Chapter nine
Miles
I’ve got her routine mapped out in my head like I’m tracking prey. Because that’s what I have to do. Become a hunter. Eliminate the threat. She’s a danger that walks on two legs and smells like ozone and peaches.
The first few days, I mostly stayed in my nest and didn’t come out. Let them all scurry around me. Let Gabriel try to soothe. Let Garrett bring me my food and sit with his back against the door while I picked at the edges of my sanity.
After I got bored with that, I started paying attention.
She’s in her room until eight. I hear the water run at seven forty-five. That’s when she showers—a quick, quiet one, like she’s scared to make a sound. Then she takes another hour to decide if she’s brave enough to face the hall, the stairs, the wide-open spaces where the rest of us live.
The staying in her room didn’t last long. She got restless. Started coming out early. My alphas felt sorry for her and let it happen. She tries to avoid me though. I’ve caught her peeking around corners before she braves the hall more than once. Let her be scared of me. She should be.
Nine o’clock, she appears for breakfast. I watch from the top of the stairs. Garrett makes her eggs and she sits at the far end of the table. I timed it on my phone: forty-seven seconds. That’s how long it took Gabriel to find an excuse to leave the kitchen.
She doesn’t come out for lunch. Either she isn’t hungry, which I doubt, because she’s too thin and Gabriel probably told her that death wasn’t allowed in his house, or she waits until the kitchen is empty and grabs something quick and quiet.
Six o’clock on the dot, Gabriel forces us all to the table for dinner. He thinks family meals will magically fix things. So far it’s just been tense silence and Miles being an asshole. Yes… I’ve been the asshole. It’s my favorite role.
Now it’s day six. Almost a whole week of that woman in my house. Twenty-odd days to go, and I’m not sleeping for shit. I keep jerking awake, my heart pounding, convinced I heard the click of her door or the soft pad of her feet down the hall.
So I’m in the kitchen at five-thirty in the morning.
Because this is mine. The space, the silence, the dark sky outside the window over the sink—it’s been mine since they brought me home from the hospital three years ago and I started sneaking downstairs when the nightmares got too loud.
Garrett would find me eventually and make me hot chocolate, but I had the dark hours all to myself.
The coffeemaker gurgles, finishing the brew.
I pour a mug—the black one with the chipped handle that nobody else wants—and lean against the counter, staring into the dark yard.
Three more weeks. He’s sent her file to nine packs already.
I know because I found the folder on Gabriel’s desk last night and counted.
The Mercer pack, the Carr pack, the damn Forbes twins—anybody with a pulse and a decent bank account.
She could be gone by the end of the week. If she wanted to be. Of course she doesn’t want to be.
I sip the coffee, still too hot, and let it burn my tongue. I like the pain. It clears my head.
Then her scent drifts into the kitchen.
Damn sweet peaches.
It’s faint, coming from the hall, but there’s no mistaking it. She’s awake. She’s moving. And early. way too early. She’s off her routine.
I could go. Take my mug, slip into the living room, curl up in that window seat where no one can see me from the hall. That would be the smart thing, the sane thing, the move that guarantees I’m not standing here when she appears.
I don’t move.
This is my kitchen. My quiet, dark, peaceful morning. I shouldn’t have to run.
Her footsteps are softer than mine, and I hate that I know the difference. I hate that I’ve cataloged the sound of her walk. The hesitation when she reaches the end of the hall. I imagine her peering around the corner, checking the coast. Like that’s going to save her.
She appears in the doorway and stops when she sees me.
My body goes tight. Every instinct, every nerve, straining.
She’s wearing gray sweatpants and a faded t-shirt. Her hair is pulled into a messy bun, loose pieces falling around her face. The scratches on her cheek have faded from angry red to pink, but they’re still there.
My marks. I put them there. Guilt doesn’t come—instead, I feel a sick curl of satisfaction. It feels earned. Something I took back.
“Sorry,” she whispers. “I thought you would still be asleep.”
“Clearly.”
She hesitates. Then, because I guess she’s braver than I want her to be, she steps into the kitchen. “I was just going to get water. Or, um, maybe coffee. I didn’t sleep well.”
“The tap works.”
She moves to the sink, filling a glass, while I stand there watching.
She’s tiny. The top of her head barely reaches my chin, and I’m not that tall.
The sweatpants pool around her ankles. I can see the shape of her, though—slight curves, soft edges.
The classic omega build that made my last pack call me a disappointing replacement for the girl they’d wanted. I swallow down the old poison.
She drinks the whole glass of water without stopping. Her hands are delicate, her wrists narrow. I could circle one with my thumb and forefinger and have room to spare. I wonder if it would break if I squeezed hard enough.
“I’m gonna—“ She points to the cabinet with the mugs.
“Help yourself.”
She moves around me, giving me a wide berth, and opens the cabinet.
Her arm stretches up. She’s on her tiptoes, fingers straining, and she can’t reach.
Her shirt rides up, exposing a strip of skin at her lower back.
That peach-sweet scent hits the back of my throat.
It shouldn’t be in here. It shouldn’t be anywhere in my house. But God… it’s everywhere.
I could help her. Instead, I sip my coffee and watch her struggle.
My pulse trips at the smallness of her. Watching her fail sends a dark curl of pleasure through my gut.
She won’t ask me. She knows better. Her throat moves as she swallows, gathering herself, and she does a little jump.
The mug rattles against the others. She jumps again, and this time her fingers catch it.
She pours coffee and turns to leave.
“You’re using Garrett’s mug.”
She stops. Looks down at the mug. Looks at me. “I didn’t know.”
“Now you do.”
She puts the mug back on the counter, careful.
Then she reaches for a different one, and I watch it happen.
The curve of her shoulders as she folds in.
She makes herself smaller, like she can physically reduce the target of her body.
I remember that move. I used to do it every time my old pack came home.
My body’s already gone before I can drag it back. Heat, low in my gut. Blood moving south.
This shouldn’t be happening. She’s not even a fucking alpha.
The one heat I went through with my first pack, I submitted to Jason because my body forced me to, and I hated every second.
I’d never chosen that pack. They never really wanted me either, but the registry pushed it until we all caved.
Now my body is supposed to be Garrett’s, Gabriel’s, Cyrus’s.
The only three alphas who’ve ever made me feel good.
She turns around, holding a mug that says WORLD’S OKAYEST FISHERMAN, and meets my eyes. No one in this house goes fishing.
“Which ones are mine? So I don’t make this mistake again.”
Her tone is direct. Firm. She’s not cowering, even though her body still is. She’s adapting, learning the rules of a new cell.
I stare at her. That’s when her eyes register.
Blue. Bright, clear, specific blue. It’s not the exact shade of Gabriel’s—his are darker, stormier. But they’re close enough to make my brain stutter. For one fractured second, I see Gabriel looking out of her face, and my whole system glitches.
“Bottom shelf,” I say. “The plain white ones. Those are for guests.”
The word hits. Her chin dips, just slightly.
“Thank you.” She says it like she means it, and that’s worse than if she’d been rude. If she’d been rude, I could hold onto the anger.
She takes a white mug, pours coffee, adds cream and sugar, then she doesn’t leave. She leans against the counter on the other side of the kitchen, blowing across the top of the mug.
“If you’re trying to prove you’re not scared of me, the white-knuckled grip on the mug is a dead giveaway.”
“I never said I wasn’t scared of you.”
I didn’t expect her to agree with me. I sip my coffee to hide my surprise.
She continues, almost to herself. “But the walls in that room are starting to close in. This is better.”
My room did that, after. Garrett had to move me out of the first one because I couldn’t stop seeing the blood on the walls. We both know I won’t admit that, so I change the subject.
“How’s the pack search going?”
She stays quiet.
“Gabriel told me he’s sent your file to a few prospects. The Mercers—I know David. He’s decent, I guess. His brother’s kind of an asshole, but you can’t have everything.”
“He hasn’t told me anything.”
“Because there’s nothing to tell. David turned you down.”
The blood drains from her face. “What?”
“Gabriel didn’t tell you? David Mercer called yesterday. He said your medical history was too much of a risk, that he couldn’t bond with an omega who might not be able to carry to term. Something about the suppressed heat cycles possibly causing permanent damage.”
She sets the mug on the counter with a shaking hand.
“I didn’t—he wasn’t supposed to know about—that’s private—“
“The medical file is part of the packet, Lily. How did you think this worked?”
She pushes away from the counter. “How do you know what he said?”
“I was in the office when Gabriel took the call. The door was open.”
“That’s a lie. It’s a lie, because Gabriel keeps his office door closed when he’s taking phone calls. Garrett told me when I asked about them.”