Chapter Forty-Five
Artemis
Three days after my parents fled down the dirt road with Gumbo's hiss echoing behind them, I woke up in a pile of Alphas and realized I didn't want to wake up any other way for the rest of my life.
The nest smelled like all of us now. Moonshine and honey and rain, braided together into something that made my Omega instincts purr with contentment. I lay there for a long moment, watching the early morning light filter through the curtains, listening to the symphony of breathing around me. Harper's deep and slow. Remy's soft and even. Silas's barely audible, as if even in sleep he was trying not to take up too much space.
This was what I wanted. This, exactly this, for the rest of my life. But there were things we needed to talk about. Practical things. Future things. Things I'd been putting off because the present felt so fragile and precious.
"You're thinking too loud," Harper rumbled against my hair, his voice rough with sleep but tinged with amusement. His arm tightened around my waist, pulling me closer. "I can feel it."
"Sorry," I whispered, not wanting to wake the others. "Go back to sleep."
"Can't." He pressed a kiss to the back of my neck, his lips warm and gentle. "Not when you're lying here worrying. What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong," I said, and meant it. "I just... I've been thinking about the future. About us."
Harper was quiet for a moment, his thumb tracing lazy circles on my stomach through my thin sleep shirt. "Good thoughts or bad thoughts?" he asked finally, his voice carefully neutral.
"Good thoughts," I assured him. "Scary thoughts. Big thoughts."
"Those are the best kind," Remy murmured against my collarbone, his amber eyes fluttering open, sleep-soft and warm. His dimple appeared as he smiled up at me. "Morning, chere. What are we thinking about?"
"The future," Harper answered for me, shifting so he could prop himself up on one elbow, his gray eyes studying my face with that quiet intensity I'd come to love. "She's got big thoughts."
"Is it too early for big thoughts?" Remy asked, yawning and stretching like a cat, his lean body arching against mine. "I feel like big thoughts require coffee."
"It's not too early," Silas said quietly, and I turned my head to find his pale eyes already open, already alert, watching me with that unnerving stillness. His scarred fingers squeezed mine gently. "What's on your mind?"
I took a deep breath, feeling suddenly shy despite everything we'd shared, despite the fact that we were tangled together in my nest wearing nothing but sleep clothes. "I want to talk about... us. About what happens next. About—" I hesitated, my pulsequickening, then pushed through. "About where we're all going to live. And about bonding."
The word hung in the air between us, heavy with meaning. The morning light seemed to still, holding its breath along with the rest of us. Remy's playful expression shifted into something more serious, his amber eyes searching my face with sudden intensity. Harper had gone very still behind me, his hand frozen on my stomach, barely breathing. Silas's fingers tightened around mine, his scarred knuckles going white.
"Bonding," Harper repeated, his voice rough and careful, like he was handling something precious and breakable. "You want to talk about bonding."
"I want to bond with you," I said, turning in his arms so I could see all of them, so they could see my face when I said it. The words felt enormous in my mouth, terrifying and exhilarating all at once. "With all of you. I know it's—I know that's a lot. I know it's permanent and serious and life-changing. But I—" My voice cracked slightly, emotion welling up unexpectedly, tears pricking at the corners of my eyes. "I don't want to imagine my life without any of you in it. I want this to be forever."
For a long, breathless moment, nobody spoke. The cabin was utterly silent except for the distant call of birds outside and the thundering of my own heartbeat in my ears.
Then Remy made a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob, his eyes going bright with unshed tears, his whole face transforming with something that looked like joy and disbelief and wonder all tangled together. "Chere," he breathed, reaching up to cup my face in his hands, his thumbs brushing over my cheekbones with infinite tenderness. "Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting to hear you say that? How scared I've been that you'd change your mind? That you'd realize you could do better than?—"
"There is no better," I cut him off fiercely, turning my head to press a kiss to his palm. "There's only you. All three of you."
"We've talked about it," Harper admitted, his voice low and gruff, a faint flush coloring his weathered cheeks. "The three of us. When you weren't around. About what we wanted. About whether we dared to hope—" He broke off, swallowing hard, his gray eyes suspiciously bright. "We want it too, Artemis. We want you. Forever. All of us."
I looked at Silas, who hadn't spoken, whose pale eyes were fixed on my face with an intensity that stole my breath. He was so still he might have been carved from stone, only the rapid pulse in his throat betraying the emotion beneath.
"Silas?" I asked softly, reaching for him with my free hand, needing to touch him, needing to know what was happening behind those guarded eyes.
He caught my fingers, brought them to his lips, pressed a kiss to my knuckles that was almost reverent. His scarred hands were trembling slightly. "I never thought I'd have this," he said quietly, his rough voice barely above a whisper, each word dragged out like it cost him something to say. "A pack. A home. Someone who wanted me despite—" He gestured vaguely at himself, at his scars, at all the broken pieces he carried, his jaw tightening with old pain. "I stopped hoping for things a long time ago. But you made me hope again." His pale eyes met mine, fierce and vulnerable all at once, stripped of every defense he usually wore. "Yes. I want to bond with you. I want to belong to you, and I want you to belong to me. For as long as we both live."
I was crying. I hadn't even noticed when it started, but tears were streaming down my face, and I was smiling so hard my cheeks hurt.
"Okay," I managed, laughing through the tears. "Okay. Good. That's—that's settled then."
"Not quite," Harper said, and something in his voice made me look at him sharply. He was smiling—that rare, beautiful smile that transformed his stern face—but there was a hint of nervousness beneath it. "If we're going to do this properly, we need to talk about the practical things too. Like where we're going to live."
"Here," I said immediately, without hesitation. "This is my home. Marguerite's home. I'm not leaving."
