Page 199 of Psycho Alphas: Part Two
It was like something loosened in his chest, and I thought I felt a final moment of closure through the bond.
Afterwards, I found him in the art room. He stayed there all night, and me and Bunny sat on the window ledge silently waiting at his side until he was finished. The piece depicted a young man I didn’t recognise. He had black hair, and a crooked front tooth. He wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t sad, either.
After that, Knox burned all the old black canvases he’d once caught me looking at, and hung the picture of the man in the art room next to the one he’d done the night we’d met Bambi. They were both displayed beside my mural.
He hadn’t said anything, and I hadn’t asked, finding something beautiful in the mystery, just glad he let me stay and watch as I felt, through the bond, an ancient wound slowly stitch up at last.
Next to the Bambi pictures was one I’d drawn of me and Glade in front of a lightning storm—my sister, the one who’d given me Ace. I was still working on the colours of that one.
Then there was a recent photo of Ace and Rogue. Rogue looked sickened, lying on the couch as Ace—a triumphant grin on his face—held a pair of tweezers with the Monopoly dog in them. That picture had been taken by Vance after the Misfits had all placed bets on whether Ace would accidentally kill him getting it out. To Rogue’s horror, I’d stashed the dog in my nest too, but it was important to me—it was how they’d all met.
The art room was a living canvas—one that changed week by week.
Around me in the nest I was piling up stacks and stacks of art. I wanted to get good enough to go down to a market one day and have someone I didn’t know buy a piece.
Sometimes I even caught Ace in my nest, re-arranging furniture with a stiff expression after a particularly out of control fuck had left it in disarray. I didn’t accuse him of caring how it looked, then he might never do it again, but I caught flashes of his furious instincts demanding he make it right. I did sketch out the scene, though, tucking it behind the portrait I’d done of him.
My Alphas had also taken me on a group date to the Grand Canyon and it had been breathtaking. We’d sat there all day, sitting on a rock, and I drew and painted the scenery over and over.
My life was no longer fragments of chaos; it was finally flowing together. Every piece of art, every photo, every memory on the board fit into a larger picture: a pack, a family, a future. And everything fit perfectly: my Alphas, Bambi, and the Misfits.
The best part—my Alphas all slept in my nest—sometimes at the same time. My prized photo was the one I’d snuck in the middle of the night from the light of the bathroom. Ace was passed out, sprawled across the foot of the bed—it was the day they’d come home from their first hunt, so he was wiped out. Rogue and Knoxhadboth been cuddling me—until I’d carefully wriggled free—so then it had kinda looked like theywere cuddling each other in the picture. I’d decorated it along the edges with gel pen hearts and stars and added it to the centre of the display.
My pack.
I looked up from the pictures as Rogue turned the TV off, settling into bed when the door creaked and Ace came in.
My heart all but exploded in my chest.
A full pack night.
He was a stubborn prick sometimes, but he was getting better at recognising when he needed my scent to stay steady—and I knew he wanted to be top of his game for the hunts they were planning. Sometimes partway through the night there’d be a scuffle, and next thing I knew, it would be Ace holding me instead of Knox.
What’s an Omega to do with so many possessive Alphas, Bunny?
Rogue was never involved—both Ace and Knox had reluctantly acclimatised to his pack lead position. Plus he was just too big to fight, so that was that.
I put away my board and settled into bed, taking one last look at it before I burrowed beneath the covers in the middle of all my Alphas.
Beside some of the pictures and my favourite art pieces was a torn-out picture of a glacier like the one I’d kept from the magazines my father owned growing up. I remembered staring at it for hours, thinking how pretty it was. Made so much sense to me now. The colours were made of dreams: teals and ice blues to match the eyes of Rogue and Ace. Beside it, I’d placed one more cut-out—a beautiful image of honey spilling from a honeycomb. A mirror image of Knox’s eyes in the firelight when we’d spent an evening sketching and listening to music together in the armchairs in the ballroom.
The day I’d met Ace, it had been so clear to me I’d always known he was out there. Before, I’d thought I was good for no one at all, but he’d been waiting, and so had Rogue. Knox was different—he was the unexpected. Someone who loved me without a scent match at all, and that was a special kind of love.
I hugged Bunny tight as I settled into the covers between the scents of ink and antique wood, honied bourbon, and the flash of a fresh lightning storm. My fingers gently traced the bites along my neck.
There was enough love stuffed into one day for a thousand years of living, so I hadno ideahow I was gonna handle another day of it, let alone a whole life full.
Guess we’ll just have to find a way to manage, won’t we, Bunny?
THE END
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