His eyes glistened, not with pity.Neverthat. But with a pain that mirrored mine. He didn't move, didn't speak, but I could feel it pouring off him, both thick and suffocating. It wasn’t just empathy. It was understanding, like my words had torn open something insidehimtoo.
The silence pulsed between us, heavy with all the things they didn’t say. Rage crawled the walls like insanity, restrained onlyby the years they’d spent learning how to leash their instincts. But it was there. Just beneath the surface. Primal. Violent. Mine.
And I hated the part of me that wanted it.
My throat worked, dry and raw, and the tiny sound of swallowing felt too loud in the charged stillness.
"I ran," I whispered, shame and terror mingling bitterly on my tongue. "I ran, and I didn't stop. I couldn't... I lost everything. My parents, my home, any chance at a normal life."
My lungs seized, icy bands tightening around my ribs. I sucked in fast, unsteady breaths, fighting the encroaching touch of panic as I forced myself to continue.
"I've spent the last two years hiding. Never staying in one place too long, never letting anyone get close." A shuddering inhale, a half-sob. "I couldn't risk them finding me. Couldn't risk someone else getting hurt because of what I am."
The truth of it hung in the air, surrounding us. My biggest secret, my greatest shame, laid bare at the feet of the only three people who'd started to crack the ice around my broken heart.
I watched them from beneath damp lashes, waiting for the condemnation, the pity, the disgust I'd always feared. But it never came. Instead, something shifted in their postures, a subtle unfurling of muscles and clenched jaws.
In that moment, sitting with the ragged pieces of my past scattered between us, I felt the first stirrings of something I'd thought lost to me forever... hope.
The alphas' fury was a tangible force in the silence following my revelation. Their ragged breaths and tense muscles betrayed the protective rage boiling just beneath the surface. The air crackled with it, and I felt myself tense in response, even as some small, vulnerable part of me yearned to burrow into the safety of their anger, to let it shield me from the demons of my past.
Blake's growl exploded through the silence. A grating, feral sound that sent shivers racing down my spine. His perfect blueeyes flashed with anger. His features sharpened as his lips peeled in a snarl. Beside him, Anders sucked in a sharp breath, one hand shooting out to grip Blake's forearm in warning even as a matching rumble built in his own chest. Zach shifted with predatory grace, body angling to put himself between me and the perceived threat, a low snarl weaving between his clenched teeth.
The force of their combined aggression was staggering, a primal tsunami that battered against the flimsy walls of my composure. A choked whimper caught in my throat, and their gazes snapped to me, identical expressions of dismay flickering across their faces as they registered my fear.
As if a switch had been flipped, the violent tension drained from their bodies, jaws unclenching as they attempted to gentle their demeanor. The growls and snarls petered into soothing croons, a soft symphony of comforting notes that settled over my skin like a weighted blanket. An irrepressible shudder wracked my frame as the furious pressure eased.
"That's why I've been so afraid," I confessed brokenly, the words tasting like shattered glass on my tongue. Hot tears spilled down my cheeks, salt stinging the delicate flesh beneath my eyes. "I don't want to be controlled or forced into something. I can't..."
My voice cracked and splintered, and Anders was suddenly kneeling before me, stormy eyes brimming with compassionate warmth. His palms engulfed my icy hands, chafing gently until pins and needles chased away the numbness.
"I can help you work through this trauma, if you'll let me," he murmured, holding my gaze like it was an anchor mooring him to the earth. "Not just as a therapist, but as someone who loves you, Summer. Deeply." My bottom lip wavered again.
The raw conviction in his tone wrapped around my lungs, squeezing until my next exhale burst out on a ragged sob. Zachswooped in to perch on the couch at my side, one arm draping ever so carefully over the quivering slope of my shoulders.
"I swear to you, Summer, on everything I hold dear. I will never force you into anything, princess. Not now, not ever." The uncharacteristic seriousness that was etched into the lines of his face ignited a spark low in my stomach, an ember of hope that bloomed inside.
And then Blake was there, lowering his hulking frame to cradle me from behind, pull me into his chest, kissing the top of my head. "None of us would ever force you into anything," he stated, quiet but certain. “You’re safe with us, sweetheart. Always and forever.”
The combined weight of their sincerity crashed over me like a tidal wave, and I sucked in a shuddering breath, filling my lungs with the intoxicating blend of their combined scents. Turning my face into the warm curve of Blake's throat, I instantly soothed, drawing the rich, woodsy musk deep into my body.
My nostrils flared. Tipping my head back, I exposed the silken length of my throat in an unmistakable gesture of trust. It sent ripples of tension reverberating through their powerful frames.
I let my eyes flutter closed and breathed them in again. Blake's soft lips skimmed my hairline, and a line of tender kisses pressed over my cheeks. Large hands cradled me, steadying me as I trembled with the force of my emotions. My body began to heat in response, curled in the desire for their touch, their knot. A whimper left my lips, a need for more. But they knew. They knew not to push anything, that the time would come when I begged for all of them.
My senses swam with the heady incense of their musk. The whisper of their reassurances filled the spaces between my rattling breaths and pounding heartbeats, until I eased into a sense of harmony. Of home.
Chapter Seventeen
It started with a flicker. A slow, insidious warmth blooming beneath my skin and spreading like wildfire through my veins.
I sucked in a sharp breath, shattering my careful composure. My skin prickled, too hot, too tight, like my body didn’t belong to me anymore. The air turned thick with scent, and mine was rising, sweet, ripe,needy, curling around the room like smoke.
My hands fumbled at the hem of my shirt, fingers shaking too hard to do anything but clutch. Too slow.Too slow. Panic clawed at my chest as heat roared through me, fever-bright and unrelenting. I bent forward with a cry I barely recognized, a searing pain splintering through my core. Like something inside me had been locked up too long and now it was breaking free, wild and starving.
Hands found my shoulders, both strong and grounding. Anders. His grip was steady, his voice calm, but I could barely register the words. Only fragments: my name, a question,how long?
Not since that night, I wanted to scream. Not since the blood and the broken doors and the heat that had betrayed me. I’d buried it. Drowned it in pills and silence and shame. I'd never let it come again.
