Chapter 40
Chapter Forty
Remy
She'd finally fallen asleep.
It had taken hours—hours of her pacing and muttering and pulling out old files and making lists—but eventually the post-heat exhaustion had caught up with her.
I'd found her slumped over the kitchen table, face pillowed on a stack of survey documents from eighteen forty-seven, and carried her to the nest myself.
She'd barely stirred. Just mumbled something about "corrupt bastards" and burrowed deeper into my chest.
God, I loved her.
Now I was sitting on the front porch with Harper and Silas, three beers sweating in the evening heat, watching the last of the sunset bleed orange and purple across the bayou.
The cicadas were screaming their nightly chorus, and somewhere in the water, I could hear Gumbo doing whatever nine-foot alligators did when their omega was safe and sleeping.
None of us had said anything for a while. That was fine. I was learning that silence with these two didn't mean the same thing as silence with other people. It wasn't awkward or empty—it was just... comfortable. Like we didn't need to fill the space with noise to prove we belonged in it.
Still. Someone had to break the ice eventually.
"So," I said, taking a long pull of my beer, letting the cold wash down my throat before I continued. "We should probably talk about the bonding thing."
Harper made a sound that might have been agreement, his gray eyes fixed on the water, his massive frame taking up most of the porch swing.
The chains creaked with every subtle shift of his weight.
Silas, perched on the railing like some kind of predatory bird, just tilted his head slightly in my direction.
Those pale eyes caught the last of the light, making them look almost silver.
"She said she wants all three of us," I continued, because apparently I was the one who had to use actual words in this conversation. "Said she'd ask again when we were sure she was sure. So... we need to figure out how this works."
"How what works?" Harper asked, his voice a low rumble that seemed to blend with the evening sounds around us, his brow furrowing slightly as he turned to look at me.
"The logistics, mon ami." I gestured vaguely with my beer bottle, amber liquid sloshing. "Order. Timing. Whether we're all there for each bonding or if she wants them separate. Whether—"
"Harper goes first," Silas said quietly, his scarred fingers wrapped around his own bottle, condensation dripping onto his knuckles. His voice was calm, certain, like he was stating an obvious fact. "He's Head Alpha."
I nodded, because yeah, that made sense. Harper had been here first. Harper had claimed his place in her life before either of us stumbled into it. More than that—Harper was the steady one. The foundation. If anyone was going to anchor her to this pack, it should be him.
"Agreed," I said, watching Harper's face for his reaction.
"You good with that, big man?" Harper was quiet for a long moment, his jaw working like he was chewing on words he wasn't sure how to swallow.
When he finally spoke, his voice was rougher than usual, thick with emotion he was clearly trying to suppress.
"I don't—" He stopped. Started again, his hands tightening around his beer bottle until I worried the glass might crack.
"I've never bonded anyone. Never thought I would.
Never thought anyone would want—" Another pause, another false start.
His gray eyes were suspiciously bright in the fading light. "What if I mess it up?"
The vulnerability in his voice hit me like a punch to the chest. This man—this mountain of a man who could probably bench press a truck and definitely scared the hell out of most people who met him—was scared. Not of the bonding itself, but of not being good enough for it.
For her.
"You won't," I said firmly, leaning forward in my chair, making sure he could see the sincerity in my eyes.
"Harper. Look at me." I waited until those gray eyes met mine, raw and uncertain.
"You've been taking care of her since day one.
You learned her coffee order. You make her pancakes.
You held her through three days of heat and never once lost control when she was begging you to bite her.
" I shook my head, something fierce building in my chest. "You're not going to mess it up.
You're going to be exactly what she needs. What you've always been."
Harper's throat worked as he swallowed hard, his eyes dropping to his beer. "Remy—" he started, his voice thick, like he wanted to argue but couldn't find the words.
"He's right," Silas said, and we both turned to look at him.
He hadn't moved from his perch on the railing, but something in his posture had shifted—softer somehow, less guarded.
"You're steady. She needs steady. Especially for the first bond.
" His pale eyes held Harper's gaze without flinching, without looking away.
"You'll be good for her. You already are. "
Harper made a sound—half laugh, half something else—and dragged a hand down his face, his beard rasping against his palm. "When did you two become the encouraging ones?" he asked, his voice muffled behind his hand, but I could hear the emotion cracking through.
"Someone has to be," I said, grinning even though my own chest felt tight.
"You're usually too busy brooding to do it yourself.
" That startled an actual laugh out of him—rough and surprised and real.
It was maybe the best sound I'd ever heard, and I filed it away somewhere safe, somewhere I could pull it out later when I needed reminding that this was real, that I actually belonged here.
"So Harper first," Silas said, steering us back on track, his voice steady and practical. "Then what? We draw straws for second?"
"Her choice," Harper said immediately, some of his usual authority returning to his voice, his shoulders squaring as he straightened in the swing. "After me, it's her choice. Whatever order she wants, whoever she wants next. We don't get to decide that for her."
"Agreed," I said, tipping my bottle toward him in acknowledgment. Silas nodded, his pale eyes warm with approval. Silence settled over us again, but it was different now. Warmer. Like something had shifted between us, some invisible barrier crumbling.
"There's something else we need to figure out," Harper said after a moment, his voice thoughtful as he stared out at the water, the porch swing creaking beneath him. "Living arrangements. If we're doing this—bonding, being a pack—we can't all keep living in three different places."
He had a point. Harper had his place near the distillery. I had the houseboat. Silas had been crashing wherever he landed, mostly at his wildlife rehab site. Artemis had the cabin—her cabin, her aunt's cabin, the place that meant everything to her.
"She's not leaving this land," I said immediately, certainty ringing in my voice. "Not after everything she went through to keep it. Not with those developer vultures circling."
"Didn't say she should," Harper replied, shaking his head, his gray eyes meeting mine. "I'm saying we need to think about how we fit into her life here. Not the other way around."
Silas made a thoughtful sound, his scarred fingers tapping against his beer bottle. "Cabin's not big enough for four people long-term," he observed, his pale eyes distant as he calculated. "Not comfortably. But there's land. Plenty of it."
"You thinking what I'm thinking?" I asked, turning to look at Silas, a slow grin spreading across my face as the idea took shape.
"Depends," Silas said, one eyebrow raising slightly, a hint of dry humor in his voice. "Are you thinking about adding on to the cabin? Building out instead of asking her to move?"
"That's exactly what I'm thinking, mon ami.
" I leaned back in my chair, warming to the idea, my mind already spinning with possibilities.
"We've got three Alphas with decent incomes.
Harper's got the distillery, I've got my music but also I have inheritance money sitting there collecting dust, and Silas—you've got that trust from the military, yeah? "
"Wasn't planning to touch it," Silas said slowly, something flickering in his pale eyes, his scarred fingers tightening around his bottle. "But for this... for her... yeah. I could."
"We pool resources," I continued, the words coming faster now as excitement built in my chest. "Add a couple rooms onto the cabin.
Maybe a bigger kitchen—she deserves a real kitchen.
A workshop for Harper. Space for Silas's rehab animals.
" I paused, grinning wider. "A dock that Gumbo can't destroy every time he gets territorial. "
Harper was quiet, but I could see him thinking, his brow furrowed in that way it got when he was working through a problem.
"Would need to talk to her first," he said finally, his voice measured but not dismissive.
"It's her home. Her decision. We don't get to just show up with blueprints and expect her to be grateful. "
"Obviously," I agreed, nodding quickly. "But we can have a plan. Show her we've thought about it. That we're not expecting her to fit into our lives—we want to build something together. On her land. Around her."
"The distillery," Harper said slowly, something shifting in his expression, his shoulders relaxing slightly. "I don't need to live there. I just need to be close enough to manage it. Twenty minutes away isn't going to kill me."
"My houseboat can dock here just as easy as anywhere," I added, gesturing toward the bayou with my bottle. "Already been doing it half the time anyway."
We both looked at Silas. He was quiet for a long moment, his pale eyes fixed on some point in the middle distance, his jaw tight. When he spoke, his voice was rougher than usual, like the words cost him something.