Chapter 40
Vee
The drive back takes forty minutes and I spend most of it with my hand on the claim mark.
It's tender. Swollen slightly where his teeth broke skin. Every time I press my fingers to it I feel the bond pulse back, warm and steady, like a second heartbeat that isn't mine but is.
Alex drives. One hand on the wheel, one on my thigh, his thumb tracing absent patterns on my knee. He hasn't stopped touching me since we left the motel. Small points of contact, like he's confirming I'm real.
"They're going to lose their minds," I say.
"Malcolm is going to lose his mind," Alex corrects. "Finn is going to cry. Rhys is going to stand in a corner and feel things."
"That's everyone losing their minds."
"In their own ways. Yes."
I press my fingers to the mark again. The bond hums.
"Are you ready for it?" I ask. "Being back?"
He's quiet for a moment. The road unspools ahead of us, trees on both sides, late afternoon light coming through the canopy.
"I've been ready," he says. "I've been ready since the day I left."
We pull into the driveway and I can see the cabin through the windshield. The porch. The garden. The windows with the light on inside even though it's still afternoon, because someone always leaves the lights on.
My pack is in there.
Alex cuts the engine and looks at me. That steady gaze. "You want to go in first or together?"
"Together," I say. "Obviously."
He takes my hand. We walk up the steps.
He opens the door.
They're all in the living room. It's like they've been waiting, which they probably have, because Chase called ahead.
Finn sees us first.
His eyes go straight to my neck. To the mark. His whole face changes, and I watch the exact moment it registers. His mouth opens and nothing comes out for about three seconds, which might be a record.
Then he says, "Oh my god."
Malcolm is already on his feet. He crosses the room, stops in front of me, and just stares at the mark. His hand comes up and hovers without touching.
"Can I—"
"Yes."
His fingers brush the edge of it. Light. Reverent. His scent pulses and his purr starts so hard his whole chest vibrates with it.
"It's done," he says. Not to me. To himself. To the room. "It's actually done."
"It's done," Alex confirms. “We weren’t going to wait on registry forms. They’ve done enough damage, they’ll concede to this.”
Malcolm looks at Alex. They hold each other's gaze for a long moment. I watch years of shared history pass between them. The prison. The flag. The waiting. All of it compressed into one look.
Then Malcolm pulls Alex into a hug that's more collision than embrace. Alex takes it. Returns it. Two alphas who have held this pack together through everything, finally on the other side of it.
Finn has appeared beside me. His eyes are bright and he's doing the thing where he pushes his glasses up repeatedly even though they're fine.
"Finn," I say.
"I'm fine."
"You're crying."
"I'm not crying. My eyes are doing a thing." He pulls me into a hug. His arms go tight around me and he holds on for a while and when he pulls back his glasses are genuinely crooked and his cheeks are wet. He doesn't bother denying it a second time.
Rhys hasn't moved from the armchair.
I cross to him.
He looks up at me. His eyes drop to the mark. Then back to my face. His expression does the thing it does when he's feeling too much to move through quickly. That stillness. The containment of a man who has spent years learning to hold big things without letting them break him.
I sit on the arm of his chair and tip my head so he can see the mark properly.
He looks at it for a long time.
Then he leans forward and presses his lips to my temple. Just once. Barely there.
His purr starts. Broken and real and entirely his.
I rest my hand on the back of his neck and we stay like that while the room buzzes around us.
"Okay," Malcolm says, clapping his hands together. "When do we get to mark her?"
"Malcolm," Alex says.
"I'm asking a practical question. There's a sequence here. A timeline. I want to know the timeline."
"The timeline is: not tonight."
"Tomorrow?"
"She was just claimed four hours ago. Let her recover."
"I feel fine," I say.
"You're not helping," Alex says.
"I'm just saying. I feel fine."
Malcolm points at me. "She feels fine."
Alex pinches the bridge of his nose. "We have the rest of our lives. It doesn't have to happen this week."
"It could happen this week though," Malcolm says.
Finn raises his hand. "I'd also like to register my interest."
"Finn."
"I'm just putting it on record. Formally. For the record."
Rhys says nothing. But when I glance at him his eyes are on my neck and his expression says everything his mouth doesn't.
Alex looks at the ceiling. "I am going to manage this pack into the ground."
"You love us," Malcolm says.
"That is increasingly debatable."
I laugh. The real kind. The kind that fills the room.
***
Later, after the initial chaos dies down and someone has made coffee and Malcolm has asked about the marking timeline two more times, I find Finn alone in the kitchen.
He's leaning against the counter with his mug. The laughter from earlier has faded into something quieter. More thoughtful.
I know what he's thinking about. I can see it in the way he's not quite meeting my eyes.
"Hey," I say.
"Hey."
I hop up onto the counter beside him. "Talk to me."
He takes a sip of his coffee then sets it down.
"I'm happy," he says. "I want you to know that. I'm genuinely, completely happy."
"But."
He winces. "No but."
"Finn."
He sighs. Takes off his glasses. Cleans them on his shirt even though they're clean. Puts them back on.
"It's stupid," he says.
"Say it anyway."
"When they all mark you, I won't be able to." He says it simply. Like a fact he's reporting. "Every alpha in this pack will have a claiming bite on you and I'll have—"
"Finn."
"—a strong emotional connection and excellent taste in restaurants."
I take his hand.
"You were the first person in that house who made me feel safe," I say. "Not because of a scent match. Not because of a purr or a knot or any alpha thing. Because you walked into my garden and made small talk. You think I don’t know you couldn’t care less about plants? You were there because you knew I needed someone. Someone neutral. Because you wanted to be there for me. Every time I was falling apart without saying it, you came, or you text me to come over, or you researched my gym class and then called Chase to go there and check on me when you couldn’t.
You didn’t need a bond or a scent or an imprint.
" I hold his gaze. "That's a claim, Finn.
You claimed me long before anyone bit anyone. "
His jaw works.
"And for what it's worth," I say, "I can't mark any of them either. No omega bites. So you and I are in the same boat."
"That's not quite the same thing."
"It's close enough. We're the non-biters." I bump his shoulder with mine. "But don't think for a second that means I don't claim every single one of you. Because I do. Fully. Completely." I pause. "And if any omega so much as looks at one of you too long, I will scratch her eyes out."
He looks at me.
"I'm serious. I'll fight her in a parking lot. I don't care."
He laughs. Wet and real. "You weigh a hundred and twenty pounds."
"A hundred and twenty pounds of fury." I point at him. "Yours. All of yours. And I’m not sharing."
He pulls me into him. His forehead drops to my shoulder. "Yeah," he says quietly. "I do love you."
"I know," I say. "That's why you get a jacket."
"What jacket?"
"I haven't figured that part out yet. But there will be a jacket."
When we rejoin the living room, everyone is in the loose scatter of a pack that's stopped performing relaxation and is actually relaxed. Alex in the armchair. Malcolm stretched out on the couch. Rhys in his usual spot.
I settle onto the couch beside Malcolm and ask the question I've been carrying since the motel.
"I need to ask you all something," I say.
The room shifts. Just slightly.
"The scent match," I say. "When Alex broke the pack bond, the match dissolved. For all of you." I look at each of them. "Not one of you mentioned it."
Silence.
Malcolm speaks first. "I noticed."
"When?"
"Right after." He shrugs. "Didn't matter."
Rhys is quiet. Then: "I noticed too."
Everyone looks at him.
"I knew the moment it was gone," he says.
"I'd been living off that match since Arden brought me your blanket.
Holding onto it. And then it disappeared.
" He pauses. "It didn't change anything.
I still wanted to be wherever you were. I still felt like your alpha.
You were still my omega. Match or no match. "
The room sits with that.
"Good," I say. "Because I need you to hear this.
" I take a breath. "I'm glad I got to experience the imprinting with you.
The scent recognition. The bond tug. All of it.
I wouldn't trade that. But this?" I touch the claiming mark on my neck.
"This is what matters. The physical claim.
The choice. Real love beats a scent match every single day. Biology didn't make us a pack. We did."
Finn eyes are bright and he's smiling.
"So," Alex says after a moment. "Pack bonds."
"Pack bonds," I agree. "How does that work? For alphas? They didn’t exactly school it on us at the registry. All they cared about was bonding omegas into them and getting us out of their hair.”
"Alpha pack bonds form over time," he says. "Through commitment, trust, proximity. The four of us have that already. We've had it for years. Rebuilding the connection will a process, not an event, but the foundation is already solid. It will take us less time than it did when we first formed."
"We're still registered as a pack," Finn adds. "The legal structure never changed. It's just the internal bonds that need to catch back up to what already exists."
"And me?"