Chapter Twenty-Two

Reese glowered at Cullen, as though the other alpha were to blame for the issues at hand.

He wasn’t, at least no more than Reese and Damon were. They’d all managed to fuck up the situation pretty royally, but it was easier to be mad at Cullen than admit the truth.

Kara had left them.

She hadn’t left in a ‘I’m pissed and will come back later’ sort of way. Nope, that girl had walked out of the hotel with the sure steps of a woman so over their shit.

Which didn’t seem all that fair, really. People were supposed to fight for a while first. The end of things should come after a long trail of yelling and mutually hurt feelings and the sort of thing people saw weeks ahead. Instead, she’d just snapped and walked out.

They’d been happy. That was the worst part about it, that in the weeks since her injury, they’d been happy. Taking care of Kara fulfilled something inside Reese he hadn’t even realized he had wanted. He liked bringing her food, and even on the rare occasions she allowed it, feeding her bites. He liked getting her the clothing she needed, reaching for things because she couldn’t.

In short? He liked being useful, and he loved the way she looked at him afterward, a mixture of gratitude and annoyance, as though she was thankful but also pissed she was thankful.

Which made it all the more delicious, because it meant he was getting under her skin despite all her reluctance.

And the sex? He kept in a groan as he thought about the soft skin that covered all her toned muscles, the way her body was flexible and strong and mouthwatering. It wasn’t just the physical, either. Sure, she had a killer body, but it was so much more than that.

As they’d spent time together, especially in the past weeks, even the sex had changed. She’d softened, as though she was willing to consider it as something more than just a way to work off excess energy. Her touches had turned from mindless clutching to caresses, to something so much deeper.

The best part? The way those eyes of hers had started to open, the way she’d actually look at them during sex. He thought back to the trust in those blue eyes as Cullen had tied her down, at the sweetest moans when he’d held her hands above her head.

The night before, when Reese had taken her while Cullen and Damon discussed plans, she’d laced her fingers behind his neck and looked up into his eyes as he’d fucked her with slow, purposeful thrusts. Her hips had rolled, a seductive lifting as though she wasn’t content to only give. The light from the window had caught her, making the blue of her eyes bright and shining in the dim room. It had gone beyond need or just scratching an itch. It had meant something.

And now? Now she was gone.

“This was always how it was going to end,” Cullen grated out.

Which was exactly the wrong thing to say.

Damon bit out a response first. “Only because you wouldn’t back down.”

“She never was going to fit into our lives, and you damned well know it. You can be angry with me all you want, but you two had issues, too. Stop thinking with your dick.”

Damon flashed his teeth, the show of temper from the young alpha surprising. “If this was just about your dick, then that’s your problem.”

Despite Reese having agreed with Damon—and he really wanted to see Cullen get some sense knocked into him—Reese couldn’t let them come to blows. He needed to calm them down.

As much as the end with Kara burned him, Reese and Damon were family. He couldn’t lose both, especially after Kara. “It doesn’t matter who caused it or why, does it?”

Damon lowered his lip, but the thin slash of his mouth said he didn’t really agree.

Cullen tore his gaze from the others, choosing to stare out of the window instead. “I didn’t want this,” he admitted lowly, the closest to an apology they were probably ever going to get from the stubborn man. “I really thought she’d see reason. I thought she’d see we were offering her more than she had and she’d jump at it.”

“Maybe she was right,” Reese offered. “Maybe it was unfair to expect her to give up everything, to change.”

“She never would fit with our lives unless she did.” Cullen shrugged, then brushed his hands over the tops of his thighs, as though he could clear off the uncomfortable feelings so easily. “It was this or lose her anyway. This or we end up having to bury her.”

“Maybe,” Reese agreed. “Maybe you were right, that it was never going to work, but I can’t blame her for walking out, either. Fuck, if it was reversed, if she was telling us to drop everything we’d done, everything we had, so we could fit with her, do you really think you’d have just agreed?”

Cullen didn’t answer at first. Finally, a sigh that showed the stress he always tried to hide left his lips. “Does it even matter at this point? She’s gone. If she hadn’t been, we would either have fought with her over trying to keep her safe or she’d have kept acting as she has been and ended up dead.” Cullen raked his fingers through his hair. “We are where we are, and the rest? The rest just doesn’t matter.”

“So what now?” Damon’s question gave them all that shove, reminded them they had to think of the future instead of the past, because right about then, the past really fucking sucked.

Reese drew a breath, trying to banish the thoughts, trying not to fall into another bout of frustration at their current predicament. Getting over Kara would not be easy, and he was damned sure they’d all started to bond to the feisty, difficult little omega. Not that it mattered, since she’d left.

“We finish this case, find the alpha and get the contract off Kara’s head.”

Cullen and Damon nodded, especially when he said the last part.

It seemed they couldn’t have her, but that didn’t stop them from planning to do whatever it took to keep her safe.

Nothing else mattered.

* * * *

A folded sweater hit Kara in the face, and she flat-out refused to acknowledge it.

“Get up,” Erik ordered.

“Fuck off,” she countered, like some sort of negotiation.

The couch she was lounging on shifted, and everything else flipped seconds before she hit the ground. Kara twisted to glare up at Erik, who had angled the couch to dump her unceremoniously to the hardwood floor.

Not that glaring had ever worked with Erik. Liam was the softy who gave in, Torrin was the strong but silent type who would go behind her back to do what she wanted, though he’d never admit it, and Erik was the one who didn’t give a fuck what someone wanted because he’d do what he damned well pleased regardless.

“You’ve been pouting for a week. That’s more than enough.”

His attempt had already worked better then Liam or Torrin, who hadn’t gotten her to move from a horizontal position. The most she did was shift from one flat surface to another.

Bed sores sucked, and she planned to avoid them.

Which was why Kara flipped off Erik and lay flat again, hard ground be damned, because he would not win the little battle of wills.

And will was something she seemed to have in short supply at the moment. She’d used the last of hers when she’d walked out on the alphas, when she’d held it together as she’d left them behind.

Fuck, her chest hurt at the thought of it, at the way she’d forced her feet to move despite how much she wanted to just not go. Sure, she couldn’t be what they wanted, but leaving had still taken more grit than she’d even known she had.

While she’d muttered fuck them to herself over and over, it never held weight. What should have been a rallying battle cry pushing her to move on and forget those idiots had instead been a sullen whisper.

Still, fuck them.

“You don’t let anything get you like this,” Erik reminded her.

But that was the point. Nothing else had ever gotten to her like that before. She’d never let herself feel like that, never dared to want something so much before. It was the first time she’d needed something and, in the end, she’d lost it. All because she still wasn’t enough.

Kara opened one eye, the sweater having fallen somewhere in her roll off the couch. “I once again invite you to fuck right the hell off.”

Erik sat on the couch, staring down at her. “You remember how I used to wake you when you refused to get up for our morning jogs?”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

But he did.

A minute later, dripping wet from the full pot of ice-cold water Erik had thrown on her, Kara shivered and turned her glare murderous. “This is why you were never my favorite!”

“Let me go cry about a minute about that,” he deadpanned before moving on. “Stop moping around.”

“Like you know anything,” she snapped through chattering teeth. “You aren’t exactly the person I’d go and talk to about feelings.”

Erik tossed Kara a towel, the one he’d brought like some sort of apology for having been the one to drench her in the first place. “I know a lot more than you think.”

A flash in his eyes had her pausing as she wrapped the towel around her shoulders. Erik had always been the one of the group who had as much depth as a cardboard cutout, and about that same range of expressions. Even worse than Torrin, which hardly seemed possible. Beneath that, something deeper showed. It took her by surprise, especially since Kara excelled at reading people and she’d never seen that before.

Even in the times when Torrin and Liam were worried about her, when they all fought, Erik never seemed to rise to the occasion. He never seemed to care about anything—not her, not the jobs, not himself.

In whatever showed in his eyes, though, Kara saw through what had to be a façade.

Erik blinked it away and shook his head. “You’ve gone after what you want as long as I’ve known you. Even when it’s impossible, even when it’s stupid, even when people forbid you, you’ve never backed down from anything. Makes me wonder why you’re in here hiding and giving up.”

Kara rubbed her hands over her arms, trying to use the towel to dry off the water that still dripped to the floor. If Torrin gets mad at me about the mess, I’m blaming it all on Erik. Even as she distracted herself with the mindless movements, she answered. “Because they don’t want me. What I might want—and I’m not admitting to wanting shit—doesn’t matter, because I’m not what fits into their perfect little world.”

“What do they want?”

Kara dropped to the couch beside Erik, being sure she let her still wet side press against his. Serves him right. “A perfect omega. Someone sweet and quiet and well behaved. Someone who will sit at home safe and sound instead of being in trouble. Basically? Everything I’m not.”

Erik reached into his pants pocket and held a folded piece of paper between two fingers.

“What’s this?” Even as Kara asked, she took it and opened it. A time and date were written across it.

“Seems your alphas aren’t calling it quits. That’s when they’re planning on hitting it.”

“Of course not. They’re the heroes, and heroes don’t quit,” she muttered. “How did you get this?”

“The hotel room is bugged.” No shame showed in Erik’s voice, as though bugging the room of strangers—the room that had been Kara’s as well not long before—was the most normal thing in the world.

To him it was.

“So? What does that matter?” Kara crumpled the paper and tossed it toward the wastebasket at the corner of the room, even though she knew she’d memorized it.

“They think you’re weak. They think you can’t protect yourself and need them. They think you can’t be trusted.”

The things he said each peeled off a layer of skin with it, and that they were true—that they thought it, not the thing itself—made them all the more painful. No matter what she did, it seemed they were never going to see her as anything but a no-good, two-bit thief.

“Exactly,” she said, trying to sound unaffected. “So why should I do anything when they’re pretty clear about how they feel about me?”

Erik rose to his feet, a damp spot on his side a small victory to her. “Because what you do isn’t about them. What they think or don’t think isn’t about you, and you don’t need to worry about it. Do what you’re going to do because it’s who you actually are. Not who they think you are, who Liam or Torrin and I think you are, but for yourself.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

Erik offered a rare smile to her when he reached the door. “It’s simple. Are you the sort of girl who would let them have all the fun? Would you let three males you love risk themselves while you sit home alone like the good omega they want you to be? Because the girl I know? She would go raise hell, if for no other reason than to piss them off.”

Kara was left sitting there, still shivering slightly, as Erik’s words sank in.

It didn’t take more than a minute before she grabbed the crumpled paper from the trash and rushed to get ready.

She had some alphas to piss off.