Page 110 of Pack Plus One

“Caleb?” Mason prompts gently.

“I went back to our place,” he says finally, his voice flat. “Thought maybe she’d return.”

“And?” I ask.

“She took the mug,” he says, so quietly I almost don’t hear him. “The one with the chip in the handle. Mason’s favorite.”

The significance of this isn’t lost on any of us. She’d left behind our clothes, our nest, but taken a small, imperfect piece of our home with her.

Liam has his phone out again, his brow furrowed as he types. “I’m telling her we’re at her apartment,” he says quietly. “That we’re worried. That she needs to let us know she’s safe.” The message shows as delivered, but like all our others, there’s no read receipt.

“She’s going to come back,” I insist, needing to believe it. “She has to. Her life is here—her bakery, her apartment.”

“What if she doesn’t?” Liam asks. The look in his eyes is downright heartbreaking. “What if she decides we’re not worth the trouble and skips town?”

“She’s stubborn, not stupid,” I argue. “And what we have—had—was more than just heat convenience. She felt it too. I know she did.”

“Then why did she leave?” Caleb asks, finally turning from the window to fix me with a gaze so intense it almost hurts to meet it.

“Because she thinks we want her to be something she’s not,” Mason answers quietly. “She thinks we want a ‘normal’ omega—someone who follows traditional dynamics, who lets us take care of her without question.”

“But we don’t,” I protest. “We wanther. Exactly as she is—stubborn, independent, infuriating…perfect.”

“Did we tell her that?” Liam asks, thoughtful as always. “Or did we just assume she knew?”

The truth of this hits me like a freight train. For all our scenting and claiming and possessive behavior, we never actuallytoldLeah what she’s come to mean to us. How we feel about her. That we want her. Just as she is.

Caleb pulls out his phone, typing with more force than necessary. His jaw works as he hits send. I catch a glimpse of the screen—a simple “Please.” The raw vulnerability of that single word makes my throat tight.

“We’re idiots,” I announce to the table at large.

“Speak for yourself,” Liam mutters, but there’s no real derision in it.

“No, he’s right,” Mason says with a sigh. “We’ve been so caught up in pack dynamics and omega care and heat protocols that we forgot the most basic element of any relationship.”

“Communication,” Caleb says, the word sounding like it’s been dragged out of him.

“Exactly!” I snap my fingers. “We need to tell her—explicitly, in actual words—that we want her exactly as she is. No changing, no traditional omega role, no giving up her independence. That when we were talking about accepting who she is, we meant we need to adapt to her, not the other way around.”

“We need to find her first,” Liam points out.

And that’s the crux of the problem, isn’t it? We’ve spent all day searching, and Leah’s trail has gone cold. She doesn’t want to be found.

Our phones buzz simultaneously—the pack group chat. For a heart-stopping moment, I think it might be Leah, but it’s just the brewery’s assistant manager asking about tomorrow’s schedule.

The realization that life goes on—that we have businesses to run, responsibilities to meet, a world that continues turning even while ours feels like it’s imploding—is sobering.

“We should head back,” Mason says reluctantly. “Regroup, make a plan. We can’t just wander the city aimlessly hoping to bump into her.”

“I’m not giving up,” Caleb insists, his tone brooking no argument.

“No one’s suggesting that,” Liam soothes. “But we need to be strategic. Maybe check social media, contact her vendors at the bakery.”

“I could hack her email,” I suggest. All three turn to look at me with varying degrees of horror. “What? I have skills beyond my devastatingly good looks, you know.”

“We are not hacking her email,” Mason says firmly. “That’s crossing a line.”

“But—”