I nodded. Slowly. The motion carrying the measured, deliberate weight of a man who knew exactly what he was affirming and was comfortable with the implications.
“Probably.” A beat. “But the real question is how stubborn is Kael.”
The question wasn’t about sex. Not entirely. It was about the man behind the blockers and the composure and the cold-steel scent that kept the world at the distance he’d decided was survivable. About whether Kael Sørensen—who had rejected intimacy with me in a hotel room, who had chosen a manipulative Omega over a genuine one because she looked good on paper, who was currently sulking somewhere in this house rather than occupying the space beside the woman he’d sent a proxy to claim—was capable of accepting a thing that required vulnerability from a man who treated vulnerability like a structural weakness.
Renzo laughed.
The sound was genuine, warm, cutting through the room’s post-heat haze with the bright, unexpected energy of a man who found joy in specific corners of difficult situations. The mint note in his scent brightened with it—the peppermint sharpening, the citrus sparkling, the whole composition lifting the way a room lifted when someone opened a window.
“Stubborn doesn’t begin to cover it.” He shook his head, still grinning. “But I’ve watched him demolish his own happiness with more efficiency than any opponent has evermanaged, so I’d say his stubbornness is matched only by his talent for self-sabotage.”
I know. Trust me, I know.
Renzo’s expression transitioned. The laughter receding, replaced by the focused, strategic composure of a man who had finished delivering context and was now ready to discuss operations. His dark eyes settled on Octavia’s sleeping form—the rise and fall of her breathing, the flush on her cheeks, the way her fingers had curled into the fabric of my shirt that she’d claimed as her own—and when he spoke again, the question was careful. Considered. Carrying the weight of a man who understood that the answer would shape the next several hours and possibly the next several months.
“Do you think your diamond is going to be coherent enough for me and Maddox to introduce ourselves to her?”
I considered it.
Genuinely considered it, with the analytical rigor of a man whose goaltender’s brain was designed for rapid assessment under ambiguous conditions. Octavia mid-heat was a specific creature—partially present, partially submerged in the hormonal current that restructured her priorities and her perceptions. Her awareness narrowed. Her scent sensitivity amplified. Her ability to process new information operated on a delay that ranged from manageable to significant, depending on where she sat in the cycle’s wave pattern.
“In all honesty? No.” The truth was the only thing I was willing to offer when the subject was her wellbeing. “She’s not going to be fully present. The heat will have her operating at maybe forty percent cognitive capacity, and the rest will be divided between scent processing, physical need, and the specific, hyper-vigilant threat assessment that herbiology runs when unfamiliar Alphas enter her space during a cycle.”
I paused. Watched the washcloth rise and fall with her breathing.
“But if you take it slow with her—introduce through scent first, proximity second, verbal last—I think it will make sense to her. Her nose is the primary intake during heats. She’ll catalogue you before she’ll comprehend you. Let her smell you, let her associate the scent with safety, and the cognitive pieces will follow once the heat ebbs enough for her higher functions to come back online.”
Renzo absorbed this. The information processed behind those dark, observant eyes with the rapid, efficient integration of a man who learned by listening and retained by doing.
He nodded. Then asked a question that was simpler than the ones that had preceded it and significantly more important.
“Do you want her to have a pack?”
The room was quiet. Octavia’s breathing. The distant hum of the house’s heating system. The faint, residual bass of the party we’d left hours ago, still thumping somewhere on the far side of the campus like a heartbeat that hadn’t gotten the memo that the evening had evolved.
I thought about it.
Not about the logistics—the registration, the handbook requirements, the four-Alpha mandate, the bureaucratic scaffolding that would need to be assembled and maintained. Abouther. About the woman who had spent years alone. Who had trained without a partner, recovered without a pack, built herself back from a hospital bed with no one holding the weight except a best friend in Prague and afather fighting his own battle. Who had scored three perfect tens that morning and had nearly lost the qualifying position because the system demanded a thing she’d been denied by the people who were supposed to provide it.
“If it will make her life smoother,” I said. The words came slowly. Chosen with the care of someone who understood that the wrong ones would misrepresent an intention that was, at its core, uncomplicated. “If it means she can focus on training and competing and attending Olympia without the bureaucratic nightmare of being an unaffiliated Omega in a system that penalizes her for not having what every Alpha takes for granted—then yes.” I met Renzo’s eyes. “Whatever makes her happy and fulfilled. That’s the metric. Not what’s convenient for us. Not what serves the pack’s image or Kael’s strategic calculations. What makesherlife the thing she deserves it to be.”
Renzo held my gaze for a beat longer than casual. The look he gave me was assessing—not skeptically, but with the careful, calibrated evaluation of a man who had just heard a statement he agreed with and was verifying its structural integrity before building on it.
He nodded.
“So you’re fine with staying in the room while Maddox and I come in? Just to introduce. Let her get accustomed to our scents. No pressure. No contact unless she initiates. Just…presence.”
I exhaled. Ran a hand through my damp hair—the navy-purple strands falling back from my forehead in the disordered, post-heat configuration that I hadn’t bothered to correct because vanity had been deprioritized approximately six hours ago.
“I may get a bit growly,” I admitted. The honesty wasnecessary—a preemptive disclosure delivered with the clinical transparency of a man identifying his own operational limitations before they became operational problems. “I’m not used to more than one Alpha being present during…this.” I gestured vaguely at the bed, at the room, at the entirety of the situation. “And I’m a jackass in the bedroom when I’m riled up. Territorial. Possessive. The kind of Alpha whose hindbrain decides that every other male in the vicinity is a threat and communicates that assessment through sounds rather than sentences.”
I held his gaze.
“But I can start slow.”
Renzo smiled. Not the smirk—asmile. Genuine, warm, carrying the specific, collaborative energy of a man who had just been given an honest assessment of the terrain and was satisfied that the expedition could proceed. The mint in his scent brightened. The citrus sparkled. He radiated, in that moment, the clean, uncomplicated optimism of a man who believed that difficult things could work if the people involved were willing to be honest about the difficulty.
“Okay.” He stood from the bed. Adjusted the washcloth one final time on Octavia’s forehead. “Let’s try it.”
