And now three alphas were circling, and my biology was fighting my suppressants, and I had no idea how to keep running from something my body insisted I needed.
I looked at my reflection in the darkening window. Short black curls that never quite stayed in place. Dark amber eyes that looked tired even when I wasn’t. The suppressant patch visible on my arm where my sleeve had ridden up, a constant reminder of the biology I was trying to control.
“You’re not enough,” I whispered to my reflection, Nathan’s words echoing across five years like they’d been spoken yesterday. “You’re more alpha than omega. You’re too difficult.”
But a small, stubborn part of me, the part that had rebuilt my entire life after that humiliation, whispered back:Or maybe he wasn’t enough for you. Maybe he was looking for submission and you were offering partnership. Maybe his failure to see your value doesn’t mean you don’t have value.
The thought was dangerous. Revolutionary. The kind of thought that could undo five years of careful walls if I let it take root.
Because if Nathan was wrong, if his rejection said more about his limitations than mine, then maybe I’d been running from the wrong thing.
Maybe I’d been running from connection when I should have been running from alphas who couldn’t handle what I had to offer.
And maybe, just maybe, three alphas in Hollow Haven were different.
I turned away from the window and went to bed early, hoping sleep would quiet the arguments between my brain and my biology.
It didn’t.
I dreamed of cedar smoke and vanilla and leather, of three alphas who looked at me like I was exactly right instead of too much. Dreamed of standing at an altar in a white dress, but this time when I looked up, there were three pairs of eyes looking back at me with something that felt like acceptance instead of doubt.
I woke up at three in the morning with my suppressants burning against my skin and my omega crying for something I couldn’t let myself want. The patch was secure. The dose was correct. Everything was working exactly as it should be.
So why did it feel like I was losing a battle I’d been fighting for five years?
I got up, showered in water hot enough to hurt, and started my day at four-thirty instead of my usual six. If I couldn’t sleep, I might as well work. Work I understood. Work I could control. Work didn’t ask for things I couldn’t give.
Work didn’t look at me with cedar smoke eyes and ask if I wanted coffee.
Work didn’t make me question whether being alone was really the same thing as being safe.
Work didn’t make me wonder if maybe, just maybe, I deserved something more than the careful, controlled life I’d built in the aftermath of public humiliation.
I pulled on my coordinator uniform, clipped my radio to my belt, and grabbed my tablet and keys. Another day of emergency management. Another day of being competent and professional and exactly the kind of omega Nathan had said I couldn’t be.
Another day of pretending I wasn’t fighting a losing battle against biology and hope and the terrifying possibility that this time might be different.
The suppressant patch on my arm felt like it was burning. I checked it for the third time, and it was fine. Secure. Doing what it was supposed to do.
So the burning was psychosomatic. My omega rebelling against five years of suppression, insisting that three alphas who smelled like home were worth the risk of vulnerability.
I touched the patch once more, a gesture that had become unconscious over five years. A reminder that I was in control. That I chose my biology, my biology didn’t choose me.
“Never again,” I whispered to my empty apartment. The same words I’d whispered five years ago, standing in a white dress with mascara running down my face. “Never again.”
But my omega purred softly at the memory of cedar smoke, and I had the uncomfortable realization that “never again” might be a promise I couldn’t keep.
Chapter 6
Beau
The Brew was busier than usual for seven in the morning, filled with the kind of people who needed caffeine before facing whatever their day held. I’d arrived first, claimed a corner booth with sightlines to both the door and the emergency exits, and was nursing my second cup of black coffee when Dane walked in.
The county sheriff moved through the coffee shop with the same tactical precision he brought to everything else, scanning faces and assessing threats that probably didn’t exist. When his eyes landed on me, he nodded once and made his way over.
I’d known this conversation was coming. Had been avoiding it, actually, hoping that maybe if I ignored the situation long enough it would resolve itself. But Dane’s text yesterday had been direct:We need to talk about the coordinator.
No point pretending I didn’t know what he meant.
