"Then let us help you."
"I don't know if anyone can. But tea helps. Cookies help. This—" I gesture vaguely at the three of them, the warm kitchen. "This helps."
They exchange another look, something silent passing between them.
"Then you come here as much as you want," Alex says. "Registry or no registry. Our door stays open."
Malcolm nods. "And if Ragon doesn't get his shit together and figure out that something's wrong, I'm calling the OPA on his ass."
Finn brightens. "And I'm keying his car. Emotionally, if not literally. I will find a way."
A tiny, reluctant laugh escapes me.
It feels strange, the way my chest remembers how.
I finish my tea with steady hands while three sets of eyes track every movement. I don't lean in. I don't pull away.
For the first time in weeks, the quiet inside me feels a little less like a void and a little more like a field lying fallow.
On the walk back home, the night air is cool. The house looms ahead, full of people who don't know that something in their omega has gone quiet.
Finn's porch light stays on behind me, a small, stubborn star in the dark.
Chapter 20
By the time I walk back across the yard, the air has cooled enough to sting my cheeks. The grass is damp under my bare feet. Finn's kitchen light glows warm behind me; our house looks dimmer by comparison. Less like home. More like a building I sleep in.
My fingertips still smell faintly like chocolate and sugar. My clothes smell like their home—pine and clover and ginger-warm—layered over the usual mix of smoke and vanilla I carry from my own. What I can make of their scents sit differently in my lungs. Softer. Less demanding. They don't pull at me; they just exist alongside me.
Our back porch light flickers once, then steadies.
Inside, the house tastes like a held breath.
I close the door quietly. From here, I can see the back of the couch, the side of Ragon's chair, the glint of Eli's glasses. Marie's voice drifts faint and sweet. Drake laughs a little too loud. Jasper says nothing.
I smooth my hands down my jeans and move toward the living room.
Ragon looks up first. He always does. His eyes skim my posture, my face—neutral, not hunched, not braced. His nostrils flare, searching for distress.
Hedoesn't find it.
"Verena. You're back on time."
"I said I would be. Nine o'clock."
"We weren't worried," Marie trills, tucked against Drake like a cat in a stolen lap. "You were just next door."
Ragon's gaze slants toward her. That's a lie. He hates not knowing. His scent is tight in the room. Eli watches my face like I'm a test result he's afraid to read. Drake shifts, uneasy.
"How was it?" Eli asks. "Tea? Conversation?"
"Pleasant."
"You were gone a while," Drake says.
I think of Finn's kitchen, of Alex's frown when he sniffed the air around me, of Malcolm's alarm when I mentioned the registry.
"It was nice."
