Chapter 21: Chapter Twenty-One

Erik kept his distance back at the apartment, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave the room Ashley was in. This buzzing in his head demanded he stay near her, that he keep her in his sight. He’d bet it was the same instincts that had rebelled at the idea of her being harmed.

A doctor had met them at the apartment to look over Ashley and to patch up Torrin. He had set Torrin’s nose and checked his hip, though it didn’t appear there was much lasting damage. With him gone, though, leaving Ashley and the alphas alone, no one spoke.

What was there to say?

Ashley looked shaken. She’d nearly collapsed after threatening Gregory, though even Erik would have thought twice about defying her at that moment.

She’d been a beacon of righteous fury, the perfect vision of a female pushed too far. Erik wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her so beautiful.

After that, though, she’d said little. She hadn’t argued about going back to their place. Our place? Maybe. Maybe she’ll still want to leave.

With Gregory in custody with the FBI agents Kane knew, the ones who had worked with his mate, the ones they were sure weren’t in business with Gregory, they all had a moment to catch their breath.

Not that they’d have long. Gregory had agreed to help the FBI with the slavery ring. They couldn’t give him much leeway, because he wasn’t trustworthy, but he had good reason to keep the FBI happy.

If he played nicely, then he could live his days out in witness protection in some tiny little corner of nowhere, with no friends, no family, no money and no power. It felt like a fitting end, at least if Erik wasn’t allowed to actually kill him.

However, that meant the alphas had to leave. Since they’d been given the task to kill him, there wasn’t any choice but for them to disappear. A car explosion was set up for a week from then, something Gregory could take credit for.

It meant leaving and starting over, but that seemed as good a plan as any. When everything came to light, when the agents took down that slavery ring, no doubt they’d get outed as sources. Their lives in that city were over. It was better to pack up and try to create something somewhere else.

“Here.” Liam passed a cup of tea to Erik and took another to Ashley.

She accepted it, her legs folded in front of her as she sat on the couch, her gaze down. “Are you sure it’s over?”

Erik came closer, but still gave her room, unsure she’d want him anywhere near her.

She’d now seen him kill more than one person, and he doubted she’d be comfortable with him around her. “Yes. Gregory isn’t a threat, and he’s already called off the contract on you. You’re safe. You have your life back.”

She stared down at the cup though she hadn’t drunk any of it yet. “And you guys? How does working with the police affect you?”

Liam answered that one. “They’ll overlook our past. After next week, we’ll start over somewhere else. New names, new lives. Even if we could stay, after turning in Gregory, there’s no way we wouldn’t have people after us. It’s better to go along with the whole fake-death thing.”

“So I ruined you?”

Erik sat on the coffee table, close enough he could just brush her with his fingers if he reached all the way out. “A fresh start isn’t always a bad thing.”

Ashley turned to look at Torrin, worry in those expressive blue eyes of hers when she spotted the bandage over his nose, the skin around his eyes already darkening. “You gave up everything you wanted. You could have been killed.”

Torrin answered the question she didn’t ask. Why? “You were worth it.”

“What if I can’t stay here? What if I want to go home?”

“Then you were still worth it.”

Torrin’s words mirrored what they’d all already talked about, agreed to. The cost was more than worth Ashley’s safety, her freedom, and as much as it killed them all…

That freedom had to include freedom from them.

If they forced her to stay, they were no better than Gregory.

She’d had no choice for so long, that she deserved that, and they’d make sure she had it.

Even if it killed them, they’d let her go.

“I want to go home,” she whispered.

Erik nodded, not surprised.

This is going to hurt.

* * * *

Liam walked beside Ashley, carrying her small suitcase. The rest of her things were being shipped to her fathers’ house, where she was headed.

Her talk with them had been private, yet he’d overhead parts. Her relief, their tears. So many years of her on the run, and finally she’d be able to settle.

He wished he was happier about it. He wanted her content, but he’d hoped that contentment would happen with him, with her in his bed, where she belonged.

Things didn’t work out for people like him, though, and he’d let her go. It was the least he could do, this one, unselfish thing.

“You’ll go through security here, and your gate is to the left. F18. There’s a map just past that turn.” He rambled on about directions, about plane security, about anything other than her leaving.

That was a topic he couldn’t even think about, let alone discuss.

“I’ve been on a plane before,” she said, not looking him in the eye.

“I know. I just don’t know what else to say,” he admitted softly.

Erik held out the ticket they’d bought for her. “You’re in first class. If you need anything at all, the flight attendants already know you’re…” He paused as if unsure how to finish that statement. After an awkward hesitation, he tried again. “They know you know us. If you have any problems, they’ll handle it. Your fathers will be at the airport waiting for you when you land.”

She took the ticket and held it tightly.

Torrin came forward, the click of his cane against the floor louder than usual. He’d done that more, relied more heavily on the aid, as if he no longer worried about looking weak as he once had. “Your fathers have agreed to call us when your plane lands. If you need anything, ever—”

“Why haven’t you asked me to stay?” She blurted the question out, looking up and into each of their eyes. “You could have. You could have told me not to leave.”

Torrin didn’t answer, and even Liam looked away.

Erik sighed before speaking up. “Because it has to be your choice. It’s your life, and for the first time, you get to decide how you want it to be. You’ve got to do what you want.”

“What do you want?”

Easy answer. “You.” Erik held his hand up before she spoke. “But we want you only when it’s your choice.”

“Gregory stole a lot from you, dove. You’ve spent years just trying to survive. Even moving in with us, none of that was your choice. It was what you had to do. You told me once I was just like him, and you were right. I put what I wanted above what you needed. That can’t happen again. You wanted to go home, so you’ll go home.” Torrin spoke softly, keeping his distance as they each had. If they got too close, they might grab her and not let go.

She crushed the ticket in her hand, and Liam could see the war in her eyes. She wanted to stay, but there were too many questions, too many fears.

Maybe they’d ruined it. Maybe, by lying to her, they’d created a wound that would never really heal.

Liam set her bag down beside her, then risked saying what he had to. “You need to know you can go, but that doesn’t mean it has to be forever. You can come back, someday, when you want to, you know.” Idiot. The words were clumsy.

They were at a fucking airport. It was supposed to be some sort of romantic movement, yet he tripped over awkward words. Why couldn’t he be smooth right then? He’d charmed countless women over the years, but the one time it mattered, he couldn’t string together a coherent sentence.

Ashley nodded, wrapping her fingers around her bag and taking a step backward. “Thanks.”

Liam rubbed his hand on the back of his neck. “We’re going to go.”

“You don’t want to watch until I get through security?”

Yes. He wanted to watch her forever, to never let her out of his sight.

Torrin answered, instead. “No need. There’s no danger to you now, and I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

When her eyebrows drew near one another, Liam explained. “Alphas don’t do well watching their mate walk away. It’s best if we don’t see it. Take care of yourself, Ashley.”

With that, they turned, leaving her standing there, ticket in hand.

Liam left not only her, but his heart as he walked out of the airport.

* * * *

Torrin sat in the limo and cursed himself for not taking the pain pills. While he normally hated them, the idea of not being so lucid had merit.

Did we really let her go?

He could tell himself over and over that it was what had to happen, but that didn’t change that he hated it, that every part of him wanted to go get her.

He wanted to do whatever it took to get her to stay. He could offer her anything—pretty words, money, promises. He’d do anything to if only she stayed.

But he knew he couldn’t. She’d stay because he’d made her, then, and that wasn’t fair. Instead, he had to give up the choice, give up that power to her, and it had proven even harder than enduring the pain Gregory’s goon had inflicted on him.

So he sat in the limo and let the ache of his hip distract him from the agony in his chest. Even the throbbing of his broken nose was nothing in comparison.

“Maybe we could go visit her,” Liam said.

“Right,” Erik answered, but his tone said the same thing.

She won’t ask us to.

If she left, if she went back home, she was gone. She’d resume her old life and they would be just a bump in the road for her. Nothing more than the alphas who had lied to her.

Time would pass and her memories of them would fade until she found someone new and they became nothing but a story she remembered from time to time.

Meanwhile, Torrin would nurse yet another broken heart. Liam and Erik would go back to sharing random females to pass the lonely years, and none of them would ever really recover.

That was fair, though, wasn’t it? They’d been the ones to ruin it, the ones who hadn’t deserved her. It seemed fitting that they suffer for it.

She’d suffered enough.

“Fuck you,” Liam muttered. At Torrin’s look, Liam went on. “I was pretty happy not caring about anyone, and look what you had to go and do.”

The words were sullen, and it was just enough for Torrin to let out a small laugh at the sorrow of it.

The ride home was slow, especially since it took an hour before they’d even been willing to leave the airport parking lot. What was the point? To go back to an empty, depressing apartment?

In another few days, they’d be leaving. The thought of leaving the apartment ached, the idea that when he walked into his home it wouldn’t have Ashley’s scent. He wouldn’t see the couch and think of how she’d looked curled up on it, or see the coffee mugs and think about the scent of her favorite tea.

He hadn’t done the work needed to find a new place to live because it just seemed like too much effort.

They took the elevator up, each step harder than the last. When they entered the apartment, Ashley’s scent was everywhere, just as he’d known it would be, teasing him, taunting him.

Except, just as he was ready to ask for some of the pills the doctor had left for him, he caught sight of a bag by the couch. The same black bag that Erik had handed to Ashley.

Torrin twisted toward the living room to find Ashley there. Not a fantasy, not some phantom memory, but the woman he craved with everything he had, the only person who had ever made him want to be better, to believe he could be better.

She nibbled at her bottom lip, arms tucked into the center pocket of her pullover sweater.

“You said if I wanted to come back some time…”

She didn’t make it through the statement before Liam crossed the room and yanked her into a kiss that silenced her.

They should have given her room, but fuck it, they’d said their goodbyes, accepted her being gone, had been prepared to deal with the heartache, so her being there was like a gift they wouldn’t question.

Ashley’s head spun from the passion behind Liam’s kiss. He stole her breath, his body hard against hers, acting as though he hadn’t seen her in months rather than the hour or so it had been.

“Why are you back?” he asked against her lips when he broke apart enough to speak.

Even as she answered, he didn’t move away, still brushed his lips to hers. “I was standing there, ready to go through security, and I realized…I didn’t want to leave.”

“You said you wanted to go home,” Torrin said, his rough voice one she missed already.

“I miss my family, but I think what I wanted was the ability to go home, to know I could. To be sure whatever I did was really my choice. When I stood there, and I thought about home, I realized that the only place I saw was with you.”

Torrin caught her chin and turned her face to his, taking his own kiss, gentler than Liam. “You’re sure?”

She nodded, pushing away from them, needing space to think, to say what she needed to say. “I needed you to let me go, but once you did, once I got to make the choice, I realized I didn’t want to be anywhere else.”

“What about your fathers?” Erik asked.

“I called them. They’ll fly out here to see me. I just…” She shook her head, frustrated as the things she’d thought to say wouldn’t come together just right. “When I was standing there, and I got to decide what I wanted, the answer was obvious. I want you. I want to be here, with you three. I don’t know what that means, how it’ll work, but I know that I don’t want to leave.”

“You’re not angry anymore?” Torrin asked.

“I can’t say I’m not hurt. You can’t ever lie to me again like that. But we all make mistakes, we all get scared and do things we wish we could take back. Besides, you’ve done everything you could to make it right. You said a fresh start wasn’t such a bad thing, so I thought maybe we could all have that.”

“I will make it right,” Torrin said. “No matter how long it takes, I’ll show you I can be more.” Ashley cupped his cheeks and pulled him down for a kiss, the sort that she could lose herself in, the kind that erased everything else. She tugged softly until he got onto the couch with her, until he blanketed her body with his.

“You’re the first thing that’s ever made me want to be better,” he whispered against her lips as he slipped his hand beneath her shirt, teasing over her skin in a reverent touch. “I’ve always lived my life trying to outrun something, feeling like if I worked a little harder, I’d be able to keep everything safe. You made me realized none of that mattered if I don’t have anything worth keeping safe.”

Ashley moaned softly when his fingers found her bra.

The couch dipped as Liam sat beside them, tugging her attention to him, to that smirk he had that she could see beneath. “You scare the hell out of me, sweet. You see me like no one else does. No matter how much I try to hide, you worm your way under all my defenses.” He ran his finger over her cheek, then traced her full lip until she captured it with her tongue and sucked it past her lips. His grin spread. “I’ve never let someone get this close, never dared to want anything like I want you. I always said that people like me, we never get what we want, but you prove me wrong. There’s never been anything I wanted like you, and even if I don’t deserve you, I sure as hell will keep you as long as I can.”

He pulled his finger free, then pressed a single, sweet kiss to her lips.

Ashley turned as Torrin rose off her, as he worked the buttons of his shirt free.

Erik stood, just out of reach as he’d been since…since he’d killed the driver. He wasn’t just out of reach physically, but that weariness in his eyes spoke volumes.

Ashley beckoned him closer with a finger, and he obeyed as if he couldn’t help it. He sat on the couch but didn’t touch her.

“I don’t like the way you looked at me,” he admitted. “I’ve been through losing a mate because she was afraid of me, lived with someone who never trusted me. I know what that’s like, and I hate that look on your face.”

Ashley reached for him, even when he flinched. Funny, because she doubted that he’d flinch at the worst torture, yet it seemed she could wound him deeper. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said. “I was, or I was afraid of the person I thought you were. I thought there was some part of you I hadn’t seen before, something scary and dangerous.”

“There is,” he whispered back.

Ashley moved closer until she could lean against him, until there was no way for him to hide. “There isn’t. I get that, now. It’s just you. I would have shoved that blade into Gregory if he hadn’t dropped the gun. We all have that inside of us, but I know you.” She danced gentle kisses across his lips, coaxing him to relax, to return the affection. “I know you, and I’m not afraid of you.”

The words seemed as if they broke that leash he had on himself. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tighter against him, claiming her mouth as if testing her. Would she back away? Would she turn him down?

Not a chance.

When she met his aggression with her own, he groaned heavily.

She broke the kiss to pull in an unsteady breath, then shifted so she could see the three of them. “You gave up a lot for me,” she said, the last of her fears weighing on her. “What if you regret it? What if you resent me for it?”

Torrin shook his head before he slid his fingers into her hair and gripped tightly. “There’s no chance of that. I’m still a very good businessman, and I know a great deal when I see one. You are worth more than anything we gave up, and I’d do it all over again in an instant.”

Ashley moaned at the feeling of him tugging softly against her scalp, that delicious sting she’d missed.

He released her in time for Liam to pulled her to her feet.

“Where are we going?”

“We are taking you to bed,” Liam said, his grip and tone giving no room for arguments.

“You were gone far too long,” Erik agreed, following them. “And I plan to make up for it.”

“I was gone for like, an hour,” Ashley pointed out, laughing at the way the alphas acted as though it had been months.

“Too long,” Liam said, repeating Erik.

When they pulled her into the bedroom, Torrin caught her chin, pinning her with his dark gaze. “You came back to us, dove. It’s time to reward you for being such a good girl.”

The praise and the ghost of a smile on his lips melted her, and she gave up arguing.

After everything, after so much heartbreak, Ashley had what she hadn’t had in so long.

A home. A place to belong. People who loved her and who she loved in return.

As she looked at the three alphas who were larger than life, who were so much more than she’d ever expected to have, she smiled at her luck.

The path to get here had been hard, had almost killed her, but it was worth every tear and heartache to finally have this.

There was no better place than here, claimed by her alphas.