The Lost Pack (Paige) novel Chapter 194

** Ryder’s POV **

By the time Paige finishes gathering the crayons and Jaxon is wrapped up warm in his coat and boots, the sun has dipped low. The air outside is still, expectant, heavy, waiting.

This is the moment I promised the pack, and I can feel Paige bracing for it even before she steps outside.

Callen, Remy, Parker and I flank her automatically.

Walking behind us are Ronnie, Jake and Leo, with Poppy, whose shoulders are still tight. Around us, moving with natural silence through the trees are the Twiceborn.

I can’t say I’m completely comfortable with them, not the way I used to be, but she is. I can’t see them as pack the way they once were; they feel different now. They’re no longer mine; they’re hers.

We walk toward the clearing together, a slow procession.

The kind that feels like it should be marked by drums or bagpipes, maybe. Instead, it’s just the wind, whispering through the trees as if it knows what’s coming.

Every step feels more and more like a funeral. Not because anything is dying today… but because the weight in my chest feels exactly like the funerals I attended with my foster parents.

Goddess… The ache hits low and sharp, the way it alwaysdoes when they cross my mind. I swallow hard, but it doesn’t loosen the grip around my ribs.

They tried so damn hard. Harder than anyone ever asked them to. They weren’t unkind or cruel. They just… didn’t understand me, and how could they?

They didn’t sign up to raise a wolf pup trapped between instincts and having nightmares about things he couldn’t explain. They thought I was a traumatised kid acting out.

They tried therapy, boundaries, consequences, religion.

Nothing worked, because none of it was meant for what I was.

They didn’t deserve what happened to them. What I put them through.

My chest burns with guilt as we cross the tree line. I can still see it like it’s happening again, the night everything broke. The night my wolf tore through my skin for the first time. How I urged him to go home, thinking they could help me, that they might understand what was happening to me. Their screams still haunt me.

None of it was their fault. They were good people caught in the crossfire of something they were never supposed to witness.

Ronnie found them afterwards, shaking, terrified, convinced their foster child had been possessed or replaced. He handled it gently, got them the help they needed and guided them toward a peaceful life far away from all this madness. He gave them a chance to rebuild.I cling to that now, to the hope that they are living somewhere warm and quiet, that they wake up with sunlight on their faces instead of fear. That they don’t hear phantom growls in the walls at night or dream of the creature that tore through their house. They’re healed and they’re safe. That the ghost of me doesn’t haunt them the way their memory haunts me.

Goddess, I hope they finally got the family they deserved. – They certainly deserved better than me. Maybe that’s why my steps grow heavier the closer we get to the clearing.

Because I know what fractured families look like. I know what fear does to a home, and I’ll burn the world down before I let Paige or Jaxon ever experience anything close to it.

1 force the thoughts from my mind, focusing on the good, thinking back to earlier today, to Jaxon on the carpet with his crayons, making wolves and trees and sunshine out of messy scribbles, and I hear it again.

Daddy Ryder… Daddy Callen… Daddy Parker… Daddy Remy

It hits me harder now than it did then.

I swallow, breath catching in my throat. Paige must feel the shift, because she glances over her shoulder, giving me a tiny smile that says she knows exactly where my mind went. Of course she does.

I’m still floored by it, the ease with which Jax said it, the certainty. Like it had been sitting inside him this wholetime, waiting for permission to escape. I’d have been grateful if he’d only ever seen me as safe.

But calling us all Daddy? That’s… different.

I look at Callen and Remy walking beside me. If they’re thinking about it too, they’re hiding it well. Remy’s jaw is tight. He’s scanning the perimeter, doing the soldier thing. But his eyes were glassy earlier. Callen pretended not to cry, but he was terrible at pretending. And Parker?

He reacted as if someone had carved a new rune directly onto his heart.

I thought I was going to fall to my knees right there in the doorway, because I know how Jaxon sees the world.

Today, he chose all of us as his home. I didn’t realise how badly I needed that until it hit me square in the chest.

The truth is, I’ve been terrified since this bond began that Jaxon might not see me as his father, but as competition for Paige’s attention. Or worse, a stranger forced into his life. I’ve tried so hard to make room for him, give him space, never push too much. But he doesn’t see us as intruders; he sees us as his.

That thought is enough to make my throat burn as we approach the clearing. I glance at Paige again, and she catches it instantly, because she always does. She reaches back without looking and squeezes my hand.

I grip her hand back, hoping she feels how fiercely I love her and our son, how fiercely l’ll love any future child she has, whether they’re mine by blood or bond.I want them all. All the future little voices calling me” Dad”.

All the dirty faces I’ll wipe clean, all the broken toys I’ll fix, all our pups running through the cabin who will know, without question, that l am theirs and they are mine.

But now is not the moment for that dream; now is the moment for truth.

The clearing opens before us. People fill the space, some as humans, some as wolves. Phoenix Pack in the centre, Midnight enforcers along the right flank, River Pack scouts on the left. Their eyes track us as we make our way to the front.

Callen clears his throat. “Well, that’s not unnerving at all.”

Remy shoots him a look. “Focus.”

Parker whispers to Paige, “Are you sure you’re ready?”

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