The Lost Pack (Paige) novel Chapter 209

** Paige’s POV **

Silence drops over the group.

My heart slows, and for the first time since we walked in, I feel something like peace.

“I am Jaxon’s mother,” I say simply. “And the woman you underestimated.”

He laughs once, humorlessly. “You think you are terrifying now, do you? Just because you have some party tricks with lights and a pack of dogs at your back.”

Callen grins. “You have no idea how wrong you are.”

Greg ignores him, eyes locked on me. “What did you do to them?” he demands suddenly. “To my friends.”

I frown. “Your friends?”

“The men who went after you in the forest,” Greg says.”

You remember them. You will have seen them. The ones with the guns, the ones you set your mutts on.”

My stomach flips at the memory.

“They went out there after you,” Greg continues. “They were good men. Strong and focused. They knew what they were doing. They had done it before. They had dealt with wolves before. But when they came back…” He trails off, and for the first time I see actual confusion on his face. “They were wrong, quiet and shaky. Refused to step foot near those woods again. They told me not to get involved anymore, that I should cut tjes and run. They looked at me as if I were the one who had done something bad. What did you do to them, Paige?”

Everyone looks at me.

I remember the light. The way it spread through the woods like a tsunami of cleansing fire that night.

I don’t flinch. “I took their hatred,” I say quietly. “The rest was theirs all along.”

Greg stares at me as if l am speaking another language.

“You are insane,” he scoffs. “This is insane. You are all insane.”

He points at my mates. “They have done something to you. Turned you into something unnatural. Normal people do not glow, Paige. Normal people do not talk like that.”

Ryder’s voice is a low rumble. “You lost the right to talk about what is normal for her the moment you chose your cause over her safety.”

“Says the one that knocked her up and left her for dust,” Greg laughs harshly. “Look at you all. Playing house in the woods. Sharing a woman. Pretending you are some kind of family. Do you hear yourselves? I’ve been the one who supported her and raised that little demon spawn while you ran around howling at the moon and ruining people’slives. She was my wife, and still is legally.”

“Correction.” Parker cuts in. “She was your possession.

You never treated her like a partner, just a resource you were entitled to. That is not a marriage. That is captivity.”

“No one asked you,” Greg snaps. “I do not even know who you are.”

“I am the one who held her together when you let her break,” Parker says simply. “That is who l am.”

Something burns in my chest, and my power responds, golden light blooming briefly. Greg flinches when he sees it.,

Ronnie steps forward quietly. “Paige,” he murmurs. “You have enough information. You don’t need more from him.

Anything else we can gather from the hunters themselves.”

He is right. Greg is trying to taunt us, to push one of my mates to react so he can prove a point. I step closer.

Greg goes rigid, stumbling back until his back hits the wall of the hallway.

“Stay away from me,” he says. “I am not like them. I am not like the other hunters. You can’t do whatever you did to them to me.”

I look at him for a long moment, at the man I once thought I loved. The man I chose because he seemed safe and stable. I lift my hand anyway.My fingers brush Greg’s forearm, and light surges. It doesn’t flare violently or explode outward. It simply seeps under his skin.

I wait, and I feel it…. nothing.

No deep darkness. No outside corruption. No hatred that does not betong to him. Just a lifetime’s worth of small, selfish choices. A pattern of cowardice. A brittle shell of ego wrapped around a hollow core.

He was never poisoned. Never controlled. He chose this.

1 pull my hand back, and the light fades, leaving him panting slightly, and his eyes wide with fear.

“What did you just do to me?” he whispers.

“Nothing you did not already do to yourself,” I say quietly.

“You are still you, Greg. That is the problem.”

He stares at me as if I have become something unrecognisable. Maybe I have. Maybe that is the point.

“You do not have power over me anymore,” I continue.”

Not over my choices. Not over my future. And you have no claim over my son.”

“You cannot keep Jaxon from me,” he spits. “I raised him. I was there for his first day at nursery, his first day at school. You can’t erase that.”

“I am not erasing anything,” I reply. “I am protecting him.

There is a difference.””You can’t do this. The courts will not let you. Social services will not let you. The hunters will not let you. You think you can just run off to,some wolf band camp and hide?”

Ryder steps forward until he is almost chest to chest with Greg. His eyes are pure gold now, his wolf close to the surface.

We leave the house as a unit, our footsteps steady on the path. The air outside feels cooler, cleaner. With every step’ I take, the weight on my chest lessens.

The door closes behind us with a soft click, and something inside me clicks closed with it.

Ryder falls into step on my left. Remy on my right. Parker and Callen behind us. Ronnie walks slightly, watching me carefully. Hayden and Blaine straighten from where they had been waiting, eyes scanning the street.

We are halfway back to the cars when a familiar voice cuts through the quiet.

“Paige? Paige, love, is that you?”

I turn automatically.

Mrs Turner stands by her front garden gate three doors down, still in her fluffy slippers and dressing gown patterned with tiny roses. copied from jobnib.com Her grey hair is scraped back in the same lopsided bun I remember from a hundred rushed school mornings.For a heartbeat, I’m back there, juggling Jaxon’s book bag. and lunchbox, while she leans over the fence to slip Jax a biscuit and ask if I’m eating enough.

“Mrs Turner,” I breathe.

Her face crumples with relief and outrage all at once. “Oh, love, i knew he was lying. He said you ran off and abandoned that boy, but 1 told him, I’said, ‘Our Paige would never leave that sweet boy.” Her eyes flick over my shoulder to the wall of very large, very dangerous-looking men behind me. “Goodness. You have… friends.”

“That is one word for us,” Callen says, flashing her his charming grin.

I feel Ryder’s hand touch the small of my back, a quiet reminder to stay alert, but I step a little closer to her gate, staying well clear of Greg’s line of sight.

“I’m okay,” I tell her softly. “Jaxon is okay. We’re safe.”

She lets out a shaky breath, tears brightening her eyes.” Thank God for that. I have been praying for that boy every night. I knew something wasn’t right, the way your fella started strutting about after you left. Men like that never like it when they lose control.”

My chest tightens. “You always saw more than you let on, didn’t you?”

“I’m old, not blind,” she huffs.

Something in me settles. This street is full of ghosts, butnot all of them are bad. Not all of them belong to Greg.

“Paige!”

Greg’s voice explodes behind us, making me flinch. He barrels out of the house, his face red with fury. “Do not you walk away from me. We are not done. You can’t just decide I do not…”

His rant cuts off as if someone pressed pause. For a heartbeat, he just freezes at the edge of the driveway. A split second later, there is a sharp, ugly crack that does not belong to this quiet street.

Greg jerks.

A dark bloom appears in the centre of his chest. There is no dramatic slow motion, no last speech. His eyes go wide, confused, and then he drops like a puppet that’s just had its strings cut.

Mrs Turner screams, the sound ripping through the air.