Escaping Death

Dean

“That’s it? Just like that?” Hunter is incredulous. “We don’t get a say? She doesn’t get a say?” By now his volume has risen such that he’s shouting.

There’s a heavy cloud of regret that descends like a fog around Ace and it weighs on him heavily. But I can’t say exactly what he feels regretful for.

Is it regret that he put Solana in this position or that he’s not giving her a choice in any of this? Regret that Eli and Hunter couldn’t have their fated mates? Maybe it’s regret that of all people she is his mate considering she was engaged to Hunter and was set to bear his mark.

“It’s the right thing to do and you know it,” Ace says coolly. “I won’t let her fly off with our baby to live alone in Shadowmoon’s ruins.”

“And if it’s my baby she’s carrying?” Hunter is beside himself feeling like the closer he gets to her the faster she slips through his fingers. “Does that make her mine to claim?”

“This,” Ace gestures around our circle, “this is exactly why I wanted to wait until she was gone before I told you she’s my mate. You are my pack mates, you are my family. She never wanted to be here and I never wanted her to be what drove a wedge between us.”

The pack silently takes in Ace’s words. That’s the heart of the issue right there. Ace won’t accept her unless we do. She’d have to become pack. She’d belong with us — all of us. And that hinges on so many factors aligning perfectly.

Ace would have to fight his mate bond to allow us to accept her, Hunter would have to cope with her being Ace’s mate and then we’d all have to accept her into the pack. And that all depends on whether or not any of that is what she wants.

“May I please be excused?” Eli grits out, his jaw is clenched so tightly I’m impressed he hasn’t cracked a molar.

I manage to keep him from hyperventilating but the parallels between this situation with Ace, Hunter, and Solana and that of him and his fated mate are drowning him in painful memories.

Ace dips his head down once granting Eli permission to leave and in the next blink Eli is gone, already halfway up the stairs.

Emotions are all over the place but without my gift you’d never know it. The remaining four of us sit in silence mulling over the new situation we’re facing. Hunter is oscillating between hope and despair. He wants so badly to have Solana in his life, to father her children, to get back what was stolen. But Ace is Alpha, Ace is Solana’s mate, and Ace could just as likely be the father of her child if she even is pregnant.

Ace is better at controlling his emotions, he’s always been rather even keeled. But when it comes to Sol he loses that control. Watching her go head to head with him is as entertaining as it gets because of how much she rattles him from his usually calm, cool, collectedness.

And then there’s Tate. He’s feeling resentful, but to be fair that’s pretty much baseline for him. He doesn’t see the problem in letting her live her life on her own, baby or no baby, if that’s what she truly wanted. I think a part of him that he’ll never admit to also envies our lupine brethren for practically being guaranteed a mate.

Someone who loves you unconditionally, who would be pained to be apart from you. I suspect it’s because that’s a love we never got from our mother, and then she was gone. So when Ace acts like this is any ordinary Friday, and that Solana is any ordinary woman, that bothers Tate. Because deep down where he thinks he’s hidden his feelings deeply enough to hide even from me I know he resents those who take that kind of love for granted.

I don’t sense fear of rejection or abandonment from Tate, but that’s not to say it hasn’t affected him. Rather than risk that pain again he simply shuts everyone out. Can’t get hurt if you don’t let anyone get close.

But I think it does just as much damage. And that’s where Tate and I are different.

“Any more questions or can we get back to work?” Ace asks.

I figure it’s now or never. “How is she? Physically, mentally…her first heat, the two of you…”

Ace looks to Hunter like he’s asking for help on how to answer the question. “She didn’t eat much the past few days, but her appetite hit her hard this morning. Other than that I think she’s a little embarrassed.” Hunter says with obvious affection for Solana. “I don’t think any of us have really processed the implications of the last few days, we were just focused on taking care of her.”

If she didn’t eat, then they didn’t eat, and now they’re all running on literal fumes. “The three of you need actual food,” I flip closed the lid to the pizza box to emphasize my point. I excuse myself and head for the kitchen to see what I can make quickly that will have any amount of nutritional value.

— — —

Eli

I race up the stairs tunnel visioned on finding Sol. Her scent has plagued me since I opened the door and I couldn’t bear to partake in the conversations still ongoing downstairs.

She’s not in Ace’s room like I expect her to be, in fact the room looks perfectly untouched. You’d never know that she had gone into a three day heat. I’m surprised at how dismissive Ace can seem when it comes to Sol. I wonder what his bond with her must feel like, because aside from some growls and his need to cover our scents with his, he’s let her have a lot more freedom than most Alphas do with their mates.

I continue my search for Solana and come up empty again when I check mine and Hunter’s room. There’s only one more bedroom she could be in, but when I open the door to Tate’s and Dean’s room all I’m welcomed by is an open window and her backpack sitting conspicuously beneath the window ledge, filled to the seams with her belongings.

Immediately I assume the worst – that she’s taken off never to be seen again. Frost builds between my fingers, icy hot anger running through my veins. I haven’t been this angry since finding my own mate, and just like then I’m mad at everyone. I’m mad at Sol for fleeing the moment things get serious, when emotions get involved. I’m pissed at Ace and Hunter for not telling us sooner what was going on between the three of them. I’m angry at how easily Ace fights his bond with her, making it look painless when she’s in someone else’s arms. And that fact too makes me upset for Sol, because if I were her mate there’s no way I’d share her…no way I wouldn’t fight for her.

My anger abates as soon as I catch her delicious Vetiver scent wafting in through the window. I poke my head outside and find her sitting on the roof, sitting in the notch worn into the shingles from the number of times Tate has crawled out and sat there, and relief crashes through me like a wave breaking on the shore.

“Deciding whether or not to run?” I sit on the window ledge and swing my legs through so I can hop down onto the roof beside her.

“What gave me away?” She responds with a fleeting, forced smile.

“You packed all your things. That usually isn’t a good sign.” I try for levity but my heart is sinking lower and lower into my stomach. “Dare I get my hopes up that you’ve decided to stay?”

She huffs out a humorless laugh and shakes her head at some inner thought.

“I heard your conversation, I heard what Ace said. I got my things, I got out here, stretched my wings and realized…I have nowhere to go. Nowhere I belong.”

I scooch closer to her, her warmth a remedy to my frost. “Do you want to stay here?…to belong here?” I ask cautiously, careful not to meet her eye.

“I want —“ she stops herself briefly, her eyes glossing with unshed tears. “I want to belong somewhere. Full stop. Without qualifiers. Not because, if, or since. I belong in the grove because my mom is queen, Ace will claim me if I’m…” she dips her chin down to her chest allowing the tear to streak down her cheek like a comet.

She wipes it away quickly like she’s swatting away a fly and steels herself, straightening her back so she sits upright, “sorry, I’m being stupid.”

I can’t stand being so close to her physically and yet feeling so far from her emotionally, like she only ever gives us half of the truth — half of herself. Not that I can blame her. I know it’s something I tend to do, give people a little of what’s on the surface but keep anything deeper and more meaningful locked away and protected.

“It’s not stupid to want to be wanted.” I shift once more so I’m sitting behind her with my legs on either side of hers. I nose dive into her neck and inhale her soft scent and she nestles into me resting her head on my chest in turn. “Ironically, it was Ace who told me that when we first met after everything with my mate. What are the chances that he’d end up in the same situation?” I mutter the last part to myself, forgetting for a moment that Solana was listening to me.

“What situation would that be?” She asks softly.

I kiss the top of her head, my lips lingering for a breath longer than necessary. “Both of our mates already belonged to someone else.”