“I’m fine with it, honestly. The more distance we get today, the better,” Bea replied quickly.
As we drove, her eyes darted around to the cars around us, as if expecting him to show up at any moment.
I hoped he didn’t. I’d hate to have to kill a man in front of my omega.
As we left the city limits of Willow Lake, it felt like our group took a collective breath. Corvin turned up the music, and Bea relaxed between us.
“I’m still exhausted. Can we stop for coffee while we’re there?” Bea asked around another yawn.
Our poor girl looked like she was seconds away from falling asleep. Apollo simply shifted them both so she was snuggled deeper into his side.
“Of course, we’ll stop,” Apollo said knowingly. “But why don’t you rest? It’s a bit of a drive.”
It didn’t take long for her eyes to close, her breathing evening out in seconds.
“We have to keep her safe,” I said, my voice quiet enough not to disturb her. “I don’t like this.”
“We’re working on it,” Corvin promised. “Sheissafe with us.”
“We might need to bring the Chief in on the conversation. He should know if we’ve got a pyromaniac on our hands,” I pointed out. Having backup never hurts.
Corvin nodded, his jaw tightening as he thought it over. We all knew it was the only option. It also meant giving up some of the control he coveted.
He didn’t respond as he turned the music down until it was just steady background noise. The drive took two hours, which was enough time for Bea to get a solid cat-nap in.
There were other cities, closer ones, but Brightwater being a little farther away from the drama that followed us, was the selling point.
We’d already talked to Dani and her pack, and they promised to keep Phoenix for another night. It gave us a chance to install the security cameras and get the system up and running before she came home.
I hated having her away from us, but knowing she was safe and surrounded by people who cared about her made this a little easier. It gave us breathing room to make sure our house was safe.
I knew we were walking a delicate balance with Phoenix. Thanks to her mom, she would feel this absence a bit more than the average teen. The difference was that we were coming back for her tomorrow.
By that time, our house would be secure, and we’d find a way to live with this new normal, to make sure our shared lives worked for everyone.
It’d be a mix of coordinating schedules, ensuring she was dropped off and picked up from school on time, and there were no major issues.
Everything this far had felt so natural that I knew this would be no different.
When the silence started to get to be a bit too much, Apollo spoke up.
“She demanded my bite. I have hers, too,” he said carefully. My mouth opened, then closed, unsure what to say.
Corvin’s hands tightened on the wheel but he gave him a smile. “Don’t worry. She leads this, remember. If that’s what she needed, I’d have given her mine, too.”
He let out a relieved breath. “I worried you’d be upset, but it is what she wanted. She wants all of our bites. I think she needs to know this is permanent.”
“We’re a pack. This is how it should work,” Corvin said firmly. “We’ll have our moments.”
His confidence matched mine. Bea wanted us, and this was yet another big step in the right direction. Once we had her ex out of the picture, we’d find more time to just be a pack. A family.
“Maybe we can plan a date night soon, I saw something that I thought might work,” I admitted, telling them about a concert I’d found. It was a few months away, but the kind of thing we would go all out for.
“I’ll watch Phoenix,” Apollo said. Not as a way of saying sorry or feeling guilty, but simply because he wanted to. “Classic isn’t my thing, anyway. I’ll pick her out a dress, though. Send me the details.”
By that time, we’d crossed the bridge into the city. Apollo spotted a new coffee shop up ahead and Corvin navigated into the parking lot as we gently nudged our omega to wake her.
She blinked, her eyes adorably unfocused, and I couldn’t resist leaning over and brushing a kiss over her temple.
