Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Callie
Five bodies shifted around me in the nest, the pack instinctively responding to my sudden tension even in sleep.
Nova's arm tightened around my waist, Milo mumbled something that might have been "five more minutes," and Ghost's eyes cracked open just enough to assess the threat level before closing again.
Only Crash remained completely unconscious, drooling slightly on my shoulder while Blitz stretched like a cat disturbed from a particularly good dream.
I extracted myself carefully, padding to the bathroom to answer. The woman who'd given me life but couldn't give me presence better have a damn good reason for calling so early in the morning.
"Callie." Her voice held the edge of her old newscaster accent and carried that particular brittleness that meant she'd been rehearsing this conversation. "I'm in town."
The words hit like ice water. "You're what?"
"I've been here two days, working up the courage to call." A pause, the sound of traffic in the background. "I'm staying at the Marriott downtown. I thought... perhaps we could meet. All of us. You and your..." She struggled with the word. "Your pack."
I gripped the bathroom counter, staring at my reflection.
Five distinct bite marks decorated my neck like a constellation of choices, with Theodore's being the newest, still slightly pink around the edges.
My mother had left when I was a child to protect me from this exact scenario, multiple Alphas, public claiming, the complete loss of dignity she'd experienced.
"Why now?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
"Because I've watched your streams. All of them.
The medical explanations, the individual dates, the way they refused to mark you during heat.
" Her voice cracked slightly. "I was wrong, Callie.
Not about the dangers, those are real. But about you.
You're stronger than I ever was. You found Alphas who see that strength instead of trying to break it. "
"They're still asleep—"
"I'll wait. I've waited years to have this conversation. A few more hours won't matter. Text me when and where and I'll be there on my best behavior. I promise."
After she hung up, I stood in the bathroom for long minutes, processing. My mother, who'd abandoned me to save me from biological destiny, wanted to meet the five Alphas who'd helped me embrace it while maintaining my independence.
"Everything okay?" Nova's voice came from the doorway. I glanced at him and found him perfectly groomed despite having just woken up. Because even unconscious, Nova maintained better personal presentation than most people achieved with effort.
"My mother's in town. She wants to meet everyone."
His expression shifted through several complicated emotions before settling on supportive determination. "Then we'll meet her. Properly. As a pack."
Within an hour, the house had transformed into controlled chaos.
Milo wanted to stress-bake, but we weren't giving him enough time to make anything, Ghost ran security protocols on the meeting location my mother had suggested, a neutral restaurant downtown, while Crash oscillated between outfit changes with the energy of someone preparing for either a first date or an execution.
"What if she hates us?" Blitz asked, doing pushups in the living room to burn off anxiety.
"She already hates the concept of us," I pointed out, trying to settle my own nerves. "This is about seeing if we can exist as actual people in her mind instead of cautionary tales."
When we got there I realized just how aggressively neutral the restaurant my mother had chosen was. It was the kind of place that served overpriced salads to people who wanted to be seen not eating.
It only took me one glance to find her. She sat in a corner table, hands wrapped around a tea cup like it was armor against the world.
Margaret Cross at forty-eight looked exactly like what she was, a woman who'd rebuilt herself from public humiliation into carefully maintained anonymity.
Her brown hair, the same shade as mine before I'd dyed it pink in rebellion, was pulled into a severe bun.
She wore beige everything, as if color might draw attention she could no longer afford.
When she saw us approach, all six of us moving with the pack synchronicity that had become second nature, her knuckles went white around the cup. I was surprised that it didn't break or shake its way off the saucer if I was being honest.
"Mrs. Cross," Nova said, taking point with his perfect British manners. "Thank you for reaching out."
She studied each of them in turn, cataloguing. When her eyes reached me, they lingered on the visible marks on my neck. "You let them claim you."
"I chose to be claimed," I corrected, sliding into the chair across from her. The pack arranged themselves around us, not quite hovering but definitely present. "Big difference."
"Is it?" She looked at Milo, who was already fidgeting with the sugar packets. "When your heat comes, when instinct overrides thought, what choices remain?"
"All of them," Ghost said quietly, surprising everyone by speaking first. "We've proven that. We refused to mark her during heat specifically to preserve that choice."
My mother's expression shifted, reassessing. "You're the one who lost his first pack."
"You said you'd be on your best behavior," I snapped.
Ghost nodded once, no elaboration needed, responding to my mother and ignoring my own outburst, which was irritating, but I also understood. He wasn't ashamed of his past, and neither was I, but I hated that it was the first thing she'd brought up.
"And you?" She turned to Nova. "The heir who walked away from fortune for this?"
"For them," Nova corrected with quiet dignity. "The fortune would have meant nothing without people who see me as more than my last name and bank account."
She went through each of them, Crash's family dynamics, Blitz's sister's illness, Milo's family's restaurant. She'd done her research, watching our streams with the kind of obsessive attention usually reserved for doctoral dissertations, and she wanted us to know.
"You've built something different," she finally admitted, the words pulled from her like splinters. "Not the traditional pack dynamics that destroyed me, but something... new."
"We're trying," I said, unsure how to proceed. "Mom, I understand why you left. The humiliation, the loss of control, the way the world treated you after—"
Her gaze shuttered. "I went into heat on live television.
" The words came out flat, practiced. "In front of three million viewers.
The Alpha who was supposed to love me called me disgusting and walked away while cameras rolled.
The footage exists forever. It gets dragged up more often than you'd think and has been made into memes, compilation videos, 'Omega Fail' collections.
Your father left three months later, said he couldn't look at me without seeing that moment. "
The pack bristled collectively, protective instincts flaring. Crash actually growled, low and threatening.
"But you," she continued, looking at me directly for the first time, "you went into biological crisis in public and somehow turned it into empowerment.
You documented everything, the good, the messy, the vulnerable.
And these Alphas..." She paused, visibly struggling.
"They protected you even from yourselves. "
"We protect each other," Milo said softly. "That's what pack means."
My mother was quiet for a long moment, staring at her cooling tea. "I convinced myself leaving was protection. That distance would keep you from my fate. Instead, I just gave you different trauma to overcome."
"Yeah, you did." The honesty hurt to voice, but it needed saying. "But I found my way through it. Found them. Found myself."
"The interview," she said suddenly. "When I spoke to Channel 9. I thought I was warning others, protecting Omegas from—"
"From what? Choosing their own lives? Having some agency?" I couldn't keep the edge from my voice. "Mom, you don't get to decide what's right for every Omega just because your experience was traumatic."
"I know that now." She pulled out her phone, showing me something that made my breath catch. "I've been in therapy. Real therapy, not the surface-level counseling I tried before. Working through what happened, why I ran, what I took from you by leaving."
The screen showed a certificate of completion from an intensive trauma program.
It was the last thing I'd expected. Over the years I'd tried to reach out to her, but she'd never returned any of my emails, calls, or even letters.
Sometimes I had wondered why I still let her into my life now, why I let the interview someone who was essentially a stranger did impact me so much.
There was only one answer and it was because she was my mother.
Even after everything she'd put my through I still craved her love, just like I did my fathers' but I knew that contacting them would be opening a can of worms I was definitely not ready for.
"I want to try," she said, the words fragile as spun glass. "To be in your life, if you'll let me. Not as the mother who knows best, but as... someone learning to do better."
I felt Nova's hand find mine under the table, steady and grounding. The others shifted closer, not crowding but definitely present, their combined scents creating that bubble of safety I'd come to rely on.
"There would need to be boundaries," I said carefully.
"No more public commentary about our choices.
No treating the pack like they're taking advantage.
No acting like biology is destiny instead of just..
. biology. If you really watched all of our streams then you'll know we went through the tests.
Dr. Yates proved that we make each other better, not worse.
That's partly because of how we treat each other. We choose each other every day."
"I can do that." She looked at each Alpha in turn. "I owe you an apology. All of you. I painted you as predators before knowing you were protectors. That was wrong."
"We understand protecting Callie," Nova said diplomatically. "We do it ourselves, sometimes too much. Sometimes she needs it."
"Hey," I protested, but he wasn't wrong.
"There's something else," my mother said, reaching into her purse. She pulled out a small wrapped package, sliding it across the table. "I saved this. From before. I thought... maybe you'd want it for your nest."
I unwrapped it carefully, finding a small blanket, hand-woven in soft pink and cream yarns. It smelled faintly sweet and spicy, like it had been carefully preserved, but age had distorted the original scent.
"You made this when you were six," she said softly.
"Insisted on learning to knit because you wanted to make your own nest someday.
I was worried about you with knitting needles so I taught you how to weave instead.
It took you six months, and it's full of dropped lines and uneven tension, but you were so proud. "
Tears burned my eyes as I ran my fingers over the uneven fabric. I remembered this, vaguely. Sitting with her in the living room, her hands guiding mine through the basic weaving motions.
"Thank you," I managed, voice thick.
"I'd like to see it," she said carefully. "Your nest. If... if that's not too invasive."
I wanted to say it was, that she had no right to ask something like that, but the words stuck in my throat. The pack exchanged glances, silent communication flowing between us. Finally, Ghost nodded once. My mother had shown vulnerability; we could reciprocate.
"Okay," I said. "But you should know, it's not traditional. Ghost wired it to be better than any smart home, Crash contributed weighted blankets that look like modern art exploded, and there's a kitchen annex because Milo physically cannot stop feeding people."
"It sounds perfect," she said, and for the first time since she'd walked back into my life, she smiled. Small, tentative, but real. "It sounds like you."
The drive back to the house was surreal. I kept glancing in the wing mirrors and in the rearview to make sure she was following as though she'd suddenly change her mind and disappear without a trace again. Pesky abandonment issues.
"This is where Callie tried to make pasta," Milo said as we entered the kitchen, pointing to a scorch mark on the ceiling I'd been pretending didn't exist.
"She always was enthusiastic about things she couldn't do," my mother said, and there was fondness in it that made my chest tight.
When we reached the nest, she stood at the threshold for a long moment, taking it in. The sophisticated technology that was all but invisible, the carefully planned comfort, the obvious love built into every detail.
"They built this before they met me," I explained, moving to the center and settling into the familiar embrace of weighted blankets and Alpha-scented fabrics. "Built it for the idea of someone who might need them."
"And the universe sent them you." She moved closer, not entering but observing. "Or you them. Either way, it's rather poetic."
"Would you like to come in?" Blitz asked, surprising everyone. "Just to see? Nests are traditionally private, but..." He shrugged. "You're Callie's family. That makes you ours, kind of."
My mother's eyes filled with tears she quickly blinked away. "That's... very kind. But no. This is yours. Sacred. I'm just grateful you let me see it exists."
Later, as she prepared to leave, she pulled me aside while the pack gave us space.
"I'm proud of you," she said quietly. "Not for finding Alphas or maintaining independence or any of the things I thought mattered. I'm proud that you're brave enough to choose love when it terrifies you. That's something I never managed."
Words clogged my throat and I had no idea how to respond. Before I could work it out she was gone and I was left trying to respond to the space where she'd been standing.