Page 97 of The Rust in Her Hair

"I am happy," I tell her. And it lands as true as anything I've ever said. "Real happy, Ren. I promise."

Even if the she-alpha does have a point. She usually does.

That's the annoying thing about her.

"Good." She squeezes my shoulder once more, then lets go. "Then hear me on this, because I'm only gonna say it once." She waits until I look at her. "An omega needs a bond with all her alphas, Mack, a real one. You can’t joke and laugh and keep her at arm’s length forever. Making that girl wait around for you to feel safe enough to show her the real you, is just cruel to her. You need to mate her. Soon."

"I wasn't planning on making her wait," I lie, and I can tell from the look on her face that Renata knows it too.

I was absolutely planning on taking things slow.

"Yeah, okay." Renata pushes off the railing, then she toes the duffel toward me with her boot. "Take the clothes. I guessed on the sizes, but Lyra’s gonna need her own things. She can't spend her whole life in Owen's shirts."

I nod, but the truth is I like Lyra in our clothes. She makes them smell like heaven.

Renata heads down the steps, then turns at the bottom, walking backward toward that rattletrap car.

"Love you, Mack." She points at me. "Go inside. Don't make that girl wonder why one of her alphas won't touch her."

"Love you too, Ren."

She folds herself into the car, cranks it to life on the second try, and rattles off down the block in a cloud of blue smoke, leaving me alone on the porch with a pink pair of Converse and a whole lot to think about.

I watch her car disappear into the distance, then I push up out of the chair. I roll the stiffness out of my shoulders, and take one more slow look up and down the street. Miss Ellie's long gone. A truck rolls past two houses down, some fella off to an early shift. Ordinary. Quiet.

Nothing out here but a regular Friday morning.

I scoop up the duffel and the little pink shoes then turn to head inside.

My hand is on the doorknob when I catch it in the corner of my eye. That same black SUV, easing up the street, very slowly.

I go still, watching it roll past the house at that same lazy crawl, like whoever's behind the glass has all the time in the world and nowhere in particular to be.

I don't move until it takes the corner at the end of the street and slides out of sight.

Then I stand there a second longer, staring at the empty spot where it turned, that easy morning gone sour in my gut.

I make a note to mention it to Nico tonight. Probably nothing. Rich folks get lost out here sometimes, take a wrong turn off the main road. But it's the second time, and I've lived too many years on instinct to pretend I didn't clock it.

I shake it off, pull the door open the rest of the way, and Lyra's scent hits me the second I crack it. But it's gentled overnight.

It’s not the thick, drowning wall of sex and slick that made me run for the door. It's softer now, warm and sweet, but somehow settled. It almost smells like all of us mixed together. Like she’s already folding into our pack.

I stand in the doorway and breathe it all in for a minute. Thankfully, my body stays put.

Good.

Warm early light comes through the front windows and slants across the card table, the couch, Owen's books stacked crooked on the end table. From down the hall, past the primary door, I catch the low familiar rasp of Nico snoring. It sounds like everyone is still asleep.

I set the duffel down by the couch, then head toward the kitchen.

Time to go see about my mate.

I cross the kitchen and ease the garage door open.

Adrian's right where we left him. Down on the concrete, back against the workbench, wrists still lashed to the leg of it. But the second the light from the kitchen falls across him, his head comes up, and I can see it in his face before he says a word.

He's back to normal.