Chapter 22 #2
The grief hits fresh. Not just losing Calder. Losing the version of pack I imagined—three alphas who coordinated, who chose me together, who built something new.
That might be gone.
Lila leaves eventually. Makes me promise to eat something, get some sleep, take care of myself.
I promise. I don't know if I'll keep it.
The greenhouse settles into evening quiet. Sun setting, shadows lengthening. Plants around me are thriving despite the November cold.
I feel withered.
"Tomorrow," I whisper to the lavender I'm absently stroking. "I'll decide tomorrow."
The door opens behind me.
I don't turn. Expecting Tyler or Julian checking on me again, ready to reassure them I'm fine even though we all know it's a lie.
The footsteps are different. Heavier. Uncertain.
Cedar-smoke scent hits me and my breath stops.
"Elowen." Calder's voice. Rough with emotion, loaded with everything he hasn't said for days.
I turn.
He's standing in the doorway. Disheveled, dark circles under his eyes, looking like he hasn't slept either. Hands shoved deep in pockets, shoulders tense, but his eyes—
His eyes are full of everything he's been too afraid to say.
"I—" He stops. Starts over. "Can we talk?"
Hope blooms painfully in my chest.
"Yes," I manage. "We can talk."
CHAPTER Twenty-three Elowen
Calder steps inside, and the greenhouse door closes behind him with a soft click that sounds far too loud in the silence stretching between us.
The familiar space feels different now, charged with everything unsaid, heavy with days of absence and hurt that hang in the air like the scent of dying roses.
He doesn't sit. Can't seem to manage stillness.
He paces three steps toward the east window where lavender catches afternoon light, turns sharply, paces back toward the door.
His hands flex at his sides like he doesn't know what to do with them, like touching anything might shatter whatever fragile chance he has at fixing this.
I wait, rooted where I'm standing beside the table where I'd been repotting seedlings before he arrived. I won't make this easy for him. The part of me that spent a week crying while I felt our pack fracture in real time like ice cracking beneath my feet, needs him to work for this reconciliation.
"I'm sorry."
"For what specifically?"
I'm not letting him off with vague apologies that cost nothing. He needs to name it, to understand exactly what he's apologizing for, to own the specific hurts instead of wrapping them in comfortable generalities.
He stops pacing. Looks at me directly for the first time since entering, and I see the toll these days have taken, like the separation has been as brutal for him as it was for me.
"For walking away when you needed me to stay.
" His voice cracks slightly on the admission.
"For shutting you out instead of talking through my fear.
For making you feel like you'd done something wrong when this was entirely about my past, my family, my inability to trust what we were building.
" He swallows hard, Adam's apple bobbing.
"For proving every doubt you might have harbored about alphas and control, about whether wanting you means eventually limiting you. "
I let the words settle. Then, "You hurt me."
He flinches like I've struck him across the face. He doesn't look away though, doesn't make excuses, and every part of me wants to kiss him, hold him tightly, make it better.
"I know."
"Do you?" It hurts so much, but I need to be sure this won’t happen again.
"It's been almost a week, Calder. Seven days of watching you pull away like I was something toxic.
Seven days of wondering what I did wrong and not knowing if it could be fixed.
" My voice rises. "Do you have any idea how that feels? "
"No." The admission is quiet, honest. "But I'm trying to understand."
He moves closer. Not touching, but close enough that I can smell cedar-smoke cutting through the greenhouse's green-earth scent and my own distressed pheromones. The familiar smell makes my chest ache with longing I don't want to feel yet.
"The incident triggered everything I've been afraid of," he says. "The violence. The possessiveness. Control masquerading as protection." He swallows hard. "You looked at me afterward like I was dangerous, and I thought… I thought I'd finally proven you right."
"I was shocked, Calder. I wasn’t afraid." I move closer. "Your reaction isn't who you are. It isn’t the Calder I've come to know these past months. You saw what you expected to see: your fear projected onto me."
"Sarah left because she had to," he continues, words tumbling out now like confession.
"Because the people who claimed to love her, who said they wanted her happy, were slowly suffocating every dream she had.
They called it protection. They believed they were doing right.
" His hands clench into fists. "I can't do that to you.
But I don't know how to want you this desperately without that fear eating me alive from the inside. " He’s breathing heavily now.
"You're right to be afraid." I’m not going to sugarcoat it for him. I won’t have this conversation again in a month’s time.
Three months. A year. "Wanting someone as much as we want each other is terrifying, especially when you've seen love weaponized as control, when you've watched people use pack bonds as chains instead of choices. ."
I step closer, close enough now that if either of us reached out we'd be touching.
"But Calder, you're not your family. You've proven that every single time you pulled back when instinct said push forward. Every time you asked permission instead of assuming consent. Every time you questioned whether your protective instincts were serving me or controlling me."
"I grabbed that alpha," he argues. "I wanted to hurt him."
"But you didn’t."
"This time. What about next time? What about the time after that?"
"You think you're the only one afraid here?
" The question comes out sharper than intended, cutting through his spiral.
"I'm terrified too, Calder. Of wanting this much.
Of building something that might collapse the moment real pressure hits.
" I force myself to maintain eye contact.
"But I'm choosing it anyway. Choosing to trust. Choosing you. "
I close the final distance between us, looking up into his storm-grey eyes that are filled with more emotion than I've ever seen him show.
"So here's the real question you need to answer: Are you choosing me? Us? This pack we're building? Or are you choosing fear?"
He doesn't answer immediately. Just stares at me like I'm holding his entire world in my hands, like my next words could build or destroy everything.
Then he moves.
One step eliminates the distance between us. His hands come up to cup my face, rough calluses gentle against my skin, tilting my head up so I have no choice but to meet his gaze directly.
"You," he says, voice rough with emotion. "I choose you. All of you, the brilliant parts and the stubborn parts and the parts that terrify me because wanting them makes me vulnerable. Even when I'm terrified of failing you, of becoming what I swore I'd never be, I choose you."
"Promise me something." My hands find his wrists, holding on like he's the only solid thing in a spinning world. "If you overstep—even a little, even once—I'll tell you, and you'll listen. Not just that one time. Not only when it's convenient. Always."
"Always," he repeats like a vow. "That's the promise I'm making. That's the difference between my family's love and ours. That's what makes this work instead of toxic. Can I kiss you?"
Even now, after pouring his heart out and making promises and choosing me over his fear, he's asking permission. Not taking. Not assuming his emotion gives him rights to my body.
"Yes."
He kisses me like I'm precious and essential and the answer to questions he didn't know how to ask. Desperate but tender, apologetic, everything he couldn't articulate in words channeled into the press of his mouth against mine.
I kiss back just as hard, just as desperate. Holding on like he might disappear again if I let go, like this moment needs to be seared into both our memories so we never forget what choosing each other costs and gives.
When we break for breath, foreheads pressed together in his signature gesture, I can feel his chest heaving against mine.
"I missed you," he whispers into the scant space between us.
"I was right here. You left."
"I know. I'm so sorry."
“Where did you go? I looked for you everywhere?”
He hangs his head. I have an apartment. Off campus.”
I frown. “But… you never said.”
“I didn’t want you to think I was… different. I wanted to tell you. You have no idea how badly I wanted to tell you. I’m glad you know, Elowen. I’ll take you there. Soon.”
His hands slide from my face to my shoulders, down my back, pulling me closer until there's no space left between us. I bury my face against his chest and breathe him in, cedar and smoke and home.
That's when his entire body goes very still. "Elowen."
Something in his tone makes me look up. "I know."
His nostrils flare slightly, scenting more deliberately. "Your scent is shifting."
"I know."
"Your heat—"
"Is close. Maybe tonight. Maybe..." I feel the warmth building low in my belly where it's been simmering for days, skin growing hypersensitive everywhere we're touching. "Maybe sooner than that."
My body is responding to the emotional resolution, to pack reuniting. Biology triggered by what my heart already knows: we're whole again.
His hands tighten on me, protective instinct flaring before he catches himself and deliberately loosens his grip. Asking with his eyes instead of assuming.
"What do you want?" His voice is thick with emotion. "From us."
Still asking, even as my scent must be driving his alpha instincts wild.