Chapter Twenty-Five

Everything in the room had slowed down for Damon, as if each second actually took a minute. Maybe it was the sight of a gun to Kara’s head—again—or maybe it was the pounding of his heart, but the world crawled by.

Until the gunshot. Then it snapped back into motion, catapulting things so quickly he could hardly track them. A second shot echoed in his consciousness, but he tried to ignore it and focus on what he could do.

Damon threw himself into action before he could take stock. When the gun went off, Damon charged the last armed guard. Reese must have had the same idea, and two quickly advancing alphas would startle anyone.

They took the guard to the ground, and once Reese had the man’s weapon, a well-placed hit from it put the guard out.

Damon twisted then, terror gripping him. What if Cullen had missed? What if he’d hit Thompson but that second shot had still taken Kara? He had no idea how to cope with what he would find, how he would react if he turned to see Kara’s lifeless body on that floor.

He rose off the floor so he could see past the chairs, past Cullen.

Kara was on the floor along with Thompson, blood quickly spreading beneath them.

His breath left him and for a moment, he suspected his knees would give out.

Except, Kara moved. She pushed herself up from the ground, her face down, blood dripping, her hair obscuring her features.

She twisted, looking up toward Damon, toward Cullen and Reese, a gash across her cheek.

She didn’t cry. She didn’t complain about the wound dripping blood from her face. No, his wild omega wouldn’t do any of that.

She stole his heart yet again when she smirked.

Fuck, I love that girl.

* * * *

Kara winced as she touched the bandage over her face. Another scar to add to my collection, huh?

At least she’d gotten used to Marshall. He’d poked and prodded her so many times, they were almost dating. She’d made the joke, but a growl from Cullen had said it wasn’t appreciated.

Torrin had handled the warehouse, and when the cops arrived, they’d found lots of bodies—some alive, some not—and more than enough evidence to end the lab’s work. Kash had been taken to the hospital and the alphas had remained to finish off the case. It had all been wrapped up in a neat little package.

If only her feelings were as simple to work out.

She sat on the bed in the hospital room, fully clothed but unsure what to do.

She’d thought about running. The alphas had stepped out to let her dress, and she could leave. Just walk away, never look back.

“I could buy you a few minutes,” came a familiar voice that had Kara smiling even if she didn’t feel like smiling.

“Always looking out for me, aren’t you, Liam?”

He came over and sat on the bed beside her. “It’s what family does, kid, and I can spot your running face from a mile away. Then again, maybe that’s because it’s your all-the-time face.”

Kara stared out of the window, not at Liam. Conversations were easier when she didn’t have to look at anyone. “How do you risk everything? How stupid is it to trust people? To give them everything knowing they can use it to destroy you?”

Liam leaned forward, mirroring her stance. “You know, you’ve never called for help before. You’ve never asked us to back you up on a job.”

“I never needed it before.”

His grunt called her a liar. “You’ve done far harder jobs, more dangerous. So, why this time?”

A lie perched on her tongue, but Kara swallowed it down. She offered the truth instead. “Because before it was just me on the line. If I failed, only I went down. This time…”

“This time you had something you cared about more than anything else? Something mattered to you enough to risk everything?”

She wanted to deny it, but that had been exactly the reason she’d done it, the reason she’d brought in Liam, Erik and Kane. They’d sat in the car outside, content to wait for any sign of problems. When it had all gone to shit, Kara hadn’t even hesitated to send a message from her watch.

“That doesn’t mean it’s worth it to keep going,” she pointed out. “It’s like dropping your phone. Just because I drop it doesn’t mean I’ve got to stomp on it to. I already fucked up—they already mean way too much to me. Enough that I’ll risk everything, that I’ll do anything. Isn’t that a good sign that I need to cut ties?”

Liam’s sigh was soft. “I was bonded once.”

The words shocked Kara. It wasn’t that Liam was ever open with his past, with much personal stuff, yet the fact he’d had a mate and never mentioned it? Kara hadn’t ever seen him bring a female home, even.

He kept speaking, staring out of the window as she had been before. It seemed they both needed privacy. “Obviously I’m not anymore, so you can draw your own conclusions from that. The thing is, the time we had? It wasn’t all that much, and losing it was fucking painful, but I wouldn’t trade a minute of it.”

“What happened to her?”

Liam pushed himself off the bed, his features regaining that easy smile of his as if he’d managed to hide it all. “A story for another time, perhaps. So, kid, should I buy you a few minutes for you to take the fire escape, or are you going to face down your monsters?”

* * * *

How a hotel room could feel like home, Reese had no idea. It still did, though. The walls of the house where they used to live sparked nothing in Reese when he thought about them. Just rooms, walls, windows. Nothing more.

This place, though? With the scents of Kara and the alphas mingling? Well, that was where they belonged.

Or at least, that was what he’d believed.

That Kara hadn’t been in the hospital room when they’d walked in, plus the open window and there being no sign of her had said she might not feel the same. Her friend Liam had distracted them, and when they’d gone in there, ready for some sort of reunion, only an empty room had met them.

He rubbed his eyes, wanting to sleep for fucking years. Would that ease the sting? Would it make him feel as if he could shake off the pain that clung to him?

Neither Damon nor Cullen had said a word about it. As many times as this had happened, as many times as they’d discussed not having her, Reese realized he’d never really thought it would happen.

Somewhere inside him, he’d always expected them to work it out, that she’d be theirs. Maybe it was just instinct that made him believe it, that lied to him so well.

Did it matter?

A creak caught his attention, and standing in the doorway to Kara’s room was the omega herself. The bandage on her cheek remained, and she bit softly at her bottom lip.

Reese froze at the sight, like she was some ghost he wasn’t sure was friendly or not.

With Kara, one could never be sure.

“You ran,” Cullen grated out. “What are you even doing here?”

Kara didn’t move forward, her body tense and her gaze down. “I didn’t want to do this there.”

“Do what?” Damon asked.

She took a deep breath, then finally met their gaze. “I love you, okay? I’m not happy about it, and I don’t really know how to deal with it, but there it is.”

That was the last thing Reese had ever expected her to say, and it managed to take him off balance. Sure, he’d suspected she loved them, but he hadn’t figured she’d damn well say it.

Cullen recovered faster. “So why’d you run, then? Why do you always run?”

“Because I didn’t want to put everything out there in the middle of another hospital. I didn’t want to have this talk there, the whole stupid ‘where is this going?’ talk. I’ve never let anyone close to me, never let them matter. It’s always been too dangerous.”

“So why here? What are you trying to say?” Cullen’s tone was careful, like he didn’t dare believe her.

“I don’t know how to do this. Hell, I don’t know what this is, exactly, but I know I want you, all of you. Fuck, I think I need you, as stupid as that sounds. But I was sitting there thinking, what if I told you all that and you decided I’m too much trouble? What if I finally gave in and you realized I’m not worth it? What if after everything, you don’t want me anymore?” The last words came out on a quiver.

They stole away the rest of his worries. Reese gave up on the whole distance idea—like he could ever really refuse her—and came forward to pull her into a kiss. He wrapped her thighs around his waist as he moved her backward into her room. Before he lowered onto the bed, he broke the kiss. “You’re trouble, all right, but you’re our kind of trouble.”

She bounced slightly when he dropped her, but he was over her a moment later, sliding his hands beneath her shirt to feel all that warm, soft skin.

“I spent so long worried that you’d always lie to me, that I’d never be able to trust you.”

“And now?” She gasped when he stroked his fingers over a nipple through her bra.

“Now? I’ve realized that your wild streak is the thing I love about you. That smirk you get when you aren’t telling the truth, when you know that I know you’re lying—fuck, I like it, because I realized that lying is like breathing for you, but at the end of the day? At the end of the day you aren’t going to sell me out. You aren’t going to turn on me.” As he admitted it, he realized it was true.

She wasn’t the omega from his past. She wasn’t looking to screw him over. Her lying was like a game between them, but she had her own moral code. She’d never stab him in the back.

If she had a real problem with him, she’d damn well make sure she stabbed him in the chest where he could see it.

And that fact made him grin as he pulled off his shirt. “So yeah, I love you too, hellion.”

Damon slid into the bed as Reese moved off Kara. She twisted to him so quickly it was like a rehearsed dance, like she knew exactly where to go and when. Her lips didn’t find his, but rather went to his throat. She drew in deep inhalations of him, as if she needed his scent as much as his touch.

He caught the waist of her leggings in his hands and pulled, rewarded by her rising to her knees to help ease them off.

The trust she offered to them still surprised him. After everything she’d been through, all the times life had kicked her, she still could be there with them, believing it could work. If that wasn’t bravery, he had no idea what was.

“I missed you,” he whispered as he slid his fingers along her panties, teasing them both with the touch. “I’ve spent my entire life trying to get things right, trying to plan everything, thinking as long as I had a goal and steps, I could be happy. The thing is, I never was. The more I tried to be something I’m not, the more I tried to get something I didn’t want, the more I realized none of that matters.” Damon caught her face, careful to avoid the bandage, so she looked into his eyes. “You weren’t anything I planned, but you were exactly what I needed. You accept me, flaws and differences and all.”

She looked at him, her blue eyes open and honest but with a tinge of fear, as if she couldn’t bring herself to really believe it.

Which was fine. They had time and he’d spend it all proving to her how much he needed her.

“I can’t imagine a single plan anymore that doesn’t have you in it.”

Cullen’s tongue felt heavy and useless. So many declarations, so many nice words.

Words hadn’t ever been something Cullen was good with.

Yet after Damon, it seemed to be Cullen’s turn. Kara twisted to look at him, a question in those bright blue eyes.

Did he feel the same?

She’d already risked everything, as had Reese and Damon, yet Cullen toed the edge. Could he leap?

He shifted his weight and ran his fingers through his hair, trying to figure out how to put into words something he didn’t even understand himself.

They didn’t work on paper. She was a criminal and he wasn’t. She was wild and he was controlled and careful. He was forever trying to protect those he cared about and she ran toward fire like a moth.

And even as he thought about each reason it didn’t work, he couldn’t stop the fact that for god only knew why, it did.

“I kept thinking I’d lose you,” he admitted. “I’ve seen a lot of death, a lot of loss. I kept thinking that I couldn’t survive losing you. First, I figured I just wouldn’t let myself feel anything for you. When that didn’t work, I figured the best path was to try and change you. We both know how that turned out.”

Kara’s back went straight as she sat on the bed, clad in only the black panties and without a speck of unease about the state of her undress. She didn’t seem to even mind that her scars were on display.

Cullen nodded at her bandaged cheek. “That’s an example of one of a million things that could take you away. An inch to the left and you’d have been gone.”

Her gaze dropped at that, her shoulders slumping.

He came forward and caught her chin, lifting her face so she looked at him. “I thought I needed someone I could control as a partner, but I was wrong. You won’t stay safe, but you know what? You’ll be okay because you’re tough, and you’re smart, and because I’ll be right fucking there by your side no matter what. Whatever you want to do, I support.”

“I won’t ever be what you wanted,” Kara said softly.

Cullen slid his hand to the back of her neck, pulling her to her knees so her front pressed against his and he could hover just above her lips. “No, you won’t be, because you’re a lot more than I could have ever imagined.”

Kara was breathless. The words all sounded so good, so right. She struggled, not wanting to believe them, not wanting to let them chip away her walls.

What walls? You haven’t had defenses against them from day one.

Cullen kissed her, erasing the worries, the fears.

They wouldn’t have an easy life. They weren’t the type to settle away and grow old in a little cottage. No, not Kara and certainly not the alphas. They’d take cases and Kara would work jobs, and sometimes they’d help each other, but it would all land them in trouble time and time again.

And yet, Kara smiled against the kiss as she considered a life where she was always in trouble with them.

That was a future worth having, no matter the difficulty, no matter the risk to her heart.

“What are you smiling at?” Cullen asked against her lips just as Reese pulled her back, settling her against his chest.

“That you like me.”

Cullen chuckled before reaching into the nightstand and taking out a blindfold, dangling it on a finger. “What can I say? I have bad taste in women.”

Damon pressed Kara’s knees apart as he settled between them, stroking his fingers up and down the sensitive skin on the inside of her thighs. He pressed a kiss to her knee, sweet and yet a promise. “If you keep arguing with him, he’ll just gag you again.”

Reese laughed as he reached around her and cupped a breast in his large, warm hand. “Hell, I think maybe we’ll do that anyway. Only way to get any peace with her around.”

Kara brought her elbow back into his side even as Cullen tugged the blindfold over her eyes, as they stole her sense like they had her heart.

She relaxed against Reese’s grip, against their touches. She wasn’t domesticated, but she didn’t mind if her alphas tamed her.

At least for a little while.