Chapter Sixteen
Bram
I loved that my mates extended their stay to spend time with me. We still hadn’t figured out what comes next, but we knew it would be together, and for now, that was good enough for me.
We needed these first couple of weeks to get to know each other as people and who we’d be as a triad.
Zevo was amazing as always and had been giving me plenty of time to spend with them, but I insisted I still do some shifts.
It didn’t seem right not to, since I literally worked for my shelter.
And it was good for my alphas to have some time together.
They may have already had a connection before me, but they’d experienced change too.
One thing lay heavy on me, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it.
No. That wasn’t true. I knew what to do, I just hadn’t figured out when or how to do it.
I wasn’t feeling so great about the way I’d sugarcoated things back in my old pack and what had happened to make me leave.
It wasn’t as nearly chill as I’d implied.
At the time, I hadn’t meant to lie. It was more a case of wanting to do the CliffsNotes and ending up giving the CliffsNotes of the CliffsNotes.
While I didn’t think my father was a bad guy—he’d been playing the role pretty well there for a little bit.
And honestly, I hadn’t been lying when I said I loved living in a pack.
I did. My wolf craved it, needed it, but that didn’t mean pack life had been amazing for me.
I hadn’t realized how bad it was until I really settled in at Animals and saw what it could be like.
I needed to explain all of this to my mates, and I would…after my date.
Today, I was going out with Seth. We weren’t doing anything super fancy. We were hitting up a local coffee place and then doing one of those drop-in, make-your-own crafts places down by the shore. It was a tourist trap, but I didn’t mind. It sounded like fun.
And it was. We glued little pieces of broken glass, the kind used for stained glass, onto a template. Then they heated it up in the kiln, and you made beautiful things—or, in theory, they would be beautiful. We weren’t going to pick them up until tomorrow.
I selected a unicorn, and Seth rolled his eyes because it was the human version of a unicorn.
Ridiculously cartoonlike and not sleek and fierce like my mates’ beasts.
But I had fun putting it together. Fitting the little pieces of glass perfectly with the right colors was mindless and gave us time to talk about silly things—the kind of stuff that didn’t matter but at the same time very much did.
Our favorite colors, books we liked, that kind of thing.
While I worked on my unicorn, Seth worked on his project, which was a sunflower, only not so sunlike. He used a bunch of different colors. I had a feeling it was going to be stunning.
But as we got back to my place, things got kind of weird. He was quiet. I was quiet. I wasn’t sure what was happening until he took my hand in his and said, “We know you ran away.”
I closed my eyes, leaning back. “I wasn’t trying to lie to you.”
“You didn’t lie. You just left a whole bunch of information out.”
“I did. I didn’t want you to look at me like some needy omega you needed to rescue, because I don’t need rescuing. Look at me. I have a job, a place to live, friends, a boss who will bring me a you just got mated, so you’re probably hungry breakfast. It’s a really good life.”
“But before? Was it?”
“I wouldn’t exactly say that. I was protected from a lot, partly because I didn’t get into the political stuff, partly because of my father’s position, and well, my wolf isn’t one who likes to participate in the same kinds of activities.
So we were kind of alone, but I didn’t mind. And I didn’t really run away.”
“If we’re gonna figure out what comes next, we’re gonna need to know what you really did do.”
“Maybe we should wait for Indy so we only have to have this conversation once,” I said.
He agreed. We called Indy, who was helping Zevo figure out some computer thing. He came back ten minutes later. I loved how somewhere along the line in this short time, my mates became part of this little community too. I loved it.
“So, here’s the story.” I told them everything, not leaving out a single detail this time, not looking at their faces, knowing that they were unhappy, feeling their beasts pushing to get free.
“And then he gave me an ultimatum. He said I could mate the alpha or I could leave, and so I left. So in that way, it’s not running away. I was told to do it.”
I still hadn’t asked how they knew I ran away. And really, it didn’t matter all that much. I was glad they knew. I wanted to get everything out. They deserved it.
“And what does your pack alpha think of all of this?” Seth asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. My father doesn’t get why I did it, but seems kind of understanding-ish.
Or maybe he’s just trying to get me home.
I don’t care which. I’m staying with you.
Wherever you are, I am. And by pack law, I’m not even pack anymore, because the omegas are connected to the alphas. Full stop.”
“That’s wrong on so many levels,” Indy said, and then apologized.
“No, you can think that all you want. It’s old-fashioned, at the very least. And I know we haven’t figured out what comes next, but it’s not my pack, okay?”
Seth pulled me up onto his lap, and then Indy took the seat I was in, his arm coming around both of us. “No, it’s not your pack,” he promised. “Never your pack.”