Chapter 3 #3
My jaw tightened. The calculating bastard hadn’t just been cleaning. He had been getting the house ready. For her.
Boone set her stuff down and headed straight for the kitchen, leaving me alone in the foyer with Gideon and the woman who had just upended my entire universe.
She looked tiny standing under the vaulted ceiling, her dark eyes darting around the space, but her intoxicating scent was already settling into the wood beams of my house.
I cleared my throat, forcing my spine straight.
“Ma’am,” I started, trying to inject some Pack Leader authority back into my gravelly voice. “Why don’t we bring your bags to a room and then meet in the kitchen where we can figure out—”
“Oh, God,” she interrupted, scoffing. “Please don’t call me ma’am.”
I stopped, blinking.
“It makes me sound so old,” she went on, shaking her head. “I mean, I get it, I’m practically a spinster of an Omega, but call me Julia. Please. Or Jules. That’s what my brothers and my friends call me.”
Julia. The name hit me square in the chest. It fit her perfectly. Thrown off-kilter, stranded in a house with strange Alphas, and she still had the spine to correct how I addressed her. The brass on this woman intrigued the hell out of me.
“Julia,” I repeated, the syllables rough and unfamiliar on my tongue.
“Spinster my ass,” Boone rumbled as he reappeared. “You can’t be more than twenty—”
“Ah, ah,” Julia corrected, wagging a finger at home. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you it’s impolite to discuss a woman’s age?”
“When they’re over fifty, sure.” Gideon shrugged. “But you’re young and stunning.”
Julia blushed, and fuck, the color looked pretty on her. “Well, thank you. But I’m past my prime matching age at twenty-four.” She gave Boone a pointed look, and he rolled his eyes at her confessed age.
“Then I’m a dinosaur at thirty-two,” Boone admitted.
Julia smirked. “I hate to break it to you, big guy, but the rules don’t apply to men. Just another unfair thing about being a woman. Men age like fine wine. They go from a hot stud like you to a silver fox. Us women just get wrinkles and saggy tits.”
Gideon choked on his own spit before howling a laugh that made Julia giggle.
And God… that sound.
Even Boone was grinning a full-on smile, white teeth and all.
He didn’t even try to hide the way his dark eyes softened as he looked at her.
He’d known the woman for exactly five minutes, and the biggest, most intimidating man on my ranch was already orbiting her like she was the center of his damn solar system.
I was sure I looked dumbstruck as I stared at the three of them, realizing how different my life was from when I’d woken up this morning. Already, the whole house felt different. Better.
“Food’s ready, honey. Come on, kitchen’s this way.” She walked past me, and Gideon trailed right behind her, dropping her bags near the base of the stairs like they already belonged there.
I set the ones in my hands beside the others, then stood alone in the entryway, pulling in a long, unsteady breath.
The anger I’d felt out in the yard was gone, hollowed out and replaced by something new—ice cold, suffocating terror. And underneath the fear was grief.
Because as mad as I was at my Beta right about now, he’d been right…
I had spent three years building a life where an Omega was a mathematical impossibility for us.
Most packs spent their entire lives praying for a sympathetic match—a woman close enough in scent to make a bond work.
A true match? A flawless, biological alignment where every single note locked together without trying?
That was a myth. A rare statistical anomaly that happened to whole, healthy packs.
Not to us. I had convinced myself that kind of miracle was permanently off the table for a pack carrying our amount of damage.
Writing off the possibility was how I kept everyone safe. It was how I survived.
But I was wrong. My perfect match—our perfect match—was currently sitting at my kitchen island.
She had been out there in the world this entire time, and if Gideon hadn’t gone behind my back, we would have lived our whole lives never knowing she existed.
We never would’ve met her, because I decided we weren’t worth the risk.
That thought nearly put me on my knees. I had almost missed her on purpose.
And I still could.
Julia was only willing to talk. She could still demand to be taken to the airstrip. And if she walked away now, knowing exactly what we were to her, it wouldn’t just hurt. It would destroy us.
I looked back toward the front window, out toward the barn where Colt had disappeared, and a fresh spike of dread settled in my gut.
She didn’t truly know us yet, didn’t know what she’d be taking on if she decided to stay, and there was every possibility she’d walk right back out that door once she realized our scents were the most perfect thing about us.
And the most gut-wrenching part wasn’t even that she might leave. It was that she’d have every right to, and I wouldn’t even be able to blame her for it.