Callum leans over and touches his lips to mine. It’s a move I immediately follow up with a loud yawn.
“Sorry,” I apologize, covering my mouth to suppress the next big yawn trying to slip out.
Callum grins at me, gray-blue eyes twinkling with amusement. “It’s been a long day. You’re allowed to be tired.”
It has been a long day, but not so much physically as emotionally. I left Haven Academy for the last time and said a tearful goodbye to my sister and my parents. My entire life changed today. In some ways, I expected, and in other ways, only dreamed about. I haveneverbeen happier.
“There’s a lot we need to tell you.” Callum pulls me into his lap, slides an arm around my hip, and bends his head to press a kiss on the hollow of my throat. My breath catches, and I swallow a moan.
“About?” I ask, trying not to move with how hard Callum is right now. He wants me as much as I want him, but he’s going slow. His kisses have been for the most part, sweet. Sitting on his lap like this makes me realize just how much he’s holding back.
There’s a magic to scent matches that no one told me about. Not that anyone would have, because I have never met anyone who found theirs. There’s a push-and-pull that makes letting go impossible. There are times I know I shouldn’t want them. Inappropriate times. Like on the dance floor right in front of myparents. But there’s a fire in my belly that makes me want to fling all reason away and tackle my scent matches to the floor.
Life is going to be very interesting, and I can’t wait.
“There aren’t a lot of people in our lives that we can trust,” Archer says quietly, the Audi slowing now as we near our final destination.
“Are you saying you trust me?” I ask as Torin takes my hand and I rest my head against Callum’s chest, yawning again.
I am so tired.
Today has been one of the longest days ever, but it's nearly over. I have three scent matches I adore, and a future I can’t wait to dive into. I found my scent matches, and nothing can tear us apart.
“We’re saying we have a lot to talk about,” Callum says, kissing my forehead as I fight to keep my eyes open. “But that can happen tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow is good enough for me.” My eyelids flutter shut as our car ride continues with the occasional sway and bump, but I feel perfectly safe wrapped up in Callum’s arms.
“How big is your kitchen?” I say tiredly as I snuggle into Callum’s chest, breathing in his warm ginger and vanilla scent.
“How big do you need it to be?” Torin asks.
“Just big enough to bake. I bake when I’m happy.”
“Then you’ll be baking every day,” Callum says, prompting a wider smile even as I drift off to sleep.
I snuggle into silk sheets, wanting to purr, curl my toes and never move again.
But the warmth of the sun is kissing my bare back, and I have always been an early riser who loved to wake with the sun. Istretch and yawn as I roll over, blinking my eyes open and ready to embrace this new life.
Thishappylife.
My room is perfect—everything I could have ever hoped for.
Someone brought my suitcases up to my room and didn’t stop there. The closet is slightly open, and through the gap, I see all my clothes hanging, with my shoes neatly lined up on the floor beneath my dresses and pants.
Even the package my sister gave me is on my bedside table, ready for me to open and reveal the book that means as much to her as it does to me.
I have a vague memory of Callum saying something about a housekeeper as he carried me up the stairs and tucked me into cool, silky sheets, but I was already more asleep than awake by that point.
Another door stands partially open. Not the bathroom. I used that in the middle of the night when I woke up needing to pee and stubbed my toe on the doorframe. Curious, I get to my feet, wrapping a sheet around myself as I cross over to investigate that partially open door. Callum must have helped me out of my heels and dress before tucking me into bed. When I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, I was just in my panties.
I push the door the rest of the way open, and every instinct in me that has ever craved soft and cozy stirs awake. A nest is the most important space an omega can have. It’s a sanctuary. A place to find peace, to feel safe when the world feels scary, a haven to burrow into soft coziness when she doesn’t have an alpha to give her the security she sometimes craves.
This side room must have once been a second closet. It’s a little larger than my closet, but that’s the only similarity. I’m standing in an omega’s version of heaven—pink and gold, silksand velvets, like a super-girly Turkish dream oasis. The only thing missing is someone to come along and feed me grapes.
I don’t know when my scent matches had time to do this for me, if they started building me a nest the day after I met Torin, but it feels like a space created just for me.
My nest.
