The bond roars, cheers, rumbles, and then...
Settles.
Her hand comes up. Closes around the slipper at her throat. Closes around my hand at her jaw. She doesn't kiss me. "I'm not promising."
"I know."
I smile to myself. My omega has a little, tiny bit of asshole in her, too. And she is going to make me pay. That's okay. There is no limit on her price.
"I'm not saying yes to anything tonight."
I smile again and lift her onto my lap, where she immediately curls. "But I'm not going to that clinic."
As if I would let her…
"Say it again."
A breath. A half laugh. The first sound that has come out of her tonight that is hers. "I'm not going to that clinic, Liam."
I don't trust speaking. She lies back down in the nest and pulls me with her. My head goes to her chest. Her hand to my hair. The slipper presses cool against my temple where she holds me there. She drifts off with one hand fisted at the slipper and one hand fisted in my hair, and her breath evens out against my forehead. The cabin goes quiet in a way no room ever has, and I'm enveloped by her scent.
I keep watch.
Not the way my father did.
The way a man keeps watch when the thing he was looking for—without ever knowing he was looking—finally falls asleep against him.
Epilogue - Roan
The bar is dry. Grayson has been staring at the sparkling water in his glass like it was poison for the past twenty minutes. I haven't said a word because the reason the bar is dry is standing fifteen feet away with her hand resting on the curve of her stomach and her head tipped back against my brother's shoulder, laughing at something her mother just said.
Star is pregnant.
Liam is being Liam about it–an asshole. She's tamed him a bit. Softened some of his rougher edges, but even sandpaper needs time to flatten stone.
He has been touching her all evening. A hand at her back. His palm flat over hers as she smoothes her belly. His chin lowers to her hair every time she laughs. It's a possessiveness that isn't trying to be subtle anymore. He doesn't hide his feelings, and that, more than the ring, more than the venue, more than the pregnancy, tells me everything about what Star Bryson did to my brother.
She wrecked him, and he celebrates it. Wallows in his fall. Tells me he knows it will hurt if she passes away first. But she'staught him how to live in the present. Enjoy every second and believe every day that the best is yet to come. I almost gagged, instead I raised a glass and toasted him. Grayson, Hunter, and Liam fell like dominoes, and now there's only me and Viv left.
"This is criminal," Grayson says, holding his glass up to the light like he's looking for evidence of something stronger dissolved in it.
"Star's pregnant."
"Star'spregnant. Not me."
"You were even worse when Lila was pregnant. Don't forget you created an entire division and floor so you could keep your omega from other men."
"That was to protect her."
"From what?"
"From having to see what I would do to a man who put his hands on her."
"I believe you showed the entire floor when you first mated." He doesn't deny it. Can't since it's legend at this point. "Where is your Lila?" I ask looking around. They're never far apart.
"Jas has a fever, so she had to stay home. She wouldn't let anyone else care for her."
"I'm surprised you came."
