Page 44

thirty-three

. . .

Mia

T he pain wakes me again. It’s physical, a hollowness behind my ribs that aches as if someone has carved out my heart. I curl tighter around myself in Alice’s spare bed, pressing a fist against my sternum as though I could push the agony back inside and contain it somehow.

It doesn’t work. Nothing works. Two days without Kane, without Finn, without Jace, and I’m falling apart.

I bite down on the pillow to muffle my sobs. Alice left for her shift at the coffee shop hours ago. My tears soak into the cotton pillowcase, hot and endless. They’ve barely stopped since I arrived here two nights ago, shaking and disoriented.

“Oh my god, Mia,” Alice had gasped when she opened her door at 4 AM to find me standing there on her doorstep. “What happened? Did he hurt you?”

She’d assumed it was Justin. Of course, she had. She’d seen the bruises he left on my wrists last year and had covered my shifts when my eyes were too puffy from crying to face customers.

“I left him,” I’d whispered, and she’d pulled me inside, wrapped me in a blanket, and made me tea that I couldn’t drink through my hiccupping sobs.

“You can stay as long as you need,” she’d promised, settling me on her couch, not pressing for details when I couldn’t provide them. “I’m so proud of you for getting away.”

If only she knew who I’d really left behind: three men who loved me.

But now, two days later, a fresh wave of agony ripples through me, centering low in my belly where Kane’s child grows. Our child. I press my palm flat against my abdomen, wondering if it can feel my turmoil.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper to the tiny life inside me. “I’m sorry I’m such a mess.”

The separation feels like withdrawal from the most addictive drug imaginable.

This isn’t anything like when I left Justin.

That had been a relief, a weight lifting, freedom from constant criticism and control.

This is the opposite—a crushing pressure, a void that can’t be filled, a hunger that gnaws at my insides with vicious teeth.

If this is the bond Kane spoke of, it’s no small thing.

It’s not something I can ignore or push aside.

The realization terrifies me almost as much as the pain.

I roll onto my back, staring at the ceiling of Alice’s spare room, watching shadows shift as cars pass on the street outside. The tears have stopped momentarily, leaving my face tight and swollen. My throat feels raw from hours of silent sobbing. Two days of this—how much more can I take?

“You need to be stronger than this,” I tell myself, my voice cracking from disuse.

They lied to me, kept secrets, and made decisions about my life, my body, and my future without consulting me. They treated me like property rather than a partner.

But they also protected me, cherished me, and made me feel valued and desired in ways I’d never experienced before. They awakened parts of myself I never knew existed.

“Stop,” I hiss to myself, digging my nails into my palms until the sharp pain cuts through the fog of longing. “They’re not good for you.”

The clock on the nightstand reads 10:32 AM.

I’ve been lying here for hours, crying in bed and hardly able to sleep.

Alice told me to take as much time as I needed before returning to work, which was a relief.

She thinks I’m recovering from years of emotional abuse, not mourning the loss of a supernatural bond to three werewolf alphas.

I’ll never be able to tell her the truth. Never be able to tell anyone the truth. The realization settles like a stone in my gut. With this baby, I’ll be forever isolated in my secret, raising a child who’s not fully human, watching for signs of shifting, teaching them to hide their true nature.

Unless I go back.

The thought sends a pulse of something like relief through me, the pain behind my ribs momentarily easing. My body, at least, knows what it wants.

With a groan, I force myself to sit up. The room tilts and swims around me, my head pounding from dehydration and endless crying.

My legs shake when I stand, my muscles weak from two days of barely moving from this bed.

I shuffle to the bathroom, avoiding my reflection in the mirror.

I don’t need to see the wreckage of my face to know how bad it is.

The cold water I splash on my cheeks helps clear my head slightly. I brush my teeth mechanically, going through the motions of basic hygiene without really focusing on the task.

Back in the bedroom, I pull on sweatpants and one of Alice’s oversized hoodies.

The clothes smell wrong, lacking the pine, musk, and distinctive scents of my alphas.

Fresh tears threaten to spill, and I swallow hard against the lump in my throat.

I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep falling apart every time I remember them.

The house is silent as I make my way to the kitchen. Alice keeps her place neat and minimalist, everything in its place, nothing like the lived-in warmth of the alphas’ den.

I fill the kettle and set it to boil, going through the motions of making coffee while my mind drifts. The cupboard door slams shut a little harder than I intended, making me jump at the sudden noise. My hands shake as I measure grounds into the French press, spilling some across the counter.

“Fuck,” I mutter, hastily wiping at the mess with my sleeve.

The rich aroma of brewing coffee fills the kitchen, a small comfort amid the chaos.

I lean against the counter, waiting for the four minutes it takes to steep, and find myself thinking of all the mornings I woke to the smell of coffee in the alphas’ house.

Jace singing off-key in the shower. Finn reading the newspaper at the kitchen table, quiet and watchful.

Kane’s hands on my waist as he pressed morning kisses to my neck.

A sob escapes me before I can stop it, tears flowing again as if they had never ceased. I press my palm over my mouth, trying to hold in the sounds of my breaking heart, but it’s useless.

I slide down to the floor, my back against the kitchen cabinets, knees pulled to my chest as I rock slightly, trying to contain the pain that threatens to tear me apart.

It’s not supposed to hurt like this. Leaving something bad should feel liberating.

Instead, it feels like death, like amputation, like my soul is being shredded with each breath I take away from them.

The coffee press chimes, the timer complete, but I make no move to pour myself a cup.

Instead, I reach for my phone, unlocking it with trembling fingers.

There are dozens of missed calls from Kane, Finn, and Jace.

Voicemails I haven’t had the courage to listen to.

Text messages I’ve read through tears but haven’t answered.

Jace

Please come home. We can talk about this. I’ll do anything. Just let me know you’re safe.

Kane

I understand why you left. I respect your need for space. But please, Mia, just tell me you’re okay.

Finn

I miss you. We all do. The house is empty without you.

Each message is like a knife twisting in my chest. I want to respond and reach out to ease the pain I know Kane must be feeling, too.

But what would I say? That I’m miserable without him?

That I wake each morning reaching for his warmth beside me?

That my body aches for his touch in ways that terrify me?

Instead, I open the browser app and type “studio apartments for rent” into the search bar for a different state. The results load slowly, or maybe it just feels that way through the fog of my grief.

A one-room studio downtown. A converted garage in the suburbs. A basement apartment with “lots of natural light,” despite the photos contradicting that claim. None of them feel like possibilities. None of them feel like home.

Home is with the alpha pack. That knowledge sits in my chest like a stone, immovable and painful. I can run as far as I want and rent whatever apartment I can afford, but my heart, my body, my very being knows where it belongs.

Kane

Each breath is painful as I watch Mia through the kitchen window of the cottage she’s staying in.

Even from this distance, I can see she’s been crying—her face puffy, her movements slow and disjointed, as if she’s sleepwalking.

The bond between us pulses with her pain, amplifying my own until it’s nearly unbearable.

Two days without her scent, her touch, her presence in our den, and my wolf is going mad, clawing at my insides, demanding I reclaim what’s ours.

“She looks like hell,” Jace murmurs next to me. “We all do.”

He’s right. I haven’t slept since she left.

I haven’t eaten anything substantial. My body feels hollowed out, my mind a chaos of instinct and reason at war.

Part of me, the primal alpha self, wants to break down that door, throw her over my shoulder, and carry her back to our home, where she belongs.

The man in me knows that would destroy any chance of earning her trust again.

Finn stands silently watchfully on my other side, his face impassive except for the muscle ticking in his jaw.

“Her friend left for work twenty minutes ago,” he says, his eyes never leaving the cottage. “She’ll be gone for at least eight hours. It’s now or never.”

I nod, unable to form words through the knot in my throat.

“Are you sure about this?” Jace asks, looking over at me. “She was pretty clear about wanting space. ”

A growl builds in my chest, vibrating through my ribs. “I’m sure.” The words come out rougher than intended, my voice raw from disuse. “I need to see her. I need to explain. At least try.”

Through the window, I watch as Mia attempts to make coffee, her hands shaking so badly that she spills coffee beans across the counter.

The sight of her struggling with such a simple task twists something painful in my chest. This is my fault.

I did this to her- with my arrogance, my secrets, my need to control everything around me.