43. Kyrian

43

She said yes, and since we're all fucking idiots, we tried to suffocate her instantly. I'm the first to pull back, give her some space, and then I realize she's speaking to us.

"Come again?" I prompt.

"Would you like to meet my brother?" she says. "Or is this a bad time?"

"It's perfect," Roman says, "right, guys?"

We all nod, and truth is, I'm curious to meet another member of her family.

She's still kind of nervous, glancing back at me as we mount the steps. "Shit," she mutters, "this is probably a bad idea. I should have let you get back to work. Hell, I should have gone to work, I?—"

"Brin." Archer lays a hand on her arm, careful not to seem overpowering. "We want to meet your family and friends. We want to see all sides of you because we can't get enough of you."

She snickers softly, but nods. "Okay. Sorry. I don't know what I'm doing, honestly."

"That's fine," Roman says. "Who does? We all make it up as we go along."

"Except for our feelings," I say. "You can't make up feelings. Those are deep and real."

Her smile becomes more real, too, reaching her eyes, so I know I've said the right thing.

It happens to idiots like me sometimes, too.

"Will they let us all inside?" I ask. "We're not even family. Not yet, anyway."

"He must be done with the chemo," Brinlee explains. "He usually doesn't stay very long after that, maybe an hour. Lately, he's been handling the nausea much better."

Nausea. Chemo. Fuck.

We wend our way through the hospital and enter a sterile waiting room where several painfully thin and pale people are seated, reading magazines or dozing.

She makes a beeline for one of them, a young man with a black bandana tied around his head and big dark eyes, like hers. "Ty! Hey."

"Brin?" He blinks. "You left not half an hour ago. Am I hallucinating?"

"Nope. I brought some people I want you to meet."

"Okay?" He looks confused. He struggles to get up, and she plops down in the plastic chair beside him, putting a hand on his arm, keeping him seated. "Who are they? Debt collectors?"

"Do they look like debt collectors?"

He tilts his head to the side, smiling. "That would be the best-looking group of debt collectors I've ever seen, I'll admit."

"This is…" She licks her lips nervously. "This is my pack. Hopefully."

His smile widens. "Is it? Hi, guys."

"Hi, Tyson." I extend my hand for him to shake. His grip is weak. Then again, he's sick. "I'm Kyrian, and those three behind me are Archer, Roman, and Sawyer."

"A pleasure," Sawyer says, so polite when he's not cursing like a sailor.

Roman and Archer nod in greeting.

"A pack, huh?" Letting go of my hand he elbows her in the ribs. "When did that happen, sis, between work and taking care of me? Are you a time jumper?"

"I have a book about that to give her," Sawyer says.

Tyson grins at him. "Fellow booklover, huh?"

"We all are," Roman says.

I grunt, not included in that group.

"Well, good for you, sis." His smile turns softer. "You take care of my sister, you hear me? She's an angel come to earth."

I think I'm gonna like this guy.

"So tell me, are you guys twins?" Roman asks, and they both laugh. Their laugh sounds eerily similar. And he looks a lot like her. But…

"Nope. I'm younger," he says, "by two years."

"He was still tiny when they separated us," Brinlee whispers, and the look she shoots her brother is bittersweet. "He was my little boy."

"She was like a mom to me after our parents left," he explains. "But I'm a big boy now, Brin. Stop worrying about me."

"Yeah, sure, because this…" She gestures at the hospital walls around me. "This wouldn't make anyone worry, right?"

He chuckles. "Okay, good point. But I'm better now. I will be fine."

"Promise?"

"Pinky swear. Now go be with this amazing pack of yours. You deserve to be happy, sis."

"What about you?"

"Nico will come pick me up. He promised." Tyson nods at us. "That would be my foster brother-in-arms."

"Gotcha." I nod at my pack. "Shall we, then? We do eventually have to work. The big boss will have a fit. We're already late."

Seeing Brinlee dancing inside that cage like some sort of sexy nightingale is doing things to me. Dressed in hot sequined shorts, a tiny top, and high heels, she sways and climbs the bars of the cage as the dancing crowd goes wild.

She looks… happy. In her element.

I grin, my chest tight.

Sawyer is at the bar, sipping a drink, Roman smiling at him. Archer is watching us all from the back of the bar.

My pack.

We need to celebrate. We need time together, at home, to get to know each other better. Explore each other.

Just the thought gets me hard.

The bar is pretty full tonight. I've never seen the crowd so excited about a dancer. Brinlee really fires them up. The big boss will be pleased.

It's much later, when I'm taking a so-called "cigarette break," that Archer gestures at me from the back of the bar. I amble over, weaving my way through the dancers. He's waiting for me at the open door of his office, hands in his pant pockets.

"There is something else we need to discuss," he says, nodding for me to enter.

"There's a lot we need to discuss. What's this about?"

He closes the door behind me and turns to face me. "The bomb you just dropped while talking to Brinlee."

"Bomb?"

"That you can't read, Ky."

My stomach churns. "Damn. That slipped out. I was gonna find a better way to break it to you. I thought only Sawyer had noticed?—"

"He noticed?"

"Yeah, and I promised him I was going to tell you about it, in case… you know."

"In case what, Ky?"

I shrug, pretending indifference. "In case you were disappointed in me. I've been a disappointment to many people in my life."

His blue eyes narrow. "Dammit, Ky. You're a fucking amazing mate. What did you think we'd do, kick you out?"

I shrug again, helplessly. "I would have understood."

"Fucker. Jesus." He comes and grabs my shoulders, shakes me. "Never. How can I get it through the thick skull of yours? We'd never give up on you. I thought you got that, with that little speech you gave to Brinlee earlier."

I smile faintly. "I think… I believe it and I don't, you know? You and Roman are the best guys, but I was raised to always expect the boot."

"Not gonna happen," he snarls. "Ever. And of course, we knew already."

"What are you talking about?"

"We knew you can't read. Think you can live with us and we wouldn't put two and two together?"

My breath catches. "But you never mentioned anything!"

"We were hoping you'd eventually trust us enough to tell us yourself. After all… it doesn't matter to us, Ky. But it could matter to you. Learning to read and write would make your life easier. We want you comfortable with us. We want you to do all the things you want. To be happy. And we know you like stories, so we thought… well, we thought that one day you would tell us and we would help you out. If you wanted us to."

I'm staring at him. Archer isn't prone to giving speeches, either. "Gotcha," I finally say.

But he shakes me a bit more. "Do you? Do you know how much we fucking love you? How much you mean to us? What lengths we'd go to, to make you happy?"

In reply, I grab his face and kiss him.

It's rough and savage, as it often is between two alphas fighting for dominance. It's not always like that between us, but I bite at his lips and dig my fingers into his cheeks because I fucking need it. I need to feel him, make him react, make him jerk.

Prod him. Push him.

And he pushes right back, biting and kissing, fucking my mouth with his tongue, hauling me against his hard body, against his hard cock.

Oh, yeah.

The slight sting of pain, the power in his arms, the strength matching mine, it soothes me. Calms me down, even as it excites my dick.

When we finally part, we're both breathing hard. Archer's eyes are shining.

I chuckle. "You liked this."

He licks blood off his lips. Grins at me. "As much as you did. Feeling better now?"

I nod.

"Good. Never doubt us again, hear me?" He grips my cheek, smooths his thumb over my cheekbone. "Now get outta here. We can pick up where we left off later."

And with that promise ringing in my ears, I head back to my station by the entrance of the bar, grinning so hard my cheeks hurt.

This isn't going to be an easy ride, I think as the night wears on and the crowd starts to thin. We've overcome a lot of hurdles already, but the financial issues are going to be a bitch to sort out.

With Sawyer's and Brinlee's debts, I guess the trip we were planning to the Bahamas is out. I grin to myself. Never cared much about going there anyway.

This is so much more important.

I'm a sarcastic motherfucker, but listen… I know, better than most, how essential family is. Maybe because I never had it until now. Money counts too, don't get me wrong. Money is important to ensure a good quality of life, but between living comfortably and having my pack? No question there. I'll take extra shifts if I have to, ask Zayne at the gym if he has any jobs for me.

We'll figure it out. After everything, I have faith in us. More faith than ever.

But something catches my attention as I scan the crowd, something happening at the bar. There's Roman with his shaker, making fancy cocktails, and there's Sawyer… and four big guys hovering behind him.

What in the actual fuck?

I'm already striding toward him, before my brain fully catches up, and I'm not even sure if it's more a protective or a possessive instinct that's guiding my steps.

I'd say it's both.

He's with us. Those men had better back the hell off before I rip them to shreds. And fuck, as I make my way to him, I notice more men turning their heads to look at him, nostrils flaring.

The hell? Is there something in the air? Apart from the four alphas sniffing Sawyer—because they're very obviously alphas, towering over most of the crowd—another four are slowly approaching.

What the fuck, Sawyer?

As I approach him, a scent tickles my senses. I take a deliberate sniff and choke on sugar. Marshmallows, I think, slow-roasted over a smoking fire, and sweet wine with clover and cinnamon. It speaks to me, speaks right to my dick, in fact, and in two seconds flat I'm fully hard.

No, not just hard: my knot is inflating. It's such a weird, unusual feeling. I can count on one hand the number of times my knot has inflated over the years, and never so suddenly.

Never so quickly.

It stops me in my tracks. I see Archer coming out of his office, a puzzled look on his face to match my own. Roman is staring at me. He gestures to ask, What's going on?

But it takes a long, too long moment for my confused brain to catch on to what's happening.

Sawyer is going into heat.