Chapter 68
chapter
sixty-eight
*Dumbest Assholes Alive*
Avery changed the group chat name to The *Luckiest* Assholes Alive
Jonah
yeah, good call.
The Sunday after my heat is warm and sunny. A perfec t day for a picnic—which is exactly what the guys have planned for all of us.
This park is lovely. A large patch of greenery and ancient oak trees, sprawled between picturesque brick streets, lined with sunny little shops and posh restaurants. Off to the side, I spy a pretty peacock fountain surrounded by a colorful rose garden.
I wish the setting were enough to help me feel better. But my stomach seethes, protesting the panic churning there.
I have my interior curtain up, not wanting to swamp the guys with my anxiety. Besides, if they know how upset I am, they might try to talk me out of this. And it’s taken seven days for me to talk myself into it, so.
Soft kisses sink through the hair on my crown. “Beautiful baby girl,” Tristan hums, tucking me into his suited-up side. “You look so gorgeous today.”
It’s just a crop top and a black denim skirt. I didn’t know what to wear to meet the omega who might potentially be my long-lost sister.
Twin , my mind corrects.
That little piece of info was added after the initial batch. When my heat broke, and my alphas told me about the man who had approached them at Avery’s fight, they only knew his omega was friends with Meg Ash, a fellow orphan, and, apparently, identical to me.
It wasn’t until a couple of days after my heat, when he started slowly getting back to real life, that Tristan reached back out to the Pierson pack and got a copy of their omega’s birth certificate.
Not only do we have the same woman—Alana Skyes—listed as our birth mother. We also have the same birthday.
Jonah is, of course, the first to see past the mask I’m wearing. He sighs, bending forward to balance his forearms on his knees. His warm eyes trace my face from his place across the limo while his features crease, wincing.
“Come here, manamea .”
The apprehension climbing my insides gets harder to hide by the se cond. By the time Jonah settles me into his big body, it’s a relief to feel his thick arms close around me.
“You’re only sisters if you want to be,” he murmurs.
It’s the one sentence that’s brought me any measure of peace over the last few days.
Beside us, Avery nods. His fiery blue eyes meet mine, and the rage burning there somehow soothes me. “You know as well as I do that names on papers don’t mean jackshit, kitten. If you don’t like this chick or this pack, we never have to see them again. Ever.”
Spencer nods, his cool control flexing to fill the backseat along with his brother’s reassuring dominance.
“We can turn around and go home,” Tris offers. “Or we can meet them another time. It’s all up to you, baby. We’ll do anything you want.”
I know I have to do this. Because I have to know— all that time, was Wally doing more than keeping me in cruel isolation? Was he keeping me from my sister? The only real family I ever had a prayer of having?
Well, until my pack, anyway.
I blow out a deep breath, trying to fight off old fears. And failing. “Her alphas… did they seem nice when you talked to them?
My senator’s eyes soften while he reads whatever’s pulsing through our bond. “Yeah, baby,” he says quietly. “They did.”
Jonah hugs me tighter, nuzzling my temple with his forehead. “We’ll be with you the whole time,” he says into my hair. “And you know Avery will gut anyone who looks at you wrong.”
“There will be no gutting in a public park,” Spencer snaps, slanting Avery a warning look before flickering back to me. His shy half-smile appears—just for me. “Besides, I think Miss Thorne can throw her own punches now.”
Miss Thorne.
It’s the first time he’s ever said that. I’ve been waiting, hoping he would soon. And, maybe, one day, it will be Mrs . Thorne…
Maybe? Jonah bellows in my head, affronted .
Avery guffaws. The fuck you think you’re getting out of marrying us, too, kitten.
Yes , Spencer chimes dryly, I’m afraid that’s a foregone conclusion, darling.
Tristan pumps out a bit more of that big-knot dominance. Of course it is. I already ordered rings for her to choose from .
I feel myself smile despite the tangled mess in my middle. Rings . Of course he wouldn’t just pick one. He’s going to get me whatever I want. Even if I want a different one for each of them.
Thinking this, my fingers find the one piece of jewelry I arrived with, the hummingbird charm resting against my sternum. I fist it, remembering where it came from. Wondering if Remi has one, too.
“Okay. I’m ready.”
It’s easy to spot the Pierson pack.
Or, I should say—it’s impossible to miss them.
Their pack leader is every bit as put-together as mine—wearing a navy suit with a frilly pocket square that does not match his scowl. For a second, I’m almost intimidated… until I clock the huge alpha behind him.
Now that’s a frown.
Wow.
Not quite up to Avery’s standards, but he’s pretty close.
The only one smiling is the most handsome—a dark-haired, blue-eyed alpha who looks coiffed despite being in gray joggers and a white T-shirt. His expression glows as he talks to the small woman at his side, smoothing his thumb over her lower lip to release it from her teeth. She just pulls it right back in, though.
I know the feeling, sis .
The blond one—Smith—spies us first. He speaks to the others and then strides over, stretching out his hand.
To me.
I blink, taking it and shaking as he says, “I’m Smith Pierson. You must be Serena.”
I manage a shaky nod as Tristan steps into my back, hugging me around my middle as he extends his right hand. “Tristan Thorne. I apologize for taking so long to get back to you. It was our first heat as a bonded pack.”
Smith almost smiles. “I understand. We just bonded four months ago.”
That makes sense. They all look young—and they have the same harmonious energy the guys behind me share now.
Her alphas wander over, keeping her safely behind them while they all introduce themselves and shake my hand. I swallow the lump in my throat, hoping my voice doesn’t abandon me.
It almost happens when the big one and the pretty one step aside, revealing?—
Well.
My twin.
There’s just no other way to say it. She literally has my face .
Wide blue eyes blink at me, cut with the same gold patterns carved through my green irises. Her scent—some cake-like honey aroma—singes a bit, but she doesn’t look away.
Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out. Which is way too fucking relatable, honestly.
I think about how it felt to choke on my words that first night. How it hasn’t happened in so long, I barely remember the last time.
I think about how many people tried to break me.
And how I’m not.
I’m not broken.
I’m Serena Thorne .
So, I do my best to smile and hold my hand out to her. “Hi. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Is this normal?”
Remi squints across the lawn, watching while Avery and Jonah somehow maneuver a soccer ball around Damon and kick it toward the trash cans they’re using as a makeshift goal. When Cassian blocks it, Avery roars in frustration while Damon laughs.
“Yes,” she confirms, snorting quietly. “Just thank God there isn’t a pool nearby. They’d be trying to drown each other.”
I believe it. Her alphas seem every bit as extra as mine. Right now, we’re laid out on a picnic blanket fit for a pair of queens—there’s even a duvet under it for “padding.”
The spread her pack assembled is incredible. Mostly baked goods—courtesy, shockingly, of the pretty alpha with the scoundrel’s grin.
I heard Remi call him Trouble, and that totally tracks. I bet if we left him alone with my Menace, property damage would be involved.
Our pack alphas are off to the side with Spencer. The three of them murmur to each other with serious expressions that I’m trying not to think about too hard. Their shades are up, anyway, trying to give me privacy. The anxious look on Remi’s face makes me think she’s in the same boat.
For a moment, awkward silence threatens to descend. Then her gaze catches on my necklace. Before she can ask, I reach up to touch it.
“It was… from her,” I whisper, holding it out to show her the charm. “Our mother. I was wondering… did she leave you anything?”
For a second, Remi looks stricken. But she reaches into her thick, curly hair and pulls out a sparkly pink butterfly clip.
“This,” she says softly.
It’s the strangest, longest, hardest moment of my life. Seconds stretc h on as we stare at each other. And I have the sense she’s thinking the exact same things I am.
Why did it have to be like this?
What if we had been allowed to know each other?
What will happen now?
Tears well in her eyes, but she sniffs them back, raising her chin primly. “She liked things that could fly,” Remi points out. “I wonder why.”
I think I know. Because I get it—being rooted to a life that’s all wrong, wishing you had wings to spread and soar away. “Maybe she felt trapped.”
Remi sniffles again, wiping at her nose with her wrist this time. “By us?”
“No.”
I’m surprised how easily my answer comes. Ordinarily, I don’t think of myself as someone who struggled or went through something traumatic. But I did . And if I’d found out I was pregnant while living under Wally’s roof? Well, I would have felt trapped, too.
But not because of the life inside me.
Because of the life around me.
“I think she loved us,” I murmur, looking up into the leafy canopy swaying overhead, tapping into the little oasis inside me for strength. “Whatever was going wrong in her life that made her an unfit mother, she still carried us. And kept us safe while she could.”
Remi fingers her clip, considering. “I suppose you’re right. She probably wouldn’t have left us pieces of herself if she didn’t care.”
A necklace and a clip.
I remember the night I wandered into the police station, off the street, with only that red rubber bodysuit and the thin gold charm strung around my neck.
Was it the same way for our mom at the hospital? Did she come w ith just the clothes on her back? Were these trinkets the only ones she had to give?
“Do you think—” Remi starts and then has to pause to swallow. A tear tracks down her cheek, but she just lets it fall.
And I decide I like her.
Even before she finishes.
“—do you think she did it? Do you think she flew away? To freedom?”
And I decide I really like her.
My sister , I think.
It suddenly occurs to me—maybe our mother never meant for us to be alone. Maybe we were always supposed to do this together. Have one another. Maybe that’s why she felt like we would be okay without her.
Maybe, now that I know that, I can finally forgive her.
“I hope so,” I say, smiling up at the sky, letting my own tears fall. Feeling happy and sad, but mostly just hopeful . “I really do.”