I wipe my hands down my dress, trying to hide the shaking in my fingers.
“Gabrielle,” he begins. “When I first saw you, running off down the street with my wallet—,”
I cringe at the reminder, and his finger tilts my chin up, his smile chiding.
“As I was saying,” he continues, a thread of laughter in his voice, “I had no idea how important you would become to my pack.”
His finger strokes along my lower lip. “Or to me.”
“We’d become so stagnant,” he breathes. “I didn’t even realize how much, not until you came. You shine a light on all the dark and empty spaces in our lives, Gabrielle. Nate was slowly spiraling, Axel withdrawing more and more. Hudson was solely focused on the restaurant.”
I wet my lips. “And you?”
“I was frozen. Doing the same thing, day after day. Watching my pack slowly splinter, everyone moving away from each other. And then I realized that what we needed was you.”
He tugs my hand away from where it’s picking at my tights, drawing it up and pressing a kiss to my fingers.
“We might have given you a place to stay, but you gave us a home. So I am asking you, on behalf of my pack and myself, to stay, Gabrielle. Don’t leave us. We’ll help you find your way, and we’ll do it together.”
He lets out an oomph as I fling myself at him, throwing my hands around his neck. “I already decided,” I whisper in his ear, and he goes rigid. “I choose you, Cade. You, and Nate, and Axel, and Hudson. I want a forever with you.”
I feel it, that moment when the tension leaks from his muscles, when he softens in my arms, his hand cupping the back of my neck as he pulls me to him.
“That’s what I’m offering,” he says. “Forever.”
I’m not sure forever will be enough, truthfully. Not to discover all the secret parts of them that I want to know. Not to do everything that I want to do.
But it feels like a pretty good start.
Epilogue
Three years later
Ava’s name flashes across my screen, and I swipe it. “I’m leaving in ten, I swear.”
We’re working on the approach to a new unit at the Omega Center, one to complement Molly’s support for younger omegas. I want to focus on older omegas. Ones that have slipped through the system, who linger on the edges of society and who are more at risk because of it.
Like the omegas in the dungeon.
But I’m late.
It’s absolutely not my fault that I was held up by Cade and his meeting.
I was a little… tied up.
Rubbing away the ache in my wrists, I finally focus on the babbling in my ear.
“Turn on the TV! On the news…live broadcast…,” Ava trails off, a conversation happening in the background. I can hear raised voices and what sounds like Luc ranting.
Frowning, I glance over to the screen, taking in the words scrolling across the bottom. Nate looks up from his newspaper, his eyes following mine before they widen.
“Cade!” My voice is shrill, my hands starting to shake.
Ava is just as panicked as I am, but her next words make me focus. “It’sLeah!”
“Leah?” I ask dazedly.
Gentle hands push mine aside, Nate extracting the remote control and turning up the sound as Cade throws himself through the door. “What is it?” he asks, his eyes flying to my stomach.
