Page 130 of Claimed By the Psychos

I soak the cloth in vodka, stuff it in the bottle, and light it with a match. The makeshift Molotov cocktail flickers to life, beautiful and destructive. Without ceremony, I lob it through the Den's main entrance.

The fire catches immediately, spreading across the alcohol-soaked carpets, climbing the walls we once cowered against, consuming the rooms where nightmares were made.

"Where the fuck were you keeping that?" Elias asks, staring at me and my flimsy nightgown with a mixture of concern and admiration.

"Wouldn't you like to know, Doctor?" I tease, already heading toward the waiting chopper. "Maybe I'll show you my hiding spots when we get home. If you ask nicely."

As we approach the helicopter, Bane turns to Archer. "Is it okay that you're not flying?"

Archer settles into the back, then pulls me into his lap with the kind of casual possessiveness that makes my omega instincts purr. "I'll live," he says, pressing a kiss to my temple. "Besides, I've got better things to do than fly right now."

As the helicopter lifts off, I watch the Serpents' Den burn below us. The flames are beautiful, cleansing, final. Every room where someone was hurt, every hallway that echoed withscreams, every corner where shadows gathered—all of it turning to ash and memory.

Felix's hand finds mine, and I squeeze it tight. We did it. We actually fucking did it. Killed our past, saved the present, and somehow found a future in the process.

The shadows murmur their approval, no longer hungry, no longer demanding. They're just part of me now, like scars that have finally stopped hurting.

We're going home. All of us. Together.

Pack.

The word settles in my chest like a promise, like a prayer answered, like everything I never thought I could have. As the burning building disappears behind us and our future stretches ahead, I let myself believe—reallybelieve—that we're going to be okay.

More than okay.

We're going to be fucking amazing.

Chapter

Forty-Eight

FELIX

The department store smells like apricots trying to cover up scent maskers, which is exactly what I'd expect from a place that charges fifty bucks for a throw pillow. But here I am anyway, watching four grown alphas argue over thread count like it's a matter of national security while Juniper bounces between displays with the energy of someone who's mainlined espresso and chaos.

"Six hundred thread count minimum," Elias insists, holding up sheets in gold packaging that might well be actual gold leafing. "Anything less is basically sandpaper."

"Six hundred?" Carlisle scoffs, examining a silk pillowcase. "That's not sandpaper, that's gravel."

"Then you find something better," Elias counters, but his irritation is all for show. Just the comfortable bickering that's become background noise to our lives.

Three weeks. It's been three weeks since we burned the Serpents' Den to ash, three weeks since Evan's blood painted those walls, three weeks of trying to figure out what normal looks like when you're a pack of killers playing house.

Turns out normal involves a lot of arguments about bedding.

"Felix!" Juniper calls from three aisles over, because apparently she's developed the ability to teleport when shopping is involved. "Come feel this blanket! It's like a cloud made out of cotton candy!"

I make my way over, navigating around Bane who's got his arms full of what looks like every pillow in the store. The suppressants Elias gave me are working perfectly. Six months of freedom from heat cycles, from the vulnerability that comes with being an omega, from having to hide behind chemical masks. I'm just... me. Not quite beta, not quite omega, something in between that the pack has accepted without question.

Juniper's got her face buried in a blanket that's admittedly softer than anything has a right to be, and when she looks up at me, there's something in her eyes that makes my heart thump. Her heat's coming. I can smell it starting to build under her skin, that sweetness that'll have us all climbing the walls in another day or two.

"Getting ready for tomorrow?" I ask, though we both know what tomorrow means. The marking. The thing we've been dancing around for weeks, the final step in making this pack official.

She's going to let them mark her. All four of them. The thought should make me jealous, but it doesn't. It just makes me... grateful. For this weird little family we've somehow forged in a hail of blood and bullets. For my place in it, and the fact that they can give her something I can't doesn't temper that. Not anymore.

Most of all, I'm grateful for the fact that she hasn't woken up in a cold sweat once since it all happened. I know there will still be hard days, for both of us, and I know she still sees the shadows. Hell, I've got my own to contend with, even if they're not as visible as hers. But they're quieter now. Wrestled into submission.

Or maybe all the love around us has just drowned them out.