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FINLEY

I t was a fairly obvious statement to say that you couldn’t choose your family, but in the shifter world, it wasn’t technically true.

You couldn’t choose the family you were born into, and I sure as fuck didn’t want to exist in the same universe as my mother, let alone be part of her den, but you could choose your future pack.

The quintet you would spend most of your adult life with.

Unless of course you were part of a scent match.

Then fate chose for you…

Lucky for fate, I loved the brothers I’d found in the Reeves pack, and while I’d always miss and mourn Tommy, the younger brother I’d failed to protect, the reality was that we’d never really been that close. Thanks to our mom’s instabilities.

My pack and Kenzo had saved my sanity, and were the only reason I existed today.

At almost twenty-seven, I felt like I was a thousand years old and broken beyond repair.

Even with my hands buried deep in an engine, the scent of oil and diesel filling the air, it was all bittersweet.

I’d hated my father for at least eighty percent of the time I’d known him, but the other twenty percent there’d been moments when he acted like a parent.

It was during a few of these moments of clarity that he taught me how to take cars apart and then put them back together. A hobby I still found soothing.

Or I should say a hobby I usually found soothing, just not today.

Today, my bear was in a frenzy, and I had no fucking clue what was riling him so hard. It had been a long time since he’d raged with this intensity—not since the day my world imploded and I’d destroyed my last immediate family member. After she’d slaughtered Dad and Tommy.

Rubbing at the back of my neck, black grease slicked across my skin.

My tension continued to rise. I pulled out my phone, leaving more black marks as I slid it open and checked messages. I didn’t have the intense instincts of the wolves, but when my danger radar kicked in, it was rarely wrong.

I checked the message thread in the family chat to find just one from Hunter asking Emme if everything was okay. No doubt in response to the camera system scrambling for a few minutes earlier. We all got the alert, and we all knew it was Emme fucking with Slade.

At this point, I was invested in their prank war, not that I’d ever admit it out loud. Not even if someone was skinning my fucking balls with a rusty knife.

Emme, of course, hadn’t responded to Hunter, and for once I didn’t call her a selfish bitch in my head.

She never had her phone, and it reminded me of how I was when I first found my pack.

Growing up, we hadn’t been allowed phones.

Mother didn’t want us easily accessible to anyone other than her, and I had no one to call anyway—except Kenzo and his family, who lived nearby.

It took me years to remember to take a phone with me, which was a trauma response to my upbringing. Emme was the same. We both had more traumas than I could fucking count, and many of them were similar. Except for her ability to sleep. I could almost hate her for that one alone.

I hadn't slept well in years… except for that night we pack huddled, where my fight or flight response calmed. I was going to call that one exhaustion and stress over almost losing Kellan getting the best of me.

When I found nothing on my phone to alert me to my bear’s unease, I was about to pocket it, when a message came through from Kellan.

Kel: Brother, look at the bike! She’s going to lose her mind. This is perfect for our pretty mate.

I clicked the attached image and had to admit that Kellan had outdone himself.

The motorcycle was still her favorite make and model, a Ducati Panigale V4R, but this time it was sleek and black, with just splashes of the pink.

There was a wolf head painted in pink flames across the tank, the tail morphing into the pink seat.

There was also a matching helmet and jacket in the picture.

After almost losing Kellan to magic, I was on my best behavior when it came to Emmeline , and with that in mind, I shot back the most positive text I could manage.

Fin: She’s going to love it, bro. You did good.

Kel: This is part one of her birthday present. Now I’m just waiting for part two to arrive.

Wait… it was her birthday? My fingers moved before I thought it through, and when I hit send, I had to shake my fucking head at how pathetic I was to even care.

Fin: When’s her birthday?

I shouldn’t want to know more about the omega, when she hadn’t wanted to know us. Sure, she might end up staying, and I was working hard on acting less like an asshole, but that was as far as it went. Birthdays were personal.

Kel: The 12th, Fin!! Only a couple more days. You better figure out what to get her because you need an apology present too. DO NOT COMBINE THEM. *Shocked emoji face* *Crying emoji face* *Begging hands emoji*

A derisive snort escaped me.

Fin: Never gonna happen, Kellan. You need to keep the dreams and happily ever afters on your side.

Kel: *Laughing face emoji* *Laughing face emoji*

Kel: Good one, Grouchy. You might fool everyone else in the world, but not me. I see you. I fucking see you.

My chest ached again, and even when I palmed it with the heel of my hand, it refused to ease up.

Fin: Stop stirring where you shouldn’t. Some trauma is meant to rest. For all of our sanity.

Kellan took more than a few minutes to respond.

Kel: I won’t ever let you rest in your darkness. I promised you that long ago, and now… you’re just going to have to trust me. Emme is the salvation you never knew was yours. She’s our fucking salvation, brother.

A million angry rebuttals and responses flooded my brain, but I slipped the phone into my pocket before I voiced— or texted —even one of them. The problem with salvation was it could also be your downfall. I didn’t have any more downfalls in me. The next would be my last .

Slowing my breathing, I forced the tendrils of scattered thoughts and pain deeper inside and tried to focus on the engine.

But there was no settling tonight. More than the stirring messages from Kellan, my bear continued huffing and puffing inside like he was channeling the Big Bad Wolf. Wrong fucking fairytale, friend.

Goldilocks was more our style, but then again, the pinkish gold of Emme’s hair hit a little too close to home with that human fairy tale.

After returning my tools neatly to their respective shelves and drawers—the need to take care of my items was heavily ingrained after years of having nothing to my name—I trudged upstairs to shower and change.

It was almost dinner, and part of the message Emme hadn’t read in our group chat was Hunter reminding everyone that we would be eating together.

He’d also tagged on a brief note about the Alpha Council convening again tomorrow to discuss plans for the Rogers pack, and vote on them being barred from Golden Claw, using their scents panels as identification.

Most shifters had blood and scent panels taken when they first revealed their beasts, and that information was logged with the national register.

It was how we found our scent matches and missing family.

But it could also be used to control our travel and entry to the cities.

Emme would definitely be interested in any plan that kept Blaine and his pack away from her—whenever she remembered to check her messages.

As I walked past her room, I heard the chime of her phone and paused for the telltale sounds of her steps moving toward it, but there was only an echoing silence.

Her scent was very faint too, and when my bear stirred again, I was compelled by forces beyond me to lift my hand and knock on her door.

I never sought out the omega without reason, but the unease inside was all instinct.

There was no response to my knock, and I couldn’t hear or sense her anywhere else in the house. Florence was cleaning Kellan’s room, Gerald was in the kitchen, but the omega who was, in general, an annoyingly strong beacon for me, didn’t appear to be anywhere close by.

With a growl, I hit the handle to slam open her door and stormed into her room. Her scent was stronger in here, but there was no sign of Emme.

Where the hell did she go?

I’d seen her return to her room earlier after pranking Slade, and… shit, her scent hadn’t taunted me as per usual. She’d clearly masked it, which made sense with her prank, but now I couldn’t track her.

Prowling through her room I checked the bathroom too, giving no fucks if she was naked or in the bath. This omega was trouble, and now I was worried she was in trouble again.

My bear roared, and for once I didn’t fight my mate bond instinct. I let myself rage over our missing mate. There was no doubt in my mind that Emme had either run away or been taken again, right out from under us.

She promised not to run without telling us first. She’d made that promise, and while I wasn’t sure I trusted her enough to keep it, for now, I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Until I reached her desk and found a neatly penned note, every word precise and perfectly spelled.

Dear Alphas, I can’t do this anymore. I don’t trust you all not to force the bonds, and I need to forge a life away from the risk of being part of a completed quintet. If you care for me, you won’t come after me. This was never meant to be. Emmeline.

My roar was loud, rattling windows and sending all birds in the vicinity of our pack house screeching into the sky. At first, pure rage was the driving force, and then sorrow as I fell to my knees, clutching the evidence of her betrayal.

For many minutes I mourned a loss that shouldn’t have hurt this much; I hadn’t let myself get close enough to feel the bond.

Somehow, I still did though.

Somehow, she’d still buried her way into my chest and into my fucking bear’s soul, and now we had to figure out how to deal with it.