My vision whited as I cried out.
Artem pulled out of my mouth, stroking himself and then he came with a low curse. Hot ropes painting my face, my throat, my lips. I licked him off and tasted all of us.
We collapsed in a sweaty tangle. Arms around me. Hands stroking my skin with lazy reverence. Soft kisses pressed to my shoulders, my neck, the scar I didn't hide anymore.
"I love you," I whispered. "My pack."
Gregor's voice rumbled against my back. "And we love you. Our center."
"Our queen," Ivan added, and kissed the top of my head.
Artem pulled the blankets over us. Outside, the darkness pressed against the windows.
Tomorrow my father was coming, but I was ready.
24
Maeve
Callum McCarthy was comingtoday, and the strangest part was that I'd slept through the night.
Not the shallow, twitchy sleep of the years before, when I thought every creak outside the caravan was Finn's footsteps and every shadow was my father's men ready to drag me back to Ireland to live the life he wanted me to live. It was real sleep. The kind where you wake up and have to check the clock because your body has forgotten, temporarily, that it's supposed to be afraid.
I felt more unafraid than ever before.
Mac was in his bassinet beside the bed. Artem's hand was still resting on my hip. Ivan was sprawled across the foot of the bed, face-down.
I turned to find Gregor. He was in the armchair near the window with Fergus asleep on his lap.
As always, he was waiting. Not because he doubted I could handle myself. Because he, Artem and Ivan, were ready to catch anything I decided to throw.
“Morning,” I mouthed to him.
His eyes bore into mine as he said, “Come here.”
I pushed out of the bed, padded across the bedroom, trying not to wake my other alphas. He lifted Fergus, who grumbled in his sleep. I sat where the dog left the warm space and cuddled into Gregor while Fergus ended up on my knee.
“Not long until I deal with my past, Gregor.”
“We can deal with it for you,” he said, planting his chapped lips on my cheek.
I burrowed my head under his chin. “And that’s why I love you.”
Gregor made a sound, and whispered, “I love you, my omega.”
Later that day, I stood at the bedroom window as the iron-gray sky threatened rain and watched three black Range Rovers muscle through the gates. They didn't glide the way Bratva vehicles did. They chewed up the gravel, aggressive and performative, and ground to a halt in front of the house like they were daring someone to complain.
Callum McCarthy stepped out of the lead vehicle.
Even from two stories up, he looked exactly the same. Heavy wool coat. Silver hair swept back. The arrogant tilt of a man who'd never been told no in his life. He was about to hear it.
Six large, bruised enforcers spilled out behind him, their hands already drifting toward their weapons like they expected a firefight on the front steps.
Blade was standing by the doors. He didn't stop them. Didn't ask them to disarm. He simply stepped aside like a man whoknew exactly how many armed Petrov soldiers were positioned in the foyer and how little six Irish bodyguards were going to matter.
Artem had made the call to let them walk in fully armed. It was a statement. He had the gardener trimming the hedges while carrying enough bullets to take every man down. Even the staff polishing the banisters had military training. And the men in the shadows of the foyer outnumbered Callum's escort three to one.
My father, Callum, was marching into a fortress and didn't know about yet.
