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Returning with haste, food forgotten beside him as it grew cold, Xavier reclaimed his vigil by Quick Mart. He watched Asa, an ache within him for what he could not have—yet.
Asa’s silhouette flitted behind the store’s windows, grace and fragility juxtaposed against the stark, fluorescent lights. Each time the door chimed, signaling another customer’s arrival or departure, Xavier tensed, his protective instincts on a hair-trigger.
The sight of Asa serving others with her inherent kindness was a balm to Xavier’s restless spirit, but not all customers were deserving of such gentleness. A particularly brusque patron raised their voice, gesticulating wildly over some perceived slight. Xavier’s hands clenched around the steering wheel, knuckles whitening. It took every ounce of his self-control not to intervene.
He could imagine striding into the store, imposing and resolute, dismissing the rude customer with a glare that would brook no argument. He could envision scooping Asa up and carrying her away from this place that seemed so unworthy of her. But he remained seated, knowing any such action would only push Asa further away.
Xavier’s thoughts were interrupted by the vibrating of his phone. Lucian’s name flashed on the screen. He tapped to answer.
“Is she okay?” Lucian’s voice was laced with concern.
“Yeah,” Xavier murmured, eyes never leaving the figure inside Quick Mart. “But she shouldn’t be here.”
“I know.” Lucian sighed through the line. “But we can’t force her home. She’ll bolt again.”
Xavier grunted, the sound thick with frustration. “Dom would have her back last week if he was here.”
Lucian chuckled softly. “True. But we both know that’s not what Asa needs.”
Silence settled between them, a tacit agreement hanging in the air.
“She was right under our noses this whole time,” Xavier said finally, a mix of disbelief and sorrow threading his voice.
“Yeah,” Lucian echoed softly. “Right under our noses.”
One year prior, Asa had vanished like mist under the midday sun, leaving behind a chasm in the Davenport household. The brothers—Dominic, Xavier, and Lucian—had been scouring every corner of the city, every trace that could lead them to their missing piece. They’d deployed resources as vast as their empire, yet it was only now that they found her hiding in plain sight.
Xavier’s heart clenched with a cocktail of relief and pain as he watched Asa from his car. The relief was a balm to the ache that had taken residence in his chest since Asa’s disappearance; the pain was the realization of their collective failure to understand her. Xavier recalled Asa’s laughter echoing through the corridors of their expansive home, a sound as vital as air. Without it, their world turned cold and sterile, a monochrome shadow of its former vibrancy.
They wanted—no, needed—Asa back. She was their everything: the softness to their edges, the calm to their storms. In her absence, the world lost its color and warmth; it became a place of sharp angles and relentless gray.
Xavier understood now how their alpha natures might have overwhelmed Asa. Their need to protect and control could be suffocating for someone as delicate as an omega like Asa. It wasn’t just physical strength that marked the divide between them, but it was a fundamental difference in how they engaged with the world. The brothers’ overbearing tendencies were borne from fear—fear of how fragile Asa seemed and fear of a world that could crush such gentleness without thought.
Their bond was unyielding, but Xavier knew it had been too rigid, too inflexible for someone like Asa who moved with grace and fluidity. She craved the freedom to explore her boundaries without being cocooned by their overprotective shadows.
As he watched Asa from afar, Xavier’s resolve hardened. They would have to change; they would have to learn subtlety and restraint. They couldn’t smother Asa with their fears. They had to offer her space to breathe and wings to fly. If given another chance, Xavier promised himself they would do better by Asa. They would be the sanctuary she sought, not the cage she fled.
The digital clock on the dashboard flickered to ten, and Xavier stepped out of the car, his movements precise, purposeful. He inhaled the night air, a blend of city exhaust and the distant aroma of street food, before making his way to Quick Mart’s entrance.
The bell above the door chimed as he entered, a familiar sound in this new routine. The fluorescent lights washed over him, sterile and unforgiving, but they couldn’t dim the vision that greeted him. Asa stood behind the counter, an ethereal figure clad in mundane attire. The store uniform hung on her slender frame, the name tag bearing Asa a declaration in a sea of anonymity.
Even beneath the brim of a nondescript cap and the veil of a facemask, Asa’s presence commanded attention. Her pale-platinum hair peeked out, strands rebelling against confinement with a whispery softness that seemed to catch what little warmth there was in the light. Her eyes were hidden, yet Xavier knew them well, light blue with that haunting hint of lavender that always seemed to pierce right through him.
Xavier approached the counter, determined to take Asa, their omega wife, home tonight.
* * *
In the shadow-draped opulence of the bedroom, the city’s pulse thrummed faintly through the penthouse windows, its glow a mere backdrop to the celestial vision beneath Xavier. The soft sheen of moonlight cast a silvery glow upon Asa’s alabaster skin, turning her into an otherworldly being amid the silk sheets.
Xavier drank in her beauty—a beauty that had haunted his every waking moment and invaded his dreams during the interminable year she had been absent from their lives. Her hair, a pale cascade, fanned out on the pillow like a halo, each strand catching the light as if woven from the very threads of starlight. Her eyes, closed in blissful surrender, windows to her gentle soul that he longed to lose himself in.
One year. One long, tortuous year without her by his side. Without her gentle touch, her soothing presence, her tender smile that could chase away even the darkest of his moods. He had thrown himself into his work, burying himself in code and circuits, trying to fill the void she had left behind. But nothing could replace her. Nothing could erase the memory of her soft curves pressed against him, the scent of her skin, the sound of her voice when she sang and her laughter when she found something amusing.
Now, with her beneath him, Xavier felt a rush of emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. Love, desire, possessiveness, relief—they all swirled together in a heady mix that set his blood on fire.
His gaze traced the contours of her face, following the delicate arch of her brows and lingering on the soft fullness of her lips. He remembered how they parted in silent invitation or curved into a smile that could brighten his darkest thoughts. Those lips—how he’d yearned to taste them again, to feel their tender pressure against his own.
He leaned down, capturing her lips in a scorching kiss. Their tongues intertwined in an intimate dance as Xavier deepened the kiss, savoring her like one would savor a fine wine after an arid season. The sweet warmth of her mouth rekindled a fire within him that he thought had been doused by her absence. With each tender swipe and delicate caress of their tongues, he reclaimed what he feared lost—her.
