Page 97 of Nesting With My Three Alphas
Pack. Not just the four of us, but the whole town.
"I want to go home," I said, the word carrying all the weight of everything it meant now. "I want to hug Charlie and tell her that the bad man from our old life can't hurt us anymore. I want to cook dinner in our kitchen and work in my studio and sleep in our nest without any shadows from the past."
"Then let's go home," Micah said simply.
The drive back to Hollow Haven felt different somehow. Lighter. The mountains looked the same, the trees were still turning their autumn colors, the familiar landmarks of our small town appeared right on schedule.
But I was different. We were different.
For the first time since I'd arrived in Hollow Haven eight months ago, I wasn't running from anything. I was just living, just moving forward, just building the life I'd chosen with the people I'd chosen to build it with.
Charlie was waiting on the front porch when we pulled into our driveway, her backpack dropped carelessly beside her and her face bright with the kind of anticipation that meant she'd been watching for our return.
"How did it go?" she asked before we'd even gotten out of the truck. "Did the bad man get in trouble? Are we safe now?"
"You were always safe, buttercup. No one's getting past your pops," Jonah said, scooping her up in a hug that spoke of relief and love and the fierce protectiveness of a father who'd do anything to keep his child secure. "But the judge made doubly sure of that."
"Good," Charlie said with the matter-of-fact acceptance of someone who'd never doubted that justice would prevail. "Can we have ice cream for dinner to celebrate?"
"I think we can manage ice cream," I said, laughing at the speed with which she'd moved from cosmic justice to practical concerns. "But maybe after some actual dinner."
"Deal," Charlie said, then looked at me with the serious expression she wore when she was processing something important. "Kit? Are you okay? You smell different. Not bad different, just... different."
She was right. I could feel it myself. The way my scent had shifted throughout the day, shedding the sharp notes of anxiety and old fear that had clung to me for months. What was left was purely me. Vanilla and honey and the confidence that came from knowing who I was and where I belonged.
"I'm more than okay," I told her. "I'm free."
That evening, after Charlie was asleep and the house was quiet, I found myself standing in my art studio looking at the canvas I'd started weeks ago. A family portrait of the five of us that I'd been too superstitious to finish while Marcus's trial was still pending.
Too afraid to claim this happiness completely while there was still a chance it could be taken away.
Now, with the guilty verdicts and a prison sentence between us and the past, I picked up my brush and began to paint.
Jonah's steady strength, Reed's protective mischief, Micah's gentle wisdom. Charlie's bright spirit that had helped heal all of us. And myself. Not as I'd been when I first arrived, broken and afraid, but as I was now. Whole, loved, home.
My three alphas found me there hours later, still painting by lamplight, adding details and depth to the vision of our family that I'd been afraid to complete.
"It's beautiful," Micah said softly, his arms coming around me from behind.
"It's us," I said simply. "All of us, exactly as we are."
"No shadows from the past," Reed observed, studying the canvas with the eye of someone who understood both art and emotional truth.
"No shadows," I agreed. "Just light, and love, and everything we've built together."
We stood there together in my studio, surrounded by the evidence of dreams made manifest, and I realized that this was what victory actually looked like. Not the courtroom drama or the guilty verdicts, though those mattered.
This. This quiet moment, this secure love, this unshakeable foundation we'd built together. This knowledge that whatever came next, we'd face it as a family.
Marcus was in prison, his power over me broken forever. But more importantly, I was home. Really, truly home. With the people who'd helped me remember who I was supposed to be.
And for the first time since I'd left Chicago, I was ready to start thinking about the future instead of just surviving the present.
Ready to start living instead of just existing.
Ready to bloom.
Chapter 31
