Chapter 34
Ford
Lo’s shaking. Whole body wound up, bracing for a hit.
The air in the garden goes sour. Beck swears low, Hayes’s jaw ticks hard. I just keep hold of Lo’s hand. She tries to pull it free, but I don’t let her.
It’s time she learned to stop running.
Even if we have to force the lesson on her.
“Inside,” I tell her.
She snaps her head up, eyes sharp. “No. I—”
“Lo.”
Her shoulders drop. The fight’s too heavy to carry. That scares me worse than her fire ever could.
We pack it up fast. Beck’s scanning the tree line, eyes lit with a violence I recognize. Hayes is stuffing food back in the basket without looking at it. I put out the fire in the portable stove and make a mental note to come out and break down the rest. But we have to get her inside. Now.
I guide her up the cobblestone steps toward the house. She stumbles, and I’m there, catching her against me. She doesn’t push me away, though. She doesn’t let that fierce, independent ferocity guide the moment.
That’s how I know she’s breaking under the pressure.
Inside, it’s cooler. Safe enough, at least. I steer her to the couch while Beck pulls the curtains so no one can look in. She curls up small, arms locked tight around herself. Beck takes the chair across her, fists tight. Hayes paces, too restless to sit.
He always paces when he’s restless.
I kneel in front of her. I’ve always been steadier on my knees than standing when things get bad, anyway.
“You’re safe here with us,” I say. “I hope you realize that.”
She laughs, but it’s sharp, broken glass in her throat. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.” I hold her gaze. “You’re safe while you’re with us. I’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it.”
“He’s right,” Beck says.
The pitter-patter of Hayes’s steps backdrops the conversation.
Her mouth trembles; she wants to argue. Then her eyes go wet. “It’s just all so much—”
Her teeth sink into her lip as if she can chew the words back. I see through it, though. All of it.
The fight. The fear.
The relentless exhaustion, and not just from her five-day-long heat.
I reach up, laying my palm over her knee. “You know we’re here for you.”
Her breath hitches. Her arms tighten around her ribs; she's holding herself together by force. “If I let go, I’ll fall apart.”
“Then fall,” I insist. “I’ll catch you.”
“We all will,” Hayes adds.
She shakes her head, curls tumbling loose. “You can’t promise that.”
“Already did,” I say as I reach up and trace my thumb along the clothed outline of her breast.
Both of them marked by me.
For a long beat, it’s just us. Her eyes are wild and wet, my hand still steady on her. The tension in the room hums sharp. Beck is coiled like a spring in the chair. Hayes still paces trenches into the carpet.
Then Hayes stops. Straightens. I see the shift hit him, soft and sure. “She needs to calm down. Let me run a bath.”
Lo blinks, startled. Hayes doesn’t wait for permission. Just strides toward the hall. He knows her. Knows what calms her.
Beck stands next, jaw locked. “Tea. Chamomile. I’ll be right back.”
He doesn’t ask either, just heads for the kitchen on a mission.
And suddenly, it’s just me and Lo.
She looks small on the couch, knees pulled tight. The girl who used to sit on the bleachers after practice with her sketchbook, pretending the world couldn’t touch her. Except now, the world has. Hard.
I shift closer, kneel between her legs so I can look up at her. “Lo.”
Her eyes meet mine, glassy and defensive. “What?”
“Come here.”
She hesitates. I don’t push. Just open my arms and wait.
It takes a breath. Then another. Then she cracks. A sob bursts out of her. She folds forward, straight into me.
I wrap her up tight, arms locked around her waist, her cheek pressed against my chest. She’s trembling, every breath a shudder, but she doesn’t pull away. Not this time.
“I got you,” I murmur, rocking her slowly from side to side. “I’ve always got you.”
Her fingers clutch my shirt. The sound she makes, half sob, half laugh, kills me. “You’re so damn quiet, Ford. Why do you always know what to say?”
“Because I’ve been listening,” I tell her. “Since the day I found out you were mine, I’ve been listening.”
Her whole body goes still.
The words freeze her mid-breath.
Slowly, she leans back just enough to see my face, eyes wide and red-rimmed. “What did you just say?”
My throat works, but I don’t look away. Can’t. Not after holding it in for so damn long.
“You’ve been mine since high school, Lo.” The truth scrapes out of me, rough but solid. “I scent-bonded to you years ago, when I realized you were my scent match.”
Her lips part. No sound. Just shock.
I drag a hand through my hair, breath ragged. Will this ruin everything we’ve just done? Will this break our pack before we have a chance to get it off the ground?
I can’t let it matter.
She deserves the truth.
“Before you ask, I never said anything because—” My jaw clenches.
I force the words out anyway. “Because you were with Beck. Or almost with him. And I didn’t want to come between that, if that’s what you wanted.
I figured a scent match didn’t matter. He had your attention.
You laughed at his jokes. Let him walk you home.
Looked at him like he was the only boy in the room.
” I shake my head, bitter and soft all at once.
“I couldn’t ruin that. Didn’t want you to feel trapped, like you had to choose between happiness and instinct. So I kept it quiet.”
She stares at me with a look I’ve never seen on her face. It kills me. “Ford. You… you’ve known all this time?”
“Yeah.” My chest aches with it. “Every day. Every second of every day of every week of every year you were gone, that bond never let go. It never does. That’s how scent matches work.”
Her breath shudders out, sharp and thin. She looks away, out toward the kitchen where Beck’s voice rumbles low, where Hayes’s footsteps echo down the hall. Then back to me, caught between past and present.
“That’s…” She presses her palms to her eyes. “God, Ford. That’s overwhelming.”
“I know.” I catch her wrists gently, lowering her hands so I can see her again. “I know it’s a lot. But I couldn’t keep it from you anymore. Not when you’re here. Not when you’re wearing my marks on your breasts and shaking apart in my arms and still trying to carry it all alone.”
Her gaze flicks over my face, frantic, searching for a lie.
She won’t find one.
“You should hate me for it,” I admit. “For not telling you sooner. For staying silent when you left, when you needed someone to fight for you. And I understand if you do. If this ruins things with us.” My hand cups her cheek, thumb brushing the damp there.
“But you should also know, I never stopped choosing you. Not once. There’s never been another woman—another Omega—for me except you. ”
Her breath catches. And then, finally, she whispers the truth back, raw and unsteady:
“You were bonded to me this whole time.”
I nod. My chest is caving in. “Always will be.”
Hayes’s voice calls from the hall. “Bath’s ready.”
Lo startles, blinking fast. Beck appears next, a steaming mug in his hand, chamomile curling soft into the air. His gaze lands on her, then me, and something unreadable flickers across his face before he sets the mug on the side table.
“Come on, sweetheart,” Hayes says gently, reappearing in the doorway, sleeves shoved up, damp at the edges from testing the water. “You’ll feel better.”
Lo hesitates. I feel it in the way her body tightens against mine, in the quick little dart of her eyes. I give her waist a reassuring squeeze.
“Let us take care of you,” I murmur. “Your heat was long. You need it.”
“How long?” she whispers.
“Five days,” I respond.
Her eyes widen. But between the three of us, we get her moving. Beck takes her hand, Hayes guides her with a steady palm at her back, and I stay close enough that she can lean when her knees wobble.
The bathroom’s warm and lit low, steam curling up from the clawfoot tub Hayes has half-filled with lavender bubbles. It smells soft and safe. Exactly what she deserves. Lo breathes it in like she’s been underwater and finally broken the surface.
Beck kneels first, testing the water again, then holds out a hand. “Come on, Trouble. In you go.”
She huffs out the smallest laugh at the nickname. Hayes and I steady her as we help her out of her clothes, and then she sinks into the water. She exhales, shoulders finally easing.
“That good?” Hayes asks, crouching beside her.
Her eyes flutter shut. “Better than good.”
I sit behind her on the little stool, rolling up my sleeves. I wet a washcloth, wring it out, then start slow at her arm. She doesn’t pull away. Beck takes the other side, his big hand surprisingly gentle as he mirrors me. Hayes pours warm water down her hair, careful not to get her face.
It turns quiet, just the sound of water sloshing, the faint clink of Beck setting the tea within her reach.
Then Lo cracks her eyes open, glances between us, and whispers, “You guys are too cute.”
Beck smirks. “Takes one to know one.”
Hayes chuckles, shaking his head. “Don’t act like you don’t love it.”
Lo’s lips twitch. “Maybe a little.”
That’s all it takes. The tension loosens, the air shifts to something lighter. Jokes tumble out in low voices, the kind that doesn’t demand anything from her but allows her to sit inside the safety of it all. She laughs once, sudden and soft, and the sound fills the room.
I meet Beck’s eyes over her bowed head. He looks at me, then at her, and nods once. Not forgiveness, not yet. But something close.
Hayes catches it, too. He squeezes her shoulder, warm and sure. “Drink your tea, Lo. Then we’ll tuck you in so you can get some more sleep.”
She hums, tilts her head back against the tub. “You make it sound like I’m five.”
“Maybe you are,” Beck mutters, grinning when she flicks water at him.
I watch her, the curve of her smile, the way her chest seems to ease. And I think, yeah. This is what it means to catch her.
I want to do this for the rest of my life.
Because I love her.
Her breath hitches when I kneel on the little stool behind her.
I reach into the bath and cup water in my hands, letting it pour down her shoulders.
I can’t help but press a kiss to the wet skin there.
She shivers. Doesn’t pull away. I do it again, slower this time, lips brushing a line toward her neck.
“Ford,” she whispers.
“I’m here,” I murmur, resting my chin lightly on her shoulder. “Always here.”
Beck snorts softly. “Now you’re just showing off.”
Hayes grabs the sponge, squeezes warm water over her chest. He leans close, grinning when Lo swats weakly at him. “You’re gonna thank us later.”
“I’m grateful now,” she admits, quiet.
The words seem to slip out before she can stop them. Beck goes still, the sponge paused in his hand. Then he sets it aside, leans in, and presses the lightest kiss to her bare knee above the waterline.
“Good,” he murmurs against her skin. “’Cause you deserve it.”
Lo’s breath catches, her cheeks pinking. She ducks her face, but Hayes tips her chin back with one finger. He smiles at her, then bends to brush his mouth over hers. She gasps, and he steals another before she can protest, grinning when she laughs against his lips.
“Cheater,” she mutters.
Hayes just shrugs, smug. “Couldn’t help myself.”
Beck rolls his eyes, but when Lo glances at him, cheeks wet from steam, eyes all wide and shining, he groans helplessly. He leans forward, catching her hand, and presses his lips to her knuckles. Then her wrist. Then higher, a trail of reverent kisses until her pulse stutters under his mouth.
“Trouble,” he rasps, “you undo me.”
She swallows hard, caught between laughter and tears. And when she turns her head over her shoulder toward me, searching, I don’t hesitate. I kiss her shoulder again, then the damp curve of her throat where Beck’s mark resides. Slow and careful, like I’m writing a promise into her skin.
Beck brushes a stray curl off her forehead, bending to kiss it.
Hayes hums low in his chest, thumb stroking her cheek, mouth brushing hers once more just because he can.
And I hold her steady from behind, lips pressed to her temple, letting her lean her full weight back into me from over the edge of the claw-foot tub.
She’s surrounded. Kissed. Held. Safe.
Her eyes flutter shut, lashes wet.
“You guys…” Her breath is shivery. “You make me feel—”
“Loved,” Hayes supplies.
“Wanted,” Beck adds.
“Home,” I whisper against her hair.
Her breath catches again, but this time it’s not a sob, it’s something brighter, breaking open.
I glance around at my other two packmates, meeting their eyes over her head. Beck’s mouth is curved, Hayes’s gaze softer than I’ve ever seen it. I feel the truth solid in my bones.
This is it.
The four of us, finally, where we’re supposed to be.
A perfect pack.