The oven timer went off, and I escaped the conversation to pull out a tray of fresh muffins I’d whipped up.
“Not exactly the healthiest lineup,” I said with a wince, glancing at Coach.
He just chuckled. “You don’t see anyone complaining, do you?”
He was right. The mood had lifted slightly. The food was a good distraction.
When my phone went off, the entire room fell silent in an instant. It was almost eerie.
My hands shook enough that I dropped it the first time, but the second time I answered quickly.
“Hey, Mom. Tell me you’ve heard something.”
“I just talked to your dads,” she said quickly, voice pitched low so no one would overhear, which meant she’d even gone down to the AHA headquarters with them. “They wanted to make sure I let you know that, unofficially, you have nothing to worry about. They’ll be making a statement later. Please don’t share this with anybody outside of whoever’s listening to this conversation, you know how they are about their public statements.”
“Oh, thank God. Mom, thank you,” I breathed out. My stomach was rolling with nerves, followed by a sharp drop of relief.
“I’m proud of you, Lana. You’ve gone through so much this year, and yet you made sure someone fought for your deltas. I guarantee they enjoyed having you in their corner.”
When I hung up and turned back to the team, they were all staring at me, waiting for my grin before erupting into loud cheers.
We officially did it. We convinced the board to back off.
All I ever wanted was to enjoy time with my pack. They tried to take that from me, and they failed. Whoever this asshole was that tried to interfere in my life, I hoped Roxie swept the floor with them.
“It’s over,” Conrad said, shaking his head. “I guess I didn’t need to warn them about you. You protected him better than I ever could. You were always meant for this world, Lana. You belong here as much as the rest of us.”
“Alright,” Coach said. “Go out, celebrate, go home, do whatever you need to do. Practice is cancelled.”
Now that it was all over, I felt like I could pass out at any second. As if he sensed it, Cade pulled me close, pressing a kiss to my temple.
“Come on. You took care of us. It’s our turn to take care of you.”
“Can we just snuggle and exist in our packhouse and recover from all this nonsense?” I begged.
“Sounds perfect,” he said, leading me out of the kitchen.
I paused long enough to turn off the oven, knowing all the dishes would still be there when I got back. I was fine with that.
We were quiet on the way home, but not tense like we had been for days. This kind of quiet felt healing.
I’d spoken my truth and so had they. I was incredibly proud to be a member of this pack.
“How are you feeling after your heat, princess?” Wilder asked, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.
“A little tired,” I admitted. “We didn’t really get a chance to recover. I’m shocked I didn’t get thrown back into another round of heat.”
“Good thing,” he said. “Because I think your speech was the most impactful out of all of them.”
“My voice is no more important than anyone else’s,” I said. “The deltas’ voices mattered more. The betas’ did too. I just knew it was me who inadvertently started this, and I wanted to make it right.”
“Now it’s over, and we get you all to ourselves,” he said with a smirk.
“You know, something’s been bothering me since the heat ended so abruptly,” Kieran said carefully.
The rest of the pack shot him looks like he was about to ruin the moment, but I knew it had to be something important, even if worry started to bubble up within me.
“We didn’t talk about birth control with everything going on. We went right into that heat, unprotected. I’m sorry if we failed you.”
