Page 119 of The Rust in Her Hair

Her eyes cut to Owen, then to me, then Mack, and Adrian. I see the exact moment she stops thinking about what her parents would do to her and starts thinking about what they'd do to us.

"Oh, God," she breathes.

"Lyra—"

"If they find me here, they don't simply take me back." Her voice has gone thin. "My father is the chairman of the Monogamist Alliance. If he walks into this house and finds four men and an omega—" She presses a hand to her mouth. "He'd out you. All of you. He’ll destroy your business. And Owen's job at the library." Her eyes go wide as she realizes the weight of it all. "He'll burn you to the ground."

For once, she isn't calm at all.

"I'm so sorry." The words tumble out of her, fast and wrecked. "God, I'm sorry, I never should have come here, I've put all of you in danger, I didn't think—I didn't think about what it would do to⁠—"

Adrian moves before she can finish.

He reaches over, gathers her up out of her chair, and pulls her into his lap. One big hand cradles the back of her head and guides her face into his neck, into his scent, and she goes, burrowing in, breathing him in like she can't get enough of it.

"None of that," he murmurs into her hair. "Don't you dare apologize." A low purr starts in Adrian's chest, deep and steady. Lyra's shoulders come down. The fist she's got knotted in his shirt goes loose.

Mack shifts his chair closer and reaches out, smoothing his hand slowly over her hair and down her back, again and again.

"We've got you, darlin'," he says in his most gentle voice. "It's all gonna be okay. I promise."

I watch the two of them fold around her, and then I feel the cut of anger slice through my bond with Owen. It’s sharp and hot and pointed straight at me.

I look at my beta across the table, his jaw tight, his eyes hard behind his glasses. He's furious. Because I scared her. Because I took her calm and I broke it.

And I refuse to apologize for it.

I hold my mates glare and don't look away, because he can be angry all he wants, but I'm right. This is the risk of being in a pack.

Every one of us signed up for it the day we chose to build this family in a world that wants us gone, and I will not pretend otherwise to make a hard night feel softer. Lyra's part of this pack now. She needs to understand exactly what that means, the same as the rest of us do.

I look around the table, and I see it in the others too. The anger. Adrian's got it in the set of his shoulders, and Mack's expression is hard even as he strokes her hair.

I pull in a slow breath.

"I've been thinking about something for a while now," I say. "And maybe this is the night to finally say it out loud." I wait until I've got their attention, even Lyra's, her face still tucked against Adrian's throat. "But I think it’s time to move."

The table goes still.

"This city isn't safe for us, and it hasn't been for years," I continue. "We have to hide what we are every single day, and one wrong word, and we could lose everything."

Lyra’s face scrunches up as our bond twists with her self-hatred, but I cut that shit off.

"That was true before you ever walked through the door," I say firmly "You didn't put us at risk. The risk was always here. You’ve made me stop pretending it wasn't a problem."

Lyra pulls in a slow, shaking breath. Then she turns her face back into Adrian's throat, pressing her nose against his warm skin.

Adrian's arms tighten around her.

"So what then?" Mack asks slowly. "We just pack up and leave? Where would we go? And what the hell do we do for work?"

"Construction." I lift a shoulder, cuz it’s that simple. "There's work for guys like us in every city in this country, Mack. Good crews are always short good hands. It might take me a while to get my own business back off the ground somewhere new, but I'm not worried about the three of us finding work." Then I look at Owen, and I soften. "It's you I'm worried about. I know what that library means to you. What you've built there. I don't want to be the reason you walk away from it." I hold his eyes. "But I don't think we can stay, cariño. I'm sorry."

I brace for the beta’s anger to spike again.

But it doesn't come.

Instead, Owen sits back, and something shifts in his face. He pulls his glasses off, cleans them on his shirt, a thing he does when he's thinking, and when he slides them back on, there's an odd light in his eyes.