“I love you, Little Bit.” He murmured into my hair, and the sentiment was echoed by our connection. If I wasn’t so exhausted, I would probably have burst into tears at how strong his feelings were for me. I was loved, unabashedly and unreservedly. I’d finally found my home and, with this bonding mark, it was mine forever.
CHAPTER 39
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The week after comingto the lodge was one of the most peaceful times that I’ve ever experienced. It was so peaceful that it felt like a vacation, and it was almost easy to forget the real reason that we were here. You know, the crazy cult leader on trial and his psycho son who was hell-bent on lighting our omega on fire? Those reasons.
But other than that it was really nice.
I was just finishing up a call with Marcus, who had taken point on prepping Darian Bellis for trial. I closed my laptop and headed from one of the many offices in the lodge to the recreation room, where Tibby was busy kicking the asses of all those who dared challenge her to a game of pool.
“Pay up, Keilar.” Tibby crowed and held out her hand expectantly, opening and closing her fingers as the agent reluctantly slapped some cash into her hand.
“You’re no fun, Tibby. You can’t even pretend like I have a chance?” Keilar grumbled. The man was almost as tall as Theo and built like a bodybuilder, so the image of him admitting defeat to the curvy little omega was almost too funny to watch. After forking over the money, he handed his pool stick to Agent Smart, a thinner, shorter agent who had definitely been voted ‘class clown’ during his time at Quantico. I’d caught Cobb reprimanding him more than once over the last week for cracking crass jokes, mostly at our pack’s expense, but he was pretty harmless otherwise.
“Are you giving them a run for their money, sweetheart?” I asked as I entered the room and pressed myself affectionately to her back, wrapping my arms around her from behind. Tibby turned and offered me her lips and I, delightedly, took the opportunity to give her a nice long kiss.
Matteo, who’d been lounging on one of the nearby sofas in the rec room snorted, “What money? I don’t think she’s left them with any money to speak of.”
Smart, who never seemed to back down from a direct challenge, slapped down some bills onto the pool table. “Double or nothing, omega.”
I opened my mouth to snap at him to watch his tongue, but Tibby just laughed. “Alright Smart, but when I wipe the floor with your toothpick lookin’ ass, I’m going to send a petition into the FBI to change your last name to ‘Agent Stupid.’”
She was just starting to apply pool chalk to the top of her cue when her phone began to ring in her pocket with the facetime tone.
“Quick pause, Slim Jim,” Tibby handed me her pool cue and held the phone up in front of her face. I could see Eloise’s contact picture and surmised that her friend was calling to check in.
Tibby tapped the answer button on the screen and was immediately greeted with the smooshed face of a freshly born baby. Though her skin was the red color that most newborns had, she had some of the thickest black hair that I’d ever seen coming out of a little pink hat in wild wisps.
“Holy shit.” Tibby squawked, “You had the baby?!”
Eloise’s laughter came from the speaker of the phone as the camera was pulled away from the baby to show a very tired looking Eloise reclined in a hospital bed, cradling her newborn baby.
“Yep, a couple of hours ago. I would have called sooner, but the hospital wanted to make sure we were okay.” Eloise grinned, “I just wanted to introduce you to your new niece, Vivienne Taylor. We’re calling her Vivi for short.”
While Eloise was talking, the rest of our pack surrounded us to get a look at the new baby.
