Stone actually smiled at that. "I would have paid to see his face."
"He laughed. First time anyone's heard him laugh since he arrived." I leaned into Cole's warmth. "And then he sang to her,well she requested he sing ad he actually hummed. A lullaby he remembered from his past."
The room was quiet for a moment.
"That's good," Cal said finally. "That's really good."
"It's a start." I looked around at them—these men who had become my pack, my family, my home. "There's still so much work to do. The academy, the expanded program, all of it. But today felt like proof that it's possible."
"Possible is all we need." James stretched, his joints cracking. "Everything else is just details."
Stone turned from the window. "Full moon tonight."
I felt it too. The pull in my blood, the restlessness in my bones. The wolf rising to the surface, eager to run.
"I haven't shifted since my very first time after my heat," I said.
"None of us have. Not properly." Cole's hand tightened on my knee. "We've been too focused on everything else."
"So let's focus on this." James stood, already pulling his shirt over his head. "Pack run. All of us. The way it's supposed to be."
We left the cabin and walked into the woods.
The moon hung full and bright above the trees, casting silver light across the forest floor. The air was cold and clean, carrying the scent of pine and earth and something wilder underneath.
My pack spread out around me. Five wolves in human form, waiting.
"Together?" I asked.
"Together," they answered.
The shift rolled through me like a wave.
The Omega nature that had awakened during the heat made this possible for me—the transition from human to wolf, the settling onto four legs, the heightened senses that expanded my awareness until I could feel every heartbeat in the clearing.
I opened my eyes.
My pack surrounded me.
Stone was the largest—dark gray fur, powerful build, gold eyes that caught the moonlight. James was tawny and muscular, built for speed and power in equal measure. Neal's wolf was leaner, more elegant, with intelligent eyes that missed nothing. Cal was brown and solid, steady as always. And Cole—Cole was black as midnight, his fur absorbing the light, his presence a shadow that somehow felt like safety.
I looked down at myself.
Silver. My fur was silver, catching the moonlight like mercury.
Stone threw back his head and howled.
The sound shattered the silence of the forest, rising up through the trees and into the sky. One by one, the others joined—five voices weaving together into something primal and ancient and utterly pack.
I added my own voice.
And then we ran.
The forest blurred around us. Pine needles soft under our paws. Cold air rushing past. The bonds between us singing with shared joy as we moved as one unit through the night. This was what it meant to be pack.
Not just the mating. Not just the bonds. This—running together under the full moon, wolves in perfect synchronization, connected in a way that transcended words.
We ran until the moon was high overhead. Until the last of the tension and stress and weight of the past months had burned away. Until there was nothing left but the pure pleasure of being alive and whole and together.
