Noah jumps out of bed and pulls his boxers on before hopping toward the door. “Yeah, like ten minutes ago. They must be fast.”
Ben finds his clothes and tosses me mine. “To be continued?” he asks with an adorable tilt of his head.
I smile back at him with open lust. “Oh, most definitely.”
“Uh, guys.” Noah is back, but he isn’t alone. And he doesn’t have our food.
“Well, did you miss us?” Archer asks, striding right toward me and taking me in his arms. “Because I sure as hell missed you.”
Miles hangs back near the doorway, staring at his feet. Does he want to be here too, or did Archer force him along?
I cling to Archer as he holds me, overwhelmed by his sudden appearance. His pine and patchouli aroma sweeps over me. I never realized you could crave a scent, but now that I have him back, I realize that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. I’m warmed and ready from the foreplay with Noah and Ben, but I can’t act on it. There’s too much that needs to be said, and even though I long to reunite in every sense of the word, we need to sort the rest of it out first.
“How did you find us?” Ben demands, grabbing my hand protectively even as Archer continues to press me into his chest.
“GPS on your phones.” Archer shakes his head. “Honestly, I’m surprised we had to come to you. You could have tracked us just as easily if you’d wanted to.”
“We wanted to!” I insist. “We just didn’t think of it is all.”
“Why weren’t you answering any of our calls?” Ben wants to know.
Archer shakes his head again. Clearly more work is needed to repair the relationship between him and Ben, but at least they’re in the same room without throwing any punches. “Because we didn’t want to talk until we could present our peace offering.”
“And?Where is it?” This from Noah, a bit of his old temper peeking through.
“Waiting for us in San Jose.” Archer doesn’t give us anything more. Instead he glances toward Miles.
The other alpha lifts his head and fixes his eyes to mine with a laser-like intensity. “Violet, we found your daughter.”
nineteen
VIOLET
Rather than hiring another Uber, we take the Caltrain to San Jose. That makes it easier for us to all sit together and talk—and, oh, do we have a lot to talk about.
Ben sits to one side of me while Archer takes his place on the other. These two are going to be warring for a while, but at least they’re trying for my sake. Noah and Miles sit across from us, quiet for the most part on this journey of ours.
“My mother said you hadn’t been by the house,” I say as an easy in to get this conversation started.
Archer flexes his fingers before him, watching the muscles on his wrist expand and contract while the tattoos on his arms wriggle and dance. “She’s right. We didn’t go there.”
“Then how did you—?” My voice breaks with a sob, and both my seat mates are quick to soothe me.
“How did we find her?” Archer finishes for me.
I nod and swipe at my tears.
Archer holds a hand out and gestures across the train. “That was all Miles.”
He glances up as if he hadn’t been paying attention until now and runs both hands through his shaggy blond hair. His emerald eyes are hesitant to meet mine. “I remembered what you said about Pack Fernando and figured they’d be willing to tell us what we wanted to know for the right price. I was right.”
“Is she okay?” In all of this, that’s the question that matters most. We can work through the emotional stuff once I know my daughter is safe. Once I’m sure I didn’t bring her into this world only for her to suffer.
Archer rubs his hand on my bare thigh, igniting warmth but no desire. Even I have limits to my horniness. “We don’t know,” he says softly. “We wanted to wait until you were with us, so you could decide how you wanted to proceed.”
“I’m going to meet my daughter,” I say, shaking my head as the tears continue to flow. This doesn’t seem real. In all the possible versions of the future I saw for myself, I never once believed I’d have the chance to get her back. To have both my daughter and my pack would be a fucking dream come true. It’s not enough to erase all the damage to my heart, but it’s a great fucking start. It’s emotional kintsugi. You can still see all the cracks and breaks, but now they’ve been mended with gold.
“If you were waiting for us,” Ben snarls under his breath, careful not to draw the inquisitive gazes of the other passengers scattered throughout the train. “Then why didn’t you fucking call? Or at least answer when we did?”