Page 82 of Into the Fire: Before

“I used to hate my inner alpha,” I murmured. The air was thick enough, still enough, the sound shocked my ears. “Mostly because my family hated it.” I blew out a stream of breath through pursed lips.

Caine didn’t respond, so I continued.

“If I hadn’t found Taryn, if I’d gone through and married Heath, I’d have been dead inside of a year.” I swallowed, the heat rimming my eyes a grounding force. “By his hand, or my own.”

A muscle twitched in Caine’s cheek, barely a shimmer in my peripheral vision. His voice was a rasp when he spoke. “But you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t.”

Taryn had saved me. She’d stumbled across a broken husk of a person, of an alpha, and seen a spark. She’d fed it, steadily, diligently, building it brighter and stronger. Rebuiltmebrighter and stronger.

“My life didn’t start until her,” I said through a thick throat. “I’d trade every good thing we’ve fought for just…just for her. For us.” I took a shaky breath and finally turned my attention to him, still staring out the window. “And I couldn’t…” Another breath. “I couldn’t ever let anyone in who wouldn’t do the same.”

A brief flutter of his eyelids betrayed his otherwise stony face. Somehow, though, I felt everything he hid. The confirmation, he believed, that I’d rejected him. Chosen the others but left him on his own.

I raised my hand to his cheek, turning so his eyes met mine. Fire burned behind my eyes and the room blurred. My lips trembled as I stroked my thumb slowly over the stubble on his cheek. His facade cracked then, water rising in his eyes as his breathing sped.

I gave him a little nod. An invitation to finally speak. To say what he’d never said. Not to me, not to his packmates, maybe not to himself. Beneath my hand, his jaw clenched, teeth grinding. I raised my other hand to his other cheek, stroking them more intentionally until he sighed and released the tension he held there.

Caine swallowed. “Everything,” he echoed with a minute nod of his own. “Everything I have, everything I could borrow or steal.” A tear fell onto my thumb, and that alone—that vulnerability he offered me, to see him cry—was promise enough of what he’d do to protect Taryn. To protect Lin, Brooks.

To protect me.

I swallowed, inching closer. “My last breath,” I whispered against his lips.

“My last drop of blood,” he answered.

I closed the gap then, pressing my lips to his for the first time. Two sharp hisses cut the air, two simultaneous gasps at the heat of the contact. One arm pulled me in by the small of my back while I tangled my fingers in his dark hair. I advanced on him, stepping us back until I had him pressed against that window.

In a way, Caine and I understood each other more than anyone else in the world. More even than the three loves of our lives sleeping down the hall. Our alphas, that deepest piece of our souls meant to guide us, to ground us, to give us strength and purpose, had instead been weaponized against us.

Mine, forced into humiliating submission.

His, trapped into isolating dominance.

As his hands reached for the hem of my (well, Lin’s) shirt, searching for my skin, I realized that we could love each other in a way the others would never be able to. Our hurts could become our healing.

His kisses were fevered, but with a gentleness that made me want to sob. We worked our way toward the couch, Caine sitting down, hands never leaving my waist as I straddled him.

It wouldn’t go further than this, not just yet. That wasn’t what this moment was for. This was a question and an answer, a submission and a claiming.

This was Caine choosing to let himself in from the dark outside. Choosing to step into the warmth, the light that was our unlikely little group.

I pulled away, surprised to see tears shining on his cheeks. I swiped one away with my thumb. “What’re you thinking?” I breathed.

He gave a single shake of his head, eyes wide and awed as though he could hardly believe I was real. “I feel…home…with you. With you both.” He swallowed hard. “From that very first day when you blocked my car in, refused to let me run away from something that could help me.” He breathed in a deep breath. “That was why I stayed. I’d already made an enemy of you both, I thought, but you still fought for me.

“And Taryn…” Fresh tears trailed down his cheek. “I’ve been the burden on my pack for so long. But Tarynneedsme. In her most…most scared and vulnerable moment, sheneededme. And I need someone to need me.”

I finger-combed his hair and dried his tears, so proud of how much emotion spilled from him. This wasn’t pheromones or biology. Even if I never experienced Caine as a sexual being, the love I now realized I held for him withstood that. It was intimacy, true intimacy. An understanding we each had of theother down to our marrows. The same demons, the same tics and nightmares.

“I just…I didn’t know there was anyone else who could be safe for me,” he whispered after a moment. And I understood. Agreed. Their pack didn’t complete ours, or vice versa. I could’ve lived my entire life with Taryn and Taryn alone. And they probably could’ve as well.

I ran my fingers through his hair, dragging my nails lightly along his scalp. “I don’t believe in fated mates, or soulmates, or any of it,” I told him. “Only in people choosing each other. People who…who see each other with such clarity that when they’re not in your life, you feel like a ghost.” I stroked through his locks again. “I’d be a ghost without Taryn. And I’d be a ghost without you.”

Another tear rolled down his face, dropping off the edge of his jaw. With a swift kiss to his cheek, I stood from the couch, grabbing his hand and pulling him along with me. He gave me a questioning look. I simply kissed his knuckles and pulled him through the living space, the kitchen, back toward the room where the rest of our loves slept soundly.

I’d left the door open, and as we approached, Caine halted in the doorway. His face was just as awed as he looked in on Taryn, Lin, and Brooks tucked in together, arms wrapped around torsos and fingers twined. He leaned against the doorframe as though he’d sink to the floor without it.

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