For the first time in a long time, my chest doesn't feel completely empty.
It feels sore.
Like something deep inside has rolled over in its sleep, restless.
Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow.
But awake enough to notice the shape of what it's been missing.
Chapter 24
I don't remember the last time I baked without being asked.
Not gently encouraged, not praised for it afterward, not watched like the act itself was proof of something soft and useful inside me that needed to be maintained.
But Finn texts me mid-morning—come over if you want, we've got apples that are going to turn if we don't use them—and when I read it, something in my chest loosens instead of tightening.
I tell Ragon where I'm going, because I always tell him where I'm going. He looks up from his tablet, studies my face for a moment like he's checking for cracks, then nods.
"Don't be late," he says, not unkindly.
"I won't."
He doesn't offer to walk me over. He doesn't assign anyone to shadow me. He never does when it's the neighbors.
That, in itself, is strange.
Most alphas wouldn't allow it. An omega wandering freely into another pack's territory—anotheralphapack's territory—would be asking for trouble. Territorial instincts run deep, even in well-adjusted packs. Especially when the omega in question isn't bonded yet.
But Ragon trusts these men.
Or maybe trust isn't the right word.
I step out into the yard, the late afternoon sun warming my shoulders, and I think—not for the first time—that Ragon doesn't see them as competition at all. He sees them as lesser. As a curiosity. A pack that took in a beta like it was nothing, like it didn't disrupt the natural order.
Weak, by his standards.
Harmless.
The gate between our yards creaks softly. Finn is already watching through the kitchen window, his grin breaking wide the second he spots me. He lifts a hand and waves like I'm a celebrity instead of someone who crosses this strip of grass a few times a week.
"There she is!" he calls, muffled through the glass. "Save us from produce-based tragedy!"
I laugh before I can stop myself.
The sound surprises me. It feels rusty.
The door swings open before I reach it, and Finn's scent washes over me—warm, clean, a little sweet, but faint—like watercolor instead of oil paint.
"You're a saint," he declares, ushering me inside with a hand at my back. It's light, familiar, not claiming. "Malcolm was about to suggest apple curry."
"That's slander," Malcolm says from the kitchen island, where he's chopping nuts.
Alex snorts from the counter, arms crossed, eyes already on me. "It's a cry for help."
I kick my shoes off by the door, muscle memory putting them neatly against the wall, and roll my sleeves up.
It smells like cinnamon and coffee and something faintly toasted. Homey. Lived in. There's music playing quietly—old rock, the kind you sing along to without realizing it.
