"I did have a shower," she protested, a hint of her usual fire returning.
Fritz laughed, the sound warm and genuine. "I could smell my mate, Presley. I could smell the scent of the woman who would be ours. But Hastings couldn't. Not until your heat. Not until the biology aligned and his body finally recognized what mine already knew."
"Fritz—"
"He needed that claim," Fritz continued. "He needed to know you were real. That this wasn't some cruel joke the universe was playing on him. A four-scent alpha finding a four-scent omega? That's not just rare. That's impossible. And yet here you are."
Presley looked at me, her eyes searching. "Is that true?"
"Yes," I said simply. "I spent my entire life believing I was broken. That I'd never find a match. And then you showed up and were nothing like I expected. You lived in a falling-apart caravan, talking to dead flowers, but I—" I stopped, my throat tight. "I had afeeling."
"Then stop paying me." Her voice was quiet but firm. "Stop treating this like a business arrangement. I don't want your money, Henry. I want you."
She called me Henry.
I didn’t correct her.
"Cancel the deposits," she continued. "Tear up whatever contract you think we have. Because I'm not staying for the money. I'm staying for you. All of you."
Etienne cleared his throat. "Speaking of all of us..."
I looked at him, then at Fritz, then back at Presley.
"She wants us to claim her too," Etienne said, his voice careful. "Fritz and me. Together."
Presley's nervous anticipation pulsed through our bond. Also there was hope. Also fear that I'd refuse this.
I raised my eyebrows. "And?"
"And we're asking your permission," Fritz said. "Because you're the prime alpha. And because we're a pack. We do this together or not at all."
I stood, pulling Presley to her feet with me. I looked at the woman who'd turned my carefully ordered life into chaos. The woman who made me laugh. The woman who carried my child and my claim and somehow still wanted more.
"I want to watch," I said.
Presley's eyes went wide. "What?"
"I want to see my pack mates fuck you together while I watch and feel everything through the bond." I let my voice drop, going dark and possessive. "I want to knowexactly how they make you feel. I want to experience every moment of them claiming you. And then, when you're thoroughly marked and bonded and ours, I want to take you myself and remind you who claimed you first."
Presley squeaked. "Okay."
Fritz grinned. "That's our girl."
Etienne moved closer, his hand settling on her hip. "Are you sure, Princesse? Because once we do this, there's no going back."
"I don't want to go back," she whispered. "I want to go forward. With all of you."
I pressed a kiss to her forehead, breathing in her scent. "Then let's go home."
29
Presley
The night sky stretchedendless and black overhead, broken only by the distant glow of the city drawing closer.
The helicopter blades thrummed steadily above us, a low, constant roar that drowned out everything but the rush of blood in my ears.
Below, the English countryside had given way to the glittering sprawl of London’s outskirts as rivers of car lights snaking along motorways, but looking like scattered stars against the dark.
