Hope, maybe. Or trust.
Or the beginning of believing we might actually deserve her choice.
WhenIpullupto the pack house, all three of them are on the front porch. Waiting. Dorian's pacing, Oakley's sitting on the steps, and Vespera's leaning against the railing looking amused.
"Took you long enough," Dorian says as I get out.
"I was having a conversation about boundaries and appropriate surveillance distance."
"Turns out there is no appropriate surveillance distance," Vespera adds. "It's all creepy."
"Noted for future reference."
"There better not be future reference," she says, but she's smiling.
We go inside, all four of us, and this is it. This is what it means to be a pack. Not control or manipulation or strategic planning. Choosing to be together. Choosing to trust. Choosing to believe that maybe, despite everything, we can make this work.
Ben Rosen is on campus. He'll be around, a constant reminder of what Vespera could have had.
But she's here. She chose here.
And for once in my calculating, strategic, surveillance-prone life, I'm going to trust that choice.
Even if it kills me.
Which it probably will.
But at least I'll die knowing she chose us freely.
That has to be worth something.
thirty
Vespera
It'samazinghowwellBen fits in with Stephanie and Robbie, like he's the fourth piece to our friendship puzzle.
I watch him across the campus café table, gesturing animatedly as he describes his disastrous freshman orientation at his previous school, and something warm settles in my chest. It's been a week since he transferred, and already it feels like he's always been here. The way he and Robbie trade theater gossip, how Stephanie keeps stealing his fries while he pretends not to notice, the easy laughter that comes when we're all together—it works. We work.
"—and then the RA made us do trust falls," Ben's saying, "except nobody wanted to catch the Alpha who'd been bragging about his family's net worth for three hours straight."
"Please tell me someone let him fall," Robbie says.
"Oh, absolutely. Face-first into the lawn." Ben's grin is wicked. "Best orientation activity ever."
Stephanie snorts coffee through her nose, which makes all of us laugh harder.
This. This is what I've been missing. Not the pack bonds or the biological imperative or the complicated dynamics of living with three Alphas. Friends. Normal, uncomplicated friendship where the only thing at stake is who's buying the next round of coffee.
Except it's not uncomplicated, because every time I look at Ben, I find him already looking at me. And when our eyes meet, something passes between us that has nothing to do with friendship.
"So," Stephanie says, setting down her cup with deliberate casualness, "did anyone see the callboard this morning?"
The shift in her tone tells me this isn't a casual question.
"What's up?" I ask.
She pulls out her phone and turns it toward me. "Fall Showcase announcement."
