He handed it back to me. End of discussion. Could I have fought with him? Sure. But Benji was king of indulging me. I couldn’t remember a time he told me no. This mattered to him enough to change his system.
“This is your territory. Let them come to you.”
While I could see his point, I kind of wanted to go there, to see what their place was like, to see how I felt off pack lands without my family surrounding me. That would have to wait.
I listened to my brother and told them I’d like them to come here instead.
It was the first time I felt safe enough to even consider going someplace on my own, and that was good enough for now.
When the time of the picnic arrived, I was already outside. I didn’t see a need to hide my excitement. It wasn’t as if they ever hid their feelings for me. Why shouldn’t I give them the same courtesy?
I expected a basket or possibly a cooler of food. The three of them brought enough victuals for a week. They also brought a super-thick quilt for the ground and tons of pillows, setting up a picnic that looked like it belonged in a painting and not in real life.
Looks good,I wrote on the board.
And Dax signed back,Thanks.
The first time I’d seen them sign. I pointed to the board and signed,Looks good.
And all three of them signed it back and said, “Looks good.”
It was two words—two words that probably could be used a lot but didn’t add a ton to the conversation. That didn’t matter. Seeing them try like that affirmedmy gut instinct that it would’ve been okay to be at their place, that I would have been fine.
The food was fancy: cuts of steak I’d seen in grocery stores, cheeses I couldn’t pronounce, and crackers handmade by fae in a mystical land. Okay, fine, they weren’t that fancy, but they might’ve well have been. One thing was for sure, most all of it was outside my budget.
That wasn’t the part of the picnic that wowed me the most. The alphas had managed to serve the foods warm…like fresh-out-of-the-oven warm. They had not only a cooler but a heated box that looked like a cooler. I’d never heard of anything like it. I wasn’t a gadget person, but if I was, this would be top of my list.
They had made a salad featuring fruits I didn’t even recognize but were delicious—sweet or tangy, different textures, and bright beautiful colors. It was magnificent. Every time I found a piece of fruit I didn’t recognize, I’d hold it up, and Talon would tell me what it was.
Foodie?
He laughed. “I suppose so.”
“Nah,” Archer said. “He just likes to spoil you, and good food is the way to do it.”
Archer could be so matter-of-fact sometimes. I appreciated it.
While we were eating, they told me little bits about themselves. I shared less with them than they did with me, because communication was still not the best for us.
But as we were getting ready to eat dessert, something told me it was time—time to tell them why I couldn’t speak. They never asked. The three of them accepted me as I was and left it at that. This was about me wanting them to know.
If they truly wanted to take me as their omega, they needed to know me being mute wasn’t genetic or the result of an accident or ailment. At least, that’s how I convinced myself to give them my full trust. But really, it was because I was ready.
I quickly wrote on the board:I used to speak, but then, as my mom was dying, she spelled me to protect me.
It took a long time to get the story out. Not for the first time, I second-guessed leaving my phone inside. If I had it here, I could type. In some ways, it felt like I was doing a presentation, having to write everything down.
All three of them expressed it differently, but they were glad I shared—and also heartbroken that my life had been as tumultuous as it had been. The conversation was so heavy, and I didn’t want them to leave, but we needed to break away from it if they were going to stay. I could only think about my past for so long.
So, instead, I asked them to shift with me.
All three of them turned around and told me they would wait until I was in my fur to take theirs. I shucked my clothes quickly and called my beast forward, landing on all fours and taking a deep breath, scenting the air—all the foods tickling my senses.
And when I turned around, the alphas had all taken their fur.
They are beautiful,my wolf said.
She likes us.
