Page 227 of Knot Unwanted: Part One

“Well?” I prompt, because Stone’s scent has gone sharp with something that feels like guilt.

He sets a cup down with too much focus. “Well, are you surprised?” When I don’t immediately respond, he turns to face me, his good arm bracing against the counter. “We’ve been nothing but dicks to Finn.”

The bluntness of it catches me off guard, though it shouldn’t. Stone’s always been the one to call things as they are. “Not this again, Stone. We’ve already been through this. We were trying to protect him. Still are.”

“Were we?” His laugh is bitter, hollow. “Or were we just being typical alphas, making decisions on our own with no regard for the ones we’re so sure we’re protecting?” He gestures vaguely upward. “You saw him that night. With that baseball bat. That’s who he is, Jax. That’s who he’s always been. Fucking fierce and fucking perfect. He’s stronger than we give him credit for. He could have handled this if we’d just told him. And now he wouldn’t be thinking of leaving.”

The truth of it sits like lead in my gut. “I know.”

“Do you?” Stone’s eyes are hard now. “Because I’ve been thinking about it all morning. About how many times we’ve dismissed his strength because we thought if we let him know about everything, he’d shatter. Christ, even Ren had some semblance of it. Why do you think he kept that gun under the bed where Finn could reach it?”

I remember the way Finn had looked in that moment, baseball bat in hand, fierce and protective. Not an omega cowering in fear, but a warrior defending his home. His pack. His mate.

“Shit,” I breathe, running a hand through my hair. “We really fucked up, didn’t we?”

Stone’s voice is raw with self-recrimination. “Do you remember when he first came to us? How alive he was? How he’d challenge us, push back, make us think? When did we start trying to shelter him from things?”

The memory hits hard—Finn in those early days, his gray eyes sparkling with mischief as he argued art with Ren, challengedStone’s cooking methods, teased me about my taste in movies. He’d been so vibrant, so unapologetically himself.

But I also remember the moment we all broke apart. It’s as raw as if it happened just yesterday.

“The moment we almost lost him, Stone. Or have you forgotten that?”

Stone’s throat moves, and he looks away. “Well…now he’s got Hailey.” His words are soft but weighted. “Hismate. The one person who sees him exactly as he is and loves him for it. Can you blame him for wanting to protect that? For thinking he needs to choose?”

I think about the way Finn looks at Hailey, how naturally they fit together. How she never questions his strength, never tries to make him be anything other than what he is. “No,” I admit. “I can’t blame him at all.”

“He needs this,” Stone says, hand wrapped around a soup can so tightly I worry it might crumple. “We fucked up. He needs her as much as she will need us. And we need them both.”

I nod. Because I know it’s the truth. It’s been over two years and I haven’t been able to do the one thing I’ve been put here to do. Keep my pack together. But Hailey. She’s come and she’s fitting into the cracks, slowly pulling the broken pieces back into the whole. “Yeah…” I whisper. “He needs her.”

Stone sighs, cracking the bones in his neck as he does. “And what about this Academy? All my leads have been dead ends. The only progress so far is that list of warehouses you have and even then, getting information on each location is taking too long. If they come for her again…”

“We won’t let her go,” I say softly. “And neither will he.” I pause, gaze shifting to the window as the leaves shiver in the breeze. “Remember when he found that injured fox in the garden?”

Despite everything, Stone’s lips twitch. “Spent three weeks nursing it back to health. Cried for days when it finally ran off into the woods.”

“But he didn’t regret it. Didn’t stop caring about other creatures that needed help. It’s part of why we…” I trail off, but I’m sure Stone hears the unspoken words. Part of why we fell in love with him.

From upstairs, I hear a small laugh—Hailey’s. It’s followed by Finn’s deeper chuckle, and something in my chest twists.

“If we fuck this up,” I say roughly, “and we lose them…”

Stone moves over, his hand tightening on my shoulder. “Then we don’t fuck it up.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“No,” he agrees. “But maybe that’s the point. Maybe we’ve been making everything too complicated. Thinking too much about pack dynamics and alpha instincts and what we should do instead of just…being there. For him. For each other. All of what we did and didn’t do, and he was thinking of leaving us, Jax. And…fuck…I don’t blame him. After the accident, when the bond broke?—”

His words fade into the chaos of pain that rises in my mind.

Finn died…and our bond broke.

Completely.

And that’s the crux of it—I’ve always known. Even as we constructed justifications and convinced ourselves we were acting in his best interest, some part of me recognized the selfishness in our silence. We couldn’t bear to say it aloud: the bond is broken. Because saying it would make it real in a way we weren’t prepared to face.

“—we should have shattered it completely. Yeah, we’d be risking it all, but maybe?—”

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