Page 193 of Power Shift

Her Montgomery pack tattoo is nearly finished now. The intricate design only took an hour but will stay inked on her hip for the rest of her life.

“Oh! I didn’t know you did piercings too,” Briar says, stretching an arm above her head to take Landon’s hand.

Ronan’s already got one locked in his grip, his thumbs stroking her knuckles. He gives Landon a run for his title of Most Protective but hasn’t quite stolen it yet.

Dash has busied himself with distracting her from the bite of the tattoo gun by showing her the clips of him on the team’s most recent highlight reel. Now that we’re heading into the Stanley Cup playoffs, he’s been more focused than ever.

“Are you wanting something while you’re here?” John-Boy asks while wiping the runny ink from her hip.

I stare at the tattoo, warmth flooding me. The lack of simultaneous emotion coming down the pack band is proof of how good we’ve all gotten at opening and closing our mental walls. I lift mine, welcoming their varying reactions.

“I’m not sure. I always wanted my belly button pierced,” she replies.

Landon’s answering arousal shoots to my groin before I shove that invisible wall right back up. There’s not a chance that I’m getting hard in here.

“If you want one, do it, Bright Eyes. Being here today is our only plan,” Dash says.

She shakes her head, slowly pushing up on her elbow to glance down her front. The widening of her eyes as she stares atthe tattoo John-Boy’s now wiping cream onto is exactly what I was waiting for.

“I want today to be about this tattoo, nothing else,” she tells us.

“Do you like it?” I ask.

Her pretty blue eyes blink up at me as I move to her side. “I loved it before I had it on my skin, and I love it even more now.”

“Alright. Let me wrap this for you, and then you’ll be good to go,” John-Boy says before wheeling back on his stool and leaving us.

I slip into the space he’s abandoned and bend to brush a kiss across Briar’s cheek. “It looks incredible on you.”

“I’m a bit bitter it’ll be hidden most of the time, though,” Dash adds.

Briar flashes him a teasing grin. “Would you have preferred it on my forehead?”

“Yes,” he deadpans.

Landon rolls his eyes and runs his fingers through Briar’s hair almost subconsciously while staring through the shop to where John-Boy is.

“We’ll live. Knowing that you wear not only our marks but our pack name as well is incredible.”

Briar tips her head back against the tattoo table and runs a finger along his side. “I love you too, Landon.”

He drops his stare, focusing only on her. “I love you, Haven.”

“We all love you,” Ronan grunts, squeezing her hand.

Dash flicks him in the thigh. “Don’t be jealous, Ronan. You’re grumpy enough as is.”

I smile to myself, watching the four of them together.

There’s a calm to the chaos that seems to be our every day, and right now, this is the perfect mix of that. While we’ve taken the last two months to strengthen our bonds and learn more about Briar and her us, we’re still the people we were before.

Briar has brought out the best qualities of each of us, and I, for one, will never stop thanking her for what she’s done. The failing pack we were before she came along is gone, a strong, balanced one in its place. And we owe that to her.

Feeling the weight of my stare, Briar looks at me. I let my walls down just for her and feel as she does the same.

The sear of her silent words leaves me scorched right down to the bone.

And I love you, Jasper.

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