She'd listened, though, asking questions that showed I wasn’t boring her to tears. When she'd asked if I would teach her to work on a car someday, I'd nearly swallowed my tongue. The image of Lucy in the garage with me—those delicate hands working a wrench, her silver hair tied back, a pair of coveralls hanging off her small body, maybe a smudge of grease on her cheek—it had hit me like a physical blow.
My brothers didn’t say anything as we approached. They parted like the red sea, letting me carry Lucy past them. I felt her stiffen when I turned left past the kitchen bar, my destination obvious: the bullshit bedroom, fire-damaged and bare.
“I promise it’s different this time,” I assured her.
I thought back to that day.
How callous we'd been. How fucking arrogant. Our simple plan of scaring our scent match away had seemed easy. We’d turned this house into a horror show. We’d flaunted the artifactsof our sexual conquests in her face. We’d given her nothing but a stained mattress and buckets for a bathroom.
But nothing was simple with Lucy. She’d taken the worst from us and kept going.
I wanted to take her to Otto’s again. I wanted to show her what that place really meant to me. Would she agree to go? She’d almost died at my hands there, the damn tower of wreckage nearly collapsing atop her because I’d let my inner devil get the best of me.
If I'd known what would happen at the Cirque... But no. That hadn't been my fault, no matter how doggedly my mind tried to irrationally connect the dots between the two incidents. Different venues, different dangers. The flagpole had been a freak accident, not karmic punishment for my sin.
The only silver lining to that horrific event had been the way it united us—five stubborn Alphas finally admitting what we'd been fighting for weeks. Lucy wasn't just an Omega, wasn't just a scent match or a contract stipulation. She was essential. She was our stability. She was our tomorrow. Every. Single. Damn. Tomorrow.
"You're frowning," she whispered, one finger tentatively touching the crease between my eyebrows. The gentle contact sent a jolt through me, and I forced my expression to soften.
I’d stopped walking.When had I stopped walking?
I was holding her, just outside the bedroom.
"Just thinking," I replied, not opening the door, not moving us forward.
Xander came up beside us. Wordlessly, He reached for the knob and turned it, swinging the entrance inward. I felt the rest of my pack behind me waiting, nervous notes threading through their Alpha colognes.
We'd spent days preparing the room.
We'd argued for hours over every detail—the mattress firmness, the thread count of the sheets, the down comforter, the shade of green for the walls, the lace curtains. The crystal chandelier over the bed cast rainbow prisms across the space. At some point, Fallon had remembered the large suitcase that had arrived with Lucy. He’d pulled it out of the garage where we’d shoved it next to the box of shame on the shelving. After dusting it off, he’d placed it in the bedroom closet. The sight of it, unopened, its contents unused, made fresh waves of guilt wash over me. Had we really been such assholes that we’d taken away her things and given her literal fucking rags.
Yeah. We’d really been such assholes.
Lucy’s forest eyes were taking the bedroom changes in. Fresh tears slowly tracked down her cheeks.Was she happy? Was she sad?
I placed her gently on the bed, propping pillows behind her back so she could sit comfortably without straining her wound. Her silver-white hair fanned out across the dark pillowcase, and for a moment, I couldn't breathe. We were idiots for trying to push her away. We should have been pulling her close all this time.
When I stepped back, my brothers had formed a semicircle around the bed. I worried she’d feel caged, worried she’d see a wall of pain instead of protection. I wanted our Omega to feel safe.
No, not our Omega. Not yet. Maybe not ever, if she couldn't forgive the hurt we'd caused.
Lucy was still quietly looking around the room. Her lower lip quivered. Her cheeks were blush kissed, that soft pink making the rest of her pale skin glow.
I glanced around at my brothers, and I knew we were all thinking the same thing:Please stay. Please give us a chance to be what you need.
54
XANDER
{Days later}
The house breathed quietly around me.
My fingers twitched toward the whiskey. How many bottles had I decimated over the last year? Twenty? Thirty? Fuck, probably a lot more than that. Not just whiskey either. Whatever I could get my hands on—bourbon, cognac, vodka that burned like gasoline going down. It was a miracle my liver hadn’t bit the dust.
Liquor had been a temporary peace for me. It didn’t ask me questions. Didn’t want anything from me. It had stopped the noise in my head, stopped the constant struggle. Sober Xander wasn’t pleasant to be around, so I kept to myself as much as possible when I couldn’t drink. Drunk Xander was too buzzed to bitch. He was tolerable. Most of the time…
Course the reprieve never lasted. The doubt and anger always came back, usually worse than ever. I reached for the bottle again, muscle memory wanting to take over. I stopped, my hand hovering in midair, and withdrew it slowly. Did I really need a drink?
