Then there was the pack. Never before had I thought I’d ever find an alpha or pack that I would care to be around for more than a few moments. They were so far removed from the foppish alphas in 1915, and I was sure that I wouldn’t find anyone like them when I returned. Just the thought made my stomach twist with anxiety.
But never seeing my family again? Never being able to tease Timothy or be spoiled by Nicky and Ivy? Never seeing my mother again? Those thoughts were like a gaping wound, keeping me from fully committing to stay with Pack Steele.
“Do you want to come with me to get my nest ready for the storm?” I asked Bat, changing the subject entirely as I plastered a cheerful smile on my face. “I want to make sure we have all of the battery powered nightlights for you tonight.”
The chances of the power going out during the night were high and I wanted to make sure that he felt safe enough to sleep. He spent most nights in my nest anyway, but this was the first big storm since our first kiss.
Bat stared at me for a moment, something shifting in his dark eyes, before he finally nodded. “Yeah, that sounds good.”
By the time we made it to the house the storm had started to kick up, the wind whistling against the panes of the windows as the first droplets of rain began to splatter against the glass.
Storm bypassed us on our way in, an excited grin already on his face.
“You better make sure you dry off before you come back in this house, Storm,” Rex called from somewhere in the living room. “You hear me?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Storm said loudly enough for the other alpha to hear before he saluted us and headed out of the door just as lightning lit up the sky outside.
Bat just shook his head, a small smile making his beard twitch. “And people say I’m the crazy one,” he muttered as we went up the steps, nightlights with fresh batteries in hand.
Bat watched quietly as I put them up in the nest, making sure that they were reachable from anywhere in the soft space and clicking them to test that they worked.
“Thank you for doing this for someone as broken as me,” he suddenly said, his tone suddenly strange.
I was on my knees putting the last nightlight on the little shelf next to the door, but his words made me turn to look at him. Sometimes Bat’s mood would suddenly shift from his usual silly, slightly off persona to something much more somber and moody. Those were the times he’d slip away and we wouldn’t see him for hours as he worked through whatever demons he was fighting in his head.
“You’re not broken, Bat,” I told him firmly. He snorted and shot me an incredulous look.
“Okay, maybe you’re a little bit cracked,” I conceded, flopping down next to him. I stared at his morose expression for a moment before an idea popped into my head. “Have you ever heard ofkintsugi?”
Bat shook his head.
“My mother was always fascinated by Japanese culture, specifically the art ofkintsugi. Japanese artisans would take a cracked dish and fill in the cracks with resin and gold, taking an object that most would throw away and creating a beautiful art piece,” I explained, remembering the same words coming out of my mother’s mouth when Timothy had asked her why she kept buying broken vases and bowls and displaying them for everyone to see. I used to sit and stare at them for hours, tracing the pretty gold lines with my eyes, imagining the scenarios which resulted in them being cracked.
I slid my fingers through Bat’s, the gesture as easy as if I’d been doing it my entire life, and squeezed them tightly. “I think sometimes it’s okay to be a little bit cracked and broken, it gives you the opportunity to become something new, and possibly, more beautiful.”
I glanced over at Bat when I finished speaking and found him staring at me with a contemplative expression.
“Kintsugi, I like that,” his voice was low and thoughtful. He pulled our joined hands to his mouth and pressed a kiss to my knuckles. “If I’m akintsugipiece, then I think you might be the gold filling in all of my cracks.”
My next breath caught in my chest at his confession. The night of the first storm, when I’d ignored the rest of the pack’s warnings and pushed my way into his room, we had become forever entwined. Bat had returned to following me around the house and I knew that he would sneak bits of my dirty clothing away like an omega rather than the alpha he was. It should have scared me, being the center of his obsession, but instead it filled me with a perverse excitement.
“Shouldn’t the gold be you growing as a person without relying on someone else?” I whispered, not wanting to break the moment by speaking too loudly.
Bat’s lips twisted into a sardonic smile as he scoffed. “Not in my case. I was stuck battling with the voices in my head, but they go completely quiet when you’re around.”
I frowned and he must have felt the shift in my mood because he threw an arm around my shoulders and brought me in close, the smell of the ocean filling my nose. “I’m not saying you should stay here just for me, Juneau, I would rather stick nails in my eyes than see you unhappy, but it would be truly insane of me not to tell you how I feel.”
“I know,” I whispered and laid my head on his shoulder as my insides roiled with indecision. I still had another month and a half until the road back to the past reopened, would I feel more ready to make my choice then?
I wasn’t so sure.
“Juneau, be careful with that,” Rex warned as I carried a box full of new glasses to the bar. We were in the middle of going through the supplies that had been delivered this morning and Rex was going through with a clipboard to make sure everything had arrived.
Doc was at work today and Bat had ridden off on his motorcycle this morning, to do what I didn’t know. Podcast and Storm were sitting in one of the booths working on separate projects, Storm on painting a piece of pottery and Podcast on whatever video he was editing for a client.
“I will, you worry too much,” I said as I swung the box onto the counter, wincing when they made a noisy clinking sound.
Legs grinned at me from the other side of the bar and pulled the box over to start pulling the glasses from the box. The BBs had left before the storm on another one of their rides, but had returned last night. It was nice to finally have them back again. They brought life into the house with their inappropriate jokes and laughter, and I always missed it when they rode off.
