I let out a small breath through my nose. “Easier said.”

  “I’ve noticed,” he murmured, offering another bite.

  I took it. The burn inside me didn’t lessen, but something about the food and the rhythm dulled the edge. Gave me enough presence of mind to think. To notice how carefully Jay moved, how he never leaned too close, how his scent—neutral, grounded—was just far enough from triggering to let me breathe.

  “You’re good at this,” I said quietly.

  Jay glanced at me. “Good at what?”

  “This,” I gestured vaguely with my chin, the only part of me free to move. “Caretaking. Managing alphas and omegas in denial. Betas aren’t supposed to notice heats like this.”

  His face remained still for a moment. Thoughtful. “I notice you,” he said simply. “That’s different.”

  The words dropped between us, quiet and not meant to do harm. But they caught, somewhere deep.

  I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Not with Roan breathing steadily behind me and Jay feeding me soup I hadn’t asked for but needed.

  I was too full of want, of shame, of longing. This without having even looked Roan in the eye since waking.

  I didn’t know if I could, but I would. Eventually. Because if I knew nothing else, I was aware that when this heat passed, I wouldn’t be able to keep running. Not anymore. Not now that they knew.

  Jay kept feeding me in calm, deliberate intervals. Like he had all the time in the world.

  He probably did.

  There was never any rush in his movements. Every action was purposeful, grounded. The kind of control that wasn’t rigid. It was just there, woven into his being. Not dominance, not passivity, just… quiet strength. Reliable.

  He held out another spoonful, and I took it without protest. The heat still pulsed through me in relentless waves, but eating helped. So did Jay’s scent. Clean, low, neutral. Not challenging. Not provoking. He made this possible.

  When he offered the bottle of water next, I took it with my teeth and a huff of thanks.

  He didn’t even blink.

  “You always this good with invalids?” I asked between slow sips, the coolness soothing my throat.

  His mouth twitched. “Only the difficult ones.”

  “Lucky me.”

  “Lucky us,” he said, not quite teasing.

  I stilled. The silence stretched just long enough for my mind to start running ahead, so I asked the next thing that came to me. “Where’s Rhett?”

  “Out,” Jay replied, his tone still gentle. “He went for more supplies.”

  Something pinched in my chest. Not sharp. But deep. “Oh.”

  Jay must’ve heard it whatever leaked into that single syllable, because he set the spoon down gently and met my gaze. Calm. Direct. Unyielding.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “He’s coming back.”

  I looked away, but only briefly. His voice didn’t leave me room to argue.

  “You’re not alone, Wren. None of us are leaving you. We just need things like medical supplies, more water, food. He’s handling it.”

  I nodded slowly. I believed him. Mostly. But the ache didn’t leave. Not entirely.

  Jay didn’t press.

  When I finally gave a low exhale and mumbled, “I’m full,” he nodded and set the container aside. Then, predictably, he held the bottle of water up again.

  “More.”

  I gave him a weak look. “My bladder already hates me.”

  A faint grin tugged at his mouth. “You’ll live.”

  “As long as Roan’s got me hostage in this blanket trap, I’d rather not test the limits.”

  Chuckling under his breath, Jay recapped the bottle and nodded. “Fair enough.”

  The warmth from the food curled low in my belly, not in the same place as the heat, but adjacent to it, like a reminder that I was a body and a mind. Still whole. Still me.

  Jay didn’t move right away. Just sat with me. Watched me. That patient silence of his returned—but now, it felt heavier. Like it was no longer waiting for my needs, but for something else.

  Finally, he asked, “Will you tell me?” His voice didn’t change. Still soft. Still even. “Why the suppressants? The secrets? All of it?”

  I blinked.

  Slowly, I turned toward him again.

  He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t pushing. But the focus in his eyes sharpened like a blade slipping free of its sheath—so quiet I almost didn’t feel it until it was already there. Laid bare between us.

  “You don’t have to lie,” he added. “You don’t even have to explain everything right now. But I want to know. I need to know.”

  Gods, there was nowhere to hide from that. He didn’t flinch or look away. He just waited.

  The longer I stared back, the more impossible it became to pretend I wasn’t already unraveling. I couldn’t answer him immediately, even if I’d wanted to just confess it all. The words, the experience, my life all backed up inside of me.

  The question hung in the air between us all soft and almost ephemeral, yet heavy like a shackle. Jay didn’t move, didn’t speak again. He didn’t need to. His stillness was the question’s echo, waiting for me to fill it.

  My tongue felt thick, my throat tight. The warmth of the food in my stomach soured with nerves.

  “Why the suppressants,” I repeated softly, mostly to buy myself time.

  He didn’t nod, didn’t press.

  I looked down or tried to. The blanket held me too tightly, so all I could do was lower my eyes, staring at the faint pattern in the fabric near my chin.

  The first words came out before I could stop them.

  “Because I couldn’t afford to be an omega.”

  While Jay didn’t react, something in his breathing changed. A fraction deeper. Listening harder. I let out a shaky exhale, staring past him now, at nothing.

  “I was twenty when it started to… manifest.” My voice was barely audible. I’d been such a late bloomer. Most omega and alpha tendencies showed up during puberty. Only betas tended to find their niche a little later. “I’d spent my whole life thinking I was a beta. Hell, so did everyone else. My tests always came back inconclusive. Then one day, it wasn’t inconclusive anymore.”

  I swallowed hard. “I was working for a company that didn’t tolerate… complications. Female employees were fine. Betas, even better. But omegas? Liability. Distraction. Weak link. There wasn’t a place for one on a security team, and I’d just fought my way into mine.”

  His expression didn’t change, but his eyes softened.

  “So, I made it go away.” I laughed a little—bitter, small. “Found a man who knew a man who knew a chemist. Paid too much. Didn’t care. The first batch burned like acid, but it worked. I passed for beta again.”

  The memory made my throat ache. “After—I just… kept doing it. Year after year. I told myself it was safer. Smarter. That I was protecting my job. Protecting them.”

  I risked a glance at Roan—still sleeping, still steady, oblivious to the storm breaking in whispers beside him.

  “I didn’t want anyone to see me differently,” I said. “Least of all him.”

  Thankfully, Jay didn’t do the one thing that would have broken me. He didn’t offer comfort or understanding, only patience as he listened.

  “Eventually, I started to believe the lie. That I was just a slightly off-kilter beta who got headaches and insomnia sometimes.” I gave a hollow smile. “It was easier than admitting I’d spent ten years poisoning myself to keep a secret no one had asked me to keep.”

  His gaze sharpened to the point I could almost feel the way it sliced into me, seeking. “You say it like it was past tense,” he murmured.

  My chest constricted. “Because it is,” I whispered. “I stopped this week.”

  That silence came again, deep and long. I couldn’t tell if the look in Jay’s eyes was sorrow or respect—or both.

  “You knew what it would do,” he said finally.

  I nodded once. “Yeah.”

  “You did it anyway.”

  “Yeah.”

  It wasn’t defiance. It wasn’t shame. It was just… truth.

  A muscle in his jaw flexed, but Jay’s voice remained calm. “Then you knew this was coming.”

  “I didn’t know it would be this,” I said. “I didn’t think I’d—” My voice caught, and I bit down on the rest. I didn’t think I’d drag all of you into it.

  Jay reached out then, not to touch, just to rest a hand near the edge of the blanket. A quiet gesture. Solidarity without intrusion.

  “Alright,” he said softly. “That’s enough for now.”

  But I could still see the questions behind his eyes, the rest of what he wanted to ask, what he probably needed to. Like, why this week? Why now?

  I wasn’t ready to answer that. Not yet.

  More, I wasn’t ready to answer what happened after.

  So I closed my eyes and leaned back against the steady weight of Roan’s chest, letting the slow rise and fall of his breathing anchor me.

  For the first time in years, I’d told someone the truth.

  At least the first piece of it.

  Despite the exhaustion and the heat still clawing at me, that admission gave me my first real breath in years. “Jay…”

  “I’m here,” he said as if he needed to reassure me. Maybe he did.

  “I really don’t know how to do this.”

  “This?” At his prompting, I opened my eyes to look at him again.

  “This.” I nodded to him, then looked up at Roan and found his eyes open and focused on me. The realization struck all the air from my lungs in a visceral blow as the bloom of heat inside me expanded to a torrent of fire.

  Fuck… How am I going to deal with this?

  With them.

  Chapter

  Eighteen

  ROAN

  Iwoke slowly.

  Not because I was tired—but because I didn’t want to wake.

  For the first time in what felt like weeks, the weight in my chest wasn’t crushing. The room was quiet. Warm. My body was heavy, arms wrapped around the solid heat of a blanket-wrapped Wren, her weight pressed just enough against mine to anchor me. I could still feel the echo of her restlessness from earlier, the way she’d shifted in her sleep—how even unconscious, she seemed to seek me out.

  And I had held the line.

  Hadn't touched skin. Hadn’t let myself give in, even when every instinct screamed for contact, scent, closeness. I’d stayed exactly where I needed to be.

  Until now.

  Because now—now her voice was cutting through the haze of sleep, low and raw and husky with disuse and heat, and every cell in my body responded to it like a shot of lightning to the spine.

  I didn’t move. Kept my breathing even. Eyes closed.

  But inside, my awareness snapped into brutal clarity.

  She was speaking to Jay. Her voice was quiet, but the acoustics of the room—plus the heightened edge of my senses—let me hear every word.

  “I was twenty when it started to… manifest.”

  The sound of her voice. That tone. The truth in it. It did things to me I wasn’t proud of.

  I gritted my teeth, fisted my restraint tighter. Tried not to focus on the curve of her body wrapped in my arms. Tried not to breathe too deeply—her scent was still thick in the air, impossibly sweet, persistent, dangerous.

  I didn’t want to hear her confession. But I couldn’t turn away from it either.

  “I’d spent my whole life thinking I was a beta. Hell, so did everyone else. My tests always came back inconclusive. Then one day, it wasn’t inconclusive anymore.”

  My fists curled tighter, careful not to shift even a millimeter against her back. Her voice—gods, her voice—was breaking in all the wrong places.

  I could feel the words vibrating in her chest against my arm.

  “I was working for a company that didn’t tolerate… complications. Female employees were fine. Betas, even better. But omegas? Liability. Distraction. Weak link. There wasn’t a place for one on a security team, and I’d just fought my way into mine.”

  A muscle jumped in my jaw. Complication. Weak link.

  I wanted to find whoever taught her that word belonged to her and break their goddamn spine.

  “So I made it go away.”

  That hit me harder than it should have. Even knowing—suspecting—what she’d done, hearing her say it so plainly gutted something in me. The way she laughed—small, bitter, like the joke had always been on her—tightened something in my throat.

  “Found a man who knew a man who knew a chemist. Paid too much. Didn’t care. The first batch burned like acid, but it worked. I passed for beta again.”

  She’d poisoned herself.

  For a job. For safety. For us.

  “After—I just… kept doing it. Year after year. I told myself it was safer. Smarter. That I was protecting my job. Protecting them.”

  Them. She meant us.

  I opened my eyes—just barely—and looked down at the curve of her shoulder, where her head tilted toward Jay. She was still wrapped tightly in the blanket I’d cocooned her in. Her body was flushed, slick with heat, but not trembling. Not fighting me anymore.

  “I didn’t want anyone to see me differently. Least of all him.”

  The last hit me harder than a puck to the gut. I didn’t react. Couldn’t. Not without shattering every ounce of calm I’d clawed together since this began.

  She’d meant me.

  And I hadn’t known. I should have. I should’ve seen it. Her quiet strength. Her control. The way she never slipped—never let anything through unless she wanted it seen. I’d thought it was professionalism. Temperance. Maybe even pride.

  But it had been survival.

  Jay didn’t say anything, didn’t move, and that—gods, that was exactly right. Exactly what she needed. Not comfort. Not pity.

  “Eventually, I started to believe the lie. That I was just a slightly off-kilter beta who got headaches and insomnia sometimes. It was easier than admitting I’d spent ten years poisoning myself to keep a secret no one had asked me to keep.”

  I could feel her heart beating. The faint, uneven flutter of it against my arm. Like it wasn’t quite sure what it was allowed to do anymore.

  “You say it like it was past tense,” Jay murmured.

  Her answer came soft. Almost broken.

  “Because it is. I stopped this week.”

  And that—that—told me everything I needed to know about what we were really dealing with.

  She knew this heat would come.

  She knew it would hurt.

  She knew it might kill her—and she did it anyway.

  “You knew what it would do.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You did it anyway.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then you knew this was coming.”

  “I didn’t know it would be this. I didn’t think I’d⁠—”

  She didn’t finish.

  She didn’t have to.

  I didn’t think I’d need him. Need you.

  That’s what I heard.

  All I wanted in that moment was to touch her. Just my hand. Just one second. Her hair, her back, anything to let her know I was awake and I was here and I wasn’t going anywhere.

  But I didn’t.

  I stayed still.

  Because what she needed right now wasn’t my reaction.

  It was space. The kind she hadn’t had in a decade.

  When she was ready—when the heat passed and her body stopped screaming—I would ask the questions burning through my chest. The ones I had every damn right to ask now.

  But not until then.

  Not while she was still fighting the fallout of survival.

  She’d trusted someone with the truth.

  Even if it wasn’t me, not yet… that mattered.

  When she was ready, I’d be here. Arms open. Patience intact. But not blind. Not anymore.

  She went quiet again.

  For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the subtle rustle of her breath against the blanket, the whisper of cloth as Jay set the water bottle aside.

  Then, just as I thought she might close herself off again, she said it.

  Soft. Unsteady. The closest thing to lost I’d ever heard from her.

  “I don’t know how to do this.”

  That was it.

  Not whispered like a secret. Just laid bare. Raw. No walls left.

  I opened my eyes.

  Jay saw it first. His head turned just slightly, like he’d known all along I was awake and had been waiting for me to step forward.

  Wren didn’t notice as swiftly, then she glanced up and met my gaze. It was a physical blow that reached right into my soul. Once I knew I had her attention, I answered her earlier statement. “Then we learn.”

  She jolted a little in my arms, instinctively trying to turn—only to remember the blanket still wrapped her in place. The same blanket I’d used to keep us both safe.

  She tilted her head to look at me again, wide-eyed, pupils still blown wide from the heat. Her cheeks flushed, hair sticking to her forehead. She looked exhausted. Overheated. Vulnerable in a way I’d never seen her.

  I held her a little more firmly, just to keep her steady.

  “I—” she started, then swallowed hard. “How long have you⁠—?”

  “Long enough,” I said quietly. “But not as long as I should’ve.”

  Her throat worked as she looked at me, and I could see the walls trying to rebuild themselves—brick by brick.

  I didn’t let them.

  “You think we haven’t been watching you tear yourself apart for years?” I asked, keeping my voice low, careful. “Jay. Rhett. Me. You’ve carried so much alone, Wren. You never had to.”

  She didn’t answer.

  Didn’t deny it, either.

  Jay didn’t speak. He stood, quietly collecting the empty food container, moving to give us space without being obvious about it. But his eyes met mine for a second—something silent and sharp passed between us.

  He nodded once and stepped away.

  I turned my focus back to her.

  “You don’t have to know how to do this,” I told her. “You’ve spent a decade surviving. I don’t expect you to switch that off just because you’re finally safe.”