Page 81 of Pack Frenzy
I dry my hands, then hold one out. “Why picture it when I can show you?”
She blinks, thumb still hooked in the paperback, then slides it onto the counter, face-down on a clean dish towel like it’s precious. She slips her fingers into mine. The kind of touch that asks a question and answers it at the same time.
“You sure?” She teases playfully.
“Entirely.”
I guide her into the open patch of floor in the kitchen in front of the stove. The song settles into a steady rhythm—enough to move to without thinking. My palm finds the small of her back, and I keep a respectable distance, even though I want to pull her flush against me, feel every curve, learn how her hips move when there’s no fabric between us. Want to show her that gentle doesn’t mean lukewarm, that I can make her feel just as desired as Cassian’s fire or Rowan’s intensity—just with a different kind of heat. The patient kind. The kind that pays attention.
“Where’d you learn?” she asks quietly as we sway into a turn.
“Dragged to cotillions. My mother believed posture could save nations.” I angle us around one of the chairs at the end of the table. “Once I stopped wanting to die, I figured out it was just pattern recognition. Like people. Steps, signals, the way a shoulder lifts before a turn.”
She glances up at me then, smiling with her eyes more than her mouth. “You read rooms the way other people read books.”
I shrug, not apologizing for it. “With Rowan and Cassian, if I don’t look for the currents, I miss the rip tide. Like I did with Blake.”
Her fingers tighten, just a little, where our hands are linked.
“Ah, Rowan told you. Thought so.” I pull her closer, inhaling her scent as the vanilla is brightened by the quiet citrus when she’s feeling too much. “What he probably didn’t tell you was that Blake tolerated me for both Cassian and Rowan’s sakes. But I let it slide when I shouldn’t have. Once, he went into a rage because a spec of glitter from one of Meredith’s evening dresses somehow got on his cheek. When I teased him about it, I thought he was going to rip my head off. He left for two hours after that, and part of me hoped he stayed away. I should’ve known then.”
“You can’t blame yourself.”
“Can’t I?” The words come out sharper than I mean them to. I turn us through another measure, buying time to get my voice under control. “I read people, Jess. It’s what I do. I catch the tells, the micro-expressions, the shifts in body language that everyone else misses. And I missedthat. Missed that he was dangerous. Missed that his charm was a mask.”
Her hand tightens on my shoulder. “Eli?—”
“He was worse with me than with them,” I continue, because now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop. “Blake knew I was the one watching, the threat to whatever he was building toward. So he played it perfectly—laughed at my jokes, asked my opinion, made me feel included when I knew damn well most Alphas barely tolerate Betas in packs.”
The memory tastes sour. “That glitter incident? I laughed it off. Told myself everyone has bad days, stress… all excuses I wrapped him in because I wanted to believe we’d finally found someone who got it. Who understood that Meredith loving all of us wasn’t dilution, it was multiplication.”
We turn, and Jess follows the lead without missing a beat.
“By the time I realized he was isolating her—little comments about how she should rest more, skip events, stay home—it was too late. I brought it up once to Blake, thinking I could get him tostop. He said I was being paranoid. That he cared about her, that I needed to trust the process.” My jaw clenches. “So I backed off. And she died.”
Jess stops moving. Just stops, right there in the middle of the kitchen, and looks up at me with something fierce in her eyes. “You didn’t kill her. He did.”
“I know that.” The words feel true and hollow at the same time. “Doesn’t change that I should’ve pushed harder. Should’ve trusted my instincts instead of second-guessing myself because I’m ‘just’ a Beta and what do I know about Alphas?”
“You know everything,” she says quietly. “You see everything. That’s why they need you.”
Something in my chest loosens. Not forgiveness—I’m not there yet, might never be—but space. Room to breathe around the guilt instead of drowning in it.
I swallow. Part of me wants to dodge it, turn it into a joke the way I always do. But I let the truth stand instead. “You’re allowed to take up space here. That includes joy. That includes wanting things. That includes—” I gesture between us. “This. Whatever this is.”
Another song comes on the radio, slower, and we keep dancing.
We turn through another slow measure. Her breathing evens against my chest. She’s lighter than she looks, or maybe she just lets me carry more of the moment than I expect. I don’t lead with pressure; I lead with a suggestion and see what she does with it. She tests me a little, spins when I don’t indicate one, and I catch her back easily, hand steady at her waist. It makes her laugh under her breath, a private sound. We’re close enough that I can feel it in my sternum.
“You’re trouble,” I say, but I’m smiling.
“Only when I want to be.” She’s grinning now, pleased with herself. “You didn’t expect that.”
“I expected exactly that. I just wanted to see if you’d do it.”
Her eyes narrow playfully. “Are you saying you let me test you?”
“I’m saying I like it when you do.” I turn us again, this time adding a small dip that makes her grip my shoulder tighter. “I like that you’re not performing. That you’re just…here. Being you.”
