I didn’t want to get hurt, didn’t want to fight to breathe, didn’t want to suffer like that for the rest of my days. And if this Alpha offered a way out, I’d take it. I’d happily take comfort, even if it felt foreign to have.
Evander’s body shifted beneath him; muscles tightened just slightly before he moved to sit a bit straighter. It wasn’t sudden or jarring, just carefully done as though I was putting his legs to sleep with how I sat across his lap.
He didn’t pull away. If anything, his arm around my back drew me closer, like he didn’t want me to leave him either. The couch dipped softly; my cheek slid his chest to his shoulder at the new position.
“I’m just getting a little more comfortable. You’re alright right where you are.” Evander whispered.
I nodded and let myself lean into his warmth, letting Evander guide the moment because it was easier that way. Easier than guessing. Easier than bracing for the wrong choice. I’d spent years learning how to follow, how to read danger, and how to keep myself small. I wasn’t good at knowing what someone wanted unless they said it outright, but maybe I didn’t have to be anymore. Maybe Evander didn’t expect me to anticipate anything. Maybe he was willing to carry the weight of decisions until I could stand on my own again.
The thought should’ve scared me—how quickly my mind reached for that kind of structure, how ready I was to hand over the pieces of myself I’d been forced to guard. After everything, after all the fear and training and hurt, wanting someone else to take the lead should’ve felt like a step backward.
But with Evander…it didn’t feel like losing myself. It felt like I was resting.
I stayed where I was, caught between wanting to sit up and wanting to sink back into the warmth I’d woken in. If I were still at Lockswell, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be held. I wouldn’t be treated like someone worthy of gentleness. I’d be on my knees in front of another stranger, doing whatever it took to survive another day, another hour, another breath.
Useful. Exhausted. Empty.
But now…
Now I didn’t know what came next. I didn’t know what I was allowed to want. I didn’t know how to be anything other than afraid.
I stayed where I was, half awake, half adrift; my thoughts moved slowly like they were wading through warm water.
“You know…” Evander whispered, thumb still in my hair. “I once held a little Omega boy just like this.”
My breath caught but didn’t pull away.
“We were camping,” he went on. “Out under the stars. The boy crawled into my lap because he was cold, and he fell asleep on me before he even finished telling me about the constellations he’d made up.”
Why did that feel so…familiar?
It tugged at something, some half-memory, half feeling, like a threat I couldn’t grasp. I tried to follow it, but it slipped away the second I reached for it, leaving only the echo of warmth and a faint ache in my chest.
“That boy held my heart back then,” Evander said quietly. “Didn’t know it, of course. He just curled up and trusted me to keep him warm. To keep him safe. And now….” He sighed, pressing his lips to the top of my head.
The words settled over me like a blanket, warm and heavy, but I didn’t know what to do with them. I didn’t know this Alpha was like that. Not in the way he was describing. Not in the way the story implied.
Was he…expecting me to step into that memory? To fill the space that little boy that he once knew?
I could, if he wanted, I knew how to fit myself into whatever shape someone needed. It wouldn’t be hard. I might even like it.
But at the same time…that story felt too real
Little flashes flickered though my mind.
A hard patch of ground beneath my back as I stared up at a sky full of stars.
A warm body beside me as twilight settled over the trees, a breeze brushing across my skin.
Laughter – my own, light and breathless – as I ran through a field of flowers, someone bigger chasing me in a game that felt safe.
They weren’t full of memories. More like echoes. Feelings. Sensations. Familiar and foreign all at once.
I didn’t know if they were real. I didn’t know if they belonged to me. But they tugged at something deep inside, something I hadn’t felt in years.
And that scared me almost as much as it comforted me.
I shifted, pulling back just enough to see his face. I needed to look at him. I needed to read him. Needed to understand that he wanted from me, because everything he’d said felt too real and too far away at the same time.
