Max did that. Somehow, without any of us seeing it happen.
The light changes. He drives.
But something gives. The possessiveness doesn't disappear—it's biological, wired into my cells, the thing that made my knot swell inside Max's body and my teeth ache for the bonding gland at the junction of his neck. You don't switch that off. You don't reason your way out of a million years of evolution screamingmine, keep, claim.
But the frame around it loosens. Just enough for a different question to fit through.
The question I wasn't asking: could I share him?
Not grudgingly. Not white-knuckling through it while my brothers' hands are on the person I want. Actually share him. Hold one piece of something larger and let it be enough.
The facility. Max pressed against my chest. Fingers laced through mine. His heartbeat against my sternum. The knot and the almost-bite and the way I whispered you're perfect because he is—complicated and damaged and scared and brave and mine.
Except maybe not just mine.
Atlas's face when we walked through the hotel door. The composure crumbling. The way he held Max like letting go would kill him. Atlas, who carried Max to his bed before any of us knew what he was. Who said no when he wanted to say yes. Who sold his empire and would do it again.
Zero making an effort not to steamroll Max. Not to overwhelm him, scare him. His first instinct was to consume–and he did. But now? He’s different. He’s patient.
As if he already knows that Max belongs to him and he isn’t worried about waiting for the inevitable.
Could I share that? Could I be one part of it and let that be enough?
I don't have the answer. Not yet. The possessiveness is still there, hot and certain, the alpha in me snarling at the thought of Atlas's hands on Max's face. Of Zero standing behind his chair. Of anyone else knowing the sound Max makes when he's held.
But I'm asking the question. And that's more than I walked into this car with.
The estate rises against the sky. Zero pulls into the garage. Kills the engine. Neither of us moves to get out.
The garage is dark except for the dome light. The car ticks as the engine cools. I can see the door to the house from here—the mudroom entrance. Twenty feet away. Neither of us reaches for the handle.
"How?" I ask.
Zero looks at me.
"How do you just... accept it? Sharing him." The word tastes wrong. Like I'm talking about splitting a check. "You stood behind his chair last night and I watched your hands on the wood and your knuckles were white, Zero. You wanted to touch him so badly you were nearly breaking the furniture. And now you're sitting here telling me you're fine with—what? Taking turns? Scheduling?"
"I didn't say I was fine with it."
"Then how—"
"I said I was done deciding for him. Those aren't the same thing." He leans back in his seat. Stares at the garage ceiling. His throat moves when he swallows. "You want to know how I got here? I'll tell you how I got here. I thought about what happens if I get what I want."
He's quiet for a second. His fingers tap the steering wheel.
"If Max were mine—just mine—I'd wreck him." He says it plainly. "I know what I am, Bane. I know what I want to do to him. I want to take him apart. Push him past every line he's ever drawn. Break him open and see what's inside and put him back together in a shape that fits me." His jaw works. "That's not love. That's hunger. And if I fed it—if heletme—I'd eat him alive. Six months, a year, and there'd be nothing left of the kid who writes in notebooks and shelves books and calls his mother sweetheart. I'd consume him. And he'd let me, because part of him wants it. The part that I put on his knees in the basement and came so hard he cried."
The words sit between us. Ugly. True.
Rage coils in my gut imagining what he did to Max down there, but I swallow it down.
"He wants me," Zero says. "I know he does. He's terrified of me and he wants me and those two things live in the same room in his head and neither one is going away. But wanting me and surviving me are different things."
"So what are you saying?"
"I'm saying he needs something I can't give him." Zero's voice drops. Not softer—lower. Like he's dragging the words up from somewhere deep. "Steadiness. Safety. The kind of love that doesn't have teeth. I don't have that. I don't know how to want someone gently. I never learned."
I stare at him. My brother. The one I just watched break every bone in a man’s hands. It makes sense. I probably should have seen it myself–his inability to love in a way that’s quiet. Sweet.
