So I stomp the heel of my boot into his foot.
He snarls, shoots me a murderous look, then pushes away from the table and stalks to the darkest corner of the room. He disappears into the shadows where the firelight doesn’t reach, and that’s probably for the best.
Halley’s purple eyes are wide and round. She's biting her lower lip nervously, and she's fidgeting with the cutlery. She’s stalling. Overthinking. Probably imagining all the ways this could go wrong.
She’s afraid we’ll reject her. That she burned the bridge, salted the earth, and left nothing behind but ashes.
And maybe she did.
This is new territory for all of us. I’ve never given second chances to a single person who've hurt me or my squad. They never live long enough to earn forgiveness.
But this isn’t just anyone.
This is our Omega.
If there’s even a sliver of a future here and she wants more than just tactical cooperation and cold professionalism, then she’s going to have to earn it. Every inch of trust and ounce of grace.
And it starts with honesty.
I finish the last bite on my plate and lean back slowly, letting the silence hold.
She’s still hesitating. Still straddling the line between fear and surrender.
“Say it, Omega.”
The room tightens. The bond between me and my brothers is stretched taut, each of us pulling in our own direction but holding to the same hope. It’s braided into something fragile and combustible.
We need this. We need her to stop running, to own what she broke, and ask to mend it.
She starts to speak. “Knox, I…”
Her chair scrapes softly against the floor as she shifts back, eyes darting like a cornered creature. She’s about to run again. I can see it in every tense line of her body.
She’s not getting away. Not this time. I won’t let her walk out again, not when she’s finally within reach.
With a sharp shake of my head, I point my knife at her.
“If you want more than help training your Omega Command, then ask for it. Say it like you mean it.”
She stills. Her eyes flick between us, one by one, and then settle back on me.
“I do,” she says. The words are small but real. “I want more…”
I tilt my head slightly, eyebrow raised.
“More of what?”
She breaks so beautifully. Once more, her words spill from her like a fountain. I make a mental note to add resistance to interrogation to her training list.
“Everything,” she breathes. “I want everything. I want you. Each of you. Frack, I know it’s greedy, but I don’t care. I needallof you and I want to be your Omega. I want to be loved and cherished. To befuckedhard, often, and split on knot after knot. I want to be your family and I want you to be mine.”
Her voice shakes, hands tremble, but her eyes are clear.
“I want us to be a Pack.”
And there it is. The moment we’ve been waiting for. Raw and real and far braver than she knows.
Shade’s eyes are hooded and his jaw clenched. He’s analyzing everything, running the variables. I can almost hear the parade of thoughts whirring in his brain. He’s skeptical, trying to discern the risk to reward ratio of believing Halley.
