Slade glanced back toward us. “We had four delivered yesterday. There’s a black Gelandewagen, a Range Rover, a Cullinan Rolls, and a Hummer.”
The fizz of excitement from before turned into fireworks. “I don’t want to choose,” I said eagerly. “That’s like choosing between children. How can we drive them all?”
“You didn’t even ask me what a Gelandewagen was,” Slade huffed, like he’d hoped to catch me out on that one.
Crossing my arms, I peered around Hunter’s bulk to shake my head at him. “Always underestimating me. But I know my Mercedes, dragon. The G-Wagen is one of my favorites. Have you seen that baby offroad while still looking like a badass piece of beauty.”
Slade’s answering smile held a hint of pride, and when he nodded, I tried to ignore the surge of warmth in my chest.
“Sounds like you’ve already made your choice, then,” Hunter said. “The Merc is our winner.”
“But the Rolls…” I fake cried.
Hunter laughed again, and at this stage, I wasn’t sure if this was the apocalypse or hell freezing over. Either way, it was cataclysmic.
“You’ll have plenty of occasions to drive them all. For now, let’s get you intoyourMercedes.”
I stilled, and if he hadn’t outweighed me by two hundred pounds, I might have dragged Hunter to a halt. As it was, he kept us moving forward, my feet barely on the ground. “My Mercedes?” It took a concerted effort to get out those two strangled words.
Hunter’s grin was slow and languid, and I felt like a rabbit stalked by a wolf once more.
“Yours, baby girl. And you’d better get used to it, because we’re about to buy you the damned world.”
But… but… “I can work and buy stuff,” I spluttered. “I need to earn my own money.” I mean, I didn’t have G-Wagen money, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t try. I’d never expect them to just fund a lavish lifestyle for me; I’d survived on almost nothing my entire life, and it had been fine.
I kept up my protests until we were in the garage standing beside the shiniest, prettiest, most exquisite black G-Wagen I’d ever seen, rendering me completely silent. As I stared and drooled, Slade leaned over and pressed just the tip of his finger to my chin, closing my mouth.
“No more working unless you want to, Snow,” he said. “You’re part of our pack, which means you’re a billionaire now. Hunter has all your bank cards ready to go.”
My throat was dry, and as much as I wanted to stare at the exquisite German masterpiece in front of me, all I could see wasmy reflection in the shiny black surface, between two even more exquisite alphas.
“What if I can never truly bond with you all?” I murmured, needing to remind everyone about the complexities in our relationship. The fact that I’d bonded with one of them, and we were all still alive and okay, might be leading all of us—mostly me—into a false sense of future happiness.
“We’ll figure it out,” Hunter said, and he didn’t sound angry or upset as he pressed a brief kiss to my forehead. “Us sharing our pack money with you is not contingent on you bonding with us, or obeying us, or making any choices you wouldn’t normally.”
“There are no strings attached to what we’re offering,” Slade added. “It’s freely given, and it makes us happy to provide for you.”
I wanted to do the same for them. The thought of providing for the alphas, even if it was only support and understanding, filled me with happiness and contentment.
Now I just had to figure out how to keep it all from crashing down around us.
CHAPTER 34
FINLEY
Kenzo dropped down next to me, leaning back against the locker as he laced his skates tighter. “It’s so good to have Cap back,” he said, sounding relieved.
Good was a poor descriptor for how it felt to have my brother joining me on the ice today. His cheeriness already filled the locker room as he moved amongst our team, slapping shoulders and chatting to the guys.
We’d won one and lost one of our games without him, and I’d played like a bucket of shit for both. All over the place, missing easy marks as the puck and team glided right by me like I wasn’t even there.
Part of it was the lack of my normal pre-game routine. Without Kellan, I’d lost all sense of time and place, and had even strolled in late without my jersey to our last game. I’d had to wear a spare with a quickly ironed on number, but it wasn’t the same. My jersey had been through all the games with me, and while it was frayed and patched, I wouldn’t let them upgrade it.
You didn’t get rid of shit just because of tarnish.
You loved it for all its flaws.
So, yeah, it was partly my lack of routine but mostly… my heart hadn’t been in it without Kellan. Turned out hockey didn’t come before my pack, which was a hardand importantlesson to learn.
