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I take another bite of toast like that’s going to stop me from combusting in front of everyone.
Spoiler alert: it won’t.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Rhea
“You let her out.”
Oh, great. Here we go.
Theo turns like the poster boy for calm, but I know that tone - the one that's alpha forplease-don't-throw-anything.
“She asked.”
“She’s inheat,”Lucian snaps, already halfway to throwing a full-blown alpha tantrum. Probably the marble-busting kind.
Kai, bless him, mutters under his breath, “Somebody get the popcorn.”
Theo stays composed - of course he does - but there’s steel under the softness now.
“She’s lucid. Calm. She needed a break.”
“She neededcontrol,” Lucian growls. “Which you just undermined by letting her waltz barefoot into a room full of scent-drunk -”
“I’m wearing socks,” I mutter, wiggling them for emphasis in case anyone missed it.
Lucian ignores me. Classic.
“You should’ve come to me first.”
“She’s not your prisoner,” Theo says, still calm, but with that slightI-will-body-check-youundertone he apparently saves for when he’s one emotional shift away from snapping a chair in half.
“No,” Lucian growls. “But sheismine.”
The air changes like someone flicked off the ventilation. Tension, meet suffocation. I’m the omega in the middle, still clutching a piece of toast like it might save me.
Theo doesn’t flinch. “She hasn’t chosen anyone.”
Lucian’s eyes slice to me, and for one second, I see something. Hunger, yes. But also something almost… broken.
And then,blink, it’s gone. Replaced with granite and contempt.
“I brought her here to burn this out.Withoutinterference.”
He sounds like someone scraping frost off a window with a knife.
“You mean withoutus?” Kai says, slouched like he’s hosting a brunch show. “What, you think we’re the problem?”
Lucian doesn’t respond. He doesn’t need to. His glare is so aggressive I half expect it to file a noise complaint with the HOA.
Theo steps in again. “She’s not fragile. And she’s not yours to lock away.”
“Oh, but you’d give her anything she asked for, wouldn’t you?” Lucian’s voice cuts like a wire pulled too tight. “Even if it broke her. Even if she asked you to walk into fire with a blindfold on.”
Theo says nothing, but the answer’s clear.
Yes. Of course he would.
