78. Chapter Seventy-Eight
Chapter Seventy-Eight
L ucian stands there, so sure of his place in the world, with Finn and Elias beside him, a horizon of everything I have ever wanted. I look at my parents, at their useless conviction that I will leave all this behind. I see myself in a few months, dead-eyed and alone, wondering what my life could have been.
"If I ask you to mark me right here and now," I ask Lucian, "would you?" He doesn't speak, doesn't even seem to breathe. "I am willing to be a part of this pack." I pause, letting it sink in.
"I love you all," I add, an even deeper secret than the first. I don't want a life without them, and I'd rather do something drastic than lose it all.
I imagine the scene as it plays out in their minds, me throwing a fit and giving in, me begging for forgiveness, me back where they can watch over me, hidden away, unable to cause more embarrassment. It almost makes me laugh. If this were a few weeks ago, maybe. A few days ago, possibly. But not now. I know they see Lucian as just another Silvercrest. They think it's only a matter of time before his pack is just like theirs. They'll use this "meeting" as a way to pressure me to conform. My only regret is that they ever made me feel like they were right.
"We don't need to be this drastic, Lydia," my father says. It's a last-ditch attempt. He thinks he can reason with me, that if he keeps his voice even and calm, I'll see my mistake and quietly correct it. "You can make your choice. But you shouldn't make it out of anger."
They are so much smaller than I remember. Even my father, always standing too close, blocking the door until I agreed to one more family meal. I'm not angry, I'm sure of that. Angry is what happens when you're helpless. I have them exactly where I want them. I tell them, "I know what I'm doing."
"Do you really?" my mother says. "He's one of us, Lydia. An Alpha ." She makes it sound like a disease. I can see her straining to understand what possible angle I'm playing. "Do you think this is going to be any different? You think after you’re ‘officially’ theirs, that they’ll just let you—"
"Be happy?" I say, a smile growing on my lips as I look at Lucian who was watching my every move, "Yeah, I do."
She's on the verge of hysterics, caught between a growing disbelief and a lifetime of teaching me to be invisible. "Lydia, you have no idea—"
"Why would I go back to you ?" I say, turning my full attention to her, taking a couple steps to her as I talk, venting my emotions out for one last time, "So you can teach me more lessons ?" The words have the bite of a laugh. "I don't want the life you're offering. I'm done running."
I'm speaking just to my parents now. It makes me feel bold. I think I should thank them, if anything. "That's what you wanted, isn't it? For me to really make up my mind?" I almost say I love them again, so my parents have no doubt that I mean it. The ones who matter already know, I think. I turn to Lucian, shock making him more real to me than ever.
Lucian stares as if I have taken away his voice, his eyes trying to keep up with the rest of him. He finds his feet, takes two hesitant steps in my direction, then another. I know I’ve startled him. All of them. Finn, Elias, and Soren each show a different kind of amazement, like I’ve just spun the world the other way around.
Lucian reaches me, searching my face, wanting to believe it. "Not like this," he says at last, breathless. "But yes."
He says the word as if tasting it, seeing how it feels on his tongue, how it feels inside his chest. I watch his mouth form the rest of the sentence: he would gladly mark me, yes. Yes, but not here, not while I'm flanked by parents with impossible demands. Yes, but not under these conditions, not when there's an ounce of doubt that this is really what I want. He is looking at me like I'm a ghost, like I could vanish in an instant if he says the wrong thing.
I think of all the ways I could misread him right now. Maybe the word has a secret end— an "until" or "unless" that will strike out every hope I've dared to entertain.
"But?" I ask, needing him to fill in the space around it.
His eyes are soft, bright with relief, with a thousand unsaid words that he will give to me, one at a time. "Yes," he says again. He looks at me for another moment before he finds more. "Just not like this."
"When, then?" I feel my heart thumping inside my chest, a relentless pressure building and expanding until he finally says—
"Inside our home," he says. "No one else around. No one else getting between us." Each phrase is its own small world. He takes a breath, makes the next words into something solid and alive. "It's too important, Lydia."
There's a lightness inside of me, an airiness spreading until it reaches my skin and makes me shiver with relief. He means it. He's stunned and amazed, but he means it. I should have known this was the answer. For Lucian, there is nothing more sacred than making a commitment this profound. It's more than a promise to him. It's something far deeper, unshakable, permanent. A claim and an oath all at once.
"But your parents," he says, glancing over my shoulder as if the wrong words could summon their disapproval like a curse. "They're hoping you'll change your mind."
"They'll be disappointed, then," I say. I want him to see my resolve. I want him to know this is the truest thing I've ever done.
Lucian's eyes stay on mine, watchful, like he's afraid someone might come and pull me away at the last second. He won't say it until he is sure, until there are no doubts left. He takes another breath and releases it slowly, like air into a glass.
He says, "I don't want to rush you into anything."
I almost laugh. I imagine grabbing his shoulders, shaking him with the urgency that I've held in check for too long. Rush? I've spent so much time wondering if he would wait, if he would let me come to him on my own. If anything, I've been slow. So slow, I fear I almost lost him.
The others look on in surprise, not just because of what I've said, but because he is who he is. They all think he’s the least impulsive of any of us. They've seen him hesitate, consider every angle. I want to say that I've already rushed this, and not in the way they think. I've rushed by waiting until it was almost too late.
Instead, I just tell him, "I want this. You have to know that."
He's already moving closer, closing the last distance between us. "You're really sure?" he says, the amazement in his voice like a note I've been desperate to hear.
"More than sure," I say. "Positive." I expect him to take my hands, to say more, but he just holds me in his gaze, a hundred plans blooming in the span of a heartbeat.
"Then as I said before, yes," he says, with the fullness of the word written in the way he looks at me.
I am bursting at the seams, wanting to pull him to me, but he just watches, careful and bright, waiting until I am finished and full. Then his face breaks into that rare grin, the one that makes his eyes crinkle and his voice sound even warmer.
“But as I said, not like this," he says. "For when I mark you as one of my pack, you won’t leave the house for a week." There was a pause as he looked at me with pure hunger in his eyes.
“Or longer,” he says, still smiling. “Depending on Finn, Elias, and Soren.” His laughter fills the space around us, stretching and warm, making it impossible to remember anything about this day but him. He draws me closer, everything about him steady and right, just like I dreamed he would be. Just like he promised.
He looks at the others. He knows they're as amazed as I am, but not for the same reasons. For them, this is just another surprise, another thing to figure out and adjust to. They were not counting the days, wondering if I'd ever come around. Wondering if I'd decide this was where I needed to be. They weren't holding their breath, knowing I'd come to my senses in the end.
But they know now, just like Lucian does, just like I do.
"I want it to be just us," he says, pulling me from my thoughts. "Not with any outsiders around." His gaze went over to my parents and then back to me.
"Just us," I say, and there is an almost unbearable lightness in the words.
He touches my cheek, making sure that I see him. Making sure that I know this is real. "Just us," he says. It's more than I hoped for. More than I ever thought possible.
It’s everything.
I'm so full of relief, and joy that I almost don't hear the warnings in the back of my mind. The warnings I spent so long letting get in the way. They'll come for you, they said. They'll tear it all down, all of it, before you can even get used to it. You'll regret this when they finally win.
But they can't win now. They can't.
I made this choice.
"Lydia," Lucian says, the word a promise all its own. "We'll figure it all out. No one's changing anything." He glances past me, to my parents, to the life I almost convinced myself I could survive. "They're not part of this. Not unless we want them to be."
"You think you know what love is," my mother says, voice cutting into the moment Lucian and myself were having. I can hear the rising panic in her voice.
"Wait until this little honeymoon is over." She steps forward like she might shake some sense into me. Lucian lets out a low warning sound and pulls me behind him, a wall they can’t get through.
"She's made her choice," he says, voice sharp, a deep growl in his chest rising in volume as a warning, "Now get out."
They can’t believe it. They’re in shock. They look at me and then at each other, unable to accept that I've really said these things. I hear the urgency in their voices, the frantic desire to control me again. They need to make me take it all back, take back every word and retreat to a place where I can be safe, and quiet, and unseen.
My father stands next to my mother, their combined disappointment aimed like a weapon. "This isn't a game, Lydia. This isn't something you can just play around with and change your mind about later."
"Why do you think I'm here?" I say, a challenge in every syllable.
"Because you thought this would be your big moment," my mother says. "A chance to show us that you're a grown woman now." The words are sharp with sarcasm and fear. "It isn't too late to—"
"It is," I say. I almost laugh at the confusion on their faces. "It's way too late. I'm not going anywhere with you."
"This isn’t going to last," my father says. "We've seen how these things end. You haven't."
Lucian's arm is a line drawn in the sand. "You don't know anything about this," he says. "She knows exactly what she's doing."
Their voices rise, desperate, insisting. I'm being reckless, they're only trying to protect me, they love me. I feel the last word hit, the pressure of it, the weight, the guilt. But they are too late. I won't let it work, not now.
"Lydia," my mother says. Her voice is shrill, breaking. "Do you really think this will be different? Do you really think he won't, this pack—"
"Yes," I say. I know that one word will do more damage than anything else I could say. I know it's the only thing they’ll remember when they finally give up and leave. "Yes, I do."
It's too much for them. I see them stagger back, the air leaving their chests in one heavy breath. Their panic grows more wild, more frantic. They can't control this. They can't control me.
Lucian glances over his shoulder. His eyes are calm and certain, letting me know it's going to be okay, letting me know I've won. "She's a part of our pack," he says. "You can't change it."
His confidence fills me. It is a presence in itself, a soft and solid truth they can't fight against.
"She thinks she's in love now," my father says, grasping for anything that might break through. "Just wait. She’ll be right back with us when she sees what you're really like."
They're saying these things to hurt him, to make him react, to make him think he has to prove them wrong. They don't know that he's stronger than that. That he's sure of this, sure of me, sure of us. More sure than he ever could be of anything else.
"I will wear his mark," I say, the words hitting their mark with a satisfying force. "No matter what you do." It's not Lucian they look at now, not Lucian they're trying to damage with their last frantic efforts. It's me. Me, the daughter who used to do anything they wanted, who used to say anything they needed to hear.
My mother tries to step forward again, but Lucian shifts, closing the space she wants to fill with more guilt, more pleading, more lies. I see their desperation for what it is: a fear that I've finally broken free.
"You’ll regret this, Lydia," my father says, his voice a sad, cloying weight.
Lucian gives them a hard, steady look. "She has made her choice… now… Get out."
They hate him. They hate him and this pack and me for making them look weak, and small, and helpless. They thought this would be their last chance to bring me back. They were so sure they would win, so sure I'd be too scared to commit to anything this drastic.
They leave behind an echo, a sudden weight of silence and dust. I wait for Lucian to ask if I'm okay, to ask if I'm going to regret what I've done. But he doesn't. I feel him draw me closer. "So you love us," Soren says, a hint of surprise in his voice. "All of us."
There's a lightness in his words, an almost impossible brightness. My parents’ voices still ring, telling me I'll regret this, telling me I have no idea what I'm getting into. But they are gone. All that's left is their echo and the clean, bright space they couldn't touch.
Lucian is holding me against him, a presence more real than anything else, more solid than I ever hoped.
"Is that true?" Soren says, pressing closer, not letting me pretend like I haven’t heard him. "All of us?" His voice is a challenge and a tease, daring me to answer, daring me to admit it all over again.
"Lydia?" Elias asks, watching from behind a careful, soft gaze. He's as unsure as the rest of them, just as surprised. But there is no trace of doubt in his eyes, no trace of it in any of them.
It is so easy to breathe now, with Lucian close and their warmth surrounding me. It's so easy to know this is the truest thing I've ever done. I almost want to laugh at their surprise. Didn't they know? Didn't they guess?
"All of you," I say, finally, each word bright with truth.
Finn nods, his smile slow and wide and full. "That's good," he says, like I've just put together a puzzle that they thought I'd never solve.
"That's better than good," Soren says, relief and humor playing in his eyes. They all thought I'd take longer, that I was still deciding, still figuring it out. They thought it would take another month, another year, maybe longer. I surprised them as much as I surprised myself, as much as I surprised my parents.
Lucian doesn't say a thing, but I can feel him behind me, supporting me, more sure and certain than ever.
They thought it would take a small eternity, I think. But the truth is, it took me this long just to say it. Just to believe it enough to speak it out loud. Just to be sure enough to take the leap and let go.
Elias is still watching, still a little unsure of what to make of it all. "You're really ready?" he asks, voice a soft hope. "You're really okay with this?"
He has always worried the most, always been the one who thought I might bolt if anything scared me, if anything seemed too big or too permanent. But this is different. This is forever, like I always wanted.
"I'm better than okay," I say. Lucian's arms tighten around me, pulling me in until the whole world is bright and true and complete. The space left by my parents’ exit is full, more full than I could have imagined, more full than even I hoped when I made the choice to tell them, to tell him, to tell everyone.
There's more than just relief in that space now. There's joy, deep and sure and undeniable.