Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Artemis
The morning mist hung low over the bayou as I paddled my pirogue through the water. Gumbo swam alongside me, his massive body cutting through the still water with barely a ripple, his eyes just visible above the surface like twin golden stones.
I knew this route by heart. Could paddle it blindfolded, probably. Had been making this trip every month since Marguerite died, more often when I needed to think. Today, I needed to think.
The little island appeared through the mist like something out of a dream—a mound of earth rising from the water, crowned with a single massive live oak draped in moss.
Marguerite had picked this spot herself, years before she'd needed it.
"When I go," she'd told me, her weathered hands shuffling her tarot deck with the ease of decades, "you put me under that tree.
Let the bayou have what's left. I came from this water, and I'll go back to it. "
I'd honored her wishes. Scattered her ashes around the base of the oak, planted wild iris and swamp rose in the soft earth. Now, two years later, the flowers had spread into a riot of purple and pink, and the tree seemed to hum with something that felt like her presence.
Gumbo hauled himself onto the bank as I tied off the pirogue, settling into his usual spot at the water's edge. Guardian, even here. Even now.
"Hey, Tante." I said softly, settling onto the roots of the oak, my back against the rough bark, my legs stretched out toward the flowers.
"Sorry it's been a few weeks. Things have been.
.. complicated." I let out a breath that was half laugh, half sigh, tipping my head back to stare up through the canopy of leaves.
The moss swayed in a breeze I couldn't feel, and I could almost hear her voice in the rustle of it. Complicated how, cher? You finally let those Alphas catch you?
"Something like that." I murmured, pulling my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them. "Three of them, Tante. Three. What am I supposed to do with three?"
The memory hit me without warning—sixteen years old, standing in this exact spot, crying so hard I could barely breathe. Marguerite's arms around me, her voice low and fierce in my ear.
"Your parents are fools, cher. Throwing away a gift like you because it came in the wrong package."
I'd presented as Omega two weeks before. My parents—both Alphas, both from old Louisiana families with expectations as heavy as the summer heat—had looked at me like I'd betrayed them on purpose. Like presenting as Omega was something I'd chosen just to spite them.
"We can't have an Omega daughter." My mother's voice, cold and flat. "What will people think? The Delacroix line has been Alpha for six generations."
"You'll go stay with your aunt." My father, not even looking at me. "Until we figure out what to do with you."
What to do with me. Like I was a problem to be solved. A mess to be cleaned up.
Marguerite had taken one look at me—red-eyed, hollow, dragging a suitcase up her porch steps—and pulled me into a hug that smelled like sage and honeysuckle and home.
"Welcome, wild child." She'd said, her voice warm with something that might have been tears. "I've been waiting for you."
She'd never sent me back. My parents had never asked for me. And slowly, painfully, I'd learned that being unwanted by them didn't mean I was unwanted by everyone.
"You taught me that." I said now, to the flowers and the tree and whatever part of her still lingered here.
"That I was worth wanting. That being Omega wasn't a curse—it was just who I was.
" I picked at a loose thread on my shorts, my throat tight.
"I just wish you were here to tell me what to do now. "
The breeze picked up, rustling through the leaves, and I closed my eyes, letting myself drift back again.
Seventeen. Sitting at Marguerite's kitchen table, a worn deck of tarot cards spread between us, the smell of coffee and beignets thick in the air.
"The cards don't tell the future, cher." Marguerite had said, her dark eyes sharp despite the wrinkles around them. "They tell the truth. The truth you already know but won't let yourself see."
She'd taught me to read the pictures first—the symbols, the colors, the way the figures faced toward or away from each other. Then the meanings, traditional and intuitive both. Then the spreads, the patterns, the way cards changed their message depending on what fell beside them.
"Trust your gut." She'd said, over and over. "The cards are just mirrors. Your gift is knowing what you see in the reflection."
My gift. She'd never let me call it anything else. Not a trick, not a talent, not a skill I'd learned. A gift. Something precious. Something to be honored.
I opened my eyes, staring up at the canopy of green and gray.
"I've been reading for myself all week." I admitted to the tree, to her memory, to the bayou itself.
"Kept pulling the same cards. The Lovers.
The Three of Cups. The Empress." I laughed, a little desperately.
"You'd probably tell me I already know what they mean. "
The Lovers—not just romance, but choice. The sacred joining of opposites. The leap of faith required to truly commit.
The Three of Cups—celebration, friendship, community. Three figures dancing together, cups raised in joy. Connection. Belonging. More than two.
The Empress—abundance, fertility, nurturing. The feminine in its fullness. Creation. Life.
"I want them all." I whispered it like a confession, like something shameful, even though there was no one to hear but Gumbo and the ghosts.
"All three of them. Is that crazy? Is that greedy?
" I pressed my palms against my eyes, feeling the sting of tears I refused to let fall. "Marguerite, what do I do?"
The wind shifted, bringing with it the thick green smell of the bayou and something else—something floral and sharp that made me think of her perfume, the one she'd worn every day of her life.
You already know, cher. You've always known.
I did know. That was the hell of it.
I'd spent my whole life being told I was too much. Too wild, too stubborn, too Omega, too strange. My parents had tried to stuff me into a box I'd never fit, and when I'd failed to shrink myself small enough, they'd thrown me away.
Marguerite had never asked me to be less.
She'd looked at all my too-much-ness and called it a gift.
She'd taken my wildness and given it a home.
Now three Alphas—three impossibly different, impossibly stubborn, impossibly wonderful men—were looking at me the same way.
Not asking me to choose between them. Not demanding I pick a box and stay in it.
Just... wanting me. All of me. However I came.
Harper, with his silence and his whiskey and his hands that trembled when he touched me like he couldn't believe I was real. Who'd shown me his family's legacy and called me pack.
Remy, with his music and his laughter and his desperate need to be seen as more than just a pretty face. Who'd played me the song he wrote for his grandmother and trusted me with the parts of himself he usually hid.
Silas, with his shadows and his scars and his wolf's eyes that saw everything. Who watched over me like a ghost, like a guardian, like something that had been waiting in the dark for me to find it.
Three men. Three Alphas. Three hearts I could break if I wasn't careful.
Or three hearts that could break me.
"I'm scared." I admitted it out loud because Marguerite had always said fear festered in silence.
"I'm scared that if I let myself have this—all of it—something will go wrong.
Someone will get hurt. They'll fight over me, or resent each other, or wake up one day and realize I'm not worth the trouble. "
The iris swayed in the breeze, purple petals catching the light.
Since when do you let fear make your decisions, wild child?
I swiped at my eyes with the back of my hand. "Since always." I laughed, the sound brittle and too loud in the quiet of the bayou, my fingers digging into the soft earth beneath me. "I just got good at pretending I wasn't scared."
But that wasn't quite true, was it? I'd been scared when I'd left my parents' house, and I'd come here anyway. Scared when Marguerite died and left me alone, and I'd stayed in the bayou anyway. Scared every time I sat down across from a stranger and laid out the cards, and I'd kept doing it anyway.
Fear had never stopped me before. Why was I letting it stop me now?
"They came to me." I said slowly, working through the thought as it formed.
"All three of them. They're the ones who decided to share, to try this impossible thing.
They're the ones who stacked their hands on mine and swore to make it work.
" I sat up straighter, something clicking into place behind my ribs.
"All I have to do is let them. All I have to do is say yes. "
The word felt revolutionary. Dangerous. Like standing on the edge of a cliff and deciding to jump. Marguerite had always said the cards didn't lie. And the cards had been telling me the same thing for weeks now.
The Lovers: Choose. Commit. Leap.
The Three of Cups: Joy shared is joy multiplied. Connection. Belonging.
The Empress: Abundance. Fullness. Room enough for everything.
"I want them." I said it louder this time, testing the weight of it on my tongue. "I want all three of them. And I'm going to let myself have this."
Gumbo made a low sound from the water's edge—not quite a growl, more like agreement. I turned to look at him, finding those ancient eyes fixed on me with something that might have been approval.
"You knew before I did, didn't you?" I asked him, pushing to my feet, brushing dirt and bark from my shorts. "That's why you let them onto my dock. You could smell it on them—that they were mine."
He blinked slowly, which I chose to interpret as confirmation.
I knelt by the flowers one more time, pressing my palm flat against the earth where Marguerite's ashes had settled into the soil, where wild things grew from what remained of her.
"Thank you." I whispered, my voice thick with grief and gratitude and love all tangled together, my fingers curling into the cool earth like I could hold onto her one more time.
"For taking me in when no one else wanted me.
For teaching me that being too much is just another way of saying enough for the right people.
For giving me a home." I closed my eyes, feeling the warmth of the sun on my back, the cool damp of the earth beneath my fingers.
"I'll come back soon. I'll tell you how it goes. "
The breeze stirred one more time, carrying with it the ghost of her perfume and something that felt like a blessing.
I climbed back into my pirogue and pushed off from the bank, Gumbo sliding into the water beside me.
The mist was burning off now, the sun climbing higher, painting the bayou in shades of gold and green.
Thursday was two days away. Pack meeting at my cabin. All three of them, gathered around my table, eating food I'd made, helping me protect land that Marguerite had left me.
I wasn't going to hide anymore. Wasn't going to pretend I didn't want exactly what I wanted.
"I'm going to tell them." I said to Gumbo as we paddled home, the words coming easier now, lighter.
"Thursday night. After the meeting. I'm going to tell them that I choose all of them.
That I want this—whatever this is—and I'm ready to find out what it becomes.
Courting…maybe bonding at the end…but a pack. "
Gumbo's tail swept through the water, propelling him forward with lazy power.
"And if anyone has a problem with that," I added, grinning despite myself, "they can take it up with you."
He rumbled low in his throat, a sound I'd learned to read as laughter, and together we glided through the morning light toward home. Marguerite had called me her wild child. Had told me I was a gift, not a burden. Had taught me that the cards never lied, only reflected what was already true.
I was done being afraid of my own reflection.
I wanted three Alphas. Three stubborn, complicated, beautiful men who looked at me like I was worth every bit of trouble I caused.
I was finally ready to let myself have them.