Page 57 of A Pack of Pumpkins
Jack heads straight inside, but I grab the lapels of Victor’s jacket and slam him back against the wall.
“What the fuck happened?” I snarl. He’d called to say Clara was “fine” but in the hospital, nothing else. I’d been too busy panicking to demand answers then. But now? Now that I see him looking guilty as hell, my alpha rage has nowhere else to go.
Victor doesn’t fight me. He just hangs there, limp in my grip, eyes avoiding mine.
“She has asthma,” he says, so low I have to strain to hear.
Asthma. The way she always cringed from his cigarettes. It wasn’t just about the scent or the general health hazard. They werehurtingher. Not in some slow, distant way. Immediately.
I let him go, stepping back before I do something that can’t be undone. “But… she never used an inhaler. I never saw—”
“She was hiding it,” he cuts in.
And that makes far too much sense. Clara had been trying so damn hard with Victor. She’d once told me she’d hate to be treated differently, like when she’d been helping Cali through her pregnancy. She wouldn’t have wanted Victorto change the way he acted toward her because of something like that. She'd been trying to get him to come to her naturally. On his own.
“Bram, I’m so—”
My growl rips through the hallway, loud enough that he flinches back into the wall. “I don’t want to hear how sorry you are. I get why you’re afraid of bonding an omega. I get it. But your hang-ups just riskedour omega’slife.Youromega’s life. Your refusal to get close to her, to even talk to her, made it impossible for her to tell you your smoking was killing her. And what would you have done if she had? Laughed? Told her to deal with it?”
My hands are fists, the urge to smash them into his face dangerously close to winning. I take another step back. “Go home. We don’t need you here.”
His expression twists, stricken, but I turn away.
When I step into the room, Jack’s holding Clara’s hand while Dagan sits beside her on the bed, gently running his fingers through her hair. She’s pale, her hair limp, her lips still lacking color. My heart squeezes, and I draw a deep breath to keep myself together.
My little Ghost came far too close to becoming a real one today.
Jack
We’vebeenhomeforthree days, and Clara has hardly left her room. I don’t think it’s just the asthma attack. Though that would’ve been enough on its own. It’s the anger and hurt Victor caused. Hurt we allowed to happen by not kicking his ass to the curb the moment he stepped out of line with her.
We tried to throw him out after the hospital. Bram tried to put his foot down, but Clara stopped him. She growled at him. Actually growled. And then burst into tears and apologized, explaining that she just couldn’t. I understood. Our instincts make us do insane, out-of-character things sometimes.
Still… I was impressed. It’s rare for an omega to growl, but when they do, it overtakes even the most dominant alpha. Clara’s always been rare and impressive.
So Victor stayed. No one’s spoken to him. No one’s looked at him. In practice, we’ve all pretended he moved out. Even Clara, despite her unwillingness to actually kick him out. I expected Victor to push back, to stir things up, but instead he’s been… quiet.
For his part, I’ve never seen an alpha look more wrecked. The first morning after she came home, he was already in the kitchen. Without a word, he started pulling out the things for her breakfast alongside me. I have no idea how he knew what she liked. He didn’t dare suggest taking it up to her and didn’t argue when I did. Instead, he sat at the bottom of the omega suite stairs all morning, like he was waiting for something he knew might never come.
So it’s a surprise when she comes padding down the stairs now. She looks beautiful. Healthier than I’ve seen her since the attack. Her eyes lock with mine, and I’m moving before I even register it. I wrap my arms around her, pulling her into a swift embrace, breathing her in.
“It smells so good,” she sighs, and I smile. I’d made a breakfast quiche I’d planned to bring up to her.
“How are you feeling, Apple?” I brush a stray strand of hair from her face, my thumb lingering to caress the soft curve of her cheek.
Her eyes flutter closed, and she turns into my palm, letting out the smallest hum. “Better. I think I’m going to go to work today.”
I rub her back in slow, even strokes. “If you enjoy working, I fully support it but we, as a pack, are financially solvent. If you wanted to focus on your writing instead…”
Her eyes widen, and her scent shifts, sweet with a faint sour edge of worry.
“It’s totally up to you,” I assure her quickly. “I just wanted to make sure you know it’s an option.”
“But the others—”
“We’ve all discussed it,” I cut in gently. Well… all of us that matter right now,I think savagely.
She nods, considering it.
