I force myself to step back from the window.
One step, then another, hating that my eyes sting with tears.
But I don’t make it to the hallway. My feet lock in place, and my gaze snaps back to their window as if the light itself has caught me by the throat and dragged me under.
The rain blurs the glass until they look distant and unreal, yet I keep watching anyway.
My hands are trembling, and my chest grows tight because the coping strategies my therapist gave me are somewhere in the fog of my skull. I can’t access them when my body is still saturated with three Alpha scents and my instincts are shrieking at me that my pack is in another building with another Omega andI should be there, I should be there, I should be right there.
My phone buzzes. I hurry to the living room, where the phone rests on the coffee table.
It’s Katie, and she’s texted me about the timeline on book two so she can push the publisher for an answer, a question about the mountain retreat, and a winking emoji. But my brain is a mess right now, and I type three words.
Their Omega returned.
The phone rings before the screen dims.
“Explain.” Katie’s voice is sharp, alert, fully caffeinated.
“She turned up on their doorstep, soaking, shaking, gorgeous in a way that makes everyone want to rescue her. And now she’s inside with all three of them, and I’m over here spiraling.”
“Oh, shit, Claire. Okay, so why is she back? Did you find out?”
“She must need help or something. But I just had my heat with them, Katie. The most intense, consuming, bone-deep experience of my life, and now every inch of me craves them and I’m drowning in jealousy. I don’t want to be that person.”
“She showed up. That doesn’t mean anything’s changed.”
“You didn’t see the way they stood around her. All protective, the same way they stand around me.”
“That’s who they are, maybe. They’d stand that way around a stray cat.”
“They already have a cat. He’s excellent, and I don’t need another competitor.”
Katie laughs. “Just breathe, okay? She only just arrived, so don’t construct the worst-case scenario before you’ve got actual information. See what happens first.”
“What if they choose her?”
“Then I burn their house to the ground, and we move to Portugal.” She pauses. “Deep breaths. Give it a beat. And, Claire?”
“Yeah?”
“Call me the second anything changes. I mean it. I just gotta go, as I have a Zoom meeting.”
“Thanks, and you got it.” I hang up, set the phone down, then count backward from twenty because forward isn’t an option right now.
The doorbell rings.
My heart launches into my throat so fast I choke on it. I cross the living room, press my eye to the peephole, and my chest squeezes.
Brody. Duffel bag over one shoulder, Damien tucked under the other arm, golden eyes glowing in the porch light, one ear twitching. The pair of them standing on my doorstep in the evening drizzle.
I open the door.
“So,” Brody says, and the grin is there but softer than usual, less performance, more plea. “Room for a couple of strays?”
Damien trills, as if to confirm that he was consulted on this plan and approved it reluctantly.
My gaze traces Brody before I can stop myself, noticing that his blue eyes are scanning my face for damage, for tears, for the evidence of the spiral he already knows happened.