No, she’s not, so focus on her and forget about that she-devil.
Where was their little omega?
She didn’t come to greet them when they got home, much to Jude’s dismay. Zayden then sent him on an errand to pick up dinner before he had a chance to hunt her down, but only because Zayden wanted to give her space to come to them on her own. That was half an hour ago, and there hadn’t been a single sighting.
He made eye contact with Felix, who had been cleaning around him, seeming to share the same worry.
Taking the lead as he should, but struggling to, Zayden abandoned his drink to search for his omega. Halfway up the staircase, he caught the sour scent of strawberries and cream. It was faint, not as strong as Kai’s moody scent, but it was still there, and it made his alpha shift into dominant mode.
Whatever upset his omega was his problem now. A problem that would be solved right away.
He didn’t knock. Heshouldhave knocked, but he was in a hurry to fix whatever was wrong, only to find his omega hiding under her bedsheets, asleep. The heavy rise and fall of her chest under her blankets was so endearing that he almost didn’t want to get closer in case she woke up.Almost.But he just couldn’t help himself.
He walked farther into her bedroom, taking note of the mess on the floor, her decorations, and all the pops of colors. She must hate their house.
When he got to her bed, he sat on the edge of it and slowly rolled the blankets back until he revealed her face. Some of her hair was stuck to her chin from her drool, and her hands were tightly balled together and shielding her chest. The pose almost made it seem like she was begging for something or having a bad dream.
Maybe it was the dreams invoking the faint sour scent, and what could he do about that then wake her up?
His alpha scoffed and released a low, comforting rumble. Apurr.
It only took three seconds before her eyes relaxed, then her hands, then her breathing. The scent in the room dispersed from sour to sweet.
I forgot we could do that.
You’ve forgotten a lot about your potential and your role as lead alpha.
True.
Painfully true.
Zayden lost his ability to lead, to protect, and to comfort. He lost everything that made him the leader of this pack, and now, it was interfering with how to take care of his mate. It was clear that he couldn’t take this opportunity to work with Dr. Burdough for granted. She could fix their pack, and maybe she could fix him so that he could finally return to being the pack alpha his boys and his mate deserved.
He was scared shitless about going to therapy and facing what he couldn’t for the past few months. He was running away from Kai just like Kai was trying to run away from this pack. But Sonnet changed everything. He couldn’t run from her, and he couldn’t let Kai, either.
I’m going to fix this.
He planted a kiss on Sonnet’s forehead and tucked the strands of pink hair on her chin behind her ear.
When he left her room, he felt like he was taking all the color inside it with him and tucking it somewhere in his heart, letting the sunshine through. He felt inspired for the first time in months to pick up one of his messy journals and blue-inked pens and write lyrics to a new song titledSongbird.
Chapter 15
You shouldn’t have run away from her like that.
Shut up. I ran away to protect her. If I had stayed while in the mood I was in, who knows what else I would have said.
It was safer for Kai to abandon Sonnet in the hallway with his emotionally heavy words and then run away in shame to the gym for the past two hours. Hiding was better for everyone involved, and if he had to figure out a way to hide on this vacation, too, he would.
Kai wasn’t sure what Felix was thinking by giving that card to their managers, but therapy wasn’t going to fix this pack. They weren’t a broken vase; they wereash, completely burned to a crisp with no solution. The sooner everyone else realized that the better the next two months would go.
They were all supposed to go their separate ways at the end of this, but what if Sonnet had changed everything? What if theproblem was him, not Zayden, not what happened,him? And what if, when they realize that, they decide to stay together with Sonnet, and he’ll be the only one to leave?
Kai didn’t understand why that bothered him so much.
I know why.
Shut up.
