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He hadn’t known where he was going, but he knew where he needed to be now, his feet taking him over rocks, grass, through forests, past rivers, and finally onto hot asphalt roads.

People watched him as he passed but didn’t say anything, and he wouldn’t have stopped if they did.

Going to fur was usually a ceremonial thing or something that happened during a mating hunt, not a mid-morning on a Tuesday thing.

He loped up the roads, turning, turning until he was there.

He stopped at the corner on which the house was built, sitting down on his haunches for a moment to catch his breath and watch the house.

“We need to find him!” Flick said, storming out of the house, her men at her heels.

“We want to find Snow too,” Aidan said, “but he’s gone to ground. This thing with Sen… It’s hard enough on any bloke when your girl takes a mate, but…”

“But what? What were you going to say, Aidan? Don’t shuffle your feet and look at Peter! But what?”

“But Noah’s wired a little different to the rest of us. Not saying that as a deficit,” Sen said. “Just acknowledging what is. Noah, he keeps his cards to his chest, doesn’t give away too much.”

“Unless he does, and then…whoa,” Aidan said.

“Don’t do this. Don’t character assassinate a member of our pack when he’s run off.

He’s hurt. We hurt him.” She gestured violently to the lot of them.

“You, with all your game playing didn’t see this coming?

You’re supposed to be the daddy or whatever the fuck you think you are.

” Her finger buried itself into Sen’s chest before she whirled around.

“And you! He hates being called Snow. You know that? He’s Noah, he’s one of our pack. ”

“And we’ve been taking him for granted,” Peter rumbled. “And that makes you feel bad.”

Noah whined when he saw Flick’s head hang.

“I’m just like Rick. I expect all of this stuff and just take, take, take. Of course, this had hurt him, and your bloody mother?—”

“Who has been henceforth banned from the house unless she can show she’s fit for our company. She had a swipe at Kade too, talking about when I’d have my own kids. I’m fucking done with her right now,” Sen said.

“So let’s stop pointing fingers and find him,” Peter said. “He loves you, Flick, and has been waiting for you to notice. You’ve noticed, so let’s go tell him.”

But that wasn’t going to be the way it would go.

We have to tell her.

He did, because if he didn’t start, he’d be waiting around for her to put two and two together for the rest of their lives. Noah hoped the Connelleys weren’t home, or at least that the kids were at school as he turned back to skin, walking naked and dirty across the street and up the driveway.

Had she ever looked so beautiful? The other guys, his packmates called out, said something, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying right now as his laser like focus was entirely on her, capturing the tears beading in her eyes, almost but not drowning out the hope that flared there.

The way her lips fell open, ready for him to kiss, her hands reaching.

He wanted to walk into her arms more than he wanted his next breath, but not yet.

His fingers clasped hers, and he pulled her closer, just a bit.

“I love you, Flick, with everything I am. I dunno if you want me for your mate, if you will ever…” He swallowed the rush of venom in his mouth.

“But my heart is yours. Always.” He forced his eyes away from hers, taking in the solemn men that ringed him.

Her mates. “But if you don’t want me for your pack…

If you’re not there yet or never will be, I need to know.

I’m eating my heart out every damn day trying to keep a lid on this, and I can’t.

I’ll never be able to. It fills me up in ways I’d never thought possible.

It’s pouring out of me in every move I make, and I want it to pour into you.

I want to know I’m waking up next to you every morning, that you’ll want me to keep making you breakfast, that you’ll close your eyes when I touch you and press your lips to mine, just to taste each other.

I want to look after Kade, the pack, and any other member that comes.

I want to be free to do that, not feel like a fucking fool. ”

“You’re not a fucking fool.”

Her words were just as choked and incoherent as the man thing’s, but for entirely different reasons. Her hand went up and around his neck, tugging him down, but her lips turned away at the last minute. Instead, he was presented with the seamless skin of her neck, bared and vulnerable.

“Flick—”

“Do it. Please,” she rasped. “I know you want to.”

“Flick, this has—” one of the guys said, but she held up a hand.

“Shut. Up. It’s OK, Noah. This is the way it has to be, I can feel it. You need to claim me, and I want you to.”

Acid filled his mouth, warm and corrosive, ready to be laved over the bite he would make on her skin, making her his. He frowned, his brows smoothing and knotting and back again as he considered it, all of it. The pack wanted him to think about it, he could see it in their tense expressions.

But they weren’t Flick.

“When have I ever been able to deny you anything,” he whispered, and then he struck.

His fangs sunk into her flesh, and it felt like a living, writhing thing under his bite.

He observed her little sharp pants, her fingers clawing at his chest as the bond solidified.

He held on to the sound of her little kittenish cries until it was done.

Then it was just him and her, in each other’s arms.

He’d heard a lot of stories about bonding, but he decided they were all inadequate compared to what he felt.

She came rushing in, swamping in, drowning him in her love, and he just pushed his head under deeper, not wanting the oxygen he desperately needed, just her, only her.

His arms wound tighter around her, his cock jerking against her belly as he pulled away, licking the bite site clean and then kissing everything he could reach.

His heart sung, an eternally plucked guitar string, the note resonating through him, filling him up, giving him an awareness of her in ways he’d never dreamed. And her of him.

“Noah…”

She pulled back only slightly, her eyes filled with awe as she saw it, finally saw it. She saw him and knew everything he felt for her, and she was floored.

“Love…” he said, wiping away her tears with his thumb, but more came, then his did too in sympathy.

“My love,” he said, crushing her to his chest, hoping that might ease the ache inside him.

He held her and she held him, and then they were surrounded by the rest of the pack, the feel of their skin against the both of them easing any residual pain, standing there until it felt like time itself stood still.

“Excuse me!” a voice broke in. “Good to see Noah’s back in one piece and that was just beautiful, but the kids have probably seen enough of Snowy’s lily white arse for the morning.”

“Oh, shit,” he yelped, then swept Flick up into his arms and took her into the house.