Page 24

Chapter 24

Thorne

“I’ll take Stone.” Zane kisses Freya on her forehead before he takes my baby out of my arms. “You need to sleep.”

“I can’t. I need to be here if she wakes up.”

I’ve been here for thirty-nine hours now, watching the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest, willing her eyes to open, but all I see is the way the harsh overhead lights of the hospital room make Freya’s normally golden face now look ghost-like.

“She will wake up,” Miller says as he stands at the foot of the bed, touching her ankle. She looks so small in the hospital bed. Fragile. “She’s getting warmer. And you need some food.”

I hate the tubes that snake from her nose and mouth. The ventilator’s mechanical breathing is for her own good. The doctor explained it and then Miller explained it again.

I’ve struggled to take it in, but they say she’s put her body into what the doctor called an omega drop, a prolonged coma to safeguard her because her stress levels are too high. She’s experienced this since her teens, at least according to her records.

And it’s all my fault.

I reach for her hand, careful not to disturb the IV that pokes at the top of her hand. I have never once heard of an omega doing this. Miller has, but he thought she’d come through once her body found its strength, but thirty minutes later and even he decided she needed hospital intervention.

Miller says her skin is warming up, but to me, her skin is still cool to the touch, nothing like the warmth I felt when I caught her as she collapsed. The memory of her omega scent in that moment mixing with distress, fear, still haunts me.

How had I not recognized it sooner?

Because you choose to not believe her.

I hate myself for that.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, my voice breaking in the solemn room. The beeping of the monitors is my only answer. “I’m so goddamn sorry, Freya.”

My thumb traces circles on the back of her hand as I lean closer.

“I smell you now. I’m sorry I took the blockers. I was just too stubborn, too angry about my past, about the girl I never knew but fell in love with. I wanted no one but her. I wish I knew it was you. I want you so much. I’m sorry—” My throat tightens around the confession. “I know why you followed me. Fuck! Only now do I understand, but you knew all along. You knew we were scent matches. And I was too fucking stupid.”

The ventilator hisses, pushing air into her lungs. I watch her chest rise.

“I promise when you wake up, I’ll be different.” The promise is raw, true and desperate. “I need to tell you properly. Need you to hear me. I’ve been so blind, so cruel. I just hope you still want me.”

The tears I’ve been fighting spill over, dropping onto our joined hands.

“Let me show you how sorry I am. Please! Let me make it right.” My voice drops to a murmur. “Let me love you the way I should have from the beginning.”

My alpha instincts are in turmoil. I want to protect and comfort her. I want to claim her, but is she beyond my reach now?

The scent of my distress fills the small room, mingling with the antiseptic hospital smell.

“Our baby needs you,” I murmur, then correct myself. “ We need you.”

I press my forehead against our entwined fingers, finally allowing myself to acknowledge the truth I’ve been fighting for so long.

“You’re my mate, Freya. My true mate. And I almost lost you because I was too stuck in the past to see it.”

The doors open and Zane walks in with Miller.

“I called her parents. Her father is on his way,” Miller says. “Apparently, she’s had some minor drops, but this is the third major drop she’s had. The first in her teens when her body was transitioning into an omega and the second when her brother died.”

“Her brother.” I stare at Zane and he nods.

The monitors continue their steady rhythm as Zane pushes the stroller into the corner of the room. “I’ve fed and changed him.”

I stand and walk to my son, taking him out of the stroller and holding him against my chest as I nudge next to Freya on the bed and snuggle our son between us. Letting her smell us.

Outside, the hospital carries on, but in this room, time stands suspended between heartbeats.

Zane stares at me. His hand rests on my forearm as tears lace his eyes. “Sorry.”

I shake my head, not understanding.

“I put you through this once before and now I know how much it fucking hurts.”

I give him a half smile. “It’s fine. I understand you have to do what you love, and I’ll stop pestering you to leave the fire service. I just don’t want to lose you. You’re my baby brother and I love you.”

“Can you lose her?” he asks.

Our gazes lock. “No. But I think I might have left it too late.”

“When did you come off your scent blockers?” Miller asks me as he takes the chair on the opposite side of Freya.

“Yesterday.”

“But you told me you could smell her before then. When you followed her to her room.”

“I felt her stress. I knew she was spiraling, and I was, too. She could smell my scent before she lost consciousness. I saw her nose twitching.”

“Can I lie next to her?” Zane asks.

I slide off the bed and into my chair, staring at Freya when the actor, James Rose, rushes into the room, his expensive suit wrinkled and his silver hair disheveled.

He moves straight to Freya’s bedside, taking in Zane and Stone beside her as he takes her hand in his.

“My baby girl.” His voice cracks as he smooths her copper hair back from her forehead. The tenderness in his touch surprises me. This isn’t the cold, rejecting family she’d described.

Or did she?

Did we assume it?

“Thank you for getting her here so quickly.” He looks between the three of us, genuine gratitude in his eyes.

“What happened to her before?” I ask. “How quickly did she come around?”

James pulls up another chair, never letting go of Freya’s hand. “She had a wonderful childhood until the omega transition hit. Her mother...” He sighs heavily. “Danielle had very specific ideas about how an omega should look and behave. Made both our girls dye their hair blonde, and attend endless etiquette classes.”

My stomach twists. “The baking?”

“That was the one bright spot. Freya loved it. At eighteen, she announced she was leaving home to work at a restaurant. Her mother was angry that it wasn’t the job for an omega, but I couldn’t watch my daughter’s spirit die. I helped with her rent payments and supported her dream.”

“But she became a baker,” Miller says.

Her dad nods. “She told me she found her scented mate, but he looked straight through her, and she couldn’t stay there.”

“When was that?” I swallow.

“When she was eighteen and working at the restaurant. That’s why she left. She lost so much weight through depression. So, I helped her start a bakery after that. Paid her first year’s lease, equipment, whatever she needed to succeed, and when she made the business thrive, and her spark came back, I bought her an apartment to make her life easy.”

Miller leans forward. “How old was she when she had her second omega drop?”

“Oh, that was when she was twenty-two. She had the bakery, it was thriving, she was too. But we lost Freddie—her brother.” James’ voice roughens. “They were twins and inseparable. A building explosion took him and his girlfriend instantly. Freya couldn’t cope with his death, and she got worse one day.” His hand gestures to his daughter. “And this happened. So, as a family, we made the decision to bring her home. And she stayed with us until she was well again.”

I glance at Zane’s scars, then back to Freya’s peaceful face. The connection clicks. She gravitated to a survivor after she lost her brother. No wonder she never flinched at Zane’s injuries. She probably wished her brother were alive with the same scars.

“And how does her mother feel about Freya now?” Millers asks.

“She’s proud of her. Yes, she still wants the best for Freya and they have spoken a little about Freya having a baby without a pack.” He glances around at us.

“Have you met your grandchild?” Zane asks.

“She said she was going to visit, but she never came,” he replies.

“And you never thought to visit her?” I ask.

He nods. “We left her a message because we visited last week, but she wasn’t home.”

I sigh. “Zane refused to let her stay there because she was hauling the baby up and down six flights of stairs every day.”

“She was what?” His voice lifts. “She never told me.”

“The elevator is broken, but it’s being dealt with. I have the city’s building inspector on speed dial. It should be fixed next week, but she isn’t going back to the apartment.”

Her father looks at her three alphas. “You’re not pressuring her, are you? Freya might come across all bubbly, like she is all sunshine and sparkles, but she hides things. She pretends everything is fine.” He gestures at her again. “Like now. She must have been hiding her feelings or something for this to happen to her again.”

“She was scared to tell me something,” I whisper. “And collapsed right after she did.”

“What did she tell you?” her dad asks.

“First, tell me the name of the restaurant where she worked as a trainee chef,” I ask. I already know the answer and just want him to confirm it.

James reaches for his wallet, pulls out a worn photo. “Le Petit Jardin. Here she is at their spring showcase...” The date shows it was nine years ago.

I look at the young girl. Eighteen years old and I was a year older. The smile on her face is wide and beautiful, like she loves what she does.

“Obviously, she was younger and blonde then. This was probably the happiest she ever was in her life. She was doing something she loved. But it wasn’t long before we lost her brother and when everything changed.”

It was also when her perfume turned my head. When I searched for the smell, not realizing the smell wasn’t a customer, it was the girl who made my dessert.

I slam my hand over my face and for the first time since I watched Zane fighting for his life, tears roll down my cheeks as I sob. “It’s her.”

I’ll never leave her side again. I’ll never let her down. But until those eyes open again, I won’t know if Freya is ready to believe me.