“I would never leave a friend in this condition, and I’m not leaving you.”
“We aren’t friends anymore. I destroyed that too.” Kai shakes his head but doesn’t release my hand. He’s desperate for my touch and for the comfort I’m offering, but he doesn’t want to keep hurting me.
“Maybe we could be,” I offer. I don’t know what to do, but I know I can’t leave until I know Kai is going to be okay. I never wanted to hurt him, but I didn’t even realize I could hurt him.
Maybe the version of Kai that showed up at that Halloween party couldn’t be hurt, but this Kai? This Kai is broken-hearted, and seeing him like this has changed something for me. Maybe it’s the support of the two men waiting patiently in the living room, or maybe it’s the fact that I’ve realized my own strength. Whatever it is, I know what I don’t want, and that’s for Kai to break.
“I want to, Plum. More than anything.”
“But?”
“But… I know I’m not strong enough for that. Not right now, and maybe not ever. I love you more than anything, and I want you to be happy. I just… I can’t be here to see you happy without me. I know that might sound selfish, but I’m trying to be honest. I know it will slowly destroy me.”
“I get that,” I say. And I really do, because the thought of Kai with anyone else makes me want to start a fight or chain him up in a room where no other woman can get their hands on him.
“Where do we go from here?” I ask.
“You go out there to the men waiting for you, and I’ll go back to bed,” Kai answers, dropping his hand but not moving away from me as I drop my hands to his shoulders.
“That’s not what I mean. How do we get to a place where your best friend isn’t so worried that he can’t take his eyes off you?”
As soon as I say it, I realize we need to bring Kai with us back to the farm. Val and Stella shouldn’t have to supervise the broken beta during their wedding, and I don’t know how long it’s going to take him to get to a better place mentally.
But it’s more than that. I want to be the one who takes care of Kai. I want to be close to him. I want to make sure he’s okay. Not anyone else. This oddly feels like it belongs to me too, and I don’t want anyone else to have it.
“We bring him with us and show him how to treat our omega the way she deserves,” Nick says from the bedroom doorway.
“Tie him to a chair and make him watch us knot you…” Benson adds with a growl, and my head whips around, eyes wide, as I glance between the two alphas.
Kai shakes his head, but for the first time since we got to the apartment, his scent changes. Desire, need, and panic all replace the devastation that had been seeping into the foundation of this moment.
“Tie him up,” I whisper, looking down at Kai. He’s staring up at me, but unlike before, where all I could see was sadness, now there’s something more.
“Like…” Kai murmurs. Swallowing thickly before looking over to the alphas. “Apunishment?” he asks, sounding so fucking hopeful.
“You want to be punished?” I ask, skeptical, and the beta nods his head, still watching the alphas, who both lift their brows.
“Yes. I… I think I should be punished.” Kai turns back to me, licking his lips. “Will you? Please, Plum?” The way he whispers my name, like he’s begging me for this, steals the air from my lungs.
The gravity of it hits me all at once, and I don’t know what to say. I can’tpunishKai… What would that even look like? What does he want, exactly? To watch another man fuck me? The thought makes me swallow a lump in my throat. Isn’t that cruel?
Kai slides off the edge of the bed and onto his knees. The move forces me back a step. When I look down at him, his brown eyes are locked on me. At this moment, I am his only lifeline, but I already knew that. That’s why I’m here. It’s why I came for him. I knew that no one else could help Kai but me, and maybe he’s the reason all of this is happening, but Iamthe one who hurt him.
I could have kept pretending, kept lying.
Instead, I ripped my chest open and made him face all the damage he’s done. He was young, and he was dumb. He made a mistake, and then he was too terrified to face reality. The second his knees hit the pavement, I saw it. The pain he’d been hiding.
I think that might have been the one thing Ineededto see. I didn’t know it until he was breaking apart before me, but until that moment, I didn’t believe him. I didn’t believe he was sorry or that he ever even loved me in the first place.
Now I do, because you only break like that for someone you love.
“It wasn’t until I saw you fall apart that I believed you,” I murmur, cupping his cheek with my palm. I don’t want to keep hurting Kai. If I did, I would have left him to rot in that bed, but all of this is new to me. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I think I know what I want… “You’ve got a lot to atone for, beta.”
Kai nods eagerly as Nick and Benson step into the bedroom. The alphas stand behind me, arms crossed over their chests, as we stare down at the man on his knees. His scent isn’t drowning us with acidic pain anymore. He doesn’t look lost in his own mind.
“One condition.” I hold my finger up.
“Anything.”
