Page 43 of The Last Great Omegaverse

“Then the rest of us wait,” I say. “Give him room to go first. But if she’s not back to herself by the end of the day, all bets are off, and I’m showing up on that porch whether it’s my turn or not.”

“Fair,” Cal says, something almost like the ghost of a smile crossing his face for the first time all morning. “Fair enough.”

He leaves not long after, and the three of us left at the table sit in a silence that’s less heavy than it was an hour ago, some of the morning’s dread loosening into something closer to purpose.

“For what it’s worth,” Silas says, glancing my way, “you’re not disposable. Never have been. If the land really is indifferent to which four of us ended up here, that just means everything good that’s happened since is entirely down to us. No shortcuts. No mechanism doing the heavy lifting. Just four idiots who happened to be worth choosing, on our own merits, same as she happened to be worth all of us choosing her back.”

“That almost sounded sincere, Silas.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

I laugh, some of the cold twist under my ribs finally starting to loosen, and Coop reaches over and claps a hand on my shoulder. It’s solid, grounding in a way that’s got nothing to do with words. My Alpha hushes at the contact, quiet and pack-deep, the reassurance that only ever comes from the other three, never from anybody outside this house. For the first time since Cal laid the truth out this morning, I let myself believe that whatever’s happening between the five of us was never about the mechanism at all.

Just about four Alphas who happened, against every odd worth calculating, to be worth wanting for exactly who we are, irrespective of territory or myth, one particular Omega deciding, over and over, one choice at a time, that we were.

Chapter 19

Wren

8 Days To Go

Cal’s truck turns up the drive a little after noon, and I watch it come from the porch, mug in hand. I don’t move to hide or pretend I wasn’t waiting for exactly this.

He gets out slowly, like a man bracing for a door slammed in his face, and stops at the bottom of the porch steps instead of climbing them, leaving the choice of closing that last distance entirely mine.

“You came,” I say.

“Told the others I’d check on you. Figured you deserved to be upset with me before the rest of them show up wanting forgiveness they haven’t individually earned yet.”

“That’s oddly considerate, for a man who kept a life-altering secret from me for weeks.”

“I know.” He doesn’t flinch from it, nor does he reach for an excuse. “I’ve had all day and all night to sit with how that looks from where you’re standing. Wasn’t proud of the answer.”

I study him a long moment, the same measured, watchful man I met at the hives that first week, except something in his face has gone rawer since our night together. He’s less guarded, like whatever wall he’d spent years perfecting finally cracked somewhere I can’t fully see and hasn’t found its way back to being solid yet.

“Sit,” I say finally, nodding at the step beside me. “You can start with an actual apology.”

He sits, close enough that his shoulder brushes mine, and takes a breath like he’s about to jump into cold water. “I’m sorry I let you find it out through ledgers and gossip instead of from me, when I first started suspecting how deep you’d fallen into caring about all of us. I told myself I was protecting your choice by staying quiet. Real answer’s simpler and less flattering. I was protecting myself from finding out you might walk away once you knew the whole truth.”

“I nearly did.”

“I know that too.”

“I spent all of yesterday convinced I couldn’t trust a single feeling in my own chest. That every nice thing I’ve felt toward any of you might just be dirt and biology wearing a convincing disguise.” I look out at the fields instead of at him, it’s easier that way. It’s the same trick he taught me without meaning to. “Then I found something in Eleanor’s journal. She wrote that the land doesn’t choose who we love. It just answers honestly to whether we let ourselves be loved fully, without holding half of ourselves back. Read it about six times before it actually landed.”

“That sounds like something she would’ve written.” His voice has gone rough. “She always did have a better handle on this than any of us managed on our own.”

“I’ve decided to believe her over my own panic.” I turn to look at him properly now, letting him see whatever’s in my expression, I’m done hiding it. “Not because the fear’s gone. It’s not. I don’t think it fully goes away, not for you, not for me, not for anyone who’s ever loved somebody standing on land like this. But I’d rather choose you, choose all of you, with the fear included, than talk myself out of the best thing that’s happened to me since I got off that miserable bus, just because I can’t prove it’s uncomplicated.”

Something breaks open in his expression, relief and disbelief tangled together, and when he reaches for my hand this time I let him take it, lacing our fingers together.

“For what it’s worth,” he says, “I’ve never once, in thirty years, wanted anybody the way I’ve wanted you since that first morning you wandered into my orchard talking about needing a distraction from your own head. That wanting didn’t need a legend’s permission. It just showed up, same as it apparently showed up for the other three, each in his own time, each for reasons that were entirely, stubbornly his own.”

“You planning to kiss me anytime soon, or are we just going to keep having beautiful, devastating conversations on this porch indefinitely?”

That startles a laugh out of him. “Sassy. There she is. Was starting to worry yesterday knocked it clean out of you.”

“Never. Kiss me, Cal.”