The Lost Pack (Paige) novel Chapter 190

** Ryder’s POV **

The room grows tense the moment the back door closes behind Paige and Poppy.

Jaxon is the first to break the quiet.

He tugs on my sleeve, his eyes wide and hopeful. “Daddy… can I play Xbox?”

The innocence in his voice softens something inside of me. After everything that’s happened… the hunters, the Twiceborn, Paige nearly burning herself out, hearing something so normal feels like finally being able to breathe again.

“Yeah, buddy,” I smile, brushing his hair back. “Go ahead.”

His whole face lights up. He sprints to the console as if he’s training for the Olympics, grabbing his controller from where he left it the other day.

“Remember the rules,” I call. “Volume low. No shouting at the imaginary people.”

Jaxon snorts. “They’re real, Daddy.”

I roll my eyes and head for the kitchen, motioning the others to follow. We need to talk whilst Paige isn’t here, but not where Jax can hear us. Paige is outside with Poppy right now, getting the breather she desperately needed, but her energy, her presence… it’s everywhere. A pulsebeneath my skin, a current in the air.

Eos is awake… I don’t think any of us truly understand what that means yet.

The rest of the guys drift into the kitchen with me. Callen leans against the counter, arms folded like he’s bracing for impact. Remy hovers closest to the door, classic Remy, positioning himself to intercept anything that breathes wrong. Parker lingers near the fridge, worry lines etched under his eyes. Jake sits at the end of the island, flipping through pages filled with Ronnie’s frantic handwriting, diagrams, and half-translated symbols.

Ronnie stands at the centre of the room, pacing as he scribbles on a loose sheet. His eyes are bright, too bright, the way they always get when he’s about to drop a life-altering revelation on us.

I pull bread, ham and cheese from the fridge, making Jaxon a sandwich more from habit than anything else. The mundane movements steady me, because once this conversation begins… I know nothing is going to be mundane about it.

“Okay,” I say quietly. Talk to me. What exactly are we dealing with now?”

Ronnie stops pacing. “Paige awakened Eos.”

Callen snorts. “Yeah, we got that memo.”

Ronnie shakes his head. “No, you don’t. None of us did. Atleast not fully. Not until I started piecing things together.”

I finish Jaxon’s sandwich and head toward the living room.

He’s already yelling at the TV in a whisper-shout, which I’ll allow for today. Anything to keep him feeling safe.

I return to the group. “Go on.”

Ronnie takes a slow breath. “I think it’s simpte.

Dangerously simple. Paige was born just days before the hunters launched their attack on our pack that pretty much wiped us out.”

The room falls silent as we all process his line of thought.

“You think that’s connected?” Parker frowns.

“I don’t think,” Ronnie says. “I know. The timing of her birth, Ryder meeting and procreating with her before either of them even knew what they were, the fact she is mated to four of the very few survivors of that attack, it’s all too much of a coincidence not to be connected.”

He pushes his papers across the table, pointing at a looping symbol that looks like a sun wrapped in a crescent moon.

“I think Paige is Eos, a child of both restoring light and protective moon. Her inner power lay dormant because she wasn’t needed yet. A goddess doesn’t just react to internal things. They awaken when the world demands them.”

Remy mutters, “And now the world demands her.”Ronnie nods. “The hunters are back. The same threat that. wiped our pack from the map has returned just when the pack is on the rise again. This is unfinished business.”

I tense. “So Eos woke up to protect her.”

“To protect all of us,” Ronnie says. “I think Paige is here to put an end to the hunters once and for all, before they erase our entire kind.”

The room goes still.

Jake swallows hard. “So she isn’t just the reaction to the situation, she is the solution.”

“Pretty much,” Ronnie says. “A counterattack. A divine correction. She’s here to restore the balance between our species and the humans. We were always meant to coexist on this planet in peace, but the hunters threaten that peace. They have the potential to turn the entire human race against us.”

I rub a hand over my face. “This is too much for her. She’s already carrying the weight of everything, and we still have a custody hearing coming up.”

That gets all of their attention.

Callen groans. “Oh, that bastard. I forgot about Greg.”

Remy mutters, “I didn’t. I won’t go into detail about all the things I’ve been imagining doing to him.”

Parker nods. “I wouldn’t be opposed to throwing him outof the window of a tall building.”

I shake my head. “We can’t just throw him out of a window.”

Callen raises a brow. “We could. It wouldn’t even take long, and we could easily make it look like an accident.”

“I know she’s powerful,” I say. “I know she’s strong. But she’s also my mate, and she’s exhausted. If we keep piling expectations on her, she’ll drown under it. She may be here for this very reason, but l am not losing her to destiny, or to any plan that uses her as a weapon.”

Silence stretches.

“She’s our Luna,” Callen says quietly. “Our mate. We protect her, but she also protects us.”

I rub my jaw and sigh. “I know.”

Parker clears his throat. “We’re not saying she has to fight.

Only that she could choose to, and whatever she chooses … we follow.”

I meet his gaze. Parker may look like the soft one, the gentle one of our group, but he’s steel when he speaks about Paige. We all’are.Ronnie picks up his papers again. “Whether she fights ol not, whether we go to Greg or to the hunters… the point is: Paige awakened Eos because danger has returned. She is the answer to it. We need to be ready for whatever comes next.”

I’m about to respond when the back door opens.

Poppy steps inside. There’s a faint flush on her cheeks; she’s been laughing. Good, Paige needed that.

Jake brightens instantly. “Is everything okay?”

Poppy grins. “Jake, I went outside for fifteen minutes, not five years.”

“Still too long,” Callen mutters, glancing towards the back door.

She rolls her eyes. “Paige is still out there.”

I move to the window. The sunlight hits the porch just right, and I see her, standing at the bottom of the porch steps. She looks calm and serene, glowing faintly under the sun. Kneeling in front of her is one of the Twiceborn, Blaine, if he still goes by that name. He’s naked and human now, his golden eyes fixed on her like she’s the first sunrise he’s ever seen.

My breath stops.

Remy appears at my shoulder. “Oh… shit.”

Callen whistles low. “Well, that’s… something.”Parker goes rigid beside me. “Is he kneeling?”

Jake leans closer to the window. “He shifted for her.”

Ronnie exhales sharply, utterly unsurprised. “Of course he did ”

My heart pounds painfully, a mix of awe, protectiveness, and a flicker of fear I can’t name. She truly does look like a goddess, and the Twiceborn look like her worshippers.