"You're our omega too," Drake says, sounding wrecked.
I shrug. "If my being here makes things this messy, then send me away. Put me in one of those little apartments. I can get a job. Buy a plant. Maybe get a cat if I'm feeling ambitious. I could be content."
The room goes absolutely still.
Ragon looks like I slapped him.
"You think we're going to drop you off at some complex and visit on weekends? You are not going anywhere."
"Why not? You said it yourself, Arden's pack would take me—not that I want to go. Or the registry would find somewhere. Or I could ask to live independently."
"You know how often they approve that," Jasper says quietly.
"I don't care about the odds. I care that no one else gets upended because my instinct brain decided it's done functioning. I can pretend I'm a beta. I already feel like one."
Ragon moves closer, slow. He stops a few feet away, hands hanging empty.
"You're part of this pack," he says. Every word sounds dragged out of him. "Not a rental. Not a placeholder. Part. We all... we all love you, Vee."
My chest tightens. Not from swooning. From the whiplash of hearing the word applied to a person they watched break.
"You love the idea of me. The omega version. The one I was before all this. The soft, baking, nesting, purring thing that made you feel like good alphas for five years. But the fact is, Ragon, you don’t need me anymore. Marie is what you need now. You just don’t like the idea of losing me. Of failing me, maybe. I don’t know if you love this."
I gesture at myself. At the t-shirt and leggings and faint dark circles. At the steady hands and flat scent.
"This is you too," Drake says hoarsely. "You are more than whatever you think you're supposed to be."
"It doesn't matter," Ragon cuts in, and for once there's something like panic in his scent. "You're not being shipped off to live alone with a cat, Verena. We are going to fix this. With you. Not around you."
He turns his head sharply. "Jasper. Call Arden. Tell him I was... wrong." The word comes out like chewing glass. "Tell him he's welcome back if he's still willing."
Jasper exhales, slow. Relief loosens his shoulders. "I already texted him this morning. He said he'd be available for a follow-up call today if you changed your mind."
"Good. Make it happen. I'm not throwing him out again."
Marie makes a strangled sound. "Ragon—"
He looks at her, expression pained but firm. "We need help, Marie. He's the one offering it."
Her face crumples. She buries it in Drake's shirt. "I don't want to go," she whispers, small for the first time.
"No one's decided anything," Jasper says. "We're in information-gathering mode. That's all."
I don't remind him Arden was very clear about some things being non-negotiable.
I step back from the armchair, back toward the hall.
"Do what you need to do. Talk to him. Make plans."
"Vee," Eli says softly. "Where are you going?"
"Shower. I'm going to Finn's tonight."
It's easier than saying: I'm going back to my chair so I can breathe without all of you watching me.
***
Gym night smells like sweat and cheap deodorant and pre-workout powder instead of smoke and citrus and vanilla.
