She was betting on Case, and she was betting on Mountainview.
“That doesn’t have to be how it works,” Lydia said loudly, “and this pack is too smart, and too tough, to roll over for you, Reeve Steele. They’re not going to follow you if you don’t earn it. And you sure haven’t so far. You can kill us, but you can’t lead a pack that won’t have you. This town will fight back.”
“Yeah!”
It was just a single shout from the crowd at first, and Lydia didn’t even know who’d said it. But it kicked off an avalanche:
“You’ll never be our alpha!”
“We want Lydia and Case, not you!”
“We’ll never let you have this town! We’ll leave first!”
“Hell, we’ll burn it to the ground if we have to!”
Okay, that last part was a bit extreme. There were people in Mountainview who didn’t belong to the pack, weren’t tapped into its drama, and would probably be pretty alarmed to find the town going up in flames around them.
But Lydia had to admit she liked the spirit, like she liked the way Reeve’s face went pasty pale, like spoiled milk, at the sound of everyone in the village rallying against him. After a stunned second, he clenched his jaw and seemed towillthat terrified white to turn a mottled, enraged red. But they had all seen his initial reaction, and he knew it. Everyone here today knew thatfor all his apparent ferocity, Reeve Steele didn’t know what to do with the idea of his targets pushing back against all his bullying.
And that meant that even if Lydia didn’t live to see it, she’d know that Mountainview was going to be okay. Case was right. The pack would thrive with a good alpha, but that didn’t mean it needed a babysitter. Everyone here would fight for themselves if they had to. If they were capable of rallying against Reeve, they were certainly capable of holding it together while she and Case went on vacation.
She wished she could have shared this moment with Ruth. All those hard years, all that lost time, when Ruth could have had a different, easier life.
I love you,Lydia thought to her grandmother.I wish things had been better for you, but I don’t think I can let them be bad for me out of guilt. If I live past today, Case and I are going to be happy. I think Mountainview will be too. I know that’s what you wanted, even if you never imagined it would look like this. And if I don’t get the chance to speak at your funeral, I hope you still know how important you were to me.
There was no sudden parting of the clouds to let one particular ray of sunshine fall on her like Ruth’s approval, but she felt at peace all the same.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s fight. I just want you to know that you’ve already lost.”
23
To the uninitiated outsider, they were four people—two couples, one grim and one strangely exhilarated—walking into an ordinary backyard, with a crowd trailing behind them. Somebody might have guessed that they were on their way to a particularly bizarre cookout, but Case was pretty sure that most people wouldn’t come up with “fight to the death.”
But as weird and wild it was that his life had brought him here, Case had absolutely no regrets, especially now. He had Lydia. He had their pack.
And Lydia and the pack had finally realized exactly who they were and exactly how much they could lean on each other.
“That was a hell of a speech,” he said quietly. “I liked it. Everybody else did too.”
She smiled, a graceful curve of the lips that looked happier and freer on her than he’d ever seen it before. Even if this was the end, it was agoodend.
“I couldn’t have made it if you hadn’t made yours first,” she said. “And the reception was the best part, anyway.”
Amen to that. Case had felt a fierce, almost violent pride in his newfound home at hearing the pack shout out its defiance at Reeve. They were stirred up now, like Reeve had poked a hornet’s nest only to have the hornets finally remember their stingers. Case knew they would be okay, no matter what happened, but he was proud to fight on their behalf.
This was the synchronicity between alpha and pack that he’d been hoping for, that his wolf had instinctively known could exist. This was a bond that was about trust, choice, and loyalty that was freely given. It was the kind of bond Reeve would never have, no matter how many alphas he managed to kill.
“I’ve never been happier to call this place home,” Case said, knowing Lydia would understand everything he’d been thinking.
“Still glad you got that bottle cracked over your head, then?”
Case stopped her so he could kiss her, lingering on the velvety softness of her mouth.
He would never be sorry to have had any amount of time with her, even if it was going to all be cut short, but God, he wanted to win this fight. He wanted more of her. He didn’t want this to be their last kiss, no matter how good it was.
“I’ve never been happier to get my head cracked open in my life,” he said when they finally broke apart. “That was my only time, but if I’d known that you were waiting for me at the end of one, I’d have picked a fight for every drink I ever had.”
He had a hard time tearing his attention away from Lydia, but it was impossible to miss that Meg kept looking back at them over her shoulder. The crease of confusion between her eyebrows said that she wasn’t just waiting for them to catch up: she was trying to figure something out.
