Chapter twenty-seven
Lily
I’m still glowing when the front door opens.
There’s not a better word for it. Glowing.
My whole body is loose, like I’m clay that’s been molded into the shape of someone who isn’t always in pain.
Headache? Gone. Completely gone. My stomach is quiet.
My body doesn’t tremble. My scent is big and bright, peach and ozone, spreading out around me like it finally has room to breathe.
I’m curled up on my end of the couch, feet tucked underneath, watching Miles sketch on his side.
We haven’t said a word about what happened upstairs.
Don’t have to. It’s written all over us.
In the marks on my neck and how his scent is tangled up in my skin now even after a shower.
It’s in the low, easy hum of my omega, which, for the first time in weeks, isn’t clawing at me for alphas I can’t have.
I mean, everyone thinks about sex. Especially omegas.
Fantasies about alphas, about heat, about all those things they say are the height of our biology.
I always figured my first time would be with an alpha.
A knot, a claiming bite, that overwhelming surrender you’re supposed to need so badly it hurts.
It’s what everyone tells you: the romance novels, the health classes, every bonded omega I’ve ever met.
Sure, some omegas mess around with each other in the registry but just as many don’t. A lot prefer to wait on their future packs.
But it wasn’t like that for me, not even close.
There were no fantasies about alphas knotting and biting me.
My fantasies were more about belonging to someone.
Being wanted and accepted by someone who wouldn’t need me to change or conform to some impossible standard.
I wanted to be understood in a way I’ve never been before.
I think I found that today. Even though it came in a form I never would have expected before coming here.
I never pictured an omega pinning me down, making me say his name, biting me hard enough to leave marks for days.
And I definitely didn’t expect to love it.
I didn’t expect it to be the best thing I’d ever felt.
Miles was in control. He made me obey, took what he wanted, but made sure I got what I needed, too. He didn’t have a knot or a claiming bite or any of the biological shortcuts alphas use to make omegas comply. He only had himself, and I gave in anyway, because I wanted to.
Honestly, I think it could be enough. I think I could go my whole life without ever touching an alpha if the sex stayed like that.
That should scare me, but it doesn’t. The realization fits inside me too neatly, like it’s been waiting there all along.
What if the doctors are wrong? What if omegas don’t actually need alphas, only the things alphas are usually taught to provide—control, steadiness, the security of being wanted and held together at the same time?
Maybe it doesn’t matter where that comes from.
An alpha. A beta. Another omega. Maybe all we really need is someone strong enough to carry the weight of us.
Maybe it’s all the same in the end.
I glance at Miles across the couch. He’s still drawing, head down, pencil scratching away. He hasn’t looked at me since we came downstairs, but his scent keeps reaching for mine, burnt sugar curling through my peach and ozone like it’s supposed to be there.
Does this change anything? Would Miles want me to stay, now?
Does what happened matter to him, or was it only about control?
A power trip. I think I’d be okay with it, honestly, even if he never shared his alphas with me.
I could be happy with only him. The orders, the clean lines, how he actually sees me.
Maybe he’d let me in further, eventually. He might even—
Hope. That dangerous, ridiculous thing. I feel it flicker inside my chest, tiny and stubborn as a trick candle.
It’s there long enough for me to notice it. Maybe even for the universe to notice, too.
And then the front door opens, and hope dies before I can even get used to having it.
Gabriel comes in first. Garrett and Cyrus follow as a pair moments later, their coats rustling in unison, three alpha scents flooding the house in a staggered wave. But their scents aren’t enough to overpower the aftermath of what happened between me and Miles.
Gabriel stops dead three steps into the entryway. I see it hit him… the scent of sex, of two omegas, of slick and sweat and a done deed that can’t be taken back. His nostrils flare. His pupils go wide. Recognition moves through him and his body jerks.
Garrett’s next. He smells it, too. I watch his face change—confusion chasing after surprise. Cyrus brings up the rear, and his reaction is the smallest. A tightening around his eyes, one quick breath in. But he knows.
They all know.
Somehow that feels less terrifying than the look on Gabriel’s face.
Gabriel’s eyes land on Miles. Then me. Back to Miles.
Miles stares back, chin up, shoulders squared, pencil still in his hand like he might throw it at whoever dares to offend him.
There’s a defiance about him I’ve never seen before.
It’s colder than the wild, furious defiance I’m used to in him.
Like, this is the line he’s drawn and he’s not moving. Not anymore.
You brought her here, his eyes say. You deal with what happens.
Gabriel’s expression hardens. His usual mask of cold, careful authority slips. This is worse. Control that’s about to break.
“Garrett. Cyrus. Take Miles to his room.”
He protects Miles first.
Even now.
Whatever’s coming is bad enough he doesn’t want Miles to see.
“Gabriel—“ Garrett tries, but that’s all he gets out.
“Now.”
Miles’s defiance barely wobbles. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not a child, Gabriel—“
Gabriel doesn’t raise his voice. He barks—a single, sharp command. It yanks at my instincts hard enough to make me flinch, and it shoves Miles to his feet before he can stop himself. His mouth snaps shut. His shoulders drop and the fight goes right out of him.
Garrett takes his arm, gentle, and leads him toward the hallway. Cyrus follows. Garrett glances back at Gabriel, a hardness in his eyes—a warning, possibly, or a plea—but Gabriel doesn’t even notice. He’s staring at me.
The living room empties. The hallway goes quiet. Now it’s just me and Gabriel, and the scent of what happened, thick and inescapable between us.
I know what’s coming next. I can feel it, the way you feel a thunderstorm rolling in—the pressure, the waiting, the hush before everything lets loose.
He’s mad at me, not Miles. At me. It’s always me.
Because Miles is his omega, his problem, his responsibility, and whatever happened must be my fault.
The alternative… that Miles wanted it, that Miles started it, that Miles is capable of wanting something Gabriel didn’t approve is too much for him to handle.
“So this is your angle now?” Gabriel says. “Since playing on Garrett’s weaknesses didn’t work, now you’re trying to manipulate my mate?”
“That’s not what happened.”
“Isn’t it? Because from where I’m standing, it looks exactly like what happened. You’ve been working on him for weeks. The crying, the helplessness, the poor little sick omega routine. It’s all designed to get him close enough to—“
“I didn’t manipulate anyone.” My voice shakes but I get it out. “If you would just ask me what happened instead of assuming—“
“I don’t need to ask.” He steps closer. “I know Miles. He wouldn’t have done this without being pushed. He wouldn’t have cheated on me unless someone gave him a reason.”
“He didn’t cheat on you. He’s not claimed. He’s not—“
“Don’t.” The word is a knife. “Don’t you dare tell me what my bond with Miles is or isn’t. You don’t know anything about us.”
I’m shaking now. The warmth from earlier is leaking out of me, replaced by the cold I always get from Gabriel’s anger. Something’s different tonight, though. There’s anger in me, too, small but burning, and I grab onto it while I can.
“You haven’t even asked me what happened,” I say, louder than I expect. “You walked in, smelled something you didn’t like, and decided I’m the villain. But you don’t know what went on in this house today. You weren’t here. Maybe if you actually listened instead of accusing—“
He growls. It’s low and deep, an alpha warning that doesn’t just scare you, it goes right through your skin to the center of your brain. My omega folds. The anger I had drains away, and all that’s left is the need to submit, to make myself small, to get him to stop.
“I offered to help you,” Gabriel says, every word icy.
“I kept you in my home. I protected you from Brennan Foster out of the goodness of my heart. And this is how you repay me. With tricks. With lies. With worming your way into my mate’s bed to try to claw your way into this pack. You’re trying to claw your way to me.”
He sounds as if wanting him is the worst thing I could have done.
“That’s not—“
“You’re a snake, Lily. A snake in the grass, taking whatever you can get your hands on because nobody else will give it to you willingly.”
Each word hits hard. I feel them landing in all the places Gabriel’s cruelties have carved out in me over the past weeks. Right next to nothing and reject and every hard look and every door slammed in my face.
“And maybe it’s time you faced the truth,” he says, even quieter, and it’s the tone of someone who’s about to do damage and doesn’t care. “Miles doesn’t want you. He fell into your trap because you’re good at playing the victim, but he doesn’t actually want you. Nobody does.”
“That’s not true—“
“Isn’t it? No pack ever picked you out of the registry. Six years, Lily. Six years and nobody wanted you. The packs I’ve practically begged to take you are turning me down left and right because they don’t want a defective omega that was rejected by her own scent matches.”
My vision blurs. Tears come, and I can’t even try to stop them.