Page 24

“No. You know what? I am not doing this right now. You can’t even look at me. Fuck, I want to puke.”

Is this a panic attack?

Do the others think he only loves them for what they do for him?

Have they not told him what they really need?

Has he been ignorant of more than just his mother’s life?

It goes against everything Leo has ever thought he’d been doing.

He loves . That’s what he does. That’s who he is.

“Leo!” Gideon shouts, voice loud with alarm. “Can I get some help up here?”

Leo doesn’t hear the commotion, but Jay is crouching naked beside the front passenger seat with his hand on Leo’s neck in a millisecond.

“Leo, breathe. You’re okay.”

Jay pauses before asking Gideon, “ What happened?”

The world tilts on its axis, and his lungs forget how to expand. He can’t hear Gideon’s words over the rushing in his ears and the tight pain in his chest.

Is he dying?

His mind is full of all the times that he should have been there for his mates—times he’s been too late, not enough—and rationality slips through his fingers.

Someone is whining, and it’s so loud that Leo wants to scream at them to stop, but there’s a lump stuck in his throat.

Time becomes distorted, and spots flash in his vision.

But suddenly, there are hands on his cheeks, and his entire vision is filled with Nix’s face.

“Leo, breathe.” His eyes are glowing blue, and suddenly, Leo can finally catch his breath.

If he focuses on the deeply melodic voice, he finds he can breathe in and out.

When Nix’s eyes are gray again, Leo slumps forward into Nix’s throat like his strings have been cut; he’s nearly smothered by the scents of Finn, Nix, Jay, and Grayson.

The scent of love made physical, and of family.

Strong arms are lifting him, and in the next second, he’s lying on his side facing the sleeping Finn.

Lying down behind him, Jay hums one of the first songs they ever wrote together.

“It’s okay. You’re okay,” Jay whispers, as he kisses his head, hand up under his T-shirt, rubbing over his belly.

The panic has receded a bit, but his hands still tremble, and his heart slowly returns to normal.

His muscles are so sore, and he feels like he’s run twenty miles.

How does Luca do this?

The van comes to a stop, and he hears Nix reading the code to Gideon from the instructions before they’re moving again.

Finn twitches at the scent of his distress, causing the alpha to roll toward him in his sleep, reaching out a hand until the backs of his fingers graze Leo’s bare belly.

It’s a small, unconscious gesture from his mate that speaks of comfort and love.

“You okay now, Baby?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened. It just hit me that maybe… maybe I haven’t been the mate I needed to be, ya know? Gideon said…”

It’s too hard to say aloud—as if hearing it again will make it true.

“My mom, she…she kept stuff from me. And Gideon, too. All these months…how did I not—I feel out of control.”

Jay presses his nose into the back of Leo’s neck.

“Maybe it’s that they don’t think I can handle it. Maybe I’ve missed other stuff.”

“Oh, Baby,” he whispers, “you haven’t missed anything important. I’m sure Gideon told you why he hasn’t told you everything, because… I think he’s ashamed of who he is when he has to do those things.”

“He doesn’t need to be. I love him no matter what. Haven’t I shown him that? Haven’t I done that for all of you?”

Tears fall, dripping from his nose onto Jay’s arm, propping his head up.

He tries to keep his scent under control so he doesn’t send out the sad-bat-signal to the rest of his mates.

Leo’s scent is the most even-keeled, and he does that on purpose, to help mitigate his mates’ more volatile fluctuations.

But it’s not working now, and Grayson’s head pops up over the edge of the bed where he must have been hiding or passed out from Finn and Jay’s pheromones.

Even the unconscious Rowan groans in his seat.

“Baby, roll over and look at me.”

Jay’s eyes are soft when Leo finally rolls over.

“You are the best at loving. The best. It’s so easy for you to show us how you feel; and believe me, I am envious of how creative you are in doing it—how attentive.”

“Then why? Do you think I’m not worthy of knowing the truth? ”

“Worthy? Fuck. I am going to kick Lauren’s ass.”

“Yeah, good luck with that. Turns out she probably knows eleventy-hundred ways to do the same,” Luca whispers.

With a sigh of exasperation, Jay replies, “Not helpful, Luca.”

Turning his attention back to his distressed beta, Jay gently wipes away Leo’s tears.

“Just like Gideon said before, Leo, you are loved beyond measure. You’re made of honor and truth, untouched by the darkness of this world. No, I really mean it,” he says when Leo shakes his head.

“I know suffering,” Leo asserts, his voice laced with indignation.

Perhaps not in the same way as Gideon or Jay, and certainly not like Nix, but he knows what it means to hurt for them.

It’s different—of course it is—but when you love as deeply as Leo does, you can’t help but absorb the anguish of your mates as if it were your own.

Why hasn’t he been allowed to bear some of that weight for them?

“I know you have,” Jay replies gently, “but this isn’t just about suffering. It’s about the shame that comes from the choices and methods we sometimes have to embrace to achieve the outcomes we need.”

That sounds like a convoluted way to say that they’re ashamed to do what they have to do—especially if it’s ugly—but Leo doesn’t fucking care.

Grayson rests his chin on Jay’s side, and Luca hums in quiet agreement.

“You don’t have to hide parts of yourselves from me. I love all of you all the time. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Please,” he begs. “Please let me help you.”

I need it.

The truck rolls to a stop, and without the engine, the quiet is unsettling.

Leo has his mates’ attention.

He’s sure Rowan and Finn are still out, but the rest? They’re listening.

It feels like it might be the only time he can make them hear him.

Sitting up, Leo looks at their faces, and when he gets to Gideon’s, he looks him dead in the eye and notes his obstinately clenched jaw and dark eyes.

It’s a stance that says he’s not going to change his mind.

Just seeing him, determined to keep doing what he knows hurts Leo to his core, makes him furious.

“Don’t keep shit from me anymore. Do you hear me?”

He embraces the anger and the hurt, pushing his panic under the wave of fury. On the tail of his panic attack, it makes his hands shake, and his scent becomes more acrid and ashy.

“I’m not fucking around.”

He pushes Jay back, and Grayson grabs their leader so he doesn’t fall on his ass.

Gideon’s eyes burn into him, but he avoids the eye contact, skirting past Nix, who is beside him in the passenger seat, covered in the green blanket from the couch at home.

“Fuck this. Let’s see what we’re dealing with before Sleeping Beauty wakes up.”

Leo slides the side door open, and he’s greeted by the sight of a stunning two-level home, its facade adorned with windows.

There’s a wide-open courtyard and a single impenetrable door, with a security pad by the entrance.

He uses the same code from the gate, and without waiting for the others, Leo moves through the intimate living space and heads straight through to the back deck.

It’s on the edge of a wooded glade, offering a gorgeous view over a railing that overlooks the vast expanse of green that stretches for miles, while to his right, a long table with eight chairs sits under a summer-blue sky.

Sounds of his pack echo through the open sliding doors as they work to settle the unconscious alphas and prepare to hunker down.

“It’s nice,” Nix says, leaning his elbows on the railing beside him. “Smells like home , even way up here, and after all this time. Like, I know the Gulf is just a few hours that way. Know what I mean?”

If he felt like talking, he’d tell him that yes, he knows .

Nashville smells like home, no matter how long he’s been gone or where he’s been, but he can’t shed the frustrated anger and hurt easily.

Maybe that’s why he never lets those feelings take over; it takes a lot to work up to, and even more time to come down .

“I know you’re mad, and not too long ago, that might have made me afraid.”

Leo startles enough to finally look at his beautifully debauched mate wrapped in a blanket under the bright Florida sun.

Nix raises his hand. “No, you let me talk. It might have made me afraid in the beginning, because even though you told me you loved me every day, well…you understand why I’ll always be looking for more than words—maybe for forever.”

“Nix.”

“No, I need you to hear me, Leo. Like I said, I need more than pretty words. I’ll always need actions, too, and you have always given me what I need. Always. So when you say you worry that you haven’t been allowed to love us the most…well, that’s blatantly untrue.”

That feeling in his heart soars while his stomach plummets again.

“Nix, it’s not the same. How am I supposed to trust they’re letting me all the way in now? Gideon hid shit; my mom hid important shit from me—for my whole life.”

“Ah. This is about Lauren. Okay, you can be mad, I would probably be, too. And I told her you would be hurt.”

He rubs his forehead on Leo’s shoulder.

“But listen, I want you to think about this from another angle: are there things you won’t tell our babies? Because I have a long list already.”

Fuck. Leo hates thinking about what’s on that list.

The gritty parts of Nix’s life, the torture? The parts where Nix fought to the death.

At his hesitation, Nix puts a hand on his arm.

“See? We don’t hold shit back because they’re not worthy. We hold it back because sometimes, all the truth isn’t necessary; because it hurts, and because it absolutely doesn’t do anyone any good to hold it up to the light.”

He doesn’t want it to make sense, and while it doesn’t make the hurt disappear entirely, it helps.

“How are you so wise? It’s hard to take you seriously in a green fleece toga.”

He laughs. “I could go without?” He offers to let it drop to the deck.

“Don’t stop on my account,” he chuckles, though it dies pretty quickly.

“What am I going to do about my mom? You’re right, my feelings are hurt. She loves you , but I’m not so sure about—”

“Don’t you even think it. Lauren talks about you constantly. I don’t mind because hey, it’s one of my favorite topics, too. Has it occurred to you that she tolerates us because of you?”

Leo raises a skeptical eyebrow. “No way.”

“No lie. But you’re right. When the time is right, you should ask the questions you need the answers to…just think about the answers you might want to hear first.”

There’s a bellow from inside, and then something hits the floor-to-ceiling windows on the second floor.

It’s a naked—and very aroused—Finn with his hands pressed to the glass, and he’s snarling what they both can see is Nix’s, and then Leo’s names.

It shoots a thrill through him, and he shivers.

Nix drops the blanket with a giggle as he walks backward, eyes still on Leo’s face.

“I am living my best life right now, you know?”

He jumps up to grab the bottom of the narrow platform deck eight feet over his head, then swings his feet up and over in a flip, using the edge of the deck to pull himself up.

There’s no railing, and he’s on his haunches looking down at Leo in the blink of an eye.

“Holy shit, Nix.”

“Better hurry, 266-266. Our alpha is waiting.”

He blows Leo a kiss and disappears.

Wait . What?

He’d seen the code on the directions when he’d been navigating, and he’d even used it to gain entrance to the house—but beyond them being just numbers, he hadn’t given them an extra thought. But—no way.

Leo pulls out the burner phone Gideon had entrusted to him, and there on the keypad are the letters that correspond to the code his mom had chosen for the house’s security access.

2-6-6-2-6-6.

B-O-O-B-O-O.

It makes him smile when he sees this testament that his badass mom is thinking about him, even when she’s doing her spy shit six hundred miles away.

He’s suddenly reminded of her favorite part in that story about the honey-obsessed bear he can’t remember the name of.

“You are braver than you believe, Boo-Boo, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we’re apart…I’ll always be with you.”

Maybe he didn’t know about her past, but maybe he knows who she is, after all.