Page 124 of Power Shift

The closest spot to Briar is on Landon’s side, so I snag it before Ronan can. The broody alpha rolls his eyes at me and, instead of taking the spot beside me like I expect, drops to the floor in front of her. He presses his toes to the bottom of the couch and his knees against the cushion while leaning forward and palming her thighs. His gaze is intense, but it doesn’t seem to bother her.

She covers his hands and squeezes. “And here I thought pack meetings involved everyone.”

“They do. Which is why you just used their absence to lay into me about my knee instead of something more serious,” Landon drawls. His body language is odd, a mix between uneasy and confident. Like he knows what he has to say but is nervous about how we’ll react. “We haven’t had a real pack meeting in a long time. I wouldn’t be surprised if none of us remembered how they worked.”

“We have time to fix that,” I offer.

Ronan isn’t as forgiving. “Not sure that’s anyone’s fault but yours, Pack Leader.”

“Don’t, Ro. Not right now,” Dash says with a heavy exhale.

Landon slowly peels his eyes from Briar and settles them on each of us, lingering longer on the pack member who’s had the biggest issues with him recently. Ronan’s pride goes toe to toe with his, and it’s kept them in a constant power struggle. That, and the kind of alpha energy that can turn every room into a battleground.

I don’t think Landon’s ever taken for granted that he has Ronan’s approval to be pack leader. If he ever changed his mind, the foundation of our pack would be forever shifted.

It’s some higher power that’s responsible for their ability to overlook their battling dominance and love each other the way we all do. We’re better off together than apart, and that’s been obvious from the moment we met.

“No, get it out of your system, Ronan,” Landon encourages.

Ronan wets his lips and holds Briar’s thighs tighter. “We’re pack. One person’s selfishness isn’t supposed to threaten the happiness of everyone else. Yet you let that happen without a care for how the rest of us would feel.”

“Just because you’ve never had a reason not to trust Briar doesn’t mean that I haven’t, either. You can’t begin tounderstand why I made the choices I did,” Landon explains tightly.

Dash leans past Briar to stare at Landon. “So explain to us why. We’ve been ready to listen for weeks, Lan.”

“I’d like to know as well.” Briar releases one of Ronan’s hands to steal Landon’s.

Finger by finger, she uncurls his fist until she can bring his palm to her lips. I feel at peace watching her kiss his hand and bring it to rest against her chest.

Landon gazes at her, his expression wavering slightly. “I have never trusted an omega. My mother ruined that for me.”

“She’s been out of your life for a decade now. You can’t let her ruin your life now the way she tried to ruin your father’s,” Dash says.

Landon keeps his eyes on Briar. “My father met my mother when he was twenty and new to the NHL. He hadn’t met his packmates when he was a kid like I did and had only started getting to know them. They met when he entered the league, and only two weeks later, my mom came around.

“It was impossible not to know who my father was if you were a hockey fan, and while she wasn’t a fan, she did know who he was. When they met, my dad explained it as being a miracle. He took one look at her, and he swore something awoke inside of him. Once he smelled her, he swore she was his scent match, and the entire pack agreed. Two months later, she was bonded to them and pregnant with me.”

A dull ache grows behind my ribs as I listen and watch Briar lean her head on his shoulder, keeping their hands against her chest.

Landon buries his face in her hair and inhales, his throat bobbing. When he pulls back, he sets his chin on her head.

“When I was old enough to go to school, she started disappearing for long periods of time. Dad always told me sheneeded “Mommy break time,” and I believed him. Every time she’d come home, I would smell her and get this churning sensation in my stomach like I knew something wasn’t right. That was when I realized I had an ultra-sensitive sense of smell. It turns out that every time she was off on one of her breaks, she was running off to her real scent match. When I was seven, I smelled him on her for the first time.”

Nobody speaks when he halts his explanation, working through a lifetime of betrayal that he’s never actually completely dealt with. It’s not just him, either. His father hasn’t bothered helping himself or his son at all. They’ve let their relationship fall apart instead, an intimidating distance between them that they don’t know how to close.

Ronan shifts his hand from Briar’s leg to Landon’s knee, giving it a firm pat. “Your mother was cruel, Lan.”

“She was. Briar, you have to understand that it was never about you,” Landon chokes out, pale and frazzled.

She strokes the back of his hand with her thumb. “Keep explaining it to me so I can understand.”

“I tried to hide what I’d learned, but there were three alphas in our house, which meant once they picked up on my new discomfort around her, they didn’t let it go. Stubborn as fuck, they demanded I tell them what was wrong, and once I did, they called a pack meeting and asked her about it. She denied it, but I think they already knew. I remember watching them spend less and less time with her and wondered how that was even possible if they were bonded scent matches. The emotional distance should have been killing them, but instead, they were happier when she wasn’t around.”

He swallows loud enough for all of us to hear, and I touch his shoulder before Dash reaches behind Briar to do the same with his other one. The joint connection with each of us soothes him enough that he can continue.

“When you’re bonded to an omega . . .” he starts.

“You share one soul. Their emotions are yours, and you have access to every nook and cranny of their mind,” Briar finishes.

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