Home.
I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the low light filtering through curtains I recognized, and realized I was in Reid's bedroom — the big bed with its worn quilt that smelled like cedar and comfort, the window overlooking the pastures where cattle grazed in the distance, the scent of him soaked into every surface like a promise. I was surrounded by my pack, all four of them arranged around me.
Nolan on my left, his hazel eyes soft with worry, dark circles beneath them speaking to sleepless nights spent watching over me, his sandy hair mussed from where he'd clearly been lying beside me. Sawyer on my right, his pale eyes sharp and watchful even in the darkness, the same fierce protectiveness that had driven him through Easton's gates still burning in his gaze, his scarred hand resting possessively on my hip like he needed the constant reassurance of touch. Reid at the foot of the bed, sitting up against the headboard, his dark eyes fixed on my face with an intensity that made my chest ache, stubble darkening his jaw in a way that said he hadn't left this room in days. Kol was curled at my feet like a golden retriever, his head pillowed on his arms, his sunshine scent muted with exhaustion but still warm, still present, still reaching for me even in sleep.
"How long?" My voice came out as a croak, rough and broken from disuse, and Nolan immediately reached for a glass of water on the nightstand, holding it to my lips with careful hands, supporting the back of my head while I drank.
"Two days." Reid's voice was low, rough with something I couldn't name — fear, maybe, or relief, or the weight of everything that had happened pressing down on him. "You've been in and out. Nolan's been monitoring you, making sure you're healing properly. The hospital wanted to keep you longer, but..." He glanced at Sawyer, something passing between them. "We convinced them you'd recover better here. At home."
Two days. I'd lost two days to darkness and dreams that weren't really dreams at all, but memories playing on repeat behind my closed eyes. Easton's face looming over me. His hands gripping my arms hard enough to bruise. His voice whispering terrible things against my ear while I fought not to scream. I shuddered, and Sawyer's hand tightened on my hip, a low growl rumbling in his chest, his pale eyes flashing with renewed fury.
"He's gone." Sawyer's voice was gravel and broken glass, rough from what I suspected was his own kind of screaming — the internal kind, the kind that tore you apart from the inside. "State police took him. What's left of him, anyway." A savage satisfaction flickered across his scarred face, his lips pulling back from his teeth in something that wasn't quite a smile but spoke of violence and vengeance and a debt finally paid. "He'll never hurt anyone again. I made sure of that."
"Sawyer." There was a warning in Reid's tone, a reminder to be careful, to maybe not detail the extent of the damage in front of someone still recovering from trauma. I reached out and found Sawyer's hand, threading my fingers through his scarred ones.
"Good." The word came out fierce and certain, surprising even me, my fingers tightening around his with a strength I didn't know I still had. "I'm glad you hurt him. I'm glad he knows what it feels like to be helpless, to be afraid, to have someone bigger and stronger decide what happens to him."
Something shifted in Sawyer's expression — relief, maybe, or gratitude, or the release of a tension he'd been holding since he'd pulled me from that room. His pale eyes went soft for just a moment, vulnerable in a way he rarely allowed, before hardening again into that protective watchfulness that I was beginning to understand was just how he loved. He lifted my hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to my knuckles, his breath warm against my skin, his lips lingering like a benediction.
"I'd do it again." He murmured against my fingers, his voice rough with emotion he rarely showed, his eyes never leaving mine, fierce and devoted. "A thousand times. A million. For you, I'd burn down the whole world."
"We all would." Kol's voice was thick with sleep, his golden eyes blinking open at the foot of the bed, confusion giving way to relief giving way to something desperate and needy as he registered that I was awake, that I was present, that I was really here. He pushed himself up, crawling toward me on hands and knees until he could press his forehead against my thigh, his whole body curving toward me like a sunflower seeking light, his hands fisting in the blankets like he was afraid I might disappear if he didn't hold on tight enough.
"We were so scared, wildflower. When we found the blood on the road..." His voice cracked, his shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs, his sunshine scent going dark and heavy with remembered fear. "I thought I'd lost you. I thought I'd never see you again. I thought the last thing I'd said to you was 'bring me something sweet' and I'd never get to tell you—" He couldn't finish, his face pressing hard into my leg, his tears hot through the thin fabric of my sleep clothes.
"I'm here." I ran my fingers through his golden curls, feeling him shudder beneath my touch, feeling the tension slowly drain from his shoulders with each pass of my hand through his hair. "I'm okay. I'm here. I came back."
"You're not okay." Nolan's voice was gentle but firm, his healer's eyes cataloging my injuries with clinical precision even as his hand continued to hold mine, his thumb stroking soothing patterns across my palm like he couldn't bear to stop touching me. "You have a severe sprain that will take weeks to heal properly. Multiple contusions across your face, arms, and torso. A split lip that required butterfly stitches. Probable bruised ribs from the struggle." He paused, his hazel eyes meeting mine, something fierce flickering beneath the gentleness that I rarely saw from him. "You're dehydrated from stress and malnourished because that bastard didn't bother to feed you while he had you locked in his cage."
The clinical recitation of my injuries should have felt cold, detached. Instead, it felt like an inventory of everything I'd survived. Everything I'd endured. Everything that hadn't broken me.
"But you're alive." Nolan continued, his voice softening again, his hand squeezing mine. "And you're home. And you're going to heal. All of it. The physical damage and..." He hesitated, his eyes flickering to Reid before returning to mine. "And everything else."
"The physical stuff will heal." Reid shifted closer, moving up the bed until he was beside me, his large hand coming up to cup my uninjured cheek with infinite tenderness, his calloused palm warm against my skin. "It's the rest of it I'm worried about. The things we can't see. The things that take longer to fix."
The rest of it. The memories. The fear. The way I'd flinched when I first woke up, ready to fight, ready to run. The way Easton's voice still echoed in my head, telling me I was property, telling me I was a prize to be won, telling me everyone belonged to someone and the only question was who had the power to claim them.
"He told me things." The words came out small, broken, and I felt all four of them tense around me, their scents shifting toward something protective and angry, their bodies leaning in like they could shield me from the memories themselves. "About his father. About his mother. About why he... why he was the way he was." I couldn't finish, my throat closing up, tears burning behind my eyes, my voice dying in my chest.
"You don't have to talk about it." Reid's thumb stroked across my cheekbone, careful to avoid the bruising, his voice low and steady as a heartbeat. "Not now. Not ever, if you don't want to. We don't need to know. We just need you."
"I want to." I took a shaky breath, forcing myself to meet his dark eyes, forcing myself to say the words out loud because maybe that would take away some of their power, rob them of the hold they had over me. "I need to. I need you to understand what he was. What he wanted. Why he did all of this."
So I told them.
I told them about Easton's father, building his empire in the shadow of Longhorn, always second best, always reaching for something he could never quite grasp. About the deathbed promise, the twisted obsession that had been festering for decades, passed from father to son like a poison in the blood. About his mother — the Omega who left in the middle of the night, who chose a pack of strangers over her family, who broke something in a ten-year-old boy that had never healed right.
"He thought all Omegas were like her." My voice was barely a whisper now, my throat raw from talking, from crying, from the weight of Easton's twisted logic pressing down on me. Kol's head was heavy on my lap, his arms wrapped around my legs like an anchor. Sawyer's hand was tight around mine, his scarred fingers threaded through my trembling ones. Nolan was pressed close against my side, his warmth steady and present. Reid's palm was still cupped against my cheek, grounding me in thepresent. "Selfish. Weak. Things to be owned and controlled so they couldn't hurt anyone. He thought if he could just... claim me, possess me, break me enough that I couldn't leave..." I shuddered, the words sticking in my throat like thorns. "He thought he could fix what his mother broke. By becoming the thing he hated most."
Silence fell over the room, heavy and thick with horror and understanding.
"He was wrong." Sawyer's voice was rough, fierce, his pale eyes blazing in the darkness like twin flames. "About Omegas. About you. About everything. He was broken long before you ever came along, and nothing he did to you was going to fix him."
"I know." And I did know, somewhere beneath the fear and the trauma and the echoes of Easton's poisonous words. I knew because I had four Alphas who had never once treated me like property. Who had given me space when I needed it and closeness when I craved it. Who had let me choose, every step of the way, whether to stay or go, whether to trust or run, whether to love or hide.
"You're not a prize." Nolan pressed a kiss to my temple, his lips soft and warm, his pine scent washing over me like a balm, like medicine for wounds that went deeper than skin. "You're not property. You're not something to be owned or broken or controlled."
"You're pack." Kol's voice was muffled against my thigh, his arms wrapped around my legs like he was afraid I might disappear if he let go. "You're family. You're ours, but only because you chose to be. Only because you decided we were worth the risk." His golden eyes lifted to find mine, bright with tears and love and something fierce. "And we're yours, the same way. Because we choose you. Every day. Every moment."
