Evander
Aweek.
That’s all it’s been. A fucking week.
Sometimes, it feels shorter. Like I’ve blinked and already lost a week with the woman I’m spending the rest of my life with.
I worry that every blink will take hours and days off our lifespan, and I’ll miss all the important memories, all the fun times.
And yet, at other times, like now, it feels longer. Like every single moment has dragged—every second is equivalent to two in real life.
It sounds terrible, but honestly? It’s been perfect. Everything is amazing.
There’s no more lying, no more hiding things, no more pretending. No more dancing around the truths we’ve all known and Cassie hasn’t.
Now, we’re just… living life together. Domestic bliss, really.
Cassie’s doing so fucking well, and seeing how much her confidence has grown, even in just a week, is everything.
The way she hesitates less when entering a room with us all in.
The lack of anxiety when we greet her.
How happy she is to accept our scents—our things—for her nest. Our little omega is the best thief, and I can’t even complain about it.
Even if it means I’m going to need to replenish my shirt supply.
Despite all of her progress, though, we’re still being careful with her.
Maybe even too careful.
The others are better at this than I am. Every sentence gets weighed before it’s spoken, every touch thought through twice, instincts leashed before they can scare her.
I understand why we’re behaving this way, why we’re tiptoeing around her carefully, even if I don’t love it.
Sure, in some ways, everything is easier now. I don’t need to spend every waking second trying to engineer the perfect opportunity to be near her.
I don’t have to invent extra reasons to stop by Fashion or manufacture excuses to steal five minutes of her time between meetings.
If I want to sit beside her at breakfast, I get to sit beside her, steal a breath of strawberry cream before she’s even looked my way.
It feels a bit like finally breathing after months of denying myself the scent my instincts have been reaching for.
She still apologises far too much, and we’re still all on edge.
We’re working on that, though. Together.
The pack feels… right.
We’ve got enough emotional baggage between the five of us to sink a bloody cruise ship, and yet, we’re getting on with it.
We’re building a life together instead of just circling it.
Which is probably why my own anxiety is humming away in the background. Because now that I’ve had more of her, there’s actually something tangible to lose.
I startle out of my thoughts when the front door closes, and the familiar purr of Harlan’s engine sounds, fading down the quiet street outside.
I look over at my sleepy mate—brown hair mussed against Harlan’s sofa cushion, one hand still tucked under her cheek—and raise a brow, already fighting the urge to smooth it down. “Did he even say goodbye?”
She giggles, tucking her feet under her bum, to keep them warm. “He did. You were just a little out of it.”
I frown at the doorway before shrugging. “He can make it up to me later.”
Now, her giggles are unrestrained, and she beams at me. “I’m sure. What are your plans for today?”
Silas left first thing this morning for a meeting with one of his photographers. I didn’t really care about why it had to happen on a Saturday, unlike my pretty little mate.
Isaac had some errands to run, which is weird, but I suppose he’s entitled to his own life.
Harlan’s gone to visit his parents, meaning for the next few hours at least, Cassie and I are alone.
Interesting.
“They’ve left us unsupervised,” I say brightly.
Cassie’s eyes flash with confusion, and she tilts her head in an adorable way like a puppy would. “I’m sorry?”
I fold my arms across my chest and waggle my brows at her, a lock of brown hair falling into my eyes. “We’re alone, little daisy. No lectures, no rules, no boring stick in the muds to boss us around.”
She laughs. “I’m going to be honest, Van, but I don’t think I have nearly as big an issue with that as you do.”
“I’m just saying, it seems deeply irresponsible of them.”
A grin tugs at her mouth. “To leave you alone with me? Or just to leave you alone in general?”
“Exactly.” I wink, and she rolls her eyes, still smiling.
“I think they trust you.” Her voice carries the faint edge of teasing.
I snort, reaching over for the blanket behind me to drape it over her legs before she can even ask, my instincts soothed the second she’s properly tucked in. She burrows into it, unsurprisingly.
“They absolutely shouldn’t,” I warn her.
Cassie raises a brow, her scent staying playful. “How come? Is this where you tell me that all this time you’ve been planning on murdering me?”
“Oh, much more devious than that.” I reach forward, lifting her easily from her blanket cocoon, and place her on my lap. “My plans for you are far better than a simple murder, little daisy.”
She gasps, her eyes darting over my face before my scent reaches her properly, and only then does she relax. “They are?”
I nod.
“So much more,” I tease, grinning down at her.
Even on my lap, she’s managed to hold onto the blankets, arranging them around herself again, like she wasn’t just pulled free of them seconds ago.
She really is a nesting creature.
I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who could look so utterly at home wrapped in three layers of fleece and at least one stolen shirt, our scent thick enough around her that I can barely smell the blankets beneath it anymore.
She gasps at me, and I smirk.
“I knew it,” I say solemnly. “You know I’m dangerous.”
She snorts, and I can’t help the way my heart races at her look. “I think your ego is dangerous, Van, nothing else.”
I hold my hands to my chest, feigning hurt. “Ouch. Okay, then, little miss attitude, you just wound my poor ego.”
“It’ll recover,” she says with a soft giggle.
“It might not.”
She reaches up and brushes my hair off my forehead. “It definitely will. Although, your pride might take a bigger hit.”
She’s smiling so openly now that it still catches me off guard. A week ago, she’d have hidden it behind her hand. She’d have apologised for laughing too loudly or worried she’d interrupted me somehow.
Now, she just laughs.
It’s easily my favourite sound in the world.
“I’ve been grievously wounded,” I announce, pressing a hand dramatically over my chest. “I don’t know if I can continue living with this pain.”
She leans in and brushes a soft kiss to my cheek. “How can I undo your pain, good sir?”
“Good sir?” I ask before tickling her sides. She gasps, writhing away from my hands, trying to escape the feeling. I don’t relent, tickling up and down her ribs, under her armpits, and even across her stomach.
Her strawberry cream scent is drenched with her joy, and I’m greedy with my inhales of it.
“Stop, stop,” she says breathlessly. “You’re going to kill me.”
“See? Death by tickling is so much better than outright murder,” I tease, but I sit back, offering her a hand up.
She rolls her eyes, and I lean in, pressing a kiss to her temple.
The gesture is instinctive now. A week ago, I’d have spent ten minutes wondering whether she’d be comfortable with it.
Now, I just… do it. I know what she wants before she has to ask for it—the comfort, the little touches, the love.
Fuck, she thrives on it.
Cassie settles against me again, rearranging the blanket for what has to be the twentieth time this morning before letting out a tiny, content sigh.
I glance around Harlan's sitting room, morning light stretching across the wooden floor—too tidy without the mess on the coffee table, too quiet without Silas’s low voice on the phone somewhere, too thin on pack scent without the rest of us in it—noting how empty it feels without the others here.
The space feels larger than it did before, and if it’s grating on me, it must be upsetting Cassie.
My gaze drifts down to her, and even though she’s still smiling—that same soft, easy smile that undoes me a little every time—her shoulders are wound tighter than they were before.
Her eyes keep wandering towards the front door every few seconds, as though she’s half expecting someone to walk back in.
She’s not anxious—I can smell that much—but this isn’t her space yet. Not without the rest of the pack in it, something of us for her to hold onto.
I brush my thumb over the edge of the blanket tucked around her legs, needing the contact almost as much as she does.
“Do you want to go upstairs?”
Her gaze snaps towards me almost immediately, and I spot the relief before it is masked by confusion.
“Oh.” She blinks before rapidly shaking her head. “We don’t have to.”
There it is. Not I don’t want to, but the automatic reassurance that she isn’t asking anything of me.
“Cass…”
“You don’t have to give up the sofa just because I—”
“I’m the one offering,” I say simply.
She bites her lip, looking around the room for something. Whatever it is, she doesn’t find it.
“I know you’d be fine anywhere—you always are,” I say gently. “But upstairs is much quieter, and less—” I gesture vaguely around the open-plan room. “This.”
She looks around the room like she’s seeing it for the first time, and I see the moment that it clicks that this is what’s been getting to her.
“I just thought you might be more comfortable.”
She looks up at me in awe.
“You noticed,” she whispers, and her scent spikes—surprise, then something warmer underneath it.
I tug on her hair gently and roll my eyes. “Of course, I noticed.”
A soft flush creeps into her cheeks, and she nuzzles into my chest, scenting me the way she does when she needs to ground herself. I brush a kiss against her hair.
“I didn’t even realise I was doing it,” she says, still whispering as if worried someone may overhear her.
“I know,” I say softly. “You’re not alone, little daisy. I’m here for you.”
She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth before giving me one of those tiny, impossibly sincere smiles that always seem to hit me somewhere beneath my ribs.
“You’re so good at taking care of me, Van.”