Page 101 of Running on Empty

I’d never been to see a shrink. With all the bullshit going on with my brothers, my mate, maybe I should’ve, but right now I felt like I was getting a sneak peek of what that might be like. Archer stared at me steadily and when he did, his brothers followed his lead, waiting for my answer.

“But she’s… She’s sleeping all day, is barely awake and she’s…” My throat felt like it was closing up so I tried to swallow a mouthful of beer, but that just made it worse, the bitter liquid seeping through a constricted space. “She’s hurting and I don’t know what the fuck to do to make her better.”

“You can’t.”

Usually when a bunch of Aussie blokes sat down for a beer, it was an exercise in shit talking and bravado, each bloke trying to top the others. But not now. The mask of alpha competence seemed to fracture on Lock’s face, revealing a reflection of the feelings raging inside me. Pain, both self-inflicted and reflected, along with a toxic mixture of guilt and regret.

“You want to be the big man, be the alpha she deserves. You’ve got that on me, took me far too long to realise it. But whether you were the one that hurt her or that fuck Jack Spencer was, the results are the same. You’ve just gotta be there, day after day, be a witness to her healing process, so you can be a part of it when she’s ready.” He nodded then. “When she’s ready. I can’t tell you when or if that will happen, just that you can’t lose hope in the meantime. Don’t try and rush the process, because this can’t happen on your timeline.”

He reached over then, the whole stables curiously quiet as he gave my forearm a squeeze, his hand there and gone again seconds later.

“So you were listening to me.”

We all turned around to see Charlie standing there, hands on her hips, the small smile on her face making clear how she was responding to Lock’s admission.

“Always.” He reached out, drawing the omega closer and then tucking her into his side, turning to cradle her against his chest. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I listened to every fucking thing you said, even back at school. Why else do you think I was such a little cunt? Deep down I knew I wasn’t worthy of you, Charlie York, and that made me so freaking pissed. Now I just wake up every day trying to live up to your expectations, hoping I don’t fuck it up.”

She moved then, losing the professional cool I’d always seen her display, my heart leaping as I saw her become an omega clinging to her alpha. It was tempting to see her as weak, but instead, it was something else.

He needed her just as much as needed him. No, more, I realised, thinking about my own experiences. Stevie got some kind of satisfaction from the moments she did wake up, when she clung to me, feeling safe enough to delve back down into sleep, into healing, while I was watching over her. I nodded to each of the Murphy pack, leaving my beer can behind, but it felt like a whole lot of other things were left with it. It seemed to only take a few steps for me to make it back to the cottage, and this time I was the one giving the orders.

“Strip down to your jocks,” I told them.

“What? Why—?” Ash started to say.

“Just fucking do it,” I said, feeling so bloody tired. “If we’re gonna be a pack, then you’re gonna keep us safe, and Ronan will slay our enemies, but me? I’m going to be the one that puts us all back together afterwards.” I frowned slightly. “Though we actually have to achieve some kind of cohesiveness first.”

Ronan nodded, something I was secretly pleased by, his shirt ripped up and over his head.

“We’re gonna go in that room. We’re gonna curl around our omega and we’re gonna give her all the time, space and attention she needs and right now, that means helping her sleep whatever this is off, OK?” I said.

I didn’t expect Ash to agree. He always wanted to be the alpha of alphas, pushing everyone where he needed us to be, but when he nodded as well, I felt a great rush of satisfaction. I shoved that to one side though, following my own orders as I stripped down myself.

The three of us walked into Stevie’s room in just our undies, Ollie looking up for a second from where he had snuggled down next to our girl on the bed, the three of us doing the same, more or less. It took some moving and shifting, hissed negotiations for space, but when Stevie’s head rose up, her eyes still closed, we all went perfectly still, not willing to wake her. Ollie let out a sigh when we finally settled and that’s when I felt it.

We were a pack. One that had a fucked up history, full of good intentions but subpar implementation, though we could improve. That was the thing about what Lock had said, that gave me hope. Every day we could choose Stevie and every day we could get better and better at loving her and make sure she knew that.

Chapter59

“Oi, omega, it’s past time you got up.”

I blinked and blinked, my vision all gluey and smeared, my eyeballs feeling like they were grating against my sockets. But that imperious feminine voice, it wasn’t to be denied, so when I finally could see properly, I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Scarlett standing before me.

Except she was in my bedroom and I was naked under the quilt, the bedclothes kept tamped down by my pack mates.

“What…?”

My voice was rusty and cracked with disuse. I frowned at that, coughed as I tried to clear my throat, and then a water bottle was handed to me. I took it from her, watching Scarlett smile as I drank it all down in a few big gulps.

“What are you doing here?” I asked finally, squeezing the words out between gulps.

“I’m enlisting you as a stable hand,” she said with a flourish of her hands, drawing attention to her high boots, beige jodhpurs and flowing white shirt, laced up at the neck like a pirate’s might be. She tapped her crop against her thigh and then winked at me. “You’re going to come and help me with some horses.”

“No…”

I flopped back onto the bed, the softness close enough to a nest at a push, and when I snuggled back down, arms went out, tugging me closer, the warmth, the heat of their bodies soothing the ache in mine. I wanted that, the hot, black nothingness, it feeling like a balm on my soul as—

“I wasn’t asking.”

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