“What you did…bringing all of us together—” His jaw works like he’s fighting to get the words out.”Mason and I were broken. Fucking shattered. I spent a decade convinced I’d never really be happy again.”
“Judah—”
“Let me finish.” His hand settles against my jaw, thumb tracing the line of my cheekbone. “You fixed it. Not just me and Mason, but all of it. None of us would be here if it wasn’t for you.”
His forehead drops to rest against mine.
“Then you showed up. This chaotic, stubborn, beautiful woman who refuses to take no for an answer and somehow sees exactly what people need, even when they can’t see it themselves.”
My eyes are burning. I blink hard, refusing to cry into my damn latte.
“I’m going to spend the rest of my life showing you how grateful I am,” he says quietly. “For seeing us. For choosing us. For building something I never thought I’d get to have.”
The first tear escapes despite my best efforts, tracking hot down my cheek. Judah catches it with his thumb, a small smile curving his mouth.
“Didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“Shut up.” I grab his shirt and pull him closer, burying my face against his chest. “It’s too early in the morning for this many feelings.”
His laugh vibrates through me as his arms wrap around my shoulders, solid and warm and exactly right.
EXTENDED EPILOGUE
PHOENIX
The midmorning sunlightis already bright enough that my eyes already hurt before I even open them.
My heat will start today.
Which probably explains why it's almost noon and I'm just now waking up for the day. Heat-induced lethargy and my body's need to conserve energy is already getting the best of me.
I stretch my arm across the vast expanse of mattress, knowing the rest of the bed is going to empty. Everyone else has probably already been up for hours.
The ridiculous mega-nest that Mason and I have been building over the last week is basically perfect. The sheets on Mason's side are cool, but is pillow still holds the indent of his head. When I press my face into it, the chamomile and black pepper scent of him makes something low in my belly clench.
I roll onto my back and stare up at the blanket canopy overhead. My skin hums. A low current running beneath my sternum, electric and restless, like the air before a summer storm rolls in off the Pacific.
But I've never felt this relaxed going into a heat cycle.
It's been building for days. The heightened senses came first. Yesterday I could smell Dom's leather jacket from two rooms away, could hear Mason's pen scratching against paper from the far end of the hallway. Then the skin sensitivity kicked in, turning every brush of fabric against my body into a full sensory event. Last night, Judah's hand on my lower back while we watched a movie sent a shiver through me so violent that Atticus paused the film to ask if I was cold.
I definitely wasn't cold.
My fingers drift to the spot on my neck where Atticus's last bite has faded to a pale crescent. The skin there tingles with phantom pressure, anticipating what's coming.
For the first time in my life, I'm actually looking forward to a heat.
The thought sits in my chest, warm and comforting. There isn't any dread dread coiling in the pit of my stomach. And definitely no locking myself in a hotel bathroom with a vibrator and a bottle of wine with the hope I can just get it over with as quickly as possible.
I have a pack. I have a nest that smells like the four people I love most in the world layered together in the sheets, blankets, these and this ridiculous tower of pillows that Mason and I spent weeks engineering into a structural marvel.
Gerald Jr. watches me from the nightstand, his googly eyes rattling as I reach over to give him a pat. He's wearing the custom tuxedo I had made, with tiny satin lapels and a miniature bow tie.
"Wish me luck, Gerald."
The door clicks open.
Mason appears in the doorway with a tray balanced on one forearm that's covered with sliced fruit, nuts and cubes of cheese. In his other hand he has a bottle of that fancy electrolytewater that only comes in glass bottles and even I know is a marketing gimmick.
