Matteo takes an obvious step away, and I twist to ask him why, but then Valentine’s scent reaches over the distance, and I get the answer. He’s on the edge of an Alpha rage, and right now, it is all directed toward me.
“Fuck off, Leon,” Valentine demands, and it comes out like a yell across a football field.
He stops a short distance from me, looking wired. “I am so fucking angry at you right now. What the hell, Layne? How can you not see yourself as someone worthy? You don’t get this is serious between us? That this is us and our future, because you’re so fucking amazing? We keep saying it, we keep trying to show you and…” He throws his hands up, frustrated.
Which I understand.
Because I’m driving myself crazy too, but that’s because I have so much fucking bullshit I need to unpack.
“And I might need you to tell me that every day, Valentine,” I reply softly. My tears are still in my eyes, and I’m trembling, but I’m not scared of this—him or us. It’s the irreversible and complete devastation I know I will never recover from if something happens to our future. “I hear you say all the right things. Hell, you are the only people I have ever met who have said what I’ve been wanting to hear for a very long time.Of course, being overachievers, you have also backed up every promise you’ve made with actions to prove your words. But I’ve been hurt. The scars inside my heart are deep and ugly. And sometimes they ache for no reason, other than the fact they are simply there.”
He drops his head back and looks up at the sky. For the first time, I get a waft of burned sugar overlaid on his espresso scent. I’ll take his pity any day, if it means he stays with me.
“We haven’t even had a chance to talk about how many times I’ve been let down, and I want you to know each and every one of them. Not because I want you to go out and?—”
He interrupts. “Don’t you dare tell me we can’t go kill or at least fucking torture anyone who has hurt you, because I really will lose the last shred of control I have if that’s where you are going.”
I reach out for his fisted hand, cutting him off mid rant. Almost as fast as I grabbed him, our fingers interlace, my thumb brushing over his wedding ring.
“I’d probably sit and watch, but that doesn’t change the fact that, sometimes, like today, my memories are going to kick my ass because they can. I don’t want them to have any hold over me, I don’t want to let people I can barely even think about have the power to shape anything about me, but they do. And they always probably will.”
Valentine blows a breath out, still not looking at me, but that works just fine because I don’t want to fall under his spell or stop telling him all the shitty things we really need to talk about.
“No one has ever put me as something of worth, Valentine. And I’m telling you because I want you to understand that this isn’t about you not protecting me, it’s about?—”
“Loving you.” He closes his eyes, finishing what I was trying to say. “Come here. I need to hold you.”
“And now you’re stealing my lines.”
“And your fucking heart, woman!”
“Yeah,” I say, burying my face in his chest, inhaling his scent and pheromones, gorging on him because even my Omega knows she’s met her Alpha and her pack. I just need my past to leave me alone long enough so I can believe it. “That too. If it’s safe, Alpha, I really want to go home to my pack.”
He groans, except it comes out like a rumbling growl through his tense jaw. “Shit, wife, you know what to say to calm me down, don’t you?”
Our fingers intertwine, and then he lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses my ring finger. “Best thing Matty ever did was get shot and bring you home. The best thing I did was forge your signature on our marriage certificate.”
“I was wondering who did it.”
He shrugs, not a shred of remorse in his eyes. “I paid an exorbitant amount of money to a judge who owed me a favor for our wedding license. Everything is legal, and no one could ever contest it in a court of law. I don’t like to do things by halves.”
“Seeing that,” I grumble, trying to keep the smile off my face, but my confession brings a sense of weightlessness, and I feel lighter than I have for a long time.
Matteo glides up behind me. I felt him coming instinctively. He brings a promise like sunshine after a storm, and together, Valentine and Matteo continue to unlock the chains holding me to my past. Again.
I just hope they don’t get frustrated by how many chains are still holding me back.
28
Layne
Taking our time to walk around, inspecting the damage from the attack, I quickly realize it’s not about assessing what needs to be repaired. It’s about being seen in public as a show of their strength in the face of adversity. Valentine rises to the challenge like a good leader would, checking on anyone hurt, seeing if they need anything before he focuses on the bigger picture—trying to figure out who attacked them.
It takes hours. And no matter how long and exhausting the day turned out, I still need to share with my husbands the ugly truth about the Omega they married. Thankfully, I get a moment to myself when the—my—pack goes to shower. Time away from them gives me space to think and lets me prepare as much as I can. And the distraction of feeding the dogs settles my anxiety more.
Both the dogs are so obedient, neither of them reacting when I sit on the floor between the two of them eating. There is no way I would risk coming between a dog and their food, but Edward and Bella are not normal, though I think they’re pretty thrilledwith the life they lead. There’s a part of me that hopes, in their downtime, they are madly in love and trying to find a way to escape, so they can just frolic and bark, chase frisbees, and have puppies, because isn’t that what life is about? Being free and happy.
Dante walks back in first, looking tasty in his charcoal gray sweats, his phone pressed to his ear. He points to his mouth, and when I don’t move quickly enough, he clicks his fingers. I know what he wants, but I don’t move a muscle. If I raced over there and kissed his lush mouth, he’d run with it and never stop running with it.
