Page 150 of Pack Choice

“How did you find me?”

River points to the pendant hanging around my neck. “Tracker.”

I poke him in the ribs for that. “We will have words about that later,” I say, “but for now I’m grateful.” I gaze around them. “Now can we please get Ford to a doctor?”

* * *

River hasus driven back to the track, where he orders the medical staff to see to Ford. If anyone is wondering why Ford has a knife stuck in his arm, no one is brave enough to ask and soon the implement is removed, and Ford all stitched up.

I trace my finger around it gently as the doctor attempts to examine me too. They wanted me to go to a separate room for that, but I refused. Besides, I’m not sure any of these alphas would have let me wander after a doctor without them given what’s just happened. In fact, Colt and River hover right beside me, growling every time the poor doctor goes to touch me.

“I’m sorry I think you’ll have a scar,” I tell Ford. “Like mine.” I gesture to the almost-healed cut on my own arm.

“Are you going to love me any the less for it?” he asks.

“Love?” I say.

“You don’t think that this is what this is? Because I know that I’m in love with you, and despite what those two jerks might tell you, they also feel that way about you too.”

“Really?” I say, grinning at him.

He rests his hands on my waist and drags me closer to the bed, despite the grumble from the doctor who is attempting to take my heart rate. Ford looks up at the man and glares at him too, and the doctor obviously decides this is a lost cause, gathers up his belongings and makes a swift exit.

“Really,” he says, resting his forehead against mine.

“I’ve never been in love before,” I say quietly.

“Do you think you are now?” Colt says with a serious expression, stepping closer to us both.

I chew on my lip. Do I?

I’ve been waiting on this feeling all my lifetime, hoping one day it would arrive and sweep me off my feet. Because love is everything, isn’t it? The beginning and the end, and everything in between. I want a life filled with it. I want a life brimming over with it. I want that feeling so badly. I want to love, and I want to receive it in return; more than anything I want to be loved.

So, is this it? Is this love?

Yes.

The way I feel about these three men is different from how I’ve felt about anyone else before. I feel blue when I’m not around them, and strangely elated when I am. In fact, my heart does a skip and my naughty insides flip acrobatics every time I catch sight of one of them or I hear their voices in my ear or catch a whiff of their scents in my nose. I am head over heels for all three of them. Totally and completely in love.

“Yes,” I whisper, “it’s slightly terrifying.”

“And exciting and wonderful and freaking awesome too,” River interjects.

I laugh. “That too.”

“So why are you scared?” Colt asks, smoothing hair away from the side of my face.

“We’re not a pack, Colt.” I turn my head and look into his eyes. The green dazzles me with its intensity. Like the deep lush of grass after a thunderstorm.

“Did you hear what Ford said back there on that boat?”

My brow crinkles. “What did he say?”

“About us already being a pack. I think … I think he’s right. We may not have labeled this thing between the four of us as a pack, we may not have bought you a ring, or claimed you as our own, but I think we’ve all been falling into this pack regardless.”

“It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, asshole.” River chuckles.

“You agree with him?” I ask, turning my head to look at River this time, so different from his friend.