Leon loved me, and I know he wouldn’t want me to just roll over and give up. He wouldn’t want me to stop living because he isn’t here. Yet, the guilt of his death weighs so heavily on me. I think it might crush me whole.
“We’re almost there. You’re doing so good. You’re being so brave,” Tate praises while we’re at a stop sign.
I hate that his words comfort me. I hate that I get to receive comfort when we just left absolute devastation in our wake.
He doesn’t loosen his grip on my wrist as he rides, and I use the contact as an anchor. His flesh wrapping around mine is the only thing I focus on, nothing else. His skin against mine feels perfect.How have I gone without his touch like this for so long?
I find myself scooting as close as I possibly can to Tate, rubbing myself all over him and mingling our scents as the night’s wind funnels around us. One of my hands leaves his waist, and he nearly crashes as he snatches it back. I just really wanted to touch his windblown hair.
I shake the thoughts out of my head.
No. No. No.
This can’t be happening right now. I can’t go into heat. I need to feel this; I need to grieve and make sure that Shelby is okay, that all the other Omegas they found in that house are safe and whole.
Giving into my selfish Omega needs right now just can’t fucking happen.
I need to resist.
I just need to survive.
Tate can take me to the lake house, he can provide me with food, water, and… that’s it. I don’t deserve to have my heat satisfied.
This can be the pain I endure.
The idea of hurting somehow brings me comfort. It’s like my suffering will wash away the sins that plague me.
It’s not what Leon would have wanted, but something about the karmic justice of it all will make me feel better.
If I had been the one to open the door, or if I hadn’t spent the day with Axel, maybe none of this would have happened. It all feels like some fucked up butterfly effect, and I hate it. I can playwhat-ifs for the rest of my life, but the cold reality of everything that happened won’t change.
Maybe it was impossible to stop all of this, but what is possible is making things right—justice.
Which I can’t do anything about until my body hands over all my faculties. Right now, every nerve ending is on fucking fire. I switch from wanting Tate to pull over and fuck me on the side of the road to having him toss me in a ditch so I can cry into the cold, damp ground. The juxtaposition of my emotions is complicated and gives me whiplash.
I focus again on where Tate holds onto me, and I try to not find the fact he’s been driving with one hand ridiculously hot. The feeling fades away fast when I realize whose bike we’re riding.
I press my forehead against Tate’s back and scrunch my eyes together as tightly as I can.
Adrenaline is fading away and is quickly replaced with need and exhaustion. I fucking hope exhaustion weighs out first. I haven’t slept in nearly forty-eight hours, and I wonder if my lack of sleep is partly why I can’t think straight.
I shake my head against his back. No, it definitely has to do with the trauma and the way my body is begging for relief.
His tires hit gravel and the bike’s speed slows as he pulls up to the lake house. It’s quiet here, with just the songs of cicadas and frogs. It’s soothing in a way. I love this house, but part of me doesn’t want to walk through those doors.
I know what I need to do.
Lock myself away and survive this heat. Once it’s done, then I’ll be able to think straight. I’ll be able to do something besides being fucking useless.
Tate taps my thigh, but I don’t budge for a solid minute.
“You can get off the bike on your own or I’ll move you, Lily,” he says in a low tone. It makes my flesh pebble, and I try to holdback the effect that his voice, scent, and touch have on me. I don’t deserve the decadence that is him, not now.
Against my better judgment, I get off the bike and wrap my arms around myself as Tate does the same.
He looks at me like I’m a wounded animal, and I detest the feeling. I look away as he attempts to reach for my arm.
“Don’t touch me,” I hiss at him.
