The knowledge sends a complicated surge of emotions through me. Protectiveness. Jealousy. And a far more primal recognition that feels like rightness and wrongness simultaneously.
Darren's eyes sweep the room, taking in our solemn expressions, the untouched drinks, Aidan's nervous fidgeting. His post-coital glow dims, replaced by wariness.
"What is this, an intervention?" he asks, closing the door behind him with a bang.
Zayn's lips twist into something that's not quite a smile. "You're always off at odd hours doing who knows what. Wouldn't be out of place."
"That's intentional," Darren says, crossing his arms over his chest. The defensive posture makes him look smaller somehow, despite his imposing frame. "I've been avoiding you fuckers, in case you haven't noticed."
The words sting more than they should. To hear him admit so bluntly that he's been deliberately staying away from us, as obvious as it already was…
Jax sets his glass down, the soft clink of crystal against wood drawing everyone's attention. "Were you with Lexie?" he asks, though we all know the answer. It's written all over Darren. In his rumpled clothes, his slightly swollen lips, the scent clinging to his skin driving us all crazy.
I inhale deeply, letting that scent wash over me again. Aidan is right. Pumpkin spice. Warm, sweet, with an edge of spice that tingles in my nose. Combined with Darren's woodsmoke, it creates something new. Something that makes my alpha instincts take notice.
"Yes," Darren says, chin lifting slightly in defiance. "By some miracle, she was actually willing to talk to me. No thanks to your psycho performance at the Terrace."
The accusation lands, justified and damning. We failed him at the restaurant. Failed him as packmates, as friends. The guilt sits heavy on my shoulders.
Zayn pushes away from the window, moving closer with that catlike grace that makes him so dangerous on the ice. "Smells like you did a little more than talk," he says, voice dry as desert sand.
So much for thinking he'd made progress.
The change in Darren is instantaneous and violent. One moment he's standing in the entryway, the next he's across the room, shoving Zayn against the wall with enough force to rattle the framed hockey jerseys hanging there. His forearm presses against Zayn's throat, not hard enough to cut off air but definitely hard enough to make a point.
"Who I do or don't fuck is none of your business," Darren snarls, face inches from Zayn's. "Or any of yours."
I'm on my feet before I realize I've moved, body responding to the threat of violence between packmates. Jax is faster, inserting himself between them with the ease of someone who's broken up countless fights on the ice. Between the two of them often enough, even if we are on the same team.
"Stand down," he says, one hand on each of their chests. "Both of you."
Zayn, to his credit, doesn't fight back. Just stands there, eyes locked with Darren's, a muscle jumping in his jaw. "That's not true," Zayn says, voice strained against the pressure on his throat as he ignores Jax and focuses on the omega. "We're pack. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not."
The hesitation in Darren's gaze lasts only a second before it becomes anger. "If you were pack in any way that matters," he says, voice dropping to a dangerous growl, "you could have been counted on to do the one thing I asked of you."
He's right. We failed the most basic test of packhood. Showing up when a packmate needed us.
Even Zayn doesn't have a smartass response for that.
Darren releases Zayn with a disgusted sound, stepping back. The chaos energy in the room is thick enough to cut with a knife, four alphas and a newly minted omega, all bristling with unresolved emotions.
"We owe you an explanation," Jax says into the charged silence.
Darren laughs, the sound bitter and hollow. "What explanation could you possibly have for humiliating me in front of Lexie? For treating her like she was invisible? For ruining what might have been our only chance at—" He cuts himself off, jaw clenching.
At what? A relationship? A mate? The unfinished sentence holds many possibilities, each one life changing.
Jax looks around at each of us, his expression grave. A silent question passes between the four of us. Do we tell him? Now? Like this? The plan was to wait, to give him time and space, but that only seems to have made things worse.
I give a small nod, barely perceptible. Aidan does the same. Zayn's lips thin, clearly unhappy, but he doesn't object.
Decision made, Jax turns back to Darren. "There's something you need to know," he begins, voice steady despite the gravity of what he's about to reveal. "Something we should have told you immediately at the restaurant as soon as we met Lexie, but... things got complicated."
"What about Lexie?" Darren demands, suspicion narrowing his eyes. I can tell he's defensive already, even though he barely knows this woman. Even though he doesn't know who she is to us yet.
The silence stretches, none of us quite sure how to articulate the bombshell we're about to drop. How do you tell someonethat the woman they're clearly falling for is also the scent match for your entire pack? Especially when you might have fucked things up royally.
"Lexie is our scent match," Aidan blurts out, the words tumbling over each other in his haste to get them out.
