Chapter Four

Desie

"She wouldn"t have been in danger in the first place if we didn"t have to come here for you. None of these kids would have been in danger. Talia wouldn"t have to have the baby thousands of miles from home if we didn"t come here. And now this." Jasper spits, gesturing toward Iris and the two boys on the couch.

Seth looks at the floor. That"s it. I've had enough. I"m done with Jasper and his antagonistic behavior. I put myself in front of Seth, blocking Jasper"s line of vision. "I"ve had about enough of you. Everyone has been so worried about you and how you feel for so long that nothing and no one else seems to matter. You are so spoiled, Jasper. Seth has lost parts of himself for you and your pack. Mental and emotional pieces, gone. Literal, physical chunks missing. For you specifically. What will it cost? How much more will he have to pay? How much does he need to suffer for you?"

Silence falls around us like ashes.

Finally, Jasper licks across his bottom lip. "What do you mean? He"s been in counseling to help with his apparent trauma."

"If you ever roll your eyes about what he"s gone through and what he deals with every moment of his life again, I will knock you out myself. Do I make myself clear? We have to fight for every single minute with him, Jasper. He has to fight against himself just to be able to touch me. Your alphas can be with you whenever you need them with no trouble. Mine can"t. We have to work so hard for everything. You"re not allowed to lessen us just because you don"t understand and you don"t know everything and you want to throw a tantrum."

I watch delayed realization flicker in his eyes as he moves them from me to Seth to Devon. "What do you mean, physical chunks missing for me?"

"Desir"ee," Seth starts, but I cover his mouth with my hand and kiss his forehead. "You"ve done your part, Seth. You protected him. You protected Talia. This has gone on long enough."

Michael and Ben step behind the chair Seth is hunched in. Michael crosses his arms, anticipation bouncing down our bond. We don"t need another fight right now, we really don"t. But he"s ready for one. I reach out and press my palm against his chest. "It"s alright. Jasper needs to know, and he"s going to listen. His alphas need to know if they don"t already. It"s time."

Seth catches my wrist and he pulls it against his mouth to whisper. "His story isn"t mine to tell."

"No," I say. "You"re right. It isn"t. But everything else needs to be in the open. Let me do this for you."

He brushes a kiss against the inside of my wrist and nods.

I square my shoulders and turn to face Jasper and his pack. Part of them have to know at least some of the details by now and I don"t understand why they wouldn"t have told Jasper. If he knew what Seth allowed to happen to himself and what he put himself through to protect him, he"d have a different attitude. That"s the only excuse I can come up with to explain away this vitriol.

"The rogues that took Seth had him for weeks and weeks. They took his fingers, one little piece at a time, because he wouldn"t tell them about you. They forced him to listen to the horrible things they were doing to the omegas they were holding. For weeks. Then they took his eye when he refused to talk to them about Talia. He lost whole parts of himself in a very painful and visible way to protect you and your pack."

Jasper"s mouth tightens as he looks back at Seth. "What did they want to know about Talia?"

Seth shakes his head. "Everything," he whispers.

"Everything?" Jasper asks.

Seth holds his gaze for a long moment, his shoulders slumping even further. "They asked for details about…" he trails off, his eyes flicking away from Jasper. "They were looking for details that would prove that she was an omega."

Jasper looks down at the table, nodding slowly. "How much do you know about me?"

Seth stares at the table too. "Enough. Too much. I"ve never told anyone anything."

Jasper"s eyes shoot to mine and I shake my head. "He didn"t tell us. And we didn"t ask him to. It"s your business."

"You know...about my family? How?" Jasper"s eyes are all for Seth now.

Seth sighs and tries to rub at the back of his neck but he winces and lowers his hand back down to his lap. "My dad kept files. I was a nosy asshole. I wasn"t looking for your file. It was just laying there and I saw it and flipped through it. I never said a word to anyone. Not Jay or Derek. Nobody."

Jasper takes a breath and looks back at Devon. "Do you know?"

"Not everything," Devon purrs. "Just a couple things that my father told me about just to be able to look out for anomalies, to be prepared. I"ve never seen your file."

Jasper nods. "I need a minute." Then he walks out of the kitchen and down the hall to Michael"s room.

Devon grinds his teeth and rolls his shoulders, but he"s calm. "What do you know about my omega that I don"t, Pratchett?"

"No," I say. "Absolutely not. I won"t let Jasper be awful to him anymore, and I"m not letting you be awful either. If Jasper wants to tell you about whatever he"s got in his file, that"s up to him. But you"re not going to push Seth into telling you. None of you are. I won"t allow it."

Nobody says a word until Nathan marches over and startles Seth with a gentle hug. "I'm sorry. That probably hurt. I don"t know what"s in Jasper's file, and I can only guess what they wanted to know about Talia, but thank you for not telling them anything. Thank you so much."

Jasper really did only take just a minute. He comes back to the kitchen with hard, distant eyes and looks at Seth for a moment. "I don't know what to say right now, but I think I need to go back to our place to think for a while. I wasn't aware that your father had access to my file. I appreciate you keeping things to yourself."

Kaleb gets his pack into their van and we are finally blessed with everyone"s absence. I understand why it took so long for everyone and everything to get sorted, I do, but I am exhausted. After cooking all day and the terrible events of the afternoon, I"m just a little past needing my home to myself. All traces of blood and mess are gone from the kitchen and the only thing left to do is put Seth to bed. Because that"s where his stubborn, freckled self needs to be, not sitting rigidly on the edge of a chair at the table arguing with Michael about which bed he"s going to be put into.

"Executive decision," I announce. "Seth, you know what sleeping in a bed with Ben and me is like. Arms and legs everywhere and clinging to you. You"re going to sleep in my bed. Alone. You need the room."

His shoulders drop, as well as the corners of his mouth. "I don"t want to be alone. Not after today," he says quietly.

Michael and I exchange a look and he nods. "I"ll stay with you. We"ve got travel cots. I"m used to sleeping wherever."

"That works," I nod, smiling my thanks. Being alone probably would have bothered Seth very much, but he needs the space for his body to heal, just for tonight. He won"t feel up to running any marathons or anything like that for another week, but that"s okay. I"ve had pretty much all the action I can stand for the time being.

Seth lets Michael and Ben help him stand, his face drawn and pinched, and leans heavily on Michael down the hallway. I"m glad that he"s letting himself depend on us, but it makes me think about all the time before he came to us when he was alone. Working through his horrible injuries and many hurts by himself. He says Talia and her pack supported him, and I believe it. Support is better than nothing, but alone is alone. Our Seth has been alone far too much for far too long.

I follow them down the hall so I can see for myself that Seth gets tucked in at my lofty standards. I would love to lay next to him in bed and fall asleep with his scent surrounding me, but he"s got enough stitches and bruising to make me nervous.

"I"m going to go grab the cot," Michael says after he helps Seth onto the bed. He pauses on his way out the door to pull me into his side and run his lips across my temple, then leaves me looking down at Seth with my hands on my hips.

"We should have gotten your jeans off before you got into bed."

Seth closes his eye and rests his head back on the pillows, sighing. "I can sleep with them on. I might not make it if I have to roll around to get my clothes off."

"Absolutely not," I fuss. "They"re too constricting and the waistband might pull at the stitches. You won"t have to roll around. I"m a nurse, remember? I have tricks. Just let me do it."

The fact that he lets me do it without helping too much lets me know exactly how much pain he"s in. The bullet might have missed organs, but it still did enough damage for him to passively allow me to maneuver his jeans down his long legs without a single breath of argument.

"I"m glad you"re wearing loose ones," I smile, running a finger along the hem of one leg of the plaid boxers he"s wearing.

He gives me a tight nod in response.

"Do you need more pain meds?"

He shakes his head.

"Okay. Do you want your feet tucked in?"

He opens his eye and one corner of his mouth turns up. "I don"t think so."

I pull the sheet up over him and tug the bottom free so that it"s loose over his feet, then I cover him with one of my favorite thin blankets. "Do you need anything else?"

He nods and lifts his hand, reaching for me.

I smile and go to him, being careful not to jostle him when I lean down to kiss him. "Today scared me."

"It scared me, too. I was scared to death about Iris."

I take a breath before I respond. Yes, the possibility of Iris being missing was horrible. We all felt the terror of it. But that wasn"t what I was talking about. "I"m so glad the boys ran with her. She wasn"t really the target though. No more than Rose was."

A truly puzzled look crosses his face. "What do you mean?"

"You. Us. We were the target. Those rogues came to hurt us. Grabbing Iris wasn"t their primary goal. If their aim would have been just a little better, or you were just that much slower, you would have bled out and we would have lost you. We need that rogue to tell us everything. I know Elijah isn"t behind this." I don"t miss the way his eye tightens when I say Elijah"s name, but I can"t do anything about that. Elijah isn"t the horrible monster they think he is. Well, he isn"t that bad. He"s going to make up for a lot of the things he"s done. He just needs time.

"I"m not important enough to shoot, Desir"ee," Seth sighs.

Michael scoffs as he trudges back into the room with the cot, a sleeping bag, and a pillow. "Right. You"re just an East Coast councilman, who claimed the omega that the head of the Western rogue operation wanted for himself, who also actively interrogated that same head of the rogue operation and had a part in his death and disappearance, not to mention having the ear and respect of the head of the entire WCC. Not important at all." He rolls his eyes and starts making his place on the floor.

Seth chooses to ignore his importance and complains about where Michael will sleep instead. "I don"t want you to sleep on the floor."

"Well, I can"t sleep with you," Michael smirks. "You"re way too fragile and delicate to cuddle up with me. Maybe tomorrow we can spoon."

"We"ll see," I say. "I"m kissing you both goodnight and turning off the lights."

I carefully bend over Seth again to give him soft kisses and brush my nose against his, slipping his eyepatch off when I pull away and placing it on the nightstand. Then I let Michael pull me into his arms so he can give me a few more thorough kisses that leave me flushed and warm.

Ben is sprawled all over his bed when I find him in his room. He found my favorite blankets and put them in the bed, as well as one of the pillows from our nest. Thinking about not sleeping in our nest makes my heart heavy. It must show on my face because he pulls me onto the bed and rolls on top of me, pressing his forehead against mine."What"s the matter, baby?"

"I know it"s just for a few nights, but I"ll miss sleeping in our nest."

It"s probably really irregular for an omega to maintain a nest as long as I have, but I don"t care. It feels right. And Seth needs it. He"s probably going to have fitful sleep until we"re able to sleep together in the nest again. We probably all will.

"We can sleep in the nest if you want to," Ben offers, letting his gaze glide around his room. We haven"t really spent all that much time in his or Michael"s individual bedrooms since my last heat. I"m not sure why he decided to sleep in here tonight. "Do you want to?"

The thing is, I do want to sleep in our nest. I love the comfort and scent of it. But Ben wouldn"t have brought us in this room if it wasn"t something he needed. "We can sleep in here."