Of course she is. She worries about everything, but especially her sons. Two by birth, one by choice. I'm the latter. The stray she took in when everyone else would have let me rot.
“I’m fine.”
“How’s the new team?”
“Peachy.”
“Are you at least trying to get along with them?”
“Of course. How's the bakery?” I ask, deliberately changing the subject. Caleb owns a small but thriving patisserie. The passion project of a beta who looks like he could bench press a car but spends his days piping delicate rosettes onto wedding cakes.
"Nice deflection. Business is booming," he says, allowing the change of topic. "I've hired two new bakers and we're expanding to the vacant space next door. Mom's recipe book is getting a workout. Her maple pecan tarts are still the bestseller."
I feel my lips twitch into what might almost be a smile if I didn't have a headache that's worsening by the minute. But I don't respond to that. Instead, I move back to the mini-bar, balancing the phone between ear and shoulder as I extract the final tiny bottle of spirits.
“Send my regards. Tell her I'm fine,” I say. “Settled in. The usual lies.”
"Your regards," Caleb repeats flatly. "How wonderfully formal of you. I'll be sure to convey the incredible depth of your emotional expression."
A reluctant chuckle escapes me. "Fuck off."
"Love you too, brother." The words are casual, genuine, completely uncomplicated by the tangle of jagged edges between us. Caleb says it like it's the most natural thing in the world.
Like loving me isn't an exercise in futility.
I end the call without responding. There's nothing I could say that wouldn't sound hollow or cruel by comparison.
I don't form attachments.
I can't afford to.
Attachments are weapons that can be used against you. A lesson I learned early and brutally before a well-meaning and equally well-to-do family of betas scraped me up like I was something to salvage.
Hockey was my adoptive father's idea. He thought it would channel my trauma. My aggression.
He was right.
The violence of the game suits me. The controlled chaos. The sanctioned brutality. A way to unleash the darkness without crossing lines that can’t be uncrossed. The ice is the only place where I feel something close to peace.
Even my shaky bond with my family is a weakness, and it’s one I've tried and failed to sever completely. One I keep at arm's length for their protection as much as my own.
So why does this nameless omega I don’t even know have such a hold on me after the briefest of encounters?
The concussion must be worse than I thought. That's the only logical explanation for this fixation. Head trauma making my brain malfunction. Basic alpha instincts misfiring in response to an attractive omega in a vulnerable state.
Nothing more.
Chapter
Twenty
WRAITH
Istand in the parking lot of the clinic, frozen, jaw locked tight beneath my mask. Been staring at those automatic doors for five minutes now. Every muscle tenses against the idea of going inside.
Hospitals.
Clinics.
