Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Davis
I’m practically bouncing in my seat as Mason turns onto the street our pack house is off of.
After having a very early breakfast, we’d all gone back to bed for a few more hours—sadly in separate beds. There had been a lot of cuddling during Crew’s heat, and I don’t want Crew or Kiara to sleep separately from us any longer.
“Will you calm down?” Alexander asks, his exasperation clear in his tone.
Crew’s hand slips into mine, squeezing lightly. “It’s okay, Davis. Kiki and I are just as excited to see the house.”
“The alphas are just worried we won’t like it,” Kiara says, leaning around Crew so she can see me. “They’re nervous.”
“Fucking bonds,” Mason mutters, and Alexander grunts his agreement.
“I know you’re going to love it,” I assure them.
Kiara grins. “I’m sure we will too.”
Mason stops at the end of the driveway just long enough to have me frowning. “You know they can’t see it from the street, right?”
That the house can’t be seen from the road is part of the reason we bought it.
It’s an older house that needed a renovation badly, but that’s why Mason’s crew is working on it as we speak.
Mason’s the one who planned the whole thing with mine and Alexander’s input. It’s probably why he’s so nervous.
“Shut it, Davis,” Mason growls under his breath before turning around in his seat. “The crew is here, so it’s going to be noisy. No matter how excited you get, do not leave my side—any of you. There’s a lot of equipment being used, and it’s not safe to wander around. Do you understand?”
“Yes, daddy,” Crew says with a smirk. “We’ll be good and let you tell us what to do.”
Mason makes a face. “Nope. That will not become a thing. No way.”
Kiara giggles. “Yeah, let’s never say that again. Not my kink, baby.”
“Mine either,” Crew sing-songs, but it was totally worth it for the look on his face.
Mason shakes his head, muttering under his breath about brats as he pulls into the driveway.
It’s flat because no one wants to live on a hill when the ice and snow start—at least not anyone that’s used to the weather the mountains produce—but it curves a bit with trees on each side until they open up to reveal the house.
It’s a log cabin that was popular with tourists visiting the area, but it’s massive. Three stories tall with a wrap-around porch on the first two levels and large windows to let in the natural light.
Kiara gasps. “It’s beautiful.”
“We get to live in a log cabin?” Crew tilts his head. “Wait. Can it be called a cabin when it’s this big?”
I snort. “Who the fuck knows. You can call it whatever you want because it’s yours.”
“Ours,” he argues with a smile. “Fuck, I need to see the inside.”
Mason pulls up alongside one of his company’s trucks and parks. “Remember, stay with me.”
“We will, Mason. Please stop stressing out.” Kiara reaches into the front seat to rest her hand on his shoulder. “We’re going to love it, I promise.”
He lays his hand on top of hers and squeezes. “I sure hope so.”
We all climb out and head inside. There’s no one on the first level working, as Mason did all the work down here himself.
The entryway opens into an open floor plan with the living room, kitchen, and dining room taking up most of the space, and there’s a bathroom off the living room.
We show them the massive game room at the back of the house—or at least that’s what we’re planning to make it.
Right now, it just has a couch and a TV.
We only have the most basic of furnishings because we didn’t want to decorate until our pack was complete.
We wanted to decorate it with Kiara—and now Crew.
We give them a quick tour before heading upstairs. It's noisier up here as they’re finishing up some of the rooms. Alexander, Mason, and I all have a room on this floor, plus there are five other bedrooms—each with its own en suite. There’s also a theatre in the back.
I hang back as Mason and Alexander show the newest members of our pack around. Their jaws are practically on the floor.
I know they weren’t expecting a place to rival Pack Owens’s house, and we probably don’t need a place this large, but we’d fallen in love with it.
As we head up to the third floor, silence envelopes us once again. Mason had them start on this level, but he’d already done a sizable chunk of the work on his own.
This is the floor that houses the pack bedroom with its nest and bathroom big enough for all three of us. It’s the smallest floor and the pack bedroom takes up most of the space, but there are four bedrooms up here as well. They’re smaller, meant for children if we’re blessed with them.
When Mason throws open the double doors to the pack bedroom, Kiara and Crew rush inside with gasps, and I can’t help grinning.
I never doubted that they would love what Mason designed for them—for us.
There’s a massive bed in the center of the room, but the best part of the bedroom is the floor-to-ceiling windows on three of the walls and the view of the mountain.
“This is…” Kiara’s voice breaks as she leans into Crew, who wraps his arm around her.
“Perfect. Absolute perfection,” he finishes for her.
When they turn back to us, there are tears in their eyes.
“Obviously, anything you don’t like, we can change,” Mason assures them, but Kiara is already shaking her head.
“Mace, it’s like you plucked the perfect room from our heads and built it for us.”
Alexander and Mason both let out sighs of relief, while I smirk. “You haven’t even seen the bathroom, the nest, or the closets. You think it’s perfect now, wait until you see it all.”
I laugh as the pair rush to the nearest door and step into the nest. I settle onto the bed, watching as they dart from door to door.
Mason and Alexander join me. Mason wraps his arm around my waist, and Alexander leans his head against mine.
“Why were we so worried again?” Alexander asks.
“That’s a damn good question.” Mason sighs, running his free hand through his hair.
I just laugh again. “Because you wanted it to be perfect for them. There’s nothing wrong with that, but do you know what makes it perfect for them?”
“What’s that?” Mason asks.
But I’m not the one who answers.
“It’s because you built it for us,” Kiara says softly, the two of them kicking off their shoes before climbing onto the bed and leaning against the headboard. “Even if you didn’t know it was for Crew and me, you were building it for your future mates.”
“Oh, we hoped it would be you.” Alexander kicks off his shoes and joins them.
Not wanting to be left out, Mason and I do the same and crawl up the bed. Mason shoves me next to Crew before settling on my other side.
Kiara sighs. “I know you did, and I’m glad it was me and Crew.”
We sit in silence for a few moments before something occurs to me.
“We’re bonded now. That means we need to change our names and file the paperwork to form our pack officially.”
“Slow down, Davis.” Alexander chuckles. “There are a lot of things we need to do, including scheduling a bonding ceremony.”
“Assuming you both want to have a bonding ceremony,” Mason rushes to add.
Crew rolls his eyes. “Of course we want a ceremony. You’re not getting out of that.”
“We’ll have to wait until the parental pack is back from Europe. We can’t do it without our family.” Kiara smiles. “Plus, we’ll need to make sure Crew’s parents can come and some of our friends from North Carolina.”
Crew turns his head to look past me at Mason. “How long until the house will be finished?”
“Another two or three weeks, if I had to guess. Why?”
“I want to have the ceremony here. It seems like the perfect way to start our lives here.”
Kiara nods. “I like that idea.”
I frown. “Does that mean we’re going to stay at Pack Owens’s place until then? Because I don’t want to be there once they come home. We’re newly bonded, we don’t need your parents around.”
“Absolutely not,” Crew reassures me. “As soon as the pack house is ready, we should move in. But we have another month until Pack Owens is home. How long do we need to plan a ceremony?”
Kiara wrinkles her nose. “I mean, we could plan it in like a week, but I don’t want to do that. If the house is ready in three weeks, we’ll still need to finish furnishing it. That’ll take time. Maybe two months?”
“That’s forever away.” I don’t like the sound of that. They’re ours, and I want everyone to know that.
Mason grips my chin, turning my head until I meet his gaze. “We can file the paperwork before the ceremony. We don’t have to wait two months to become Pack Kennedy.”
“Yeah, fuck that noise.” Crew makes a face. “We can file all of that tomorrow if we want. There’s no way Kiki and I are going back to work until Saturday night at the earliest. We get a week-long leave for heats, and we’re not going back before we absolutely have to.”
“I already messaged Marlene. She says our shifts are covered, so we’re not expected back until next Thursday.”
I shake my head. “Lucky asses.”
“Davis, we all work for ourselves. We can take off the rest of the week, too.” Alexander shakes his head, and I realize he’s right. I really don’t have to rush back to work.
“So, we’re doing this? Filing paperwork to become an official pack tomorrow and a bonding ceremony in two months?” I ask, trying to keep my excitement at bay, but it’s not like I can hide anything from them considering I share a bond with all of them.
Kiara nods. “Yeah, Davis. Tomorrow, we become Pack Kennedy to the government, and in two months, we’ll have a ceremony before our friends and family to make it official.”
I don’t know what I did to get this damn lucky in life, but I’m not sure I’ve ever been this happy.