Harper, with his silence and his whiskey and his hands that trembled when he touched me like he couldn't believe I was real. Who'd shown me his family's legacy and called me pack.
Remy, with his music and his laughter and his desperate need to be seen as more than just a pretty face. Who'd played me the song he wrote for his grandmother and trusted me with the parts of himself he usually hid.
Silas, with his shadows and his scars and his wolf's eyes that saw everything. Who watched over me like a ghost, like a guardian, like something that had been waiting in the dark for me to find it.
Three men. Three Alphas. Three hearts I could break if I wasn't careful.
Or three hearts that could break me.
"I'm scared." I admitted it out loud because Marguerite had always said fear festered in silence. "I'm scared that if I let myself have this—all of it—something will go wrong. Someone will get hurt. They'll fight over me, or resent each other, or wake up one day and realize I'm not worth the trouble."
The iris swayed in the breeze, purple petals catching the light.
Since when do you let fear make your decisions, wild child?
I swiped at my eyes with the back of my hand. "Since always." I laughed, the sound brittle and too loud in the quiet of the bayou, my fingers digging into the soft earth beneath me. "I just got good at pretending I wasn't scared."
But that wasn't quite true, was it? I'd been scared when I'd left my parents' house, and I'd come here anyway. Scared whenMarguerite died and left me alone, and I'd stayed in the bayou anyway. Scared every time I sat down across from a stranger and laid out the cards, and I'd kept doing it anyway.
Fear had never stopped me before. Why was I letting it stop me now?
"They came to me." I said slowly, working through the thought as it formed. "All three of them. They're the ones who decided to share, to try this impossible thing. They're the ones who stacked their hands on mine and swore to make it work." I sat up straighter, something clicking into place behind my ribs. "All I have to do is let them. All I have to do is say yes."
The word felt revolutionary. Dangerous. Like standing on the edge of a cliff and deciding to jump. Marguerite had always said the cards didn't lie. And the cards had been telling me the same thing for weeks now.
The Lovers: Choose. Commit. Leap.
The Three of Cups: Joy shared is joy multiplied. Connection. Belonging.
The Empress: Abundance. Fullness. Room enough for everything.
"I want them." I said it louder this time, testing the weight of it on my tongue. "I want all three of them. And I'm going to let myself have this."
Gumbo made a low sound from the water's edge—not quite a growl, more like agreement. I turned to look at him, finding those ancient eyes fixed on me with something that might have been approval.
"You knew before I did, didn't you?" I asked him, pushing to my feet, brushing dirt and bark from my shorts. "That's why you let them onto my dock. You could smell it on them—that they were mine."
He blinked slowly, which I chose to interpret as confirmation.
I knelt by the flowers one more time, pressing my palm flat against the earth where Marguerite's ashes had settled into the soil, where wild things grew from what remained of her.
"Thank you." I whispered, my voice thick with grief and gratitude and love all tangled together, my fingers curling into the cool earth like I could hold onto her one more time. "For taking me in when no one else wanted me. For teaching me that being too much is just another way of saying enough for the right people. For giving me a home." I closed my eyes, feeling the warmth of the sun on my back, the cool damp of the earth beneath my fingers. "I'll come back soon. I'll tell you how it goes."
The breeze stirred one more time, carrying with it the ghost of her perfume and something that felt like a blessing. I climbed back into my pirogue and pushed off from the bank, Gumbo sliding into the water beside me. The mist was burning off now, the sun climbing higher, painting the bayou in shades of gold and green.
Thursday was two days away. Pack meeting at my cabin. All three of them, gathered around my table, eating food I'd made, helping me protect land that Marguerite had left me.
I wasn't going to hide anymore. Wasn't going to pretend I didn't want exactly what I wanted.
"I'm going to tell them." I said to Gumbo as we paddled home, the words coming easier now, lighter. "Thursday night. After the meeting. I'm going to tell them that I choose all of them. That I want this—whatever this is—and I'm ready to find out what it becomes. Courting…maybe bonding at the end…but a pack."
Gumbo's tail swept through the water, propelling him forward with lazy power.
"And if anyone has a problem with that," I added, grinning despite myself, "they can take it up with you."
He rumbled low in his throat, a sound I'd learned to read as laughter, and together we glided through the morning light toward home. Marguerite had called me her wild child. Had told me I was a gift, not a burden. Had taught me that the cards never lied, only reflected what was already true.
I was done being afraid of my own reflection.
