Chapter 22
brODY
“Ionce told a woman her eyes were so beautiful that my soufflé rose just from her gaze,” I admit as we descend the hillside, Claire at my side, Jakob and Corey a few paces behind us.
Claire turns her attention my way. “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Yep.” I step over a root and offer her my hand before she even needs it. “She threw breadsticks at me.”
Her mouth twitches into a grin. “Deserved.”
“Possibly.”
Corey snorts behind us. “Honestly, man, I’m shocked you survived dating.”
Jakob laughs, and I glance back as he adjusts her backpack over his shoulder.
“I had cheekbones and a working oven,” I say. “Never underestimate the power of pastry.”
Claire giggles, and I’ve become embarrassingly obsessed with the sound. Three days in a cabin with her and her heat, and I’m now completely smitten by everything she does.
I slow half a step, letting her move ahead of me.
Bad idea.
My hoodie she’s wearing swallows her frame, the hem brushing her thighs in her leggings, the sleeves pushed up past her wrists.
Her hips sway with every careful step, a soft, unthinking rhythm that has me staring too closely.
I’m inches from reaching out and holding on to her, but she insisted she can descend from the cabin on her own.
Except, she has no idea what she looks like in my clothes, flushed from the walk, hair catching the sunlight.
Mine is all I can think.
Not in the casual, cocky way I’ve thought it before. It’s deeper than that now. Worse. Three days of having her tucked under my arms, asleep against my chest, laughing into my shoulder, trusting us when her body dragged her under.
Mine to protect, to feed, to claim and mark.
Claire glances back over her shoulder. “Why’d you go so quiet?”
“Admiring the view.”
She turns back toward the valley opening through the trees. “It’s beautiful.”
Corey makes a choking sound behind us.
Jakob says nothing, which means he is absolutely enjoying this.
I move to Claire’s side as the path widens. “The valley’s nice too.”
Color rushes into her cheeks, and fuck me, but I’m gone. My cock throbs, reminding me of how sore it is. I didn’t know that was a thing, yet I’d fuck her right now if she gave me the signal.
By the time the trail breaks out of the trees, the world opens up even more into a long descending field of wild grass and low stone walls, the parking area a small dark shape in the distance.
The sky has changed while we’ve been under the canopy, the blue bruising at the edges, clouds gathering thick over the ridgeline. A storm is coming.
Claire glances up at it, then keeps walking. Corey moves on her left as the path widens, close enough that their arms brush now and then, and every time it happens, the corner of his mouth lifts as if he’s won something. Jakob falls into step on my right.
For years, I told myself the pack was enough as it was. Me, Corey, Jakob. We were solid and loyal. But there had always been space around the edges, and now, for the first time, that hollow is fading.
“What about you?” Claire says, glancing at Jakob over her shoulder. “Most memorable pickup line you used?”
He pushes a blond curl off his forehead. “I once walked up to a woman at a rugby social and told her she had front-row energy.”
“What does that even mean?” she asks.
“Yeah,” Jakob explains, then barks a laugh. “She had a similar reaction. Then she found it funny and walked away.”
I slap his shoulder, chuckling.
“What about you, Claire?” Corey butts in. “What have you used on men because mine are seriously embarrassing and never worked.”
Claire’s gaze lifts to the darkening sky. “Hmm, it’s been a while, but I once told a guy I had very strong wrists and could prove it.”
Corey nearly misses a step. “That worked, right? Tell me that worked. Lie if you have to.”
“I was talking about whisking meringue.”
Jakob hums. “Sure, sure.”
“It wasn’t my finest moment,” Claire explains. “I panicked halfway through and made it worse.”
I glance at her hands, remembering exactly how those fingers felt curled in my shirt. “I’m failing to see the problem.”
Corey points at me. “Thank you. Finally, some professionalism on this trail.”
Claire groans. “Then I said, ‘I can make very stiff peaks.’ ”
“And people say romance is dead,” Corey says, smirking way too widely.
“Anyway,” she jumps in. “I doubt any of you actually need pickup lines.”
“None of it matters,” I say. “The only person I need to reach is you, Claire. And the only opinion that keeps me up at night is yours.”
“Aww, that’s so adorable,” Corey says, blowing me kisses.
“Fuck off,” I retort, while Claire’s giggling away.
A fat drop of rain smacks my forehead, then another. In moments, the sky opens up and the rain rushes down in sheets.
Claire squeals, and suddenly we’re all running.
“Move!” Corey shouts out the obvious.
I grab Claire’s hand, and we’re half running, half sliding down the last stretch of muddy trail.
Her fingers are slippery in mine, her glasses streaming, and she’s laughing so hard she can barely stay upright.
Jakob’s ahead, carving through the rain with the single-minded determination of a man who has played rugby in worse conditions and refuses to let weather be an obstacle.
The parking lot appears before us. Two vehicles in the gravel. I yank open my passenger door, Claire scrambles in, and I sprint around to the driver’s side and throw myself behind the wheel, slamming the door shut.
Rain is hammering the roof, while both of us are soaked through, panting, dripping onto the leather seats.
I grab a towel from the back seat and hand it to her. She dabs her face, pushes her glasses up, and dries herself.
“You are so fucking beautiful,” I say, watching her, still dripping.
The towel pauses against her cheek. “I’ll be honest, I still can’t believe how lucky I am,” she says, and the sincerity in her voice coils around my heart.
She throws me the towel, and I wipe my face and hair in seconds before tossing it into the back.
Then I’m leaning across the console toward her, where I cup her jaw with one hand and press my mouth to hers, unable to help myself.
She tastes of rain and mountain air and the underneath taste that’s just her, that I’ve become addicted to.
The kiss deepens, her hand fisting my soaked shirt, hauling me closer, and I’m burning through denim and common sense.
The steering wheel is pressing into my ribs, but I don’t care.
A horn blast rips through the rain.
We jerk apart and stare out at Corey’s truck beside us, his grinning face visible through the rain-streaked window. He gives a thumbs-up. Jakob shakes his head in the passenger seat.
“I’m going to feed them expired ingredients for a month,” I mutter.
Claire giggles, flushed, so I start the engine and pull out of the parking area.
The drive is thirty minutes of warm cabin and drumming rain. Claire’s hand settles on my thigh, and I keep stealing glances at her. The way her lashes dip as exhaustion catches up, and how she burrows into the heated seat.
“When we get back,” I say, “you’re coming over. I’m making you the best chai tea you’ve ever tasted. Cinnamon, cardamom, the whole production.”
“That sounds incredible,” she murmurs. Her eyes flutter as she keeps her attention on me.
I crank the heat higher and drive through the rain. Four weeks ago, I was a man who lived for the camera and convinced himself the performance was enough. Then a woman fogged up her window while watching me bake, and now I can’t get enough of her.
Mistberry Cove materializes through the rain. The harbor lights diffused, the streets quiet, rain turning everything to silver. I pull into our street, then swing into the driveway where Corey’s truck is already parked.
He and Jakob are on the front porch, standing there in the rain with rigid postures, their backs to us, and they’re not alone.
A figure between them. Small, hunched, drenched, arms wrapped around herself. The porch light catches the side of her face, and my chest fills with ice.
Trudy.
The name surfaces from the sealed vault in my skull and drags every memory with it.
Her arrival in Austin, carrying a suitcase and a hope that made us gentle with her.
The early months when it felt real, when she laughed in our kitchen and Damien slept on her chest and I thought we’d finally found our Omega.
Then Jakob noticing the flinching, her muffled crying at night, and the slow, patient weeks of coaxing the truth from her until it came…
She was already bonded to an Alpha named Kristian who’d claimed her when young and discarded her.
The asshole had marked her, and like a leash, the bond pulled her back to him no matter how hard we loved her.
A year. We kept her for nearly a year, knowing she wasn’t fully ours.
I cooked her favorite meals every night.
Banana bread on Sundays because the smell made her smile.
Corey held her through bond-sickness episodes that left her shaking and empty.
Jakob handled everything else because that’s what he does.
Then the note. Six words on the kitchen counter next to a cold coffee.
I’m sorry. I have to try.
She went back to Kristian, the Alpha who’d already proved he didn’t want her, and we never heard from her again.
Until now, as she stands on our porch in the rain, three years later.
“Who’s that?” Claire asks, sitting up, peering through the rain-spotted windshield.
I don’t answer immediately. My knuckles turn white on the steering wheel.
“Brody?”
“Her name’s Trudy.” The words taste stale. “She’s… she was our Omega. Before. The one we told you about, who left us.”
I feel Claire’s hand lift from my thigh.
“Hey.” I reach for her hand. “That was years ago. She’s nothing to us.”