Page 114 of False Catch

"So you want this?" Gray demands. "A pack bond with eight Alphas?"

I think about Jackson's bite still fresh under my collar. Bo ready to throw hands with anyone who looks at me wrong. Eli three steps ahead of everyone else. Zane's stress baking that's gotten out of control. Tyler's quiet calculations. Beckett pretending he doesn't care when he obviously does.

And Cameron. Cameron who almost knotted me last night but held back.

"I want to stop pretending this is just about rowing," I say finally. "The rest... we figure out together. Like an actual pack would."

"Assuming we all agree," Gray says.

"Yeah." I meet his gaze directly. "Assuming that."

"I need time," Gray says. "This isn't a decision to make lightly."

"None of us should make it lightly," Tyler agrees. "But we also can't afford to wait too long. The investigation is intensifying. Our behavioral changes at practice aren't going unnoticed."

"How long do we have?" Beckett asks.

"Realistically? Torres is about to file her report and Kinsley keeps escalating whatever she’s doing to get back in Gray’s pants. We likely have days before something forces our hand."

Days to decide if we're going to formalize what's already happening. To figure out if eight Alphas and one Omega can make something unprecedented work. To decide to legally bind our lives to eight other people for the rest of our lives.

The decision, the investigation, everything Kinsley is doing. It’s too much to process in this room with everyone watching.

"I should go," I say, suddenly needing space to think. "Before practice. I need to process all this."

"I'll walk you," Cameron says, pushing off the wall.

"I don't need—"

"You can barely walk straight," he says bluntly. Everyone looks at me. "Someone should go with you."

"He's right," Bo agrees, though his expression says he knows exactly why I'm walking funny. "Take backup. Until we get the Kinsley situation under control. If she’s escalating, she might become unpredictable."

“She’s not a psychopath,” Gray groans, but he immediately holds his hands up in surrender when seven other males glare at him for defending the bitch. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

I nod, exhaustion hitting me all at once. The meeting, the revelations, the weight of decision—it's too much on top of everything that happened with Cameron last night.

"One week," I say to the room at large. "We maybe have one week to decide."

"We'll figure it out," Zane says, but it sounds more like a question than a statement.

But as Cameron escorts me out, his hand careful at the small of my back, I catch Gray's expression in the window's reflection. He looks like he's about to puke.

He's not the only one.

My phone buzzes as we reach the driveway.

Quinton: Library at 2? That economics project won't write itself

I type back quickly: Can't today. Team stuff

His response is immediate: More team stuff? You guys are intense lately. Rain check?

Me: Sure

I pocket my phone, but something about his observation sits wrong. We are intense lately. And he's noticing. Everyone is, it seems.

"Everything okay?" Cameron asks quietly.