Page 22 of A Pack of Honey
I think about it momentarily, and the guys wait patiently.
"My cousin."
This gets shocked expressions all around.
"Your family is doing this to you?" Jess looks fit to murder someone. His face is more serious than I've seen it since we met. Despite his size, he usually smiles and asks cute questions of me. Now, he looks like the mountain of a man he is.
"I don't really have a lot of family anymore,” I say. “My mom had me when she was twenty-four, and left me with my grandparents. She didn't want to be a mom, and wasn't interested in the farm. My mom's two sisters weren't either. Both of them are omegas. One of them moved to the other side of the world to be with her pack, and I don't see her anymore. The other found her own pack and had three boys. Two alphas and a beta, my cousins. None of them are interested in the farm.
"Grandma and her two alphas, Grandpa and Pops, raised me. By then, her beta husband, Rupert, had already passed in a caraccident. But when I was little, Pops needed an operation, and he didn't make it." Tears spring to my eyes. At the time, I'd been five, so the memories of Pops are hazy, but I still remember a smiling face and gentle lullabies. A warm sound like a car engine revs behind me, and I'm shocked to find Cole purring for me. Luca starts a moment later, and soon, the whole room is full of alpha purrs.
"Grandpa passed six months ago from old age,” I go on. “He was the dominant alpha. Grandma’s been suffering from bonding sickness ever since."
This time, I really can't stop the tears from falling. Jess wraps me into his arms and with my cheek flat against his chest, his purr is even louder and more soothing. I could fall asleep like this, but I need to finish this story. I hate telling it, and I'll never be able to restart it later.
I don't pull away; I just angle my head to see the rest of the alphas. "Once she got the bonding sickness, she started making arrangements. I was the only one who ever said I wanted to run the farm one day. She triple-checked with everyone. I was the only one who wanted it. So, she transferred everything to my name. But my cousins and my aunt and uncle…"
"They want to sell," Cole supplies. He'd figure it out first. He meets my eyes, and the deep well of regret takes my breath away. Because while I was getting enormous pressure from my family and their lawyers to sell and split the money amongst the blood relations, the Night Pack was pressuring me from the other side to deal with considerable numbers which, when I refused, enraged my cousin.
"They somehow found out about the offers about a month ago and were furious,” I said. “That's when the vandalism began."
There’s a beat of silence while they all take this in.
"Why do they want you to sell so badly?" Hunt asked. Ever perceptive.
"My uncle made quite a bit of money doing something with investing. But he made terrible investments last year, and now his whole family is on the edge of ruin. I feel bad for them. I really do. But I'm not giving up the farm for it."
Jess squeezes me closer. "My Sunshine is so fierce, protecting her home."
At first, I tense, thinking he's making fun of me, but his scent is steady. He's being earnest. Cole is deathly quiet, with dominance and anger radiating off him. Luca looks murderous, with his brow furrowed and arms crossed. Hunt looks upset but calm, thinking.
"So, this is partially our fault," Jess says, rubbing lines up and down my back.
" No!" I blurt out so fast that they all gawk at me. "No," I try again, a bit calmer. "They were always going to do this. The offers were a trigger, but something would have brought them around eventually. I was never going to do what they wanted." I meet Cole's dark eyes, and my core tightens at the rage directed on my behalf.
Eventually, the purrs surrounding me are so comforting and soft that I fall asleep. When I next wake up, I'm tucked under a mound of blankets on my couch. The lights are low, and it's clearly nighttime. A note lies on my coffee table. When I pick it up, it smells of Cole.
We're in the yard if you need us or want us. We picked up some pastys Luca says you like from the Café. They're in the fridge. We're not going anywhere while you're in danger.
PS: I will never let anything happen to you, Little One. It will be okay.
That last line has me perfuming and wondering if I shouldn't go out to the tent and have them help me with this feeling that has me on the edge of a heat spike. But, exhaustion overtakes me.
I snuggle back down into the couch and the blankets. The pack's scent still clings to them, and I can't imagine returning to my room. It feels sterile and cold in comparison to this couch. I fall into an easy sleep surrounded by the scents of the alphas.
Sunny
"So,they'restaying?"Claraasks. We've discussed my living situation and the makeshift campsite in my front yard.
"I guess." I shrug.
The girls all exchange glances I can't decipher. When I told the pack I was going to dinner at Clara's, they hadn't freaked like I thought they would. They've been hovering around the farm, working at the kitchen table, and having dinners with me for the last three nights since the accident happened. I expected them to protest me going out, but they'd shrugged and said I couldn't let my cousin think he'd won by locking myself away. Jess had made a dirty joke about locking me up. But they did insist on driving me.
After my car accident, the thought of getting in my car made me feel slightly dizzy, so I allowed it. Apparently, Cali's pack—the Evergreen Pack—and the Night Pack talked at the crash site and continued to text afterward. They're friends now.
Bax, one of Cali's alphas and Clara's cousin, actually opened the Café, and they're all having coffee and talking aboutwhatever overbearing alphas talked about together downstairs while this “post-crash dinner,” as Clara calls it, happens upstairs in her apartment.
"You guess? That is not a ‘no,’ which is as close to a ‘yes’ as I think you've ever gotten when we bring up this pack," Rose points out. Her wild brown hair is tied back in a scrunchie, and she's got her phone in one hand, but the screen is off.
