What We Don’t Say, Part Two (Beta Accepted)

1. Theo

Theo

My heat’s over. That’s the first thing I understand when I come back to myself.

The air should be thick enough to blur the edges of everything.

My body should be pulling me down into the deep, hot place Bellwether spent two years teaching me not to fear, the place where instinct has rules and touch has meaning and the nest becomes the whole world.

Instead, I’m shivering so hard my teeth keep catching, wrapped in two blankets with a cooling cloth sliding off my collarbone and a doctor’s fingers pressed against the inside of my wrist.

The center of the nest feels wrong. The pillows are still in place, and the sheets are still tucked the way Idris likes them, and one of Callie’s sweaters is bunched against my ribs where I must’ve dragged it close.

There’s a hole where her scent should be. Honeyed pear and vanilla tea, soft enough to breathe around. I keep turning my face into the sweater, trying to find more of her, but every breath gives me less.

“Stay with me, Theo,” the doctor says. Her voice is calm, but it has the careful edges people use around cracked glass. Dr. Mercer from Bellwether is kneeling beside the nest with her bag open, a cuff around my arm and a small reader clipped to my finger. “Tell me your name.”

“Theo Mehra,” I whisper. My throat aches around the words, but they come out whole. Quiet, shaky, mine. “Theo Star Mehra.”

“Good. Do you know where you are?”

I blink past her shoulder. Sloane is near the windows with one hand braced against the frame, his body folded forward like something inside him has been struck and he’s trying not to fall from it.

Idris stands beside the nest, too still, one hand on the back of the chair he hasn’t sat in.

His knuckles are pale against the dark wood.

“Home,” I say, then the word twists too tight in my chest. “I think.”

Sloane makes a sound under his breath. Idris’ head turns toward him, but the doctor gets there first, her eyes flicking up in warning before she looks back at the reader on my finger.

“Your pulse jumps every time they do that,” she says, and I know she means the sounds the Alphas keep swallowing. “Sloane, Idris, I need both of you to pull your scents back as much as you can. His heat response is already unstable.”

“It stopped,” I say before I can decide if I’m allowed to. My fingers tighten around Callie’s sweater until the seams dig into my palms. “It was coming, and then it stopped.”

Dr. Mercer’s face softens in a way that scares me more than if she frowned. “It didn’t stop cleanly. Your body interrupted the cycle under acute distress. That’s why you’re shaking and why your temperature dropped too fast. We’re going to keep monitoring you.”

“Interrupted,” I repeat. The word feels like a door closed on my fingers. “Did I do something wrong?”

Sloane turns from the window so sharply the curtain rings scrape against the rod. “No, sweetheart. No, fuck, don’t even put that in your head.”

His voice breaks on the last word, and my body answers before my mind can. The reader on my finger chirps. Dr. Mercer looks at it, then at him, and Idris steps between Sloane and the nest just enough to block the worst of him from rolling over me.

“Sloane,” Idris says, low and hard. “Breathe before you come closer.”

Sloane looks at him like he might tear through the floor to get to something buried underneath it. His eyes are red-rimmed and wild, and his shirt is wrinkled like he’s been gripping it in both fists. “She shut the bond.”

Sloane’s hand presses harder against his chest. I don’t know exactly what a bonded Alpha feels when a Beta closes the connection.

Bellwether explained it with diagrams and careful terms, all neural pathways and consensual bond closure and emotional feedback disruption.

They never said Sloane might look like this, pale and breathing wrong, one hand braced over a place I can't reach.

“Callie?” I ask. Her name hurts more than mine did. “Sloane, Callie shut you out?”

He presses the heel of his hand to his chest and nods once, too fast, like if he does it slowly something in him will come apart. “I felt her. There was terror, and then there was nothing. She closed it.”

“She wouldn’t.” The words come out thin.

I try to sit up and the room tilts, bright and mean.

Idris moves immediately, one hand behind my shoulders, the other gathering the blanket higher around me.

I lean into him because my body knows him, because he’s warm and steady even with murder locked behind his ribs.

“She wouldn’t do that unless something happened. ”

“I know,” Idris says.

Dr. Mercer adjusts the cuff on my arm. “I need to be very clear. I’m documenting this as an interrupted heat response under acute pack distress. Bellwether will require a stabilization plan before I can clear Theo to remain in the current placement without further review.”

Idris’ hand goes still against my back. Sloane stops breathing.

Even I understand enough for cold to slide under my skin in a place the blankets can’t reach.

Placement review means forms. Forms mean people in rooms deciding whether I belong in this house, with these Alphas, near the nest that still has Callie’s sweater in it.

It means Garrett’s calm voice and Bellwether’s clean paper and my body used as proof.

“I’m stable,” I say. My voice shakes, but the sentence holds. “I’m scared. That’s different.”

Dr. Mercer looks at me, and something like approval moves across her face before she hides it behind her professional calm. “It is different. That’s why I’m asking what happened instead of making a recommendation from the vitals alone.”

The front door opens.

I hear it even from the sunroom. The soft click of the lock, the measured weight of footsteps in the foyer, the pause that comes before a man decides what face he’s going to wear when he enters a room.

My hands go numb around the sweater. Idris feels the change in me before anyone says anything.

He shifts closer, not trapping me, just putting more of himself between me and the hall.

Garrett appears in the sunroom doorway with his coat still on and his phone in one hand. He looks first at me, wrapped in blankets and shivering in the wreckage of a heat that didn’t finish. Then at Dr. Mercer. Then at Sloane. For one second, Garrett’s face goes hard.

“Why is Bellwether here?” he asks.

Dr. Mercer stands, smoothing one hand down the front of her jacket. She’s a Beta, shorter than all three Alphas in the room, but her voice doesn’t bend for any of them. “Theo’s heat response interrupted abruptly. I was called to assess him.”

Garrett’s gaze moves to Idris. “You called a Bellwether physician without consulting the head Alpha?”

“Theo’s temperature dropped, his pulse spiked, and his heat collapsed while he was calling for Calliope,” Idris says. His voice has no softness in it at all. “I consulted the doctor.”

Garrett steps into the room. I pull the blanket higher without meaning to, and Sloane sees it. His whole body shifts, but Idris’ hand lifts once, a silent hold. Sloane doesn’t move closer to Garrett. He looks like staying still is costing him blood.

“Theo is overwhelmed,” Garrett says. “This household has been under considerable strain today. I’m sure Dr. Mercer understands that heat cycles, especially early ones, can be volatile when an Omega is exposed to inconsistent emotional cues.”

My throat gets tight. “I asked for Callie.”

Garrett’s eyes come to me, and the room seems to narrow. “I know you did. You’ve had a difficult day.”

“I called her,” I say. I have to make myself keep looking at him. My voice softens until I can barely hear it, but the words are still words. “She didn’t answer.”

Sloane’s hand drops to his phone. “I’m calling her again.”

“She asked for time,” Garrett says.

Sloane goes still.

Idris turns his head slowly. “What did you say?”

Garrett’s phone disappears into his coat pocket. “She sent a message. She needs more time, and she asked everyone to focus on Theo. That’s the sensible choice right now, whether or not it’s the emotionally gratifying one.”

Sloane laughs once. It isn’t humor. It’s a broken, dangerous sound that makes Dr. Mercer look sharply at my monitor. “Callie doesn’t send you messages instead of me.”

“She may have assumed you’d react exactly like this,” Garrett says. “And considering Theo’s current condition, she wasn’t wrong to worry.”

Idris takes one step toward him. The room bends around it. He doesn’t raise his voice, but every part of him becomes colder. “Tell me what happened on campus.”

“I handled a developing situation.”

“No.” Idris’ hand leaves the chair. “You went to help Calliope. You came back without Calliope. Now her calls don’t connect, Theo’s heat has crashed, Sloane’s bond is closed, and you’re standing here telling us she chose to disappear through you. Tell me what the fuck is going on.”

Dr. Mercer reaches for the monitor as the beeping speeds up.

I know it’s me making it do that. My heart is trying to climb out of my chest. The Alphas are too much, all of them, even Idris, even Sloane, even the ones I want.

Their scents press against the walls until the whole room feels smaller than my lungs.

Sloane hears the monitor and turns toward me. His face changes, grief cutting through the rage so sharply I almost sob. He starts for the nest, but Garrett moves at the same time, too smooth, too certain, like he thinks his body belongs between all of us.

“Don’t,” I whisper.

Garrett stops.

So does everyone else.

Garrett’s eyes settle on me, and the pressure of him touches the room like a hand at the back of my neck.

“Theo,” Garrett says, with that careful warmth that used to make me feel chosen before I understood it could also make me small. “No one is upset with you. You need rest, not more conflict.”

“I d-don’t want you close.” The stutter catches at the start, embarrassing and hot in my throat, but I make myself finish. “Please don’t come closer.”

Sloane moves toward me. He drops to his knees beside the nest like his body has been waiting for permission to fall. His hands hover at first, big and shaking, until I lean forward enough for him to know he can touch me. Then he cups the sides of my face and presses his forehead to mine.

“I’m sorry,” he says. His voice is ruined. “I’m so fucking sorry, sweetheart.”

“She didn’t answer me.” I hate how young I sound.

I hate that Dr. Mercer is watching, and Idris is holding the room together with his teeth clenched, and Garrett is standing there with his coat still on like he hasn’t brought winter into the sunroom.

“I called her and she didn’t answer. Did she leave because of me? ”

Sloane makes a sound that breaks something open in my chest. His thumbs stroke once under my eyes, catching tears I didn’t realize had fallen. “No. Callie didn’t leave because of you. I don’t believe that for one second.”

Garrett exhales behind him. “Belief isn’t evidence.”

Sloane’s hands tighten on my face for half a breath, but when he speaks to me, he keeps every sharp thing out of his voice.

“I’m bringing her back, okay? Fuck, I’m bringing her back.

You stay with Idris. You let Dr. Mercer finish checking you.

You don’t listen to anyone who tells you she didn’t love you. ”

My mouth trembles. “You promise?”

“I promise.” He kisses my forehead, hard and fast, like he’s sealing the words into my skin. “I’m going to find Callie, and I’m going to bring her home.”

“Sloane,” Garrett says, and there’s a warning in it now. The warmth is gone. “If you leave this house in your current state, you’ll create exactly the kind of record Bellwether can’t ignore.”

Sloane rises. Slowly. It’s worse than if he lunged. His hands fall from me, and the loss of them makes me curl tighter around the sweater, but his body stays angled toward Garrett like every bone in him has become a weapon.

“You don’t get to say Bellwether to me right now,” Sloane says.

Garrett’s jaw flexes. “You’re a bonded Alpha in acute distress, attempting to abandon an unstable Omega placement to chase a Beta who has expressly requested distance. Think carefully before you make this worse for everyone.”

Idris moves before Sloane can. He puts himself beside Sloane, not in front of him, and the two of them together make the sunroom feel like it has run out of air.

“Theo isn’t being abandoned. I’m here. Dr. Mercer is here.

You’re the one who left this house and came back with explanations that don’t survive a single question. ”

“I won’t be spoken to like an enemy in my own pack,” Garrett says.

“Then stop acting like one,” Idris says.

The monitor shrills.

Dr. Mercer’s voice cuts through the room, firm enough that even Sloane flinches.

“Enough. Theo needs one Alpha calm and present, one person handling the external stressor, and no further dominance escalation in this room. If you want this documented as a pack capable of stabilizing him, start acting like it.”

For a second, no one moves. Then Idris turns away from Garrett and comes back to me. He kneels where Sloane was, his hand warm and steady at the back of my neck, and the pressure of him helps my body remember the floor is under us.

“I’ve got you,” Idris murmurs. “I’m staying.”

Sloane looks at me one more time. His face is wet now, though I don’t know when that happened. He doesn’t wipe it away. He looks like he wants to climb back into the nest and split himself in half so one part can stay with me and the other can run toward her.

“Bring her back,” I whisper.

“I will.” He turns before Garrett can put another word in his path, snatches his keys from the side table, and walks out of the sunroom with every light in the house seeming to shiver around him.

Garrett follows him into the hall. “Sloane, stop.”

Idris’ hand tightens gently at the back of my neck, holding me in place when I try to look. The front door opens hard enough to hit the wall. Garrett says Sloane’s name again, sharper this time, and Sloane’s answer comes back through the foyer, low and vicious enough to raise every hair on my arms.

“Get out of my fucking way.”

A second later, the door slams. The engine starts before the echo has finished moving through the house, tires spitting gravel as Sloane tears down the drive toward Callie.

Garrett stands in the hall with his hands empty and his face stripped clean of softness, while Dr. Mercer’s monitor keeps screaming beside me.