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His mother stood over him as the tears streamed down his face.

It stung the bruises there, the skin obviously having broken when the boys at school had punched him.

He’d hit them too, his knuckles throbbing and sticky with dried blood.

A rage had overcome him the tenth, twelfth, fifteenth time he’d been poked and prodded, some of the guys loving the way it riled him up.

They did it sneakily too, waiting until the teacher’s back was turned before shooting yet another spit-soaked ball of paper at him.

They moved his book, his pencils, making sure to shove them across his table as they passed by.

Kicks were directed at his heels, his food smashed out of his hands when he went to eat.

None of the individual actions were worth punching people in and of themselves, but in cumulation?

The problem was no one saw them in total but him. It was his nervous system, already set on alert by the noise and the smells and the glare of the classroom, that was pushed further and further into this dysregulation they spoke of.

They called it that, he called it righteous fucking anger.

The noise inside his head became a roar as he leapt over tables, punching his fists into those mocking faces, wiping those fucking smirks off, and replacing them with pain.

For a moment, he’d stand over them, vindicated in that one moment out of so, so many.

And then the teacher, his mother, someone’s hand would clap down on his shoulder and drag him away.

He came back to himself, adult Noah at his job, sitting with the alpha, to find his fists balled.

He shook his head, throwing off the memory, having had so much practise with that.

He didn’t hit people now. He sidestepped and rearranged things to avoid those points of conflict, and sometimes that felt like a full-time job.

When he couldn’t, he practised the cognitive reframing skills Ophelia had taught him.

Which when he thought about it, meant he could talk to the alpha.

She had shown she would listen many times, coming out on his side with his family, with the kids at school, with the community when the workload got too much.

He met her eyes for a moment and nodded. She could be trusted, but with this?

“Flick’s pack feels like home. I can predict what people will need and want and when they’ll want them.

I followed your advice about showing her what I was into, and while she smelled pretty freaked at the time, we worked through it, and she…

” He felt his cheeks flush, knowing that his reaction would show plainly on his pale skin.

“She seems to understand what I want sexually.”

“That’s good, Noah. I’m glad you put yourself forward. There’s no way of anticipating how a woman will respond to petitions, but I was pleased when Flick responded to you. But that’s not a relationship, not all of it. It’s love, passion, respect, trust…”

His teeth sunk into his lip as he heard the words. He knew what they were, felt them intensely deep in his soul. They were always just meaningless words before, something he’d cynically assumed was just some cascade of neurotransmitters after having sex or whatever. But now…

“Noah?”

His eyes jerked up to see the thing he hated in her eyes, what he never wanted to see.

Pity. Venom flooded his mouth, his teeth lengthening in response.

He ground them together to keep his snarl back, breathing through his nose until the urge passed.

He stared down at his hands, touching his thumb to each one of his fingertips, the movements becoming more and more rapid until he felt something begin to settle inside him.

“I sleep with her scent in my nose. It’s like flowers and musk and smoke and sex.

She smells so fucking good. When I roll over in bed, I’m surrounded.

I’m not lying in my old bed, wondering if this is it, where I’ll spend the rest of my days, never having a single person touching me.

I don’t respond sexually to the guys, but in some ways, it’s reassuring feeling Sen or Aidan brush up against me when we sleep.

Peter always takes the other side. It makes me feel…

part of something. We fall into bed, sleep where we lie after working as hard as we can to get Flick off at least a couple of times, making sure she was held, cherished… ”

“Loved?” Ophelia said.

You could say he smiled, but it was more his lips moved, revealing his teeth.

He leant forward, letting his fingers dance, not caring that she saw his stim now.

If she was going to push, she had to know he’d revert back to this.

He followed each lightning quick movement, for a moment, the shift overlaid with the stretch and thud of his Tirian form.

We don’t need to run , his beast said. We are safe.

“I can’t say that yet, can I?” he said. “Haven’t earned the right.”

Ophelia snorted, sitting back in her chair, her fingers coming to a steeple across her chest.

“This is a common misnomer among the men, one my daughter did nothing to dissuade when she was alpha. What you feel or want from Flick doesn’t entitle you to anything.

You aren’t owed her attention or love, something I think you know well.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t tell her how you feel, Noah.

She may be ready to hear it, she may not.

She may reciprocate, she may not, but you’ll never know if you keep your feelings locked away inside. ”

She always sounded so calm and reasonable, the alpha, so much so you missed the little thread of iron in her voice, pushing community members with gentle little prods, until they were right where she wanted them.

Did she know what she was provoking in him with her words?

Noah wondered. What they brought surging up?

He felt helpless before it, that great fucking rush.

It filled his heart until it broke it in two, Flick, Kade, even the guys.

They were pack, bound tightly together in their common goal, making sure the two of them were safe.

He couldn’t put any of it into words. They were too puny, too insignificant to be able to describe that chaotic tumble of affection, need, care and concern, desire, passion and fear, duty, anxiety and contentment.

He took a deep breath, feeling it move in and out of his body, knowing it, his heart, everything moved for her, for them.

His hands finally stilled, he stilled as it all crystalised, a shiny sharp diamond of emotion, condensed down to a terrible intensity.

His eyes closed for just a second as it cut into him, his love.

“I’ll tell her,” he croaked out. He had to, as one didn’t say no to the alpha. She’d just come around and hassle him more if he didn’t. He felt the woman’s hand on his shoulder for a moment, pulling away in the next.

“Good, Noah. You deserve to be happy.”