Page 77 of Holly Jolly Heat
"It is. But here's what else I see, I see someone who jumps on camera to defend her pack without thinking about consequences. Who cries when her alpha falls off a ladder. Who makes cookies at three AM to process emotions. Who built a nest with us and slept surrounded by pack for the first time in her life." I reached out, catching her hand. "You're already beingboth, Michelle. Professional and pack. You're just too scared to acknowledge it."
Her eyes were bright with unshed tears.
"What if I mess it up?" she whispered.
"Then we fix it together," Lucas said, standing to join us. "That's what you're not getting. You don't have to figure this out alone. You don't have to manage everything perfectly. You don't have to be invulnerable. That's what pack is, sharing the burden, sharing the fear, sharing the joy. All of it."
"I don't know how to share burdens. I've been handling everything alone for so long."
"Then it's time to learn something new," Dex added, moving closer until we surrounded her. "Michelle, we love you. All of you. The workaholic and the omega. The brilliant manager and the scared woman who doesn't know how to let people in. The professional facade and the soft center you try to hide. All of it. You don't have to choose. You don't have to be one or the other. You get to be everything."
Michelle looked at us, surrounded by her pack in a dusty attic, tears streaming down her face, nowhere to run.
"I love you," she said again, her voice breaking. "I love all of you so much it scares me. I've never felt like this. Never wanted something this much. Never been this terrified of losing something."
"You won't lose us," I promised.
"You can't know that."
"No, I can't. But I can promise that whatever happens, we face it together. That's what pack means. You're not alone in the fear anymore."
"I've been alone for so long," she whispered. "I don't know how to not be."
"One day at a time," Lucas said, echoing their mantra. "One moment at a time. You don't have to figure it all out right now. You just have to stay. Stop running. Let us love you."
Michelle sobbed, the kind of cry that came from years of holding everything in finally breaking free. Lucas pulled her close, and she clung to him, crying into his shoulder while he murmured comfort.
Dex and I moved closer, surrounding her with our presence, our scents, our pack.
"I'm sorry," she gasped between sobs. "I'm sorry for fighting this so hard. For making everything difficult. For being so scared."
"Don't apologize for being human," I said. "Don't apologize for having walls. We understand why they're there. We understand what you've been protecting yourself from. But Michelle—you don't need those walls anymore. You're safe. With us. Always."
She pulled back from Lucas, looking at all of us with red eyes and tear-stained cheeks.
"Okay," she said. "Okay. I'm done running. I'm done fighting. I'm done trying to control something that should just be." She took a shaky breath. "I'm yours. You're mine. We're pack. For real this time. No reservations. No escape clauses. Just... pack."
The words hung in the air between us.
And then I felt it.
The bond.
Not the recognition from Pike Place Market, that had been potential, possibility, the knowledge that we could be pack.
This was the bond actually starting to form. It hadn’t fully snapped into place yet, but there was a certainty to what was already there that took my breath away.
I could feel them. Not just physically present, but emotionally connected. Lucas's joy. Dex's satisfied certainty. Michelle's terrified relief.
We were pack.
Not just scent-compatible or fated. Actually bonded, the only thing that was needed to cement it was the bites.
"Do you feel that?" Michelle breathed, her hand going to her chest. "I can feel you. All of you. Inside me. Like you're part of me."
"The bond," Dex said, his voice rough with emotion. "It's forming."
"It's been trying to form since Pike Place Market," I explained. "But it couldn't complete until you accepted it. Until you stopped fighting."
