Dallas had been completely right about his pack waiting for us. As soon as his car pulled close to the three houses, the door to one burst open and people erupted from it. It wasn't as overwhelming as I had been anticipating. I remembered Dallas saying his pack was small, but I had no gauge for what that actually looked like. Was one hundred people small or large? In this case, Dallas could have said tiny and my guess would have still been over the mark. My family was ten times larger than their pack, if not larger. There were six adults, and one of them was holding a child. I vaguely recognized some of them from Dallas's pictures, but I had no idea who was who. The dark, scary looking guy in the back with a scar running over half his face must be his alpha. 

I'd grown up in a den of foxes—we were wild, irreverent, loud, and mischievous.  I couldn't imagine that guy cracking a smile at one of Uncle Jerry's old fart jokes.

The smallest man reached me first, wrapping me and then Kit in a hug. A faint peachy scent lingered after him. Definitely an omega. The only omega, I suspected, feeling slightly intimidated by the size of the other men. 

"I'm Jesse," the omega said. "Welcome to our home." Before Kit or I could respond, he gestured to the man holding the child. "This is my mate Asher, and the Alpha of the pack. And our princess Aspen."

This was the pack alpha? Other than Jesse, he was the smallest of the alphas. I glanced between him and the man with the scar. How could such a pale, slight man command the control of such a terrifying specimen of humanity?

I hadn't realized I was tense until Dallas walked up behind me and placed a hand on the small of my back. I relaxed into his touch. It didn't matter exactly who the alpha was, as long as Dallas was here to guide me.

Jesse finished the introductions. Simon was just slightly taller than the Alpha and clearly related. Ryan was broad chested and dark skinned with kind eyes, Kurt was pale and dark haired. I would have shuffled him into the nerd category if he weren't clearly well-muscled. The scarred guy was Caspar. As everyone turned back to the house to get warm, I was surprised to see that his hair touched his waist.

You okay? Dallas asked, mindspeaking me for the first time. A small smile crinkled my eyes at my secret pleasure. 

You made me think your pack was going to be overwhelming. You've clearly never been to a Monroe family breakfast, and those are the tamest of our gatherings.

Dallas kept the door open for Kit and me. I'd like to experience that sometime.

I pressed my hands to my cheeks as if to warm my hands, but in reality, I was attempting to cool my blush. Did he really mean that? He must. Dallas didn't seem like the kind of guy who said things just to be polite.

Jesse clapped his hands to call for attention. He'd climbed onto a chair, and his mate stood by with an exasperated but indulgent smile. "Okay, everyone, Dallas didn't want us to make a big deal out of this, but I'm going to anyway. First, I want to say welcome to the pack to Nick and Kit and baby Dallas. Dallas hasn't exactly told us a lot about you, but if he cares enough about you to bring you home, that's pretty fucking special."

"Jesse..." Dallas growled, and the rest of the pack laughed, though Asher muttered something about "language" with a significant look at Aspen.

"I know, but hold on. Nick, Kit, I don't know what kind of background you came from, but I came from a pretty shitty one. I'd never really known what a family could be like until I met Asher and these guys. They may seem a little rough on the outside, but they're gold through and through. Okay, I'm done. Food and plates are in the kitchen, help yourself, find a seat wherever."

Jesse led the way to the food himself, and the three of us had a moment of quiet by the front door.

"I'm so sorry," Dallas said. "This is why I told them not to make a big deal about this. But like Jesse, said, he's never really had a family, and he's determined to do everything right for Aspen, and as an example to her."

Was he kidding? I was barely holding back the tears. The level of acceptance I'd felt here in the last five minutes with strangers was more than I'd received from my entire family, excluding Kit, in the last week. I cleared my throat. "It's fine. Shall we get some food?"

The line of alphas pushed Kit and me forward, separating us from Dallas, but I suddenly wasn't scared any more. Not even by the intimidating Caspar. Ryan, who had apparently cooked most of the food, was in line behind us, and he pushed a little bit of everything on our plates, which meant we'd had to balance carefully as we moved from the kitchen to the living room. Jesse patted the empty spot next to him, and I took it happily.

Jesse smirked at my plate. "You're going to have to learn to stand up to these alphas, especially while you're pregnant. They'll mother-hen you to death."

That was what my family had been like. Should have been like. They would have accepted me and the baby and taken care of us if I'd been mated, or been willing to find a quickie mate. Why couldn't they see how ridiculous that was? Regardless of how the baby was conceived, I was going to love him or her. That was what mattered.

"Why is he crying?" someone asked, concern and fear in their tone. I blinked up to see who it was. Kyle? Kevin? No, Kurt. 

"It's fine." Jesse waved away his concern. "Nothing a little chocolate won't fix. Kurt, can you go get a piece of the cake? Oh, I should have known better than to ask you. Dallas," he shouted. "Can you get a slice of cake for your omega?"

Dallas's omega. I was surprised at how much I liked that. I'd always stood on my own, and proudly, but right now, I really didn't mind the thought of belonging to someone, especially if that someone was Dallas.

Jesse had been right; chocolate fixed me up pretty quickly, and Kit and I faded into the background of the bright camaraderie of the pack. When the meal was finished, as I was enjoying my second helping of cake, Jesse went back into organizational mode. "I'm sure you two want to get settled in a bit. Dinner tonight will probably be leftovers, so nothing fancy, but I know Dallas will have a fit if at least part of the day isn't low key." Jesse smiled at Dallas with fraternal love. "Kit, we've got you set up in Ryan's old room, and Dallas can show you around the house. I had Ryan check on the state of the fridge, since who knows what these guys eat now that he's moved out." 

Aspen had been bouncing happily on her father's knee until then, but at Jesse's voice, she suddenly realized her other favorite person had been missing for a while, and she started yelling. Jesse set his plate down. "I guess it's little girl's time to eat. Just let us know if you need anything, okay?"

"What about Nick?" Dallas asked. "Did you set up Ryan's room for both of them?"

Jesse took Aspen and turned around in confusion. "I had thought... was I wrong? I thought he was going to stay with you."

"That's fine," I jumped in, trying to avoid making an already awkward situation more awkward. Do you mind if I stay with you? I asked Dallas quickly before I made any assumptions.

Of course. I just thought you'd rather—

I wouldn't.

"Dallas's room is fine," I said aloud. "Can we help with any dishes or anything before we head over?"

Asher stood to collect our plates. "Not today. Normally, I'd accept, because you're family now, but today we'll let you skip out. Just the once." 

His easy acceptance was astounding. Our family was a lot more insular. It had taken my cousin Renee two years to get her mother to stop calling her mate "that hooting boy." To be fair, he couldn't help but hold the "oo" sounds when he spoke, but he was an owl. What did she expect?

The rest of the pack stayed behind, to clean, I supposed, while Dallas showed us over to the double-wide, pointing out Ryan's house and the tiny house Jesse and Asher had lived in before Aspen was born. I saw the gleam in Kit's eyes as we passed it. Maybe it wouldn't be as difficult to convince her to let me stay beyond the first week we had agreed on. Maybe she'd be interested in staying herself.

Because I already knew I'd be staying for as long as I could. Maybe the hormones were leading me to snap judgments as well as irrational fits of crying and I'd change my mind in a week. If I did, fair enough. But being here fulfilled something bone deep, something I hadn’t known I was missing.