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They make me feel significant, with their every move, every word.
“Brinlee,” Archer says, coming to stand in front of me, looking me up and down. “Are you okay?”
“Why the hospital?” Kyrian asks.
“What’s wrong?” Roman says. “Why are you here?”
And then Sawyer elbows them aside, his eyes huge in his pale face. “Are you sick?”
I fight the urge to tell them it’s none of their business—because they made me an offer, because they obviously care, and I’m done pushing them away.
“Are you unwell? Is this what this is about?” Kyrian growls. “Some fatal disease? Say it. Rip off the Band-Aid.”
I swallow. “What if I am?”
“I don’t care,” he snarls. “Join our pack. We’ll have you for as long as fate allows. Better to have you for a short time than none at all.”
His words send a shockwave through me, and I can’t speak. I stare at him. I stare at all four of them. Their expressions are stark, raw, open. They’re all waiting for me to answer that.
I’m not sure I can. I can’t find the words.
Until I finally manage to swallow again and say, “I’m not sick. I’m not here for myself. I was here to… meet somebody.”
“Somebody?” Suspicion glints in Archer’s eyes. “Is that the truth? Who?”
Again, I debate telling them. Trying to put it off, even though I had made up my mind and was about to go find them, tell them just that.
They’re right not to trust me. I didn’t lie to them, but I hid the truth. Isn’t that the same as lying?
Sawyer mutters something, and Roman puts an arm over his shoulders. “Tell him, Brin. He’s been sick with worry. We all have been. Tell him the truth.”
That settles it.
“Sawyer… I’m fine. Guys, I really am okay.” I take a bracing breath. “I’m not here for myself. It’s my brother.”
A small moan escapes Sawyer. God, he’s so pale, bright, feverish spots of color on his cheekbones. He’s the one who looks sick, but Archer crowds my space again.
“What’s the matter with your brother?”
I have to fight the instinctive reaction, the flinch and anger in me. All my life I’ve fought to be independent. It’s a struggle to let them in.
“What Arch meant to say,” Roman says more gently, “is, would you mind telling us what the matter with your brother is?”
I relax a little. Betas are not as brutal as alphas, and I shoot him a grateful look. “He has cancer. Tyson is the one who asked me not to tell anyone that he’s in the hospital, or that he’s sick, but I can’t let you think that I’m not okay.”
“Cancer. Fuck.” Kyrian swears. “And how is he doing?”
“It’s been a long process. The doctors are optimistic. He was in remission, then it came back. He’s been in and out of here. They said this would be his last bout of radiation and chemo, and then… we’ll have to wait.” I have to swallow again, my throat tight. “Wait and see whether the cancer returns or remains in remission.”
“So… Tyson. The brother I saw in the picture at your apartment,” Sawyer says. “Is he your only brother?”
In for a penny, in for a dollar, right? Confession time.
“He’s the only family I have,” I whisper.
Silence falls.
Then Roman says, “What you’ve told us changes nothing for us.”
