Chapter twenty-nine #2
“Lily?” Gabriel sounds raw, nothing left of that cold pack leader. “Are you okay? Are you safe?”
“I’m fine.”
“Thank god. I’ve been… Garrett’s checking the bus station, Cyrus is…” He stops. Shaky breath. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please, stay where you are. Let me come to you. Let me talk to you.”
“I don’t have anything to say to you, Gabriel.”
I really don’t. His voice cracks a little when he tries again.
“Please. Let me say them. And if you still want to leave after, I’ll take you myself. I’ll sign whatever the registry needs. I’ll drive you to your sister’s. Or your mother’s. Whatever you want. Just let me talk to you first.”
I should say no. Every instinct I have is screaming it at me, in neon letters, NO, but there’s something in his voice I’ve never heard before. It sounds like real fear. I hate that I still care.
“Okay,” I say. “But if you say one more cruel thing to me, I’m gone. I’ll walk to my sister’s barefoot if I have to.”
“I won’t. I promise. I’m twenty minutes away.”
I hang up and hand the phone back.
The big alpha takes it from me, looking at me with this mix of concern and something almost like a hug, if you could put that in a look. “He’s going to make it right. Whatever happened, I know Gabriel. He’s an idiot sometimes, but he’s not a bad man.”
“You might not know him as well as you think.”
He acknowledges that with a little nod. Then turns to the smaller alpha. “I need to get home. Are you good here with her?”
The smaller one nods, quiet.
The big alpha looks at him for a long moment, and the air between them is heavier than a casual meeting. “Think about what I said, Jasper. Please.”
Then they hug. They stay there longer than people usually do, holding on like separating hurts.
Like neither of them trusts goodbye anymore.
As the big alpha pulls away, I catch the smaller one murmuring, “Goodnight, Chase.” Then he’s gone, and it’s just me and Jasper in this apartment that suddenly feels like it’s grown several sizes.
I sip my drink. The burn is still there, but it’s a sweet kind of warmth now. “You two aren’t living together?”
Jasper sits across from me. He’s quiet for a few seconds, picking his words. “We’re pack. But I’m taking some space right now.”
“You didn’t break the bond?”
He shakes his head, and it’s clear it stings. “No. I need time to figure some things out.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, because I don’t know what else to say, and because I know that look. It screams of someone who loves what they can’t have, or can’t hold onto, or both.
His phone lights up on the table between us. Arden. And a photo. I know that face immediately—the omega specialist. The smart man who told me what was going on with my brain in a way that Dr. Turner couldn’t.
“You know Arden?” I ask.
Jasper looks surprised. He glances at the phone, then back at me. He doesn’t answer. Just silences it. “He’s in my pack, too.”
“I went to see him once,” I say. “My doctor recommended it. For the withdrawal symptoms and the touch thing. The parts that mess with my head.”
Jasper nods, slow. “You should keep seeing him. He’s good at what he does. He can help.”
The way he talks about him is cautious. Maybe a little bit hurt. I want to ask him about the pack, about why he’s here alone while Chase goes home and Arden calls but Jasper doesn’t answer, but I don’t. That’s his business. I have enough of my own mess to sort through.
Everybody’s carrying around wreckage these days.
“He’s nice,” I tell him. “But he can’t help me. I didn’t schedule another appointment.”
He cocks his head, curious. “Why do you say that?”
I shrug. “Even he said clinical alpha exposure could be bad for me.”
“Yeah, he has strong opinions on that, but the OPA likes to push it for omegas that are… struggling. But Arden is an excellent listener. And he gives good advice. There are other ways he could help you.” He leans back and looks at me thoughtfully. “You should go back. Give it a chance.”
I shrug again. “Maybe.”
I won’t. Garrett already tried to talk to me into scheduling another appointment over breakfast once, but I’m nothing if not stubborn.
He can’t help me and I don’t want to sit across from an alpha and prattle on about all the ways I’ve failed at being an omega. Better to be invisible. Ghost-protocol.
“Do you need to call him back?” I ask, trying to change the subject.
He shakes his head. “Not tonight.”
We sit in the silence again. It’s not awkward. It’s what happens when two people are both carrying something heavy and neither of them is in the mood to pretend.
There’s a knock at the door after a while.
Jasper opens it, and Gabriel is standing there.
My chest clenches just looking at him. He looks like hell.
Gone is the pack lead who could cut diamonds with his posture and a stare; this Gabriel has wild hair, an unbuttoned coat, red-rimmed eyes.
He looks like he’s spent hours imagining every terrible thing that could happen and believing every one of them.
He looks like a man who thought he’d lost me.
Though I thought that’s what he wanted.
“Jasper,” he says. “Thank you.”
Jasper nods. “She’s okay. Just cold and tired.” Then, to Gabriel, “Don’t make me regret letting you come.”
“I won’t.”
Jasper steps aside, and Gabriel comes in. He crosses the room to the couch and then does something I never expected. He kneels. He drops to his knees in front of the couch, hands on his thighs and sitting back on his heels, looking up at me.
The pack lead of the Santos pack is literally kneeling in front of me.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry, Lily. For all of it. For everything I’ve said since the day you walked into my house. And hell, even before.”
I don’t say anything. I wait. I’ve heard Gabriel apologize before, and there’s always a “but” at the end of it.
“I didn’t mean a word of what I said tonight.
Or the other night. Or any of the other times I…
” He breaks off, closes his eyes, then opens them again.
“That’s not even true. I meant every word, but not the way you heard them.
I meant them as weapons. I picked the things that would hurt you most because I needed you to leave, and I needed you to leave because… ”
He can’t finish. For a second I think he won’t.
“Because I want you, Lily. I want you so badly that it’s been devouring me since the night I scented you at the gala.
Every day you’ve been in my house, I’ve wanted to hold you.
Every time I’ve walked past your room, I’ve wanted to stop.
Every time I watched you suffer, I wanted to gather you up and purr until it stopped hurting and never let go. ”
My eyes are stinging now. I bite my lip to keep it together.
“But I couldn’t. Because of Miles. I promised him he’d never be replaced, and wanting you feels like breaking that promise, even though it’s not.
Even though my heart is big enough for both of you.
I know that now. I’ve known it for weeks.
But I was so afraid of hurting him that I hurt you instead, over and over, because it was easier to be cruel to the person I haven’t committed to than to be honest with the person I have. ”
Part of me aches to believe him.
He reaches for my hand. I let him take it. His fingers are freezing from outside, and he holds on tight.
“The night I called you a reject—I was terrified that Brennan was going to take you. Not Miles. You. Nobody has ever threatened Miles; our pack is too well known. But you’re unprotected, and Brennan wants you, and the thought of someone taking you from me made me so sick with fear that I couldn’t say it out loud.
Not in front of Miles. So I said something cruel to you instead, because it was safer than admitting I was afraid of losing you. ”
Now the tears are slipping down my face. I can’t even try to stop them.
“And tonight—the things I said. Snake, defective, all of it. I said them because Miles chose to be vulnerable with you in a way he’s never been with me, and instead of being grateful he’s healing and opening up, I was jealous.
Of both of you. Jealous of him for having you.
Jealous of you for reaching him.” He squeezes my hand.
“I punished you for the thing I want most. That’s unforgivable.
I know it’s unforgivable. But I’m asking you to come back anyway. ”
“Why?” I sound like a mess. “Why should I?”
“Because I don’t want you to leave. Not to the Carrs, not to your sister, not to anyone. I want you in my house, at my table, in my life. I want Miles to have what he found with you. I want my pack to be what it’s supposed to be—all of us, including you.”
“And Miles?”
“We go at his pace. That hasn’t changed. He’s not ready for everything, and I won’t push him. But things will be different, Lily. No more cruelty. No more pushing you away like I don’t want you. No more rules designed to starve you of the contact you need to survive.”