“Terrifying,” I say. “I’m going to have to give Buff the ‘don’t piss off your alpha in-law’ speech.”
“Please record that,” she says. “I want it as my ringtone.”
Meemaw calls out then, voice carrying over the clearing. “Violet! Jason! Get over here. Talon’s about to lose a drinking contest to a seventy-two-year-old woman, and I want witnesses!”
Talon shouts, “I willnotlose!”
Thorne mutters, “You will absolutely lose.”
Violet laughs, the sound like a bell. “This is going so much better than I expected.”
“Me too. I thought I’d be six feet under by now.”
“Well, there’s that, but everyone has taken it in their stride. We’re partying with shifters, and everyone’s having the best time.”
“Do you think Hattie will be able to keep this under wraps? And Meemaw? I’m sorry if I sound like a jerk. It’s just…”
Violet squeezes my hand. “I get it. But you can trust them. Plus, I told Hattie the pack would maul her if she opened her mouth.”
I chuckle. “That works.”
She lifts her hand in my direction. “Come on, Jason. Before Meemaw adds ‘alpha-slayer’ to her resume.”
I take her hand.
As we walk back toward the fire, the chaos, the food and noise and heat, I realize something quiet and earth-deep. I am not a stray anymore. I have a pack. A family. A co-alpha who can’t see the world but insists on reshaping it anyway.
And whatever comes next—enemies, old ghosts, new threats—I won’t face it alone.
We step into the ring of firelight together.
And this time, when the pack howls, I throw my head back and howl with them.
Chapter 26
Violet
The potato feels like a miracle in my hands.
Warm from the soil, smooth in some places, dusty in others, the size of a small apple.
My potato.
My first potato.
I hold my breath, brush away a little more dirt, and grin so hard my cheeks ache.
“Oh my gosh. Jason!” I squeal.
Footsteps thunder across the garden, fast and urgent, that near-panic stride he gets when he thinks I’m hurt. The grass rustles. The soil shifts. His breath catches right before he reaches me.
“What? What happened? Are you okay?”
“I grew a potato!”
The panic evaporates, like it was never there.
I hear the exact moment he skids to a stop. His exhale punches out of him in this wild sound, half-laugh, half-relief, whole-heart.
