“You dropped a hammer on your own foot,” Jason says dryly.
“I was distracted by love,” Beau argues.
Fiona sighs. “My idiot.”
“My princess,” Beau breathes.
Jason’s hand tightens around mine.
“Welcome home,” I murmur. For the first time since he left, my heart finally settles.
The air is thick with rosemary, grilled vegetables, and the buttery warmth of fresh bread cooling on a tray. My garden smells like summer and earth and the sweet green scent of life: herbs crushed under Beau’s clumsy boots, tomatoes warming in the sun, petals brushing against each other in a lazy breeze.
The gazebo smells like cedar and sun-warmed wood, like a place built by steady hands and stubborn hope. I trace the Braille markers under my fingertips, each one a small, carved truth waiting for me to find it.
I trace the one on the right. It’s new.
Pack’s Heart.
My breath catches.
The dots are smooth, rounded, pressed lovingly into the grain, not rushed, not sloppy, but patient. Intentional. The kind of work someone does when they want every touch to matter.
“Pack’s… Heart,” I whisper.
The words wrap around my ribs, warm and heavy.
Jason goes still beside me. Not frozen. Not alarmed. Just… present.
“What does it mean?” I ask softly, brushing the Braille again. “Is it a direction?”
Silence.
Then his fingers slide over mine, warm, shaking a little, guiding my hand across the markings as if he’s teaching me how to read the meaning beneath the dots.
“It’s a title,” he says quietly.
A tremor runs through me. “For who?”
He leans closer, voice low and hushed. “For you.”
My throat tightens. “Jason…”
“You built this garden,” he murmurs, voice rough with feeling he can’t hide. “You brought life into a place that barely had any. You brought Beau home without even trying. You stood in front of the alphas and you… didn’t break.”
His thumb brushes the inside of my wrist, a slow, protective sweep.
“You’re the heart of this place,” he says. “Of us. Even if you don’t want a pack.”
A breath.
“I think you already are one.”
The wordheartthrums under my skin, the way it does when he says my name in the dark.
My hand trembles over the carving. “Jason,” I whisper again, “I’m not?—”
“You are,” he says simply. “You’re the one who keeps us together. You don’t even see it.”
