Chapter 254 The Way Home
The moment we step inside the packhouse, it’s like being swallowed by warmth and chaos and love all at once.
Hands reach for me from every direction–pulling me into hugs, tugging at my hair, touching my face like they’re
afraid I’ll disappear again if they don’t keep hold of me. Someone’s talking about food. Someone else is fussing
about blankets. My dads are all talking over each other.
“Does she need to eat first?”
“She looks exhausted–let her rest.”
“She probably wants a shower!”
“She probably wants food more than a shower,” Haiden argues, gesturing toward the kitchen. “She’s been stuck in a
cave for gods know how long.”
“Both,” Noah says decisively. “She can eat and shower. I’ll get her something warm.”
“Someone get her tea,” Levi mutters, already halfway across the room.
Xavier’s voice rises above the rest. “How about you all stop yelling and actually let her breathe?”
That makes them all pause, and in the middle of it, I stand there smiling, overwhelmed, my heart so full it hurts. They’re all still talking, tripping over each other, when I look over my shoulder. Elliot’s lingering near the doorway, eyes soft on me. There’s dirt smudged along his jaw and a faint scratch across his cheek, but to me, he’s perfect. He’s
always been perfect.
i swallow hard and take a deep breath. “Actually…” I start, my voice barely above a whisper, but somehow it cuts
through the noise. They all stop again, turning to me.
“I think right now…” I glance back at Elliot and feel a smile tug at my lips. “I just want to be with my mate.”
For a heartheat, silence. And then-
Thiat’s eyes go wide. He takes a half–step forward like he wasn’t expecting me to tell everyone.
“My nute,” I repeat, softer now but steady, holding out my hand toward him.
Do corner of Mis muuth lifts, that familiar crooked grin spreading across his face. He steps forward, proudly the
time, and takes my hand in his. His touch is warm, grounding. With a low chuckle, he bows slightly and presses a
kiss to the back of my hand.
Haiden actually jumps into the air, clapping. “I knew it! I knew it! I told you all–didn’t I? Didn’t I say it?”
“You’ve been saying it since they were kids,” Xavier snorts, crossing his arms but smiling all the same. “You don’t
get points for being annoyingly right.”
Noah just shakes his head, laughing under his breath. “Well, I’ll be damned. I can’t think of a better match.”
Levi hums in agreement, still leaning against the wall, eyes soft. “About time you two figured it out. The rest of us
have been watching this story unfold for years.”
The teasing, the laughter–it all swells around me, but there’s no judgment in it. Just warmth. Just love. For so long, I’d built this fear in my head that what Elliot and I had–what we were–would be too complicated for anyone else to understand. We’d grown up together. In my mind, it would always seem wrong. But looking at them now–at the faces that raised me, that fought for me, that love me, I realise something I should have seen all along. They don’t see it as wrong. They see it as right. Of course they do. They’ve watched me fall asleep on Elliot’s shoulder during stormy nights. Watched him sit beside me through every scraped knee and nightmare. Watched him protect me, tease me, love me in a thousand quiet ways before either of us had the courage to name it. They saw it before I did,
maybe before he did, too.
A soft warmth flickers in the back of my mind. “They knew,” Saphra’s voice teases.
“You think? I shoot back silently. “Even I didn’t know.”
“Please, she says with a little huff. I would have known.”
I bite down on a laugh, shaking my head slightly.
Ellint notices and leans closer, whispering, “What’s funny?”
“Norbing.” I say, though I can’t quite wipe the smile from my face. “Just my wolf being a know it–all.”
His grin widene “Sounds like someone I know.”
That makes me lough, soft and real, the sound of it echoing through the living com. The sound of home
At
an Xavies’s shoulders, or
to pain in the family record. Macy and Efter
grinning like an Mict ever I’m song to bach that go
fated mater, called it
“Family record?” Xavier scoffs. “You can barely remember what day it is.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Haiden says smugly. “History remembers the victors.”
Noah groans. “Gods, you’re unbearable.”
Levi steps forward then, his expression softer than the others‘. He reaches out, brushing his thumb gently under my
eye like he used to when I was little. “You’re happy?” he asks quietly.
I nod, feeling the lump rise in my throat. “Yeah,” I whisper. “I really am.”
He nods once, satisfied. “Then that’s all that matters.”
The others murmur their agreement, voices overlapping, some teasing, some emotional, but all of it blending into this warm, buzzing hum of acceptance. Elliot squeezes my hand again, his thumb tracing lazy circles over my skin. I look up at him and see it there in his eyes, the same peace I feel inside my chest. Everything we fought for Everything we almost lost. It all led here.
Elliot leans down a little, his voice low enough that only I can hear it over the hum of my family’s chatter. “What do
you need right now, Mace?”
The question is simple, but it settles deep. What do I need? Food, rest, a long shower–sure. But none of it feels right. None of it feels enough. I glance around at everyone, the people I love, the ones who fought for me, and still, my chest aches with this strange pull, this longing I can’t quite name. My gaze drifts back to Elliot, and suddenly 1
know.
“I just want to go home,” I say quietly.
He frowns slightly, brow creasing. “You are home,” he says, gesturing around the packhouse, the laughter, the safety that hums through the walls. “You’re safe here, with your family.”
I shake my head, smiling faintly, and take a small step closer until our shoulders touch. “No.” I whisper. I mean
but hotte
Sto blinks, realisation dawning. The Underworld?”
He extrales stowly, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth “Then home it is.”
The Aue way thugers Fagethet, warm and sare, and with one last look toward my family, he opens a portal atting with an if light the promise of darkness, peace, and everything that feels like us.
Just Be With Me.
Elliot
The portal closes behind us with a soft has, the at string into that familiar weight the Underworld always carten.
The shadows curve around us, and normally, I’d find comfort in that, but right now, my chest feels like it’s doing backflips. We’re standing in the garden at the back of the Kingdom. Ir feels like a full circle, like the world itself exhaled to bring her back here they hand it will in me. That’s the problem because I don’t mow what to do with
- it. With her. I’ve spent so much it chang the idea of her, she dream of her
rescuing her, saving her, finding
her again. Every waking moment revolved around in Around her. And now she’s here, safe, alive, mine, standing beside me, and suddenly I don’t know the rules anymore Where are the lines now? What’s allowed? What’s not? Her fingers are small, soft in mine. I glance down at them, and the thought just keeps looping through my head like a
broken record.
Should I be holding her hand?
Does she want to hold my hand?
I want to hold her hand. God, I do. But if she doesn’t want that, if it makes her uncomfortable, if-
My fingers twitch slightly, ready to let go, to give her space, but before I can pull away, she tightens her grip. Not much. Just a slight squeeze. But it roots me to the spot. I look up, startled, and catch her face in the half–light. She’s not even looking at me. Her eyes are closed, head tilted slightly back, and for a moment she just stands there. breathing Deep, slow, like she’s tasting the air itself. I can see it, the tension leaving her shoulders, the quiet pence that spreads through her body as if the air here is healing fer. When she opens her eyes again, the world could have stopped turning and i wouldn’t have noticed. She’s looking right at me. Her irises catch the fairt blue glow of the Underworld torches, and it makes them look like moonlight rippling over deep water. I swear I forget how to breathe for a second. She’s so damn pretty. And she doesn’t even know it. Her hair’s a mess, streaked with dried hood and dins, has checks are flushed, her lips still pale from exhaustion, but none of that matters. She’s here Alive Mine
Aad my mind, being the whole traiter it is, immediately starts spiralling. She needs a shower And food. And t I need to get her something to end – maybe soup or something warm. Do we even have seup in the Underworld” i I don’t know? Can I cook? Maybe Haden cam Or Lev But no, that’s stupid. I’m her mate I should provide Thind’s what a mate dres, right? Gods, what does a good mate even do? Do 1- do I say something romuaric of that during the sand she moves at one step forward, but it’s moogh to make my mount
shat
my rife take it’s trying to escape. Her eyes don lease mine as she reaches up, her fingers brushing the falow of my that pay, culty, che des mer hands up my chest, bunching the material in het flass as ja male letto che by Mars ogtebes Nird
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shack, and the looks at me
Taut stw theses and her toes and kisse
thing hos Like
It’s not rough or rushed, not the way I imagined it in all the sleepless nights I spent missing her. It’s soft. Slow. The kind of kiss that builds its own gravity and pulls you under with it. I don’t move for a second. I can’t. My brain short circuits, all those frantic thoughts gone silent, replaced by this, by her. When I finally respond, it’s instinct, pure and raw. My hand finds the back of her neck, my thumb brushing her jaw as I kiss her back, careful not to push too hard, not to scare her off. She presses closer anyway, one hand flattening against my chest where my heart’s beating like it’s trying to make up for lost time. I didn’t think I’d get this. Not after everything. Not after her pain, her fear, her loss. I thought I’d just be lucky if I could keep her safe again. But this- this is something else entirely. When she finally pulls away, it’s slow, reluctant, like the air between us is still charged. She stays close, her forehead resting against mine, her breath warm against my lips.
“Elliot,” she whispers, and the way she says my name makes it sound like a promise.
I swallow hard. “Yeah?”
She smiles, small and sleepy. “You overthink too much.”
I huff out a laugh, still dizzy. “Yeah, probably.”
Her smile widens a little, and she tugs lightly on the front of my shirt. “Just… be with me, okay? You don’t have to figure it all out right now.”
And gods, she has no idea how much I needed to hear that.
“Okay,” I murmur. “I can do that.”
She pulls back just enough to meet my eyes, her cheeks still flushed from the kiss. There’s a tiny, sheepish smile on her lips when she says, “As much as I’d love to stand here and be all poetic with you, I really, really need a shower.”
The laugh that bursts out of me is loud and real, the kind that shakes something loose in my chest. “Yeah,” I say, still chuckling. “That might be a good idea. You handle the shower, I’ll make you some food.”
Her eyes soften, a flicker of that old playfulness returning. “Can we eat in your bed? Like we used to?”
I blink of her for a second, caught off guard by how easily the past slips between us, how natural it feels to taik about before again Then I grin. “Yeah,” I murmur, voice lower now. “Yeah, we can do that”
site tills her head, smiling up at me, and I can already picture it–her stealing the best pillows, talking through the svi sabing me questions about the story that I don’t even know yet. 1 picture her curled up against my shoulders, raing, probably dranding and my heart melts at the thought of it. Is this what the rest of my life gets to be like trend? Cale. I have w
“We’ll watch some sappy rom–com.” I add. teasing “Eat in bed. Pretend we’re normal people for one night-
Her laugh is soft, a promise of peace. “1d like that.” she whispers.