Chapter 18 #2
“Sunny arrived on our porch in a car seat,” I told her, the words coming out rougher than I intended.
I had never talked about this with anyone outside the pack.
Not like this. “The woman who dropped her off didn’t leave a note.
Didn’t explain anything. Ransom and I had shared a night with her about a year prior, back when we were riding the circuit hard and making stupid choices.
When we opened the door and found a baby looking up at us with amber eyes that matched ours, Ransom just looked at me.
He didn’t even have to ask if we were keeping her because it wasn’t a question. ”
I shifted my grip, holding Julia a little closer, tethering myself to the present.
“I don’t know which one of us is the biological father,” I admitted, speaking the absolute truth into the evening air.
“Neither of us took a test, and we never will. I genuinely don’t care whose blood runs through whose veins.
To me, Sunny’s mine. Wyatt’s mine. Whatever kids come into this pack belong to all of us. ”
Julia’s eyes softened, a deep, profound empathy swimming in the brown depths.
I reached up, tracing the line of her jaw with my thumb.
“I will never regret a single choice that brought Sunny to me. But I know what it looks like from the outside. I know exactly what I’m asking you to step into, Julia.
It’s a ready-made, complicated family. It’s a pack carrying ghosts and scars.
It’s a very heavy life to hand to an unbonded Omega, especially one who’s fought so hard for her freedom.
I’m asking you to take on a lot, and I wouldn’t blame you if you told me it was too much. ”
I dropped my hand, giving her the physical space to pull back.
She didn’t take it. Instead, her fingers slid down my wrist, wrapping firmly around my hand. With a decisive tug, she pulled me out of the tall grass, steering us both toward the open tailgate of the truck.
I let her lead, willing to follow her anywhere, watching as she zeroed in on the nest of soft pillows and blankets I’d arranged over the mattress I’d placed in the back, complete with string lights.
She didn’t hesitate or make a joke to deflect the intimacy of the setup.
She just hiked her skirt and climbed up into the center, pulling me right along with her.
We stretched out on our backs, our shoulders brushing as we settled into the softness. Above us, the first bright punctures of starlight were already burning through the deep purple canvas of the Wyoming twilight.
I turned my head on the pillow to look at her. She was already looking at me, her dark hair fanning out around her, framing her gorgeous face.
“I’m not scared of heavy, River,” she said, picking up the thread exactly where we’d left it. Her voice didn’t waver. “I know how to carry heavy things. I grew up doing it.”
I reached for her hand, tangling our fingers together. “Because of your fathers?”
“Because of my whole family,” she corrected, shifting slightly to get more comfortable against my side.
“The Cristenellos aren’t exactly known for keeping things light and easy.
My fathers ran an empire built on respect, force, and unquestionable loyalty.
I had four older brothers who would have burned a city to the ground if someone looked at me the wrong way.
I was raised in rooms where men made decisions that ended lives, and I was expected to sit at the dinner table and act like everything was perfectly normal. ”
She squeezed my hand and fixed her gaze on the emerging stars.
“I know what violence looks like. I know what grief looks like,” she continued softly.
“I know how much it costs to hold a family like that together. So, believe me when I tell you that your ready-made pack does not intimidate me. Stetson’s brooding doesn’t scare me.
Colt’s scars don’t scare me. And Wyatt and Sunny are the easiest parts of this entire situation. ”
I stared at her, the absolute certainty in her voice stripping the words right out of my mouth.
A heavy, profound ache cracked open in the center of my chest. She wasn’t trying to romanticize us or soften the reality of our lives to make herself feel better.
She was looking right at the mess, right at the heavy lifting, and calmly telling me she was strong enough to carry it.
I had never been so thoroughly dismantled by another human being in my life.
I shifted, rolling onto my side and propping my weight on one elbow so I could look down at her. I re-captured her hand where it rested between us, threading my fingers through hers. My thumb traced a slow, grounding arc across her knuckles.
“Then what does scare you?” I asked quietly.
“Because I know you aren’t afraid of us.
I can smell the truth of it on you. But I’ve also watched you wait for the ‘catch’ since the minute Gideon brought you here.
If it isn’t the pack, and it isn’t the kids...
what is it you think you’re going to lose? ”
A heavy silence stretched between us, but I didn’t fill it.
I just waited, letting the security of the blankets and my quiet presence do the work.
The faint scent of fig retreated slightly, making way for a profound, melancholy wash of warm amber.
It was the scent of her true, unvarnished vulnerability.
“I was never actually afraid of bonding,” she finally whispered, the confession sounding like it was being pulled from the very marrow of her bones.
“I love kids. I grew up in a big house full of crazy brothers and noise, and a huge part of me always wanted to replicate that. But I hated... God, River, I hated being viewed as nothing more than a breeding machine. Some precious Omega who should only value what her body can do for her Alphas.”
She turned her face away, the raw honesty stripping her defenses bare.
I shifted us, laying back on the mattress and tucking her securely against my chest, letting her hide her face in the curve of my neck.
I wrapped both arms around her back, cocooning her in my warmth as a quiet shudder moved through her frame.
I pressed a long, grounding kiss into her dark hair and just held her.
“When I designated, the OMA took over my life,” she explained, her voice cracking with the strain of years of suppressed resentment.
“They don’t see Omegas as people. They stick us in domestic classes, teaching us how to bake and knit and behave politely and sexually please our Alphas, basically stripping away every other value we might possess.
They looked at me and decided the only useful thing about me was my womb and the fact that I can take a knot. ”
My jaw locked tight as a rare surge of protective, cold Alpha fury rose in my chest at the thought of her being caged and minimized by an agency that was supposed to protect her. I kept my breathing measured, refusing to let my anger bleed into the safe space I was trying to hold for her.
“I have family money, River. There are accounts set aside for me back home—enough that I’ll never actually have to worry about surviving,” she confessed, a fierce, ambitious edge bleeding back into her tone. “But it has never been about the money or being comfortable. It’s about having a choice.”
She pulled back just enough to catch my gaze. The starlight caught the wet sheen in her dark eyes, but her jaw was set hard.
“I wish I had the option to go to college,” she confessed, raw and aching.
“I want the opportunity to sit in a classroom and study law, or medicine, or business. But none of that is in the cards for me, just because of how I presented. I just want to do something real. Something that matters. I desperately need to do something useful with my life, River. I need an identity that belongs entirely to me. And I want a pack that needs me for my mind and my opinions. Not just because I can give them children.”
She looked at me, waiting for the dismissal.
Waiting for the typical Alpha response that assured her she didn’t need to worry her pretty head about anything because her pack would provide for her.
It was the lie she had been sold for years, the exact poison that had made her build her walls in the first place.