"Callum was outside your mother's house."
The color drains from her face. Her scent spikes bitter with fear. "He's here? In Largo Waters?"
"He was. He's gone now." I reach across the table and take her hand. Her fingers are cold against my palm. Small and trembling. "I told him to leave town. He won't be coming back."
"You can't know that."
"I can." I tighten my grip on her hand, and some of my leather and rain scent transfers to her skin. Marking. "Because if he does come back, I'll arrest him. And he knows I mean it."
She stares at our joined hands. At my fingers wrapped around hers. At the point where her pale skin meets my darker complexion.
"Why are you doing this?" she whispers. "Protecting me. Feeding me. Any of it."
I could give her the safe answer, because it's my job.
But I'm tired of safe answers. Tired of pretending. Tired of watching her from a distance and telling myself it's enough.
"You're pack," I say quietly. "You've been pack since the first time you fell asleep on my shoulder during a movie." I hold her gaze. Let her see everything I've been hiding for years. "That's not something that changed just because you left. My brothers feel it too. We've been waiting for you for a very long time."
Her breath catches. "Nacho..."
"When you're ready," I continue, "we're here. All four of us. Not because we want to pressure you. But because you're ours. And we'd like the chance to prove that to you."
Jessica doesn't pull her hand away.
Her omega scent blooms giving me hope.
10
JESSICA
Iwake up because my bed is doing a very convincing impression of a waterbed, which is weird because Mom definitely doesn't one. Mom's idea of cutting-edge furniture peaked somewhere around 1987 with the purchase of a La-Z-Boy recliner that Dad called "The Throne" and literally wrote his name on with a Sharpie so no one else would sit in it.
I shift. The bed squishes.
Beds are not supposed to squish.
I bolt upright so fast my head spins, and that's when I hear it. Water. Rushing water.
"No," I tell the universe out loud. "Absolutely not. I already had my crisis this week. I'm fully booked on disasters. Check back in six to eight months."
The universe responds by making the rushing sound louder, which is just rude.
I scramble out of bed and my feet hit the floor with a splash that sends ice water shooting up my calves.
"This is fine,” I announce to no one, my voice climbing several octaves. "This is totally fine. People wake up to indoor swimming pools all the time. It's probably a new interior designtrend. Aquatic chic. Very Atlantis-core. I'm sure it's all over Pinterest."
I'm talking to myself. I'm definitely losing it. And I'm wading through ankle-deep water in Dad's old Guns N' Roses t-shirt atthree forty-seven in the morning.
The bathroom door is closed, which seems ominous. Water is seeping out from underneath it in a steady stream, like the world's worst hotel wake-up call.
I grab the doorknob.
"Please be something fixable," I whisper.
I open the door.
Water explodes in my face.
