Morris stood outside Morgan and Brody’s home, unable to use the key he held in his still-trembling hand and go inside. Unable to face the fact that his brother and brother-in-law were never walking through that door again. Never going cook in their beautiful kitchen. Never going to hug their baby boy ever again.

Tears still occasionally leaked down his cheeks, but Morris didn’t feel them anymore. He didn’t feel anything except numb—not since Brody crashed and the medical staff declared time of death. He’d signed what he had to sign, and then he’d sat in the waiting room until his body was able to move. To drive.

It was nearly sunrise when he finally shoved his key into the lock and let himself inside the familiar home. He’d spent so many weekends here, sharing a home-cooked meal, or swimming in the small, above-ground pool in the backyard. Playing board games and being endlessly teased over still being single at his age.

Morgan had been a fanatical housekeeper, and the house gleamed, not a book or throw pillow out of place. Morris picked up a framed photo from a living room side table. Morgan and Brody on their wedding day, decked out in tuxedos, such a study in contrast. Morgan had their omegin’s fiery-red hair and pale, freckled complexion, same as Morris, while Brody had ebony skin and long, braided hair. Together they were beautiful.

And now they’re gone.

Morris sank onto the sofa and held the photo to his chest as more grief squeezed his heart in a strangling hold. The last of his family was gone, and he was alone here in Sansbury Province. Well and truly alone.

No, that wasn’t true. He had Aeron. He needed Aeron.

He dialed the babysitter’s dad’s number from his phone’s memory—Pike, yes, the man’s name was Pike—and somehow explained what had happened. Where he was. The man promised they’d bring Aeron over as soon as possible, so Morris hung up and waited. Time passed in a fog of pain and grief, until someone finally rang the doorbell.

A tall man held Aeron’s carrier in one hand, and the sobbing teenage boy beside him launched himself at Morris. He wasn’t prepared for the hug, so he forgot to hug the teen back for a long moment.

“I’m so sorry, I can’t believe they’re gone,” Dory cried against his chest.

“Thanks,” was all Morris could manage. He simply stood there and stared at Aeron’s sleeping face. The goddess had blessed Morgan and Brody with a boy whose dark complexion seemed like the perfect balance between the pair, despite not sharing a shred of DNA. Now it almost felt like a cruel joke, because Aeron was all he had left.

“My sincerest condolences on your loss,” Pike said. He helped untangle Dory from Morris, then held out the carrier.

Morris brought his nephew inside, rudely not inviting his guests in, but he didn’t really care. He put the carrier down, so he could gently lift Aeron out and hold him against his chest. He inhaled the boy’s unique, alpha scent, somehow both woodsy and floral at the same time.

“Is there anything we can do for you?” Pike asked.

“I don’t know.” It was the only answer Morris had. He didn’t know what came next—only that his life would never be the same. When Morgan heard they’d been selected to adopt a newborn directly from the hospital on the day of his birth, they’d drawn up the legal paperwork necessary in case something like this ever happened. It gave Morris the house and sole legal custody of their son.

Morris had no idea how to be a father to his nephew. He’d babysat a handful of times, and he’d fed Aeron during visits, even changed a few diapers, but to be his sole caregiver for the next seventeen years?

The room swayed, and firm hands led him to the sofa. Helped him sit with Aeron in his lap. Dory sat next to him, still crying quietly into a wad of tissues. “I can babysit for you,” the teenager said. “Anytime.”

“Thank you.”

Pike appeared with a cup of water that he helped Morris sip from. “Is there someone we can call for you?” he asked. “This has to be so overwhelming.”

Once again, Morris was faced with the reality that he was alone. Somehow, he had to figure out how to raise Aeron on his own.

“There are childcare options out there,” Pike said as he sat opposite him in an armchair. “I’m assuming they left you custody of the baby?”

Morris nodded, unable to speak yet, or tear his gaze away from Aeron’s precious face. A year old today. That realization punched him in the gut and left him gasping. “It’s Aeron’s birthday,” he managed to get out. “Oh goddess.” How was a kid supposed to grow up knowing his parents had died on his first birthday?

“Oh, that’s awful,” Dory said. “Last night, Morgan mentioned a small dinner he was planning today to celebrate.”

“First thing you should do is hire a lawyer to make sure your custody is sound,” Pike said. “The last thing you want is for the baby’s birth parents to come looking for him.”

“It was a closed adoption through the hospital,” Morris said. “And I work for a lawyer. I’m a paralegal.”

“That’s good. That’s your priority. Make sure you can’t lose him, and then you have options in terms of daily childcare. You’re unmated, correct?”

“Right.” And he’d planned to stay that way, but now?

“If you want a mate, there’s always the Omega Classifieds. It definitely helps to have two sets of hands around when you’ve got an infant. Trust me.”

Morris finally looked up and really took in Pike. The mated alpha had at least ten years on Morris, as well as several children, including Dory. Maybe he could use a little unsolicited advice. “I’ll think about it.”

“As I said, you’ve got my number, so if there’s anything I or my family can do to help during this crisis, please reach out. I didn’t know Morgan or Brody well, but Dory adored them, so I expect they were fine people.”

“The best, thank you.”

“We’ll let ourselves out.”

Morris sat there long after the front door shut and his guests left. He couldn’t stop staring at Aeron, wondering how the hell he went forward from here. In less than twelve hours, he’d gone from a dedicated paralegal who worked late on weekends to a homeowner with a baby. Did he sell the house and move Aeron into his apartment?

No, that was stupid, it was a one-bedroom. The baby needed space, and he had that here. It was farther to the office for Morris, but not unreasonably so. The house wasn’t paid for yet, but it wasn’t anything fancy, so he imagined the mortgage was reasonable enough. It also had three bedrooms, so if he needed to take on a roommate, he could.

A roommate who doesn’t mind a baby screaming at all hours of the night.

Then again, Morris had never spent the night with Aeron, so he had no idea what his sleep patterns were like. Did he sleep through the night yet?

So. Many. Questions.

He didn’t have to worry about work today, because it was the weekend, but he did tomorrow—except he wasn’t sure he’d manage work for a few days, at least. Not until he figured out what to do about Aeron. Ronin probably wouldn’t mind if he brought the boy to the office, but what about when they had court? When Morris had to travel around the province for his job?

Aeron woke with a mighty squall that startled Morris into nearly fumbling the boy off his lap.

“Hey, little man,” he said, trying to shush him. He hadn’t asked when Aeron had been fed or changed last, so he sniffed and poked at the diaper. Seemed clean. He was hardly an expert at bottles, but he found a bag of donated omegin milk in the fridge and set about heating it. Aeron fussed at first, but finally attached to the nipple and ate.

Okay, good. One simple task accomplished. Maybe if he focused on one thing at a time, rather than the big picture, he could actually do this. Pike’s advice about making sure his custody was air-tight sounded like a thing he could accomplish, so he got Aeron settled in one of those rolling chairs that encouraged babies to use their feet and walk. Aeron had only just started walking with help a few weeks ago, but he’d yet to take his first solo step.

His parents will never see it.

He shoved away more grief, ignored Aeron’s garbled calls for “dada” and “papa,” and he called his boss.

“Hey, Morris,” Ronin Cross said in a cheerful voice. “This better not be about a case, because even you can take one day off a week.”

“It’s personal, sir.” Ronin hated it when Morris called him sir, but it was an ingrained thing when addressing elder alphas, especially those in positions of authority. Something his own sire had beaten into all three of his kids.

“What’s going on? You sound strange. Are you sick?”

“No. Um, m-m-my brother, my…” Goddess, he’d yet to really say the words out loud to anyone. “There was an accident last night.”

“Morris, are you hurt? Where are you?”

“My brother’s house. He and his husband…they died last night.”

“Oh goddess, I’m so sorry. What about their son?”

“He’s with me.” Morris squashed down another tidal wave of tears. “He wasn’t in the car. I’m at their house. I am so lost, sir.”

“Is anyone there with you?”

“There’s no one else to call.”

“Okay, listen to me. What is their address?” Morris told him. “Sit tight for me, backup is on the way. You don’t have to do this alone.”

Morris’s choked out ‘thank you’ was lost to a fresh wave of tears. He dropped his phone, grabbed a throw pillow, and screamed into it. Over and over until he thought he’d vomit, but the noise had upset Aeron. He picked up the squirming boy and hugged him.

“Dada,” Aeron squawked. “Dada!”

“Dada’s not coming home, baby boy.”

With no energy left, Morris sank to the living room floor and held his nephew close, doing everything he could to reassure him while unable to stop crying. A hole had been carved into his chest and nothing would ever fill it. It got bigger and bigger with each new tear that fell. Aeron stopped asking for Dada and stared at him, making baby words, his young face creased and sad. He knew something was wrong with Uncle Morris, but he didn’t yet have the language to ask.

Someone knocked on the front door, then immediately opened it. From his spot on the floor, Morris had a direct view. His boss, Ronin Cross, strode inside first, followed by Ronin’s mate Kell. Morris had first met both men over a year and a half ago, when Ronin traveled to Sansbury from another province to defend Kell against murder charges. Eventually, the courts had released Kell, but three years of constant abuse from his previous alpha mate had left the young omegin haunted.

Kell came to them right away, probably drawn by his omegin’s instinct to comfort others when they were upset. Kell had a young son of his own, Branson, who was only six months older than Aeron. He sat beside Morris and hugged him from the side. Hugged them both, really, while Ronin squatted in front of them.

“Do you need me to hold him?” Kell asked in a gentling voice that soothed some of Morris’s frayed nerves.

Morris nodded, throat once again clogged with emotion, and he eased Aeron from his lap to Kell’s. The omegin made little noises that had Aeron laughing and cheerful in no time, his missing Dada forgotten for now. Ronin helped Morris stand, leaving Kell cuddling Aeron on the floor.

He installed Morris in an armchair and asked, “When was the last time you ate?”

Morris thought back to the sandwich he’d half-finished at dinnertime, before getting swept up in research. “A while.”

“Okay, then we’ll start with coffee and breakfast. You stay there, I can figure out the kitchen.”

With no reason to argue, Morris watched Kell play with Aeron for a while, as the sound of coffee gurgling and something frying wafted in from the kitchen. Eventually, Ronin invited them all to the kitchen table, where he’d prepared pancakes with butter and syrup. He even had the highchair out for Aeron, complete with a sippy cup of juice and some dry baby cereal.

“Where’s Branson?” Morris asked.

“At home with my brother,” Kell said. “Braun and Tarek send their condolences. I’m so sorry, Morris, I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”

“Thanks.”

“We’re here for anything you need,” Ronin added. “You might be my employee, but I also consider you a friend.”

“Can you look at the custody paperwork? Morgan and Brody—” Just saying their names made his chest ache. “They wanted me to take care of Aeron if anything happened to them.”

“I will absolutely do that while I’m here, assuming we can find their copies. If not, I’ll request them first thing tomorrow.”

“I think they’re here.” Morgan had told him about a folder with all their legal paperwork, but where had he said it was? Maybe in the upstairs bedroom Brody had used for an office?

“We can look after we eat. There is no rush today, all right?”

“Thank you. I just…I don’t know what to do.”

“And we’re here for you,” Kell said. “Anything you need. I know a passel of omegins who can pitch in to help. Baby advice, babysitting, you name it. I know we aren’t close, but you became part of the family when you helped in my court case and stayed to work for Ronin.”

“I will take you up on that. I have no idea how to be a father.”

“What was your sire like?”

“A nightmare.” Morris shook his head. “No, I’ll never look to him as an example of how to be an alpha and raise a family.” He looked at Ronin. “You, sir, are the kind of alpha I aspire to be. You accepted the child of another man as your own. I hope to be that sort of man with Aeron.”

“You will be,” Ronin replied. “You already love him as your family, no matter whose blood line he came from. He’s lucky to have you.”

Slightly buoyed from the compliments, Morris choked down a pancake drowning in syrup and followed it with two mugs of coffee. Other than his power nap at the office, he hadn’t slept in nearly twenty-four hours, but there was so much to do. Plans to make. Paperwork to find. But the coffee wasn’t really helping.

Kell paused in the act of handing more cereal bits to Aeron. “Morris, have you slept at all?”

“Not really.”

“Then you should go upstairs and take a nap. I can watch Aeron for you, no problem. Trust me when I say that exhausting yourself isn’t going to do Aeron any good. And Ronin and I have no plans today that can’t be changed, so we will be here.”

“Thank you.” Morris had a feeling he’d be saying that lot in the coming days and weeks, and to various people. “Maybe just a power nap.”

“Go.”

Morris paused to press a kiss to the top of Aeron’s head and inhale his scent. This little boy was his responsibility now, and Morris was completely lost as to what to do next. And he was thankful to have friends willing to drop everything and babysit so Morris didn’t pass out from exhaustion.

He plodded upstairs to the guest room where he’d slept off many a drunken night, pre-Aeron. They used to love turning board games into drinking games, which had been stored up here in the closet. He bypassed the bed, opened the closet door, and pulled out a financial game that had been a favorite, because of how long you could potentially play.

Morgan had always been the little dog figurine when they played and Brody the top hat. Morris removed those pieces and put the rest of the game back. With the tiny figures in his pocket, he crawled onto the bed, wrapped both arms around a pillow and cried himself to sleep.

Jaysan wanted to hide in his room for the rest of the day, rather than go downstairs and face breakfast with Alec. Alec had gotten home from his shift thirty minutes ago, which was more than enough time for Orrin to fill him in and gain an ally in “Let’s fix poor, broken Jaysan.”

But he was hungry, and eventually they’d just bring the talk to his bedroom, so he manned up and went downstairs. His foster parents had a nice—if kind of old—house in a decent neighborhood, and they both had steady incomes, which had gotten them onto the beta adoption list in the first place. They’d never once treated Jaysan like a burden, but the fostering was expected to be short-term, and it had been over a year.

Whatever. Just because Liam and Jax had found bondmates after surviving the fight ring didn’t mean Jaysan and Brogan would. Plus, Brogan had the added burden of having his own infant to bring into a relationship. An infant who was a beautiful, thriving fourteen-month-old. And Liam had little Layne, who’d turn one year old next month.

Meanwhile, Jaysan had given his newborn up, and today was his first birthday. Grief over that had fueled a lot of last night’s bad choices. Grief over a life he’d never get to know. A small part of himself was out there somewhere in the province, and Jaysan would never see him again.

It hurt deep down where he hid the bulk of his pain over the last two years of his life.

As expected, Orrin and Alec were deep in conversation in the kitchen while Orrin sliced up their traditional weekend spinach quiche. They turned, both men wearing identical expressions of concern, and it made Jaysan want to groan out loud.

“Good morning,” he said instead.

“Morning,” Alec replied. “How do you feel?”

“Fine.” Okay, so his ass was sore, but he was so not going there first. “How was work?”

“Boring, as usual.”

“Which is what I love to hear,” Orrin added, “especially from a man in a security job.”

“Ha ha, funny guy. Jaysan, do you want tea or juice?”

“Juice is fine,” Jaysan replied, a little surprised they weren’t ganging up on him right away. “Thank you.”

He sat at the kitchen table in his usual spot by the wide window that peered out into their small backyard. It was early spring now, but Orrin liked to plant and tend to lots of flowers in the late spring and summer, and it was Jaysan’s favorite view in the house. Orrin hoped to start planting next weekend if it was warm enough.

Jaysan ate his piece of quiche and drank his orange juice, alert for anything, but his guardians simply ate and shared banal conversation. The whole thing was kind of confusing, and by the time Jaysan had finished his plate, his nerves got the best of him.

“Will one of you just lecture me already?” Jaysan snapped. “Please? Let’s get this over with.”

“Why do you think you need a lecture?” Alec asked.

Jaysan sputtered. “Orrin told you about dragging me to the hospital, right?”

“Yes.”

He looked back and forth between the two calm betas, positive this was some kind of mind game. “So you don’t care that I came home past curfew, half-drunk, and a little rough from a consensual orgy?”

“I do care, actually, but what worries me is that I don’t think you care.” Alec’s expression went from calm to openly sad. “You’ve been self-destructive ever since Reid died, and we’ve tried. We’ve tried talking to you, we’ve tried getting you to talk to others, but you won’t. And last night…you terrified Orrin. Do you have any real idea how you looked to him when you came home? Like you’d been dragged into the back of a van and gang-raped.”

Jaysan blinked once at Alec, before dragging his attention to Orrin—and really seeing the man for the first time. Orrin seemed close to tears, and thinking back, Jaysan hadn’t given a shit about Orrin’s feelings last night. He hadn’t been able to think about anything except himself and the indignity of being dragged to the ER in the middle of the night. Now he truly saw how his shitty actions had affected Orrin.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just…last night I wanted to feel something, even if it hurt.” His eyes stung. “Today is his birthday.”

He didn’t have to specify who. Orrin rose and came around the table to pull Jaysan up and into a hug. Jaysan buried his face in Orrin’s neck and let the tears out. Tears he’d forced back so many times that he’d lost count, because tears meant facing their source. Facing the pain of his past. He wasn’t sure he could without losing himself completely.

Alec joined the hug, pressing in from behind to create a tight bubble of support. Jaysan wasn’t sure if he was crying for his lost baby, for his terrible decision last night, for Reid’s unnecessary death last fall, or any other of a thousand awful memories he always carried with him.

But some of the tears that fell were happy tears—tears that said he wasn’t as alone as he thought, and that these two men truly did care what happened to him. They weren’t just his caregivers, they were also his friends. His support system. He just had to learn to accept the help they were offering.

“Thank you for not giving up on me,” Jaysan said.

“Never,” Orrin said. “You’re family, Jaysan. Families help each other.”

He’d heard similar words from Braun, Liam, and some of his other omega friends during their bi-monthly support group meetings. They had their next one tomorrow, and it might be a good time for Jaysan to finally open up and start sharing. Because going to bed with three alphas at once had been dangerous. They could have imprisoned him, sold him, done any number of things to him, and no one would have known where to find his body.

But changing months of behavioral patterns wouldn’t happen overnight. Jaysan was still incredibly broken, but he no longer believed he was wholly unfixable. Maybe he’d be alone for the rest of his life, no mate or children to his name, but he’d be alive to have a future.

It wasn’t much, but it was a place to start.