“You really love her?” Micah whispers. We’re nearly side by side so it doesn’t take much for me to hear him.
“I do. What do you really want to know?”
He’s quiet for a while. “She’s easy to love, isn’t she?”He says it like a question but I know him well enough to know it’s the closest he’ll admit to how he feels about her right now. We know his reasons for being closed off and don’t push it. He has to know we just want him to be happy. Unfortunately, he’s always been stubborn and will have to get there on his own.
Giving him an answer he’s not really looking for, I respond, “Yeah she is and we’ll have forever with her.” Just to drive home again she isn’t going to leave us—rather, him.
9
KEELAN
The sound of the sander going tunes out everything else in the world. I’ve been working on this courting gift for Thea since we bonded. It should take another week before it’s finished. It depends when her heat hits, though. It could take longer.
The last two nights she’s had us all sleep in the nest. When I asked her about it yesterday morning, after the first night, she said nothing was right in the nest and our scents weren’t strong enough. Jake is supposed to be back by Friday night. I think as soon as he’s back, her heat will start, if not before. She hasn’t left her nest much these last few days, except for her shifts at the lodge. Even then I know Ben has her scheduled for shorter shifts, which she hasn’t called him out for.
It’s good to be in my workshop. I did miss it while working at the cabin. It’s just nice having everything where it should be. Parker and I are similar in that aspect. When we built the house, we planned for my workshop to be at the opposite end from Parker, Eli, and Micah’s offices. It’s tacked on at the end of the right side of the house withitsown exterior entrance for me to load my supplies easily.
“Knock, knock,” Eli and Parker chime out as they enter. They’re teaming up. That can’t be good.Looking over my shoulder, I see Eli carrying a rolled-up piece of paper. He waves it as he says, “Got time to go over the plan?”
I clear a space on the table, using a couple wood pieces stacked to hold it open—Thea’s courting gift from us all.
“You’re the most handy out of us all so we wanted to run it by you before doing the final order,” Parker says.
I look it over. Looks like it has all the specs I previously wrote down. They added their touches to it and it looks fine to me.
“Did you show Micah?” I ask, wanting to make sure he’s good with this since it was his idea.
“Yup,” Parker beams.
Eli tacks on, “He said it looked great and to run it by you for final approval.” They both laugh at my surprised expression. Micah is slowly coming around. Though this week it’s been like super speed for him.
I don’t know how he’ll handle the heat. He and Thea haven’t spent really any one-on-one time together. As long as they’re both okay and comfortable with what happens, that’s enough. We’ll have more heats together as Thea’s pack.
Speaking of one-on-one time, I haven’t had much time with my omega lately. At least just the two of us. Being in a pack in general, sharing time is expected. Having a larger pack makes it all more important to make time for each other. Since Eli and Parker came in, I’m at a good stopping point. After removing my gloves and glasses, I head out.
“Where are you going?” Parker shouts at my back.
“To our omega,” I say as I leave.
I end up finding her sitting on the floor in the pack bedroom, right up against the floor-to-ceiling windows. The sun is just now starting to descend. She’s hunched over, focused on her tablet, drawing. I check in with the bond, feeling the light touches of her joy. She did say she hadn’t drawn much, or at all, since Connor died. The happiness it gives me to see her rediscovering a passion and the joy it brings her is hard to describe. Reaching into my pocket, I run my fingers over that rugged wooden heart she carved.
I walk softly, well, as softly as I can, towards Thea. She doesn’t move as I sit behind her. Spreading my legs on either side of her, I lean down to rest my head on her shoulder. I want to hug her but don’t want to completely interrupt her. From the corner of my eye, I see her lips turn up in a smirk. She leans her head against mine, our scents swirling together.
Looking down, I see the drawing she’s been working on. It’s of the view from here, the lake, mountains and forest surrounding it. “It’s beautiful, Baby Girl.” I turn my head to kiss her cheek. Thea puts the tablet down and and reaches behind to grab my hands, pulling them around her, just as I wanted to do. She leans back further into my hold as we watch the sun set. The bond is radiating with her happiness and contentment.
“I wish we could live in this moment forever,” I whisper. I’m not used to saying what I’m feeling like this. Thea breaks down walls I didn’t know were there. I find I want to voice them more with her. I feel so lucky she found me, I only wish she hadn’t had to endure so much pain to get here. My fingers brush over her hands and wrist where her tattoo for Connor is. He’s here withher, always. She’s taken what he wrote in his note to heart even if it’s a joke about him haunting her.
When this is all over, we need to get Connor’s and her things from their Florida apartment. I think having some pictures of them together around the house will help. It doesn’t sit right that he doesn’t have a presence in the house like the rest of us. I don’t want Thea to feel like she has to leave him behind. None of us want that.
“The moments before the sun disappears beyond the horizon always felt like time stands still,” she murmurs. There’s no horizon for us to look at as the sun disappears behind the mountains. She’s clearly reminiscing on the ones she saw before. “So in that sense we can have it last forever, at least for the two of us,” she adds, turning her head to look at me.
With the setting sunlight flooding in, her eyes look like they’re glowing, her pale skin bathed in warm light. My arms tighten around her, feeling her soft round stomach underneath. My inner alpha just wants to carry her off somewhere safe so nothing can harm her.
Angling my head, I move slowly and give her a soft, tentative kiss, feeling her plush lips under mine. She returns the kiss. It’s a gentle moment the two of us haven’t had in a while. She rests her head against mine like before and we watch the sky change colors from orange, red, to a deep blue-black that takes over as night begins.
10
THEA
