Chapter 35
Vee
The morning is warm enough to be outside without a jacket for the first time since we arrived at the cabin.
I didn't plan anything for today. I woke up and the sun was coming through the curtains and I thought: outside. That's all. Just outside, in the sun, with nowhere to be and nothing to manage.
We've been out here for two hours now. Lawn chairs dragged onto the grass, coffee going cold on the porch railing.
Rhys is in the largest chair, which still looks inadequate for him, with his face tipped slightly toward the sun.
His eyes closed. Malcolm is on the steps reading something on his phone with his shirt off because of course he is.
Finn disappeared inside twenty minutes ago saying he had to check something and hasn't come back.
Alex is beside me. We aren’t touching, just close in the same way he's been close since the night I told him I chose them.
Like he's stopped trying to maintain the careful distance and has settled into proximity instead, and the proximity has its own warmth that's different from touch but still real.
"What are you thinking about?" he asks.
"Nothing," I say.
He looks at me.
"The garden," I say. "I keep thinking about what I'd plant if we had the space."
"What would you plant?"
"Tomatoes obviously. Herbs—basil, rosemary, thyme.
Something with flowers too, not just vegetables.
Lavender maybe. Something that smells good when you walk past it.
" I look at the tree line. "Fruit trees if there was room.
That takes years to establish but I'd like to start something that takes years. "
He's quiet. "Something permanent."
"Yeah," I say. "Something permanent."
The door bangs open.
Finn emerges with a stack of papers that should not exist given that we are sitting outside on a Tuesday morning with nowhere to be.
"Okay," he says. He has the expression he gets when he's been productive in a way he's proud of. "I found some listings."
Everyone looks at him.
"How many is some," Malcolm says.
"Twelve." He holds up the stack. "Color coded."
"Finn," Alex says. "We haven't even—"
"I know we haven't. But we're going to need to eventually and I had forty minutes.
Plus the wifi is good today so…" He drops into the remaining chair and spreads the papers on the small table between us with the focus of someone presenting findings.
"I used our general criteria—space, land, reasonable distance from town, not on Ragon's side of things—and I narrowed from forty-seven listings down to twelve.
These are sorted by priority. Green tabs are strong contenders.
Yellow are worth a look. Red is wishful thinking but I included them anyway because they're interesting. "
Malcolm leans over and picks up a red tab listing. Studies it. "This has a pool."
"That's why it's interesting."
"I want a pool."
"You want a pool in the abstract," Finn says. "In practice you'd use it four times and then it would become a very expensive hole in the ground."
"I would use it constantly."
"You'd use it constantly for three weeks and then it would become a very expensive hole in the ground."
"Finn—"
"Malcolm, you don't even shower for fun. You shower functionally. You're not a pool person."
I take the stack and start going through them.
The first few don't catch. Nice houses, reasonable land, nothing wrong with them and nothing pulling at me either. I set them aside and keep going.
Then I find it.
Four bedrooms. Two acres. A covered porch that wraps around two sides. And in the listing photos—overgrown, clearly unmaintained, absolutely full of potential—a garden space that runs the full length of the back of the property. Deep beds. Old stone borders. A mature apple tree at the far end.
I look at it for a long moment.
Then I look up and find Alex already looking at the same listing.
He glances up at the same moment I do.
We don't say anything.
"What's that one," Finn says, craning his neck.
I hold it up.
He takes it. Studies it. "The garden is a project."
"I know," I say.
"Like, significant work."
"I know."
"The porch is nice though." He tilts it toward Malcolm. "Look at this porch."
Malcolm takes it. Nods. "This is a good porch." He hands it to Rhys.
Rhys examines it. Turns it over. Examines the back. "Ceiling height?"
Finn pulls out his phone. Looks it up. "Nine foot standard throughout. Ten in the main living space."
Rhys looks at this information. Looks at the listing. "Acceptable."
"High praise," Malcolm says.
"The last one had eight foot ceilings," Rhys says. "That's not a home. That's a container."
"You’ve been fine in the cabin," Finn says.
"I been managing in the cabin," Rhys says. "There's a difference."
I take the listing back. Look at the garden again. The apple tree. The overgrown beds that would take a full season to reclaim properly.
Something that takes years.
"This one," I say.
"You haven't seen the others," Finn says.
"I know." I look at him. "This one."
Finn looks at Alex. Alex looks at the listing one more time. Then he looks at me with the quiet expression.
"This one," he agrees.
Finn throws his hands up. "I color coded twelve listings."
"We appreciate it," I say.
"Do you though? Do you appreciate it? Because it feels like you looked at one and made a decision."
"We looked at several," Malcolm says, gesturing at the small pile I went through.
"You looked at four."
"Four is several."
"Four is not—" Finn stops. Takes a breath. "Fine. Fine. I'll call the agent." He starts typing something on his phone with the energy of a man who has accepted a situation he finds professionally unsatisfying. "The garden is genuinely a project though. I want that on record."
"Noted," I say.
"A significant project."
"Noted, Finn."
He grumbles something under his breath that I can't quite hear. Malcolm pats his shoulder. Finn shrugs it off and keeps typing.
Alex leans back in his chair and looks up at the sky.
The sun is fully up now, warm and direct, the kind of morning that makes the world feel manageable.
His profile is clean against the light. I look at him and think: this is the man who sat on the other side of a door while I was in heat, who broke his own hand rather than let his packmate face jail time, who has kept a precise two feet between us since the day I arrived—all to give me the space to choose freely.
Mine.
I think it without flinching.
I'm thinking about where to put the lavender when I hear the car.
Gravel crunching. The sound of an engine that cuts with the deliberateness of someone who's arrived at a destination rather than passing through.
I know Chase's car by now. We all do.
I turn.
He gets out slowly.
That's the first thing. Chase doesn't move slowly. He moves like a man who has somewhere to be at all times. But he gets out of the car and closes the door. Then stands there with his hand still on the roof. He’s still in a way I've never seen from him before.
My stomach lurches.
He walks toward us.
I know before he speaks. I can see it in the set of his shoulders; in the expression he's trying to keep neutral and not quite managing. I've watched Chase deliver hard news before and he does it with professional steadiness, but this is different. This one is costing him something.
He looks at Alex first.
Alex stands.
"I tried everything," Chase says. "Every angle. Every argument. I called in every favor I had and then I went back and called in more." There's something raw underneath his voice. "They said no."
The word hits hard. No.
The flag.
I hear myself make a sound, small and involuntary. Rhys's hand finds my arm.
"They're embarrassed," Chase continues. "The whole situation—Vee, Marie, what came out at the hearing. That they let Vee stay in Ragon’s custody unclaimed for so long and then handed him a scent match like that was ever going to work out.
They don't want anything else coming back on them right now so they're protecting themselves.
" His jaw tightens. "Alex has done everything right.
His record since the incident is spotless.
The therapy, the work, everything. They know that. They just don't care right now."
Alex doesn't speak.
His face has gone very still in a way that suggests he’s containing something enormous.
"The flag stays," Chase says. "For now."
The sun is still warm. The grass is still green. The listing with the apple tree and the overgrown garden beds is still on the table in front of me.
"They think I'm with your pack," I say. My voice comes out strange. "What happens when they find out I'm not?"
Chase looks at me.
"They're already moving," he says. "They've been patient, but they're going to want to place you somewhere permanent.
" He exhales. "They want to help you heal.
That's what they're claiming anyway. They think the best thing for an omega who's experienced what you experienced is to be bonded and claimed into a stable pack as soon as possible.
" He pauses. "They have packs lined up already.
They'll start pushing for paperwork within a few days. "
"Random packs," I say.
"Yes."
The cold has spread through my whole body now.
"We have a few days," Malcolm says.
"A few days," Chase confirms. "Maybe less."
He crosses the grass toward me and crouches down in front of my chair. His hands find mine like they did in the cabin when he asked me what I wanted—warm and steady, that inexplicable safety he carries.
"You don't have to go to a random pack," he says. "I want you to know that. My pack… we can take you, Vee. You'd be safe with us. You'd be cared for. I know it's not—" He stops. Starts again. "I know it's not what you want. But it's not nothing. It's a real option."
I look at him.
His eyes are warm and serious and genuinely offering me something real.
I shake my head.
"I want this pack," I say. My voice breaks on the last word. "I need them. They're right for me. All of them." Tears are coming and I can't stop them. "I chose them. They’re mine, Chase. I already chose them."
"I know," Chase says. "I know you did."
"Then fix it," I say. "Please fix it." It comes out small and broken and not like me at all.
"I'm trying to figure out if there's another way," he says. "I'm not giving up. But right now I needed you to know where things stand." He squeezes my hands once and stands. Looks at Alex. "I'll keep working. But prepare for the possibility that we have very little time."
Alex nods once.
Chase looks at all of them. His expression carries weight of a man who has done everything he could and is living in the gap between that and enough.
"I'm sorry," he says.
He walks back to his car and we watch him drive away.
Nobody says anything.
Then Rhys's arms come around me. I turn into his chest and I cry in a way I haven't cried since the early days—full and ugly and completely undone.
His purr starts and I feel the others close in around us.
Malcolm's hand on my back. Finn's forehead against my hair from the side.
Alex standing nearby, not touching, the flag keeping him exactly one careful step away again.
On the table the listing with the apple tree sits in the sun.
Four bedrooms. Two acres. A garden that would take a lot of work to reclaim.
Something permanent.
I cry until I'm empty and then I sit in the middle of my pack in the warm morning light and feel the grief of wanting something completely but not being able to have it yet.
Yet.
I hold onto that word with everything I have.
Yet.