"Gumbo deserves to be immortalized in song. He's a vital member of this pack." Remy's dimples flashed, his chin lifting with mock dignity even as his toes curled against Silas's thigh. I threw a pillow at him. It sailed through the air, trailing a feather that had escaped through a seam.
He caught it, grinning, teeth flashing white, and threw it back with surprising force. I deflected it into Harper's face—which earned me a growled warning that vibrated through his chest and a pinch to my hip that made me squirm and yelp—and then Silas was somehow involved, moving with that silent predator grace even in something as ridiculous as a pillow fight. Remywas using his guitar as a shield, holding it up like a medieval knight with a lance, and Gumbo was making disapproving sounds from his spot by the door, his tail thumping irritably against the floor.
The pillow fight ended with all of us in a heap on the floor, breathless and laughing, limbs tangled together in a way that would take significant effort to untangle. My hair was everywhere, probably full of pillow feathers. Someone's elbow was digging into my ribs. Harper's beard scratched against my shoulder. I couldn't tell whose leg was whose anymore, and I didn't care.
"Pack complete," Remy said, somewhere near my elbow, his voice muffled by someone's arm. His golden curls were plastered to his forehead with sweat, his cheeks flushed with exertion. "Officially certified disaster pack complete."
"Could be worse," Harper said, from underneath a pile of cushions, his voice dry but warm. One of his hands had found its way to my back, splayed wide and possessive even in defeat.
"Could be better," Silas added, deadpan, though his pale eyes were soft, crinkled at the corners in a way that meant he was fighting back a real smile. "Could have fewer dramatic musicians."
"You love me." Remy poked his head up, curls wild and sticking up in every direction, grin irrepressible. A feather was stuck in his hair and he didn't seem to notice or care.
"I tolerate you." Silas's mouth twitched, betraying him.
"Same thing." Remy flopped back down with a satisfied sigh, his head landing on what turned out to be Silas's stomach, earning him a grunt of protest that he ignored entirely. I lay there in the middle of them, staring at the ceiling, feeling all three bonds humming quietly in my chest. Different from each other—Harper steady as a heartbeat, Remy bright as sunlight,Silas deep as the earth itself—but all part of the same whole. Three threads woven together into something unbreakable.
All mine and I couldn’t wait to see what the future holds for us.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Artemis
One week after the bonding, the screen door banged open hard enough to rattle the hinges and send Gumbo's head snapping up from his doze. Remy burst into the kitchen where I was washing dishes, his golden curls wild and tangled from the wind, his chest heaving like he'd sprinted the whole way from wherever he'd been. His amber eyes blazed with something between excitement and disbelief as he grabbed my shoulders, suds and all, his fingers digging in hard enough to leave marks.
"Cher!" His voice cracked on the word, pitched high with triumph. "Mon Dieu, the lawyer just called. They served Crescent Holdings the papers this morning!"
My heart stuttered in my chest, missing a beat before slamming back into rhythm so hard it hurt. The dish I'd been holding slipped from my nerveless fingers and shattered against the bottom of the sink, sending soapy water splashing across my shirt, but I barely noticed. "They... they actually did it?"
"They did it." His grin spread across his face, fierce and almost feral, showing too many teeth to be entirely civilized. His whole body vibrated with barely contained energy, like a live wire sparking against wet ground. "Harassment claims, fraudulent survey documentation, pressure tactics on other property owners—all of it, cher. Every dirty thing they've done." He shook me gently, his thumbs rubbing circles on my shoulders. "Delphine said their legal team has seventy-two hours to respond, and based on what she's seen, they're going to have a very hard time wiggling out of this one."
I braced my wet hands against the edge of the sink, my knuckles going white around the porcelain, trying to steady myself against the sudden dizziness. After months of documentation, of harassment, of feeling like David facing down Goliath with nothing but a slingshot and stubborn hope—we'd actually done it. We'd taken the fight to them.
"Where's Harper?" The words came out rougher than I intended, scraped raw by the emotion clawing at my throat. "And Silas?"
"Harper's at the distillery—I already called him, he's on his way." Remy's expression softened, some of the manic energy settling into something warmer, more tender. He reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, his callused fingertips lingering against my cheek like he couldn't bear to stop touching me. "Silas is out checking the property lines again. You know how he gets when he's worried—all that prowling and watching." His mouth quirked into something between a smile and a grimace. "It's happening, Artemis. We're actually going to win this."
I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to believe him so badly it ached like a bruise beneath my ribs, like a wound that had never quite healed.
But I'd learned a long time ago that wanting something didn't make it true.
The next two days passed in a blur of nervous energy that left us all raw and snappish.
Delphine LeBlanc called with updates—and despite being only twenty-eight, fresh out of Tulane Law and barely three years into her practice, the young Alpha had already earned a reputation that made corporate lawyers twice her age break into nervous sweats. Her voice was a honeyed drawl that somehow made even legal jargon sound like a lullaby, though the steel beneath it could cut glass. Crescent Holdings' lawyers had requested an extension, which she'd denied with what I imagined was vicious satisfaction. They'd attempted to file a counter-suit, which had been thrown out before it even hit a judge's desk. They were scrambling, she said, and scrambling meant desperate.
"Desperate how?" I'd asked, gripping the phone tight enough to make my knuckles ache, pacing the length of my small kitchen until Gumbo hissed at me for disturbing his nap.
"Desperate like a cottonmouth backed into a corner, cher." Her voice went hard as flint, all the honey burned away to reveal the backbone beneath. "Which means they might try something stupid before they accept defeat. You keep your eyes open. You keep those Alphas of yours close—closer than close."
I'd relayed the warning to my pack that night, all of us gathered around my tiny kitchen table with untouched cups of coffee going cold between us. Harper had gone quiet in that dangerous way of his, the way that meant he was calculating threats and responses with military precision. His dark eyes had turned cold, distant, cataloging every possible angle of attack while his jaw worked silently. Silas had simply nodded once,his pale eyes going flat and predatory as a hunting cat's, and I'd noticed him patrolling the property more often after that—appearing and disappearing like the ghost the townspeople called him, always watching, always waiting, always ready.
Remy had tried to keep things light, strumming his guitar and cracking jokes that fell flat in the tension-thick air. But even he couldn't quite hide the coiled energy beneath his easy smile, the way his eyes kept drifting to the windows and the darkness beyond, the way his fingers never quite stopped moving even when the music stopped.
We were all waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It dropped on the third day, while I was on the porch watching the sunset paint the bayou in shades of orange and gold, trying to find peace in the familiar beauty of it all. The black SUV pulled into my drive without warning.
It wasn't a vehicle I recognized. Too new, too polished, too expensive for Magnolia Bend—the kind of car that belonged in a corporate parking garage in New Orleans or Houston, not a dirt road in the Louisiana backcountry. The windows were tinted dark as midnight, dark enough to hide whatever lurked inside, and something cold settled in my stomach.
