“It is,” Rex said, squaring his shoulders and raising himself to his full height. Silas may have been imposing, but Rex was still the bigger alpha. “But that’s my one stipulation.”
“Fine, fine, we won’t go anywhere other than the bar, jeez,” Silas finally surrendered, sliding the empty glass back across the bar to Rex. “Boys, I think we’ve overstayed our welcome tonight, we’ll be in touch, Rex, you let me know if those dipshits do anything stupid and we’ll ride for you. Also if Legs is around, tell her to give me a call,” he said with one last grin, waving as he led the way out of the bar.
With that the rest of the men filed out of the bar until we were the only ones left.
“Jesus fucking Christ that man is scary,” Storm said as he flopped over the bar with a groan. “I thought I was going to shit bricks when he came in looking like death himself.”
The rest of the guys chuckled before pausing, finally seeming to realize I was awake.
Podcast lifted the bar flap and threw himself at me, tugging me into his arms and squeezing me tightly before pulling away so that I could see his hands.
‘We were so worried about you, don’t ever do that again,’he signed, his expression serious before he started to dust my cheeks, nose, and finally lips with little kisses. Apparently he had stopped caring what the rest of the pack thought about his affection toward me.
“I won’t,” I promised, pressing my nose into his collar bone and inhaling the scent of eucalyptus deeply into my lungs.
“You were bleeding from your nose and eyes, Juneau,” Doc said as he wrapped his arms around both Podcast and me, his dark eyes worriedly scanning my face for any sign of pain.
“And I seemed to be completely fine after,” Rex growled as he crossed his arms over his barrel chest. “Something tells me you knew that would happen to you.”
I shook my head, feeling guilty. “Not completely. Had I kept a better control over the magic I would have been fine. It was my fault that it lashed out at me.”
Rex harrumphed but Storm bypassed him to pull me in for a hug of his own. “Either way, let’s never do that again, okay?”
Storm was the last of the men in this pack that I had yet to kiss, though I maintain that I’d forced Rex into our first kiss.
Storm was too sweet and easy-going to push. He was also the most aloof of the group, often preferring to be alone during the day. I would need to remedy that if I was going to stay.
The realization that I was staying jolted through me. At some point over the past few days my decision to stay or return to the past had shifted in favor of remaining in the future.
“Sunshine?” Storm asked, his eyes searching my face. “Are you all right?”
I nodded, smiling up at him and snuggling into the warmth of his arms. “Yes, just tired is all.”
“Of course you are, both you and Bat should have stayed upstairs and rested, not come downstairs to verbally joust with the scariest man on the east-fucking-coast,” Doc scolded, shifting into medical mode as he began to fuss over us. “I remember explicitly telling you to stay in the nest, Bat.”
“I forgot,” Bat told him with a cheeky smile. “All the blood loss is making my memory really spotty.”
Rex snorted as he began to shuffle us toward the door to the house. “I wasn’t aware that memory loss was one of the side effects of a gunshot wound.”
“It is, google it,” Bat shot back and what had started as a tense night shifted into something lighter as they bickered happily with each other.
I let Storm pull me along as I watched them with a smile. I would tell them about my decision later, for now I wanted to bask in reality that, despite being displaced so far out of my own time, I was finally where I belonged.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Juneau’sscentsurroundedmeas she cuddled into my side, her eyes drifting shut as we sat on the bench in the backyard and listened to the cooing of the pigeons in their coop. It had been a week since the Sons of Silence had agreed to help us and with their protection and life seemed to return back to normal.
Well, except for the fact that I had new holes in my body and the rest of the pack refused to let me lift even a finger, which also included caring for my girls.
“Icanhelp you with some things, sugar,” I told Juneau as she dozed off. She’d just finished cleaning out the pigeon coop and candling the eggs and it was clearly too much for her.
Ever since they’d scried with fire she had been sleeping more and more, often napping after any kind of physical activity. Juneau had repeatedly assured us that she was fine, just ‘restoring her magic reserves,’ but it was scary to see her dozing off so much.
That wasn’t the only thing that had changed over the last week. Her perfume had begun to swell and grow. Juneau was close to a heat, and I knew that the rest of the guys were aware of it too. They were just refusing to acknowledge it, like shoving their heads in the sand would put it off forever.
“I like helping you,” Juneau finally replied with a yawn before she opened her blue eyes to look at me fully. “Besides, I think the girls might like me better than you now.”
I couldn’t deny it. They flocked to the door every evening like Juneau was some kind of pigeon goddess, waiting patiently for her to step inside and take care of them. I would have been jealous of Juneau, but I was no better than the pigeons when it came to the omega next to me.
