Ragon looks at the door.
He looks at his hands.
He closes his mouth.
He turns and walks toward the exit without speaking to any of us. The staff member follows him out.
The breath leaves my lungs in a rush.
Jasper's hand drops from his phone. He exhales slowly, but I can see the tremor in his fingers.
We stand in the hallway and neither of us says what we're both thinking. That Ragon just had the power to destroy Vee's chance at the pack she's been healing with, and he didn't use it. That the man who spent months hunting for her, who sat in parking lots, searched public records and nearly followed Arden home, chose in the end to let her go.
I don't know if it was decency or exhaustion. Or maybe something else entirely.
But he kept his mouth shut.
And Vee gets to keep her pack.
***
The house is quiet when we get back.
Ragon came home an hour ago and went straight to his study. Jasper is waiting in the car. I take my time with the suitcase—not because I need to, but because I want to do this part right. Fold things properly. Don't leave anything behind that matters. Don't take anything that isn't mine.
I've been in this house for a long time. I know which floorboard creaks in the hallway. I know which window in the kitchen doesn't close all the way when it rains. I know that the coffee maker takes an extra thirty seconds after it beeps before the last of the coffee drains through.
I'll know those things forever.
I zip the suitcase, pick it up and walk to the study.
I don't knock.
Ragon is in the chair by the window. The one he's had since before I knew him, leather worn soft at the armrests, positioned to look out at the front yard. He's looking at Alex's house—the one that's been empty since Vee left with them, dark windows, no cars in the drive.
His hair is scattered around his shoulders, the bun long since given up. There's a glass in his hand and the bottle is tipped over on the floor beside the chair, whiskey pooled dark on the hardwood, and he hasn't done anything about it. Just let it drain out.
He doesn't turn when I come in.
"I wondered when you'd come," he says.
He sounds wrecked. Scraped clean of everything except the fact of it.
"I'm sorry," I say.
"Don't be." He turns the glass in his hand. "You're doing the right thing. I know that."
"You didn't tell them about Alex," I say it simply.
"I didn't."
"Why?"
He pauses. "Because I hurt her. I know I did. I also know I can't undo the damage I caused. But if letting go was the last decent thing I could do, then I've done it. I hope they do a better job with her than I did."
"Ragon—"
"I'm not angry at you." He says it like it costs him something. Like anger would be easier. "I should be. I'd understand if you needed me to be, but I'm not." He's quiet. "The registry is right. I ruined two omegas. I ruined my pack. Drake is gone. Jasper was never even mine." He exhales. "I'm getting what I deserve."
