Page 88 of Knot on the Market

Callum joins the embrace without hesitation, his solid presence making the circle complete. For a moment we just stand there in Lila's kitchen, holding each other and the weight of the decision we've made together.

As I breathe in the mingled scents of our family, green apple and white musk, toasted marshmallow, cedar and sawdust, bergamot until we smell like home, I realize my fear was backwards.

I was afraid she'd remember who she used to be and decide we weren't enough. But watching her find her courage, seeing her choose to face her past with us beside her, I understand that she's not going back to being Lila James, movie star.

She's going as Lila, our omega, our pack member, our love. And she's taking us with her, not because she needs protection, but because she wants to share every part of her life with the people she's chosen as family.

Including the parts that used to hurt.

"This is going to be interesting," Lila says finally, her voice muffled against someone's shoulder.

"Interesting is one word for it," Callum mutters, but there's affection in his voice.

"I call dibs on helping pick out your tuxes," she adds, pulling back to look at each of us in turn. "If we're doing this, we're doing it right."

"Should I be worried?" Dean asks with a grin.

"Probably," she says, but her smile is bright and real for the first time in days. "But you'll look incredible, so it'll be worth it."

As we untangle from the group hug and settle back into our chairs. Dean unpacking donuts, Callum making fresh coffee, Lila wiping happy tears from her cheeks. I catch sight of my reflection in the kitchen window.

I look different. Lighter, somehow. Like I've been carrying weight I didn't realize was there, and it's finally been lifted.

For the first time since I moved to Honeyridge Falls, I'm not afraid of being too much. Not afraid of wanting too deeply or caring too intensely or analyzing every detail until I understand how all the pieces fit together.

Because Lila loves how my brain works. And Dean and Callum accept my intensity as part of what makes our pack stronger.

Maybe I was just waiting for the right people to be complicated with.

Chapter 27

Lila

Two weeks.

Two weeks since my heat broke, and I'm losing my goddamn mind.

I roll over in bed, burying my face in the pillow that still smells like Julian. Bergamot and black tea and something purely him. He left for work twenty minutes ago after pressing the most chaste kiss to my forehead, like I'm his sweet little omega who couldn't possibly want anything more than gentle affection and respectful distance.

If he only knew I've been fantasizing about dragging him back into this bed and showing him exactly what I want.

It's been two weeks and while we've settled into this beautiful domestic routine, taking turns staying over, morning coffee and evening dinners, comfortable intimacy that feels like coming home there's been exactly zero sexual contact beyond gentle kisses and cuddling.

At first, I thought they were giving me space to recover, being gentlemen about not pushing while I processed the emotional aftermath of my first heat with them. Then I wondered if maybe they were uncertain about boundaries now that the heat-drivenurgency was gone, if they needed time to figure out what we were without biology making the decisions.

But it's been two weeks, and I'm starting to wonder if I need to be more direct about what I want.

Because what I want is for one of them—any of them, all of them—to touch me the way they did during my heat. Not with desperate urgency from biological need, but with deliberate intention. Someone who wants me simply because I'm me. Someone choosing to make me feel good because they want to, not because instinct demands it.

The problem is I have absolutely no idea how to ask for what I want without sounding needy or demanding. How do you tell three gorgeous alphas that you're going slightly crazy from sexual frustration when they're being so perfectly respectful?

Maybe I need to stop being subtle. Maybe I need to stop waiting for them to make the first move and start making some moves of my own.

The thought follows me downstairs, where I find Dean in my kitchen, still in his firefighter uniform from his overnight shift. He's at the stove making pancakes, his navy uniform shirt stretched across broad shoulders as he moves around my kitchen.

There's something incredibly appealing about seeing him like this, still in work clothes, hair slightly mussed from his helmet, the faint scent of smoke and duty clinging to him. He got off shift at seven this morning and came straight here to make me breakfast, without even thinking about changing first.

From the living room comes intermittent hammering, punctuated by what sounds like muttered curses. Callum, working on that loose window trim he's been threatening to fix for the past week.

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