The Lost Pack (Paige) novel Chapter 229

** Paige’s POV **

The sentence lands heavily, but I can’t say I’m totally shocked.

“What?” I ask softly.

She finally looks at me then, eyes bright and too guarded all at once. “I’m not staying, Paige. Not here. Not now.”

My chest tightens, but I don’t interrupt.

“I need space,” she continues, her voice shaking just slightly. “To figure things out. To understand what’s happening to me without everyone watching. Without…

expectations.”

There it is. The truth underneath the tension I’ve been feeling for days.

“I love you,” she says quickly, like she’s afraid of misunderstand. “I love Jax. I love this pack, but if I stay, l think l’ll disappear into what everyone needs me to be.”

I step closer slowly, giving her the chance to pull away if she needs to. She doesn’t.

“Okay,” I say quietly. “Then we’ll figure out how to do this safely. On your terms.”

Her breath stutters. “You’re not angry?””No,” I say honestly. “I’m scäred, and I want you close, but that’s selfish, and I trust you to do what is right for you.”

That’s when her shoulders finally sag, the tension bleeding out of her like she’s been holding it together for too long.

We stand there in the morning light, the forest listening, the future shifting quietly around us, and I know this isn’t an ending. It’s a beginning we’re not ready to name yet.

I could ask her to stay; I could tell her about the baby growing inside of me. I could tell her we need her, that I want her with me through this pregnancy. But that is not what she needs, not right now. I also have a bone-deep feeling that she is making the right choice, and no matter how much I hate to admit it, I know that this is not where she belongs.

Settling here with her mates would be easy, but she is meant for more than that. She has her own path to follow.

“Where will you go?” l ask softly.

Poppy doesn’t answer straight away; her gaze is fixed in the distance, as if she is seeing her next destination.

“I don’t know yet. I might go catch up with Annie, then maybe travel for a while. There are parts of the world still want to see,” she shrugs.

I nod. “You always did want to travel. What about uni?”

Poppy snorts a laugh. “It seems pointless now. I think we both know I’m never going to be able to be a vet. They can’t teach me how to heal a werewolf; I can learn more with Jake.”

Her voice catches on the last word, like it pained her to even speak his name. I glance back toward the house, where I see both Jake and Leo through the window. Ryder has a hand on Leo’s shoulder and is talking to him softly, but his gaze is fixed on Poppy. For a second, it almost looks like something normal. Like he’s just offering reassurance after a hard night, like they’re talking about patrol routes or the state of the injured.

But Leo’s jaw is clenched so tightly it’s a wonder his teeth dón’t crack. His gaze stays locked on Poppy like a tether, like if he looks away for even a second she’ll vanish. And Jake… Jake is standing a little to the side, half-hidden by the doorframe, as if he didn’t intend to be seen at all. Like he’s bracing for impact. His shoulders are rigid, his hands fisted at his sides, and his face too still.

He looks like a healer who has just realised he can stitch bones back together with his bare hands, but can’t stop his own heart from splintering. The pack bond doesn’t show me their emotions the way it shows me my mates, but my gift… my gift is sharper now. It reads tension like scent. It reads grief just as well as corruption.

Jake moves first, a small movement that gives him away.

His gaze flicks to Leo, then to Ryder, then back to the window, back to Poppy, and for one brutal heartbeat he looks like he might run. Not at her, but after her.My stomach twists.

I glance at Poppy, and she’s still staring into the trees like she’s mapping a route no one else can see. Her arms are folded tight across her chest, but she’s not trembling.

She’s decided… and that terrifies me. Because I know Leo.

I’ve watched him move through our pack like a silent force, controlled, measured, and loyal to the bone. If he thinks Poppy leaving is a threat to her safety, hell treat it like any other threat. Hell stop it. And Jake doesn t stop anything with force. He stops things with quiet stubbornness and that typical healer instinct to put everyone else first. He’d follow her, even if it broke him.

Even if it broke all of them.

I turn back to Poppy, forcing my voice to stay gentle. ” When were you planning to go?”

Her shoulders lift in a small shrug. “There’s no time like the present.”

The words hit me like cold water.

“Poppy,” I breathe, not pleading, but careful. “You don’t have to run.”

“I’m not running. Running would mean I’m afraid.”

“And you’re not?”

For the first time, something flickers across her face, an emotion she can’t quite hide.”I’m terrified,” she admits, and her voice cracks just slightly. “But I’m more terrified of staying and waking up one day and realising I’m living someone else’s life. Or worse… that I’ve become someone else.”

My chest tightens. Because I know what she means. I know what it feels like to be pulled by something bigger than yourself. To feel the shape of your Life being rewritten around you.

I step closer. “Okay,

‘I say again, firmer this time. “Then

tell me what you need from me.”

Leo’s gaze never leaves Poppy. “No,” he says, like he can rewrite reality with one word. “Absolutely not.”

Poppy doesn’t flinch. “Leo.”

“After everything that just happened,” he snaps. “After the hunters…after…” His voice breaks off. “You are not going anywhere.”

Jake finally speaks, and his voice is so quiet it makes my. chest ache. “Poppy… please.”

The word please from Jake Carrington is a weapon.

Poppy’s expression falters for half a second, her eyes flicking to him, and something in her face softens… love, heartbreak, regret… before she hardens again like she has to.

“I can’t stay,” she says, quieter now, but no less firm. “Not right now.”

Leo steps closer, crowding her space without touching.”

Why?”

Leo’s eyes flash with his barely contained wolf. “You are important.”

Jake shifts closer, his hands flexing at his sides. “We can help you.”

Poppy’s gaze moves towards him again, and her voice turns softer. “I know you can. You always would.”

Her eyes glisten, and she blinks hard, refusing to cry.

“But I need to do this alone,” she whispers. “Or I’m going to wake up bonded and committed and locked into a life l never got to choose properly.”

Jake’s face crumples, just for a second, like he can’t stop it.

“You’re saying you don’t choose us.”

Poppy inhales sharply. “No,” she says quickly. “Don’t you dare twist it like that.”

Then hebeyes shift to Leo, and her voice steadies again. ” I’m saying I choose myself first. For once.”