"I really did. I could see myself making a home with them."
"What happened next?"
My breath hitches. "The last meeting was just with Ragon."
"Just the pack lead," Arden notes.
"Yeah. That usually means they're about to ask the omega to join their pack. I was excited."
The memory pulls me under.
The meeting room at the registry was small and sterile. White walls, fluorescent lights, a table with two chairs. I'd been in this room so many times I'd lost count.
But this time felt different. This time I was hopeful.
Ragon came in and I could tell immediately something was wrong. His usual warmth was there but muted, buried under layers of nervousness that made his scent spike sharp.
He sat across from me and gave me a half smile. Then he reached across the table and took my hands in his.
My heart kicked up. This was it.
"Vee," he said, his voice low. "My whole pack very much wants to take you home."
I smiled, relief and joy flooding through me in equal measure. "I want that too."
"But—" He stopped. My smile faltered.
"But?"
He squeezed my hands. "There's a condition."
My stomach dropped.
"I need to tell you something about my family," he continued. "About how I grew up."
I waited, my hands still in his, my heart hammering.
"My fathers and my mother were scent matched. All three of them." His voice went soft. "I grew up watching my fathers dote on my mother. Watching her look at them with this awe, like they hung the moon. The love they shared because of that pull, that biological certainty… it was special."
I didn't understand where this was going but dread was building in my chest.
"My mother got sick when I was eighteen," he said. "She passed soon after. I watched my fathers wither away slowly. It… broke them." His grip on my hands tightened slightly. "When my biological father passed two years later, he told me he wouldn't take back the years he had with her for anything. That loving her for that long was worth it."
Tears pricked my eyes. Not for me. For him. For the loss in his voice.
"He told me he hoped I'd find the same," Ragon continued. "That same kind of love. That certainty."
And there it was... the condition taking shape.
"I made a deal with myself," he said, his blue eyes meeting mine. "That I was going to give myself a chance to find it. A scent match. They're rare but they happen. I don't want to spend my life waiting for something that may never come, but I can't give up before I really try."
My throat closed.
"My pack is still young," he said. "We have time. So I want to make you a promise, Vee."
I couldn't speak. Could barely breathe.
"If we haven't found a scent match in five years, we'll bond you permanently. Make you ours officially. No more waiting."
