"Then keep coming. If I see you next week, I see you. If I don't, I'll assume you're either hiding or someone finally took your instincts seriously."
"You really selling your pack this hard to every half-broken omega you meet at tourist attractions and gyms?"
"Only the ones who smell like they were somebody before someone fed them enough poison to forget it. My pack is equipped to help and I want to put that to use."
Something in my chest goes very still.
He doesn't push it. He just nods once, firm, and steps back.
"See you around, little omega. I hope."
"Goodnight, Chase."
I walk away before my feet can decide they want to stay.
Outside, the air is cooler. Eli's car is idling in the pick-up lane. He sees me and immediately leans across to open the passenger door.
I climb in, close it carefully, set my water bottle at my feet.
He looks me over quickly, scanning for distress. "How was it?"
"Good. I had fun."
The words feel like confession, not crime.
One corner of his mouth lifts. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"That's really good to hear."
I stare out the window at the passing lights, feeling the steady thud of my heart, the pleasant ache in my muscles, the echo of music in my bones.
Behind it all, somewhere deep, something small shifts. Not hunger. Not longing. Not the old raw omega ache.
Just a tiny, tentative awareness:
I could build a life that doesn't hurt this much.
Whether it includes this house, these alphas, this city is a question for another night.
Beside me, Eli drives. He doesn't reach for my hand. He doesn't fill the silence with apologies.
He just glances over once, catches the line of my mouth, the set of my shoulders, and exhales softly like he's seeing a patient's fever finally break.
I don't tell him about Chase.
Not yet.
I'm still deciding whether that conversation belongs to this pack, or to the version of me that walks into someone else's house and doesn't have to call anyone Alpha ever again.
Chapter 22
The voices pull me like a string.
Low at first, a rumble behind closed doors. The kind of tone alphas use when they're trying to be civilized about something that wants teeth.
Ragon's office door is mostly shut, a slice of light cutting across the hallway carpet. I'm halfway past with the laundry basket when Eli's voice spikes sharp enough to catch on my ribs. I catch my name: "—not normal, Ragon. It isn't."
