counter.
We clean up in quiet, easy movements. Emrys stays close the whole time, touching both of us like he needs the reassurance as much as we do.
Once we're all decent enough, I pull them both into the nest. Skylar ends up in the middle, Emrys curled against his chest and me wrapped around his back.
The three of us fit together without any gaps.
For a while none of us sleep. Skylar lies between us with his eyes open in the dark, and I can feel him coming down by degrees, the warehouse leaving his body one slow breath at a time.
Emrys hums something against his chest, low and tuneless, the way he does over dough when he thinks no one's listening.
Skylar's hand finds mine where it rests over his stomach and holds on.
"I keep waiting to feel like I lost something," he says quietly, after a long time. "The case. It was the thing I'd point at when someone asked who I was."
"And?"
"I don't feel like I lost anything." He turns the words over like he's surprised by them. "I think I just put it down."
"Then put it down." I press a kiss to the back of Skylar's neck, then one to Emrys's curls.
They both shift closer, settling, two different scents and mine going to one in the warm dark.
And for the first time since the night in the alley, I let myself believe that this might finally be the start of our forever.