Page 101 of Torment Me Knot
“Aubrey—”
He shifts in Ezra's lap, turning himself to face me more fully, and holds out his hand.
“Come here,” he says. “Come sit with us.”
His slightly crooked fingers are trembling, that baseline tremor that never fully leaves, and they're reaching toward me anyway across the room. Everything in me wants to go to him. That's precisely the problem.
“I don't think that's a good idea.”
“I didn't ask what you think.” His voice is soft but there's iron underneath it. “I asked you to come sit with us. Come here, Sera.”
My name in his mouth. Quiet and certain and using my name like an answer to a question I haven't asked yet. I cross the room.
I sit on the couch beside them, close enough to feel Aubrey’s warmth against my arm. He reaches for my hand, turns it over and traces my knuckles.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Ezra says.
It was the easiest and the hardest thing I’ve done in my life.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I don't move. It buzzes again. Then again. I pull out the phone. Three messages from Levi, timestamps stacked.
LEVI
We have confirmation. The site’s been stationary for three days.
We’ve got a forty-eight-hour window at best before they move.
I might have a match for your missing person.
The next message came with coordinates and a warning to wait for backup.
I was halfway to the door before I finished reading it.
I open the attachment and my stomach drops. Levi thinks the site is connected to Isla Wilson’s disappearance. Omega. Nineteen years old. Blonde hair, green eyes, 5'4”. Missing from Ashvale eight months ago. Last seen leaving her part-time job at a coffee shop, walking toward the bus stop she took every night.
Her mother gripped a cold coffee mug so hard her knuckles went white when she reported her missing daughter.She's only just come back to us properly. After everything that happened at Hearth, she was doing so well. The job was her idea.
Haven shutting down in Canton City had sent shockwaves across the country. New oversight, new intake rules, new paperwork I'd helped draft, convinced it would make a difference. Isla Wilson had walked out of Hearth, Silverpine County's omega sanctuary, and vanished.
I told her mother I wouldn't give up. I never brought her daughter home.
Another message buzzes.
LEVI
S. I know what you're thinking. You have a team. You have me. You also have a pack now and two omegas who are going to feel it if you don't come back. Call me before you move. Doing this alone is not a request.
Aubrey hasn't let go of my hand. His thumb has stopped moving and he's very still, reading the set of my jaw, the way I'm holding my phone, the thing I haven't said yet.
“Don't leave. I need you, Alpha,” Aubrey says. “I… want you.”
Leaving is the kindest thing I know how to do. I’m out of seconds. I ease my fingers out from his and stand. I can’t look at his face. It takes every ounce of willpower I have to step away.
“You are wanted here, Sera. Not for what you do. Just you,” Ezra says.
“We both know this is best.” I duck my head as I cross the floor to the front door. Reach for the handle.
“Please, alpha,” Aubrey whispers.
