Chapter 8: The Mate's Confession
The rain had stopped, leaving the world slick and silvered. Leonid walked, barefoot and shirtless, the chilled mud oozing between his toes. He didn’t feel the cold. He didn’t feel anything except the hollow echo of her words, playing on a loop in his skull.Find another alpha.
The camp was quiet, the others still asleep in their tents. His feet carried him on a path of worn habit, not conscious thought, until he stood before a slightly larger tent draped in faded, earthy wool. A soft, warm glow bled through the seams, and the muffled sound of a laugh—Jisoo’s low chuckle—filtered out, followed by Rosé’s lighter, melodic response.
For a long moment, Leonid just stood there.Water dripped from the tips of his black curls onto his shoulders. He lifted a hand, hesitated, then let his knuckles brush against the canvas flap.The laughter inside stopped.
The flap was pulled back from within, and Jisoo’s face appeared, her expression shifting from mild surprise to immediate concern.“Leo? What’s—” Her dark eyes scanned him, shirtless, trousers damp, face haunted.“Shit. Get in here.”
She pulled the flap wider, and he ducked inside. The air was a physical contrast: warm, dry, thick with the scent of lavender from little sachets hanging from the poles and the sweet, familiar stick of Rosé’s cinnamon perfume. It mixed with Jisoo’s own scent, a deeper, smoky musk that spoke of crackling fires and dry earth. Candles flickered on a low wooden crate, casting dancing light over embroidered silk walls and a wide pallet of furs and blankets.
Rosé was already sitting up, her blonde hair a mess around her shoulders, her large eyes wide. “Leonid?Are you hurt?”
He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. A tremor started in his hands, a fine, uncontrollable shake that traveled up his arms and seized his shoulders. He tried to swallow, but his throat was locked shut.
“Hey.” Jisoo’s voice was firm, anchoring.She guided him by the elbow towards the pallet.“Sit. Just sit down.”
His legs gave out before he reached the furs. He half-collapsed onto the edge of the soft bedding, his head dropping into his hands. A sharp, ragged breath tore from his lungs, then another, each one shuddering through his frame.
“Oh, Leo.” Rosé was there in an instant, shifting to kneel before him on the floor. She reached up, her small hands gentle as they pried his own away from his face. His eyes were dry, but shining with a liquid sheen of utter devastation.“Look at me. Breathe with me, okay? In… and out.”
He tried to follow the rhythm of her breathing, but it hitched, breaking into a choked sound that was more sob than sigh.The dam cracked. A single hot tear tracked through the grime and rain on his cheek.
Jisoo moved behind him on the pallet.She didn’t ask questions. She just slid close, her chest against his bare back, her arms coming around his torso from behind. She rested her chin on his damp shoulder, her hold steady and sure. “We’ve got you,” she murmured, her voice a low vibration against his spine.“Let it out.It’s just us.”
The permission undid him. The silent, stoic alpha, the solo hunter, the nonchalant protector—he crumbled between them.His shoulders began to shake in earnest, silent sobs wracking his body. He cried without sound, the tears coming hot and fast now, dripping onto Rosé’s waiting hands.“It’s Jennie,” Rosé whispered, not a question. Her thumbs stroked over his cheekbones, wiping the tears as they fell.
Leonid nodded, a jerky, broken movement.He sucked in a wet, shaky breath. “She… she wants a pup.” The words were scraped raw.“Right now.This morning. Said if I wouldn’t…” He faltered, the wound too fresh, the words too sharp. “She said she’d find someone else.An alpha who would.”
Jisoo’s arms tightened around him. “Fuck,” she breathed into his shoulder.
“She doesn’t mean it,” Rosé said softly, her eyes holding his, refusing to let him look away.“You know she doesn’t. She loves you more than her own sanity, Leonid. She’s just… scared.”
“Of what?” The anguish in his voice was a physical thing. “What am I not giving her?What am I not doing?I would carve out my own heart for her. I hunt for her.I sleep with her.I breathe for her.” His voice broke. “What is left of me to give?”
“It’s not about a lack,” Jisoo said, her pragmatic tone a grounding wire.“You know how omegas get. Their minds… they spin.Especially hers.She gets an idea and it becomes the only truth. She said something cruel because she was scared and she wanted to hurt you to make you feel her fear.”
“It worked,” he choked out.Rosé shifted closer, her knees bracketing his legs. Her scent, all cinnamon and warmth, enveloped him. “She’s probably in your tent right now, drowning in regret, terrified you’re never coming back.”
The image pierced him. Jennie, alone in the dim tent, her wild eyes wide with a horror of her own making. He let out another shaky breath, the violent trembling beginning to subside into exhausted shivers. He was so tired.He leaned forward, resting his forehead against Rosé’s collarbone. She cradled his head, her fingers threading through his damp curls. He inhaled, pulling the calming scents of his friends deep into his lungs—lavender, cinnamon, smoky musk.They were pack. They were safe.Here, he didn’t have to be the unshakeable alpha. Here, he could just be Leo, who was hurting.
“I don’t know what to do,” he whispered into Rosé’s neck, the admission a vulnerability he hadn’t allowed himself in years. “I can’t… the thought of her with someone else.It’s not a threat. It’s an annihilation.”
“Then you go back,” Jisoo said, her chin still on his shoulder.“Not now.Not while you’re both raw and screaming on the inside. Let it settle.Let her stew in what she’s done.But you go back. Because you’re hers and she’s yours, and that bite on your neck isn’t just decoration. It’s a promise that you fight through the ugly shit.”
He was quiet for a long time, just breathing, anchored by their touch. The candlelight guttered, sending shadows leaping across the silk. The exhaustion was a weight in his bones, but the frantic, splintering pain had dulled to a deep, manageable ache.Finally, he pulled back from Rosé. His eyes were red-rimmed, his face pale, but the terrifying emptiness was gone. He looked at Jisoo, then at Rosé, a wordless gratitude in his dark eyes.
“Stay here,” Rosé urged, smoothing his hair back.“Sleep. Just for a little while.”
He didn’t have the strength to argue. He let Jisoo guide him down onto the furs, his back to her chest again. Rosé pulled a clean, soft blanket over him, tucking it around his shoulders. Surrounded by their warmth and their scent, the relentless loop in his mind finally stilled.He didn’t sleep, not yet. But he closed his eyes, listening to the steady rhythm of Jisoo’s breathing behind him, feeling the gentle weight of Rosé’s hand resting on his arm. For now, in this tent fragrant with lavender and forgiveness, he was held together. The rest—the conversation, the fallout, the terrifying future—could wait for the sun to rise higher.