Chapter 33 #2
He grins then—mischievous, bashful, and so achingly vulnerable. “Don’t go again,” he says, as if it’s a favor, not a command. I nod, unable to promise out loud except with the way I touch his face, the way I lean into his next kiss.
But reality crashes back to us when someone tries to the door handle. A woman’s voice yells, “Hey, open up!”
We part, laughing, and I shout, “One moment!” Then, quieter to Bastion, “We should get back to it. We’ll be missed after long, and I want to find Ranier.”
Bastion nods and pulls me toward the door. “He’ll be at the tree outside. Let’s go.”
We hurry out the door and ignore the stares of several women waiting. Let them think what they may. After the last twenty-four hours, I’m not sure I care anymore as long as I’m with my alphas.
Bastion and I hurry outside to the city square where the massive holiday tree stands three stories high, decked with lights and ornaments from top to bottom.
We’re nearly assaulted with waves of questions and photographs, and eventually meet up with Wyatt before finally seeing Ranier in the middle of a local news interview.
He’s flanked by his father and three Council reps.
I’m not sure what they’re talking about, but Ranier’s body language is clear: he’d rather be anywhere but right there.
Somewhere, I’m sure our PR rep is losing their mind.
We approach Ranier and his father as the interview ends. His father leaves before we reach them, which I’m thankful for. But Ranier’s tight-lipped face doesn’t relax when he sees me. He’s unsure what to expect.
Ranier’s never unsure.
We only have a few moments before we’re ushered into the night’s finale of events, so I walk right up to Ranier and grab his hand and rock onto my tiptoes to whisper in his ear. “You could look less like you’re about to die at the sight of me.”
Ranier breaks. He doesn’t say a word but reaches out like I’m standing at the edge of a cliff and draws me in close. He sniffs my hair and melts against me. “Emery.”
I look up at him. Our blue eyes meet and, for the first time that I can remember, tears well in his. I smile warmly. “It’s okay.”
Ranier tilts his head. His gaze darts over my shoulder and then back to me. I know exactly who he’s looking at. “My father sees this as the end.”
“Do you?”
There’s the tiniest hint of a pause before he shakes his head. “No, this is the beginning. I need time to deal with my father. It can’t happen here. But Everhart Pack is your home if you’ll have us. My father is the only loose end. I promise.”
If you’ll have us.
I won’t pretend the hurt from yesterday doesn’t still ache in a dull sort of way. And I’m sure the same is true for each of my alphas given how nasty my words were. But if the blog post is gone and everything else is resolved, forgiveness is key. Communication.
I blink. Unconditional love. Not given freely, but earned.
Unconditional love is the promise of forgiveness and trying again, of communication rather than letting things fester.
This is what my parents wanted for me. This is what they were afraid I’d lose by surrendering to the world of designations and packs.
But I didn’t lose it at all. I learned it alongside my parents’ love for me, for letting me go after what I wanted even when they had reservations. And in Eloise, who’s always stuck by my side.
And now in my pack, who I will return it to in kind.
I nod and then reach out for Wyatt and Bastion who have hovered in close. I draw my pack into a tight hug and kiss each of them in turn without a single care for cameras or press. Or Ranier’s father and the Council.
“Of course,” I say when we draw back. I tilt my head so at least two of their alpha marks are showing. “I’m an Everhart, after all.”
My alphas beam. Camera flashes go off and there are more than a few cheers—and some boos. I ignore them and turn my focus to the event unfolding around us.
Our PR handler hands us all ornaments and, alongside the other packs, we add more ornaments to the trees. Behind us there are buses filled with donations for location shelters and schools. The moment eventually ends and we’re thrown to the sharks.
The press is in a feeding frenzy. They ask about the future of Everhart Pack, about unity, about whether the rumors are true that I’m leaving for another house.
Ranier fields the questions with a politician’s grace, while I stick to the script and try not to let my voice shake.
But the script is the truth: I am staying. And that makes it easy.
The other packs are watching. The other omegas are watching. I see the way they look at me—some with pity, some with envy, but most with the calculated disinterest of people who know you’ll be gone soon.
How wrong they’ll be.
After the photos and some more handshakes, the tree is lit and everyone in the crowd cheers. Later, our pack heads to the same car and returns to Everhart Manor together for the first time since I left.
The drive back to Everhart Manor is a blur—city lights flickering past, faintly audible Christmas music playing through the limo’s speakers, Bastion’s hand never leaving mine.
Wyatt sits to my left, quiet but resolute, and Ranier stares out the window as if memorizing the route home from scratch.
The air is heavy with exhaustion and relief, the tense truce of the day holding us together now that all the speeches and staged smiles are done.
For the first time since Omega Selection Day, no one is pretending.
There’s just an unspoken agreement as we cross the threshold into the manor: no more running, no more hiding, and absolutely no more letting anyone else decide what we are.
We ascend the staircase together, our shoes leaving a trail of snow-melt in the entryway, my body sandwiched between three giant, weary alphas who walk like they just returned from a war.
Maybe, in a way, we have. We pass through the kitchen but before I can get too far, I’m swept away by my three alphas into a tight embrace.
The moment we step inside, we are transformed—Everhart Pack, together, at last. To an outsider, it would look graceless with the way we clutch at each other, how all the composure from the event melts away into something raw and unguarded.
Bastion kisses the bridge of my nose, my cheekbones, and then the delicate arch of my jaw, tracing the outline of my face like he’s re-learning every inch of me.
Wyatt’s hands are gentle but urgent, cupping the back of my head, thumb stroking my temple.
His lips finding mine and then drift to my earlobe, feather-soft and reverent.
Ranier’s arms wrap fully around me, pinning me between his chest and the others.
He bows his head and buries his face in my hair.
He just breathes me in. There’s a tremor in his shoulders, a hitch in his breath, as if the simple act of having us all under one roof again is enough to undo him completely.
I can taste their relief on my tongue, the bitter and the sweet. Their bodies crowd around me in bristling, desperate happiness, as though they fear I might disappear if they leave even an inch of air between us.
Bastion presses his forehead to mine, his voice low and trembling. “You’re home.”
There’s a simplicity to it that nearly breaks me. He says it like a truth that could rewrite all the lies we told ourselves and all the stories that kept us apart.
We quickly become a warm tangle of four bodies in the kitchen, coats half off, shoes forgotten and melting snow puddling around our feet. Wyatt’s laugh is unsteady, muffled into my hair as his hands dip beneath the hem of my blue dress. His reaching fingers anchor me in the reality of this.
They want me, all of me. Even the bruised and angry parts. And I want them, royal chaos and all.
The sweetness of reunion tips suddenly into hunger.
A primal, inexorable tug that draws us closer and closer.
Ranier’s lips find the hollow below my ear.
His breath shudders. Bastion’s hands slide up my ribs, cautious and unhurried, but his touch is fire.
Wyatt pulls me flush to his chest and for a dizzy second I am suspended between three gravitational forces, impossibly weightless and impossibly claimed.
Their scents—smoke and pine, ocean and honey, apples and salt—swirl around me, a dizzying fugue.
No words are needed. There’s only the orchestration of bodies, all four of us learning a new shape, the shape of together and forgiven and home.
Ranier’s fingers trace my jaw. “I thought you’d never come back,” he whispers, voice breaking on the word never, like the possibility hurt him more than he can say.
“I’ll always come home to you,” I promise. The house or pack or just the three of them—it’s all the same.
They kiss my lips and cheeks and every available inch of bare skin they can find. I sigh, relieved. Ready to surrender to this. To us. To everything we can and will be.
Wyatt kisses my neck, his breath hot and frantic, while Bastion wraps himself around my waist from behind, his hands sliding under the hem of my dress where Wyatt left off. Ranier holds me by the chin and keeps kissing me like he’s trying to memorize my taste.
They manhandle me up onto the island counter, scattering forks and spatulas.
The ceramic clatter is drowned by the sounds I make when Bastion bites my earlobe and Wyatt nips my shoulder through the cotton.
Ranier takes hold of the dress from where Bastion’s hands are and together they rip it off of me.
My breasts spill free and my alphas’ eyes go wide.