But sometimes, just sometimes, that empty look crossed her face. Blank. Distant. Like she’d gone somewhere none of us could reach.
I didn’t linger on it.
I was already thinking about how to tilt her hips just right on the couch—about doubling down later, here and at home.
There was still so much to do.
So much to explore.
???
She was still asleep on the couch. I’d folded my jacket and tucked it beneath her hips without thinking about it, muscle memory taking over. Rowan had draped a blanket over her shoulders—one I hadn’t even known we kept in the office.
I lit a cigarette, keeping my movements quiet.
“I’m taking her home when she wakes up,” I said.
Alec and Rowan exchanged a look. Not surprise—recognition.
“On your bike?” Rowan asked, a faint smirk tugging at his mouth.
“Does she have a helmet?” Alec added, eyes still on Ella.
I tipped my head back and blew smoke toward the ceiling.
“I bought one for her.”
That earned a pause.
Rowan’s smirk faded into something more thoughtful.“You don’t buy helmets for people you’re just passing through.”
I didn’t answer.
Alec rubbed a hand down his beard, gaze fixed on the slow rise and fall of her chest. She looked smaller like this. Unguarded. Not performing. Not braced.
“Isn’t it time,” Rowan said calmly,“to admit she’s part of us?”
The words landed heavier than I expected.
Alec didn’t argue. Didn’t joke. He just watched her, jaw tight, eyes dark with something I recognised because it lived in my own chest.
Possession, yes.
But also responsibility.
I took another drag, tapping the excess ash into the ashtray.
Ours.
“Perhaps,” I said at last.
None of us looked away from her.
Chapter 40
Ella
They were all oddly pleasant toward me. Not during intimacy—I’d learned their individual and shared appetites—but in the spaces around it. I wavered between believing the lie and slipping back into the numbness that had kept me alive for years. Neither felt right. Belief was easier to live with, though. Especially after what happened in Dominion.
