Page 133 of The Alpha’s Unclaimed Mate

She waits, then starts again. “A mating is a promise. One you have to keep even on the days you’d rather not.”

An old man behind me says that’s right, and half a dozen voices back him. Zaheela turns to Marcus, and her eyes crease.

“Alpha.”

Marcus faces me, and the whole clearing might as well have emptied out. “I spent years telling everyone my life was already full,” he says.

He takes my hand. “Then this one turned up on my road in a dead car, shouting at me through a gap in the window about pepper spray she didn’t have.”

The pack laughs, and somebody at the back whistles. I narrow my eyes at him, and he grins straight back.

“Marcus,” I whisper.

“She gave me my daughter.” His voice roughens, and he lets it. “Every single thing that ever happened to her said don’t trust him, and she trusted me anyway.”

He stops, and Adrian shifts his weight beside him. Marcus breathes out.

“She has filled parts of me I didn’t think I was lacking.”

My eyes fill on that one, so I lift my chin and hold it there until the sting passes. “In front of the pack.” His hand tightens around mine. “I take Jessa as my mate and as my wife.” His eyes hold mine. “She’s already my home, and I’ll keep choosing her.”

The whole field answers him at once, low enough that I feel it come up through my shoes. Then it’s my turn, and my mouth goes dry. Marcus squeezes my hand. Through the bond, his patience pours into me, steady, entirely his. I hold on to it.

“I spent ten years believing I had to do everything by myself,” I manage. “For a long time I called that strength.”

A woman in the front row nods at me and doesn’t look away. I keep going.

“Maybe it was, for a while. Then this man decided he was going to stand next to me whether I wanted it or not.” My voice steadies. “It turns out I finally have someone big enough to stand there.”

I turn to Marcus properly. “You’re bossy, and you’re convinced you’re right about everything.”

Cole coughs into his fist. Tomas mutters something behind him that sets two whole rows laughing, and Marcus doesn’t even look around.

“You’re also the best father I’ve ever known.” My throat closes, and I push through it. “You gave up an entire pack for Bella.”

I have to stop there. Marcus waits me out.

“You loved Mia before you had any claim on her, and you loved me while I was doing everything in my power to make it difficult.”

Marcus’s jaw works. “So I choose you.” I hold his gaze. “The bond didn’t decide that, and neither did Mia.” My voice splinters halfway through. “You’re Marcus, and you’re mine.”

Zaheela steps back and raises one hand.

He lifts his own to the curve of my shoulder, where the silver sits bare against my skin, and touches the mark. Then he bends and sets his mouth to it, carefully, barely a press of his lips.

The bond opens. It comes up through my chest in a slow flood, spreading out under my ribs and down both arms. My eyes shut. Every heartbeat in me lines up behind his. Then the rest of them arrive, hundreds of people I couldn’t have named an hour ago, and I know where every one is standing without looking.

I open my eyes and put my hand over his heart. “Every beat of this has my name on it,” I tell him quietly.

His breath catches. All around the clearing, hands come up over hearts, heads going down into the dark. Zaheela’s is the first.

Then two small bodies hit us at a dead run. Marcus scoops both girls up, one on each arm, and Bella shrieks loudly enough to startle birds out of the trees. Mia has an arm hooked around his neck and the other stretched out for me. I take her hand while the tears finally get past me, and I let them come.

Somebody with a fiddle starts playing, and the clearing turns over into noise.

The party takes about four minutes to break loose. Plates come out, then more plates. Children swarm the table with the pastries and are chased off twice. The music turns, and my feet pick up the beat before I’ve decided to let them.

Rachel finds me by the second table with her toddler on her hip and both older kids already gone into the crowd.