Itakethestairsby threes, trying to catch Dominic before he reaches the kitchen, but he’s much faster than I am. It didn’t even occur to me that anything was wrong when the Omega wasn’t between us until a shriek echoed through the house. And now, Mattaniah is in distress, Dominic responding to that signal with the full force of a territorial Alpha, and nothing I say is going to slow him down.
What I see through the kitchen doorway stops me in my tracks.
Shattered glass covers the tile floor in a wide spray. Father threw the tumbler hard enough to leave a mark on the plaster, and Mattaniah is backed against the pantry door with glass in his hair and tears streaming down his face. He's clutching a small cup of water against his chest with both hands, his whole body shaking, his scent so sour with fear it burns the back of my throat.
Father stands between him and the exit, swaying slightly, his face mottled with rage. His hand is raised in the open palm I remember from years ago, which means that tonight’s drink isn’t the first. He’s been hiding this escalation, something I’m all too familiar with, every blocked move and every confrontation with Dominic pushing Father further into the bottle. Tonight it's spilling over.
"I said clean it up." Father's voice carries the particular cruelty of a drunk Alpha who has decided a cowering Omega is being defiant. "You broke my glass and you're going to clean it up on your hands and knees."
The spray pattern on the floor tells me Father threw it during one of his rages and the Omega walked in at exactly the wrong moment looking for water. But Father has already decided on a narrative and contradicting a drunk Alpha's version of events is a mistake I stopped making when I was twelve.
Dominic takes in the scene for approximately three seconds, his gaze moving from Mattaniah's bare feet to the glass on the floor to Father's raised hand. Then he crunches across the broken glass, reaching Mattaniah in four strides.
"Get the fuck away from him, Dominic." Father's voice drops into a growl that would make most Alphas hesitate.
Dominic twists around and snarls at him with a sound that comes from somewhere deeper than his throat, a full Alphachallenge that makes the air pressure change in the room. Father actually steps back half a pace before his drunk pride catches up. Dominic has already turned back to Mattaniah. He pulls the Omega into his arms and lifts him against his chest in one motion, Mattaniah's legs wrapping around his waist on instinct, the cup of water falling to the floor.
"This shit might have worked on us but I'm not going to watch you torture someone else through the same thing." Dominic's voice carries a cold fury I've rarely heard from him. "You can trywordstomorrow when you're sober enough to stand without swaying."
He starts for the door with Mattaniah locked against his chest. Behind us Father picks up another glass from the counter, the calculation working in his drunk eyes.
"Try it, Dad." Dominic says it without turning around, his voice hardening. "If I find one cut on my body, I'll make sure everyone at work knows who put it there." He keeps walking. "Come on, Amos."
Father's hand lowers, the glass cracking as he sets it down on the counter. I follow Dominic up the stairs without looking back, my eyes on the trembling Omega in his arms.
Mattaniah stays curled tight against Dominic's chest with his fingers digging into the Alpha's bare skin, his face pressed into Dominic's neck. His feet are bleeding. Two cuts on his right sole where he must have shifted on the glass before Dominic reached him, the blood leaving small prints on the hardwood as Dominic carries him up the stairs.
Dominic carries him into our bedroom and lays him on my side of the bed before I climb in and wrap myself around the Omega from behind. Mattaniah's body is rigid between us, his breathing coming in short hitching gasps. Dominic's arm drapes over his waist, his hand finding the back of Mattaniah's neck, squeezing just enough to soften the Omega’s emotions.
Mattaniah's breathing slows within thirty seconds of both of us being in contact with him. His shoulders drop first, then his spine uncurls. His shaking tapers from violent tremors to fine shivers and then to stillness. His scent shifts from the sour terror that filled the kitchen to something warmer.
I hold him and breathe against the back of his neck while his heart rate settles.
"Why didn’t you take me to my room?" Mattaniah's voice comes out small and muffled against Dominic's chest. "You just... brought me here. Like this is where I belong when something goes wrong."
Dominic's fingers find a shard of glass caught in Mattaniah's hair and carefully work it free, setting it on the nightstand. "Because you needed to be here." His picks out a few more pieces before settling his hand on the back the Omega’s neck. "And because this is where we bring things we want to protect."
"But your father... he's going to make your lives hell for this. You know that. He's going to..."
"You know I don’t hate you, right, firefly?" Dominic says it bluntly enough to cut the spiral short. "I hate your mother. I hate what she did to you and what she planned for you. That doesn't extend to you. It has never extended to you."
Mattaniah curls into himself a little, his fingers tightening on Dominic's chest.
"My feet hurt." His voice comes out small, the adrenaline crash stripping the composure from his voice. I sit up enough to look at the soles of his feet, silently hating myself for not taking care of that first. Some part of me just needed to hold him.
"I'll get the first aid kit." I start to move, Mattaniah's hand shooting back and grabbing my wrist, his scent spiking with fresh panic.
"The bathroom is fifteen feet away and I'll be back in thirty seconds." I press my mouth against his knuckles before peeling his fingers free.
I grab the first aid kid along with a damp washcloth and return to the bed where Mattaniah has pressed himself so tightly against Dominic that there's no visible space between them. I clean his feet at the end of the bed, dabbing the cuts with antiseptic while he hisses into Dominic's collarbone. The cuts are shallow which means no stitches, but he’ll still be a little sore tomorrow. I press my lips against the arch of his right foot when I'm done and feel him shiver.
Settling back into position behind him, I wrap my arm around his waist. His fingers trace absent patterns on Dominic's chest while his brow furrows in the expression I've learned means he's processing something.
"You brought me here again." He says it quietly. "To your bed."
Dominic's hand shifts from his neck to his hair, scratching gently against his scalp. "Yes."
"You're both in the same bed and neither of you even questioned it." His head lifts enough that he can look at Dominic's face, then cranes to look at mine over his shoulder. "I know you two are... I know you're together. I've known since that night in the filing room when Amos put his chin on your shoulder. But this is different. This isn't sex." He gestures at the bed, the shared pillows, the nightstands with items on both sides that clearly belong to two different people. "This is a home. You live together."
