By the time we pull up to the imposing structure I now recognize as Kai’s mountain mansion, my nerves are wound so tight I feel like I might snap. I step out of the truck, my boots crunching in the fresh snow, and stare up at the house. Last time I was here, I was in the throes of my heat, barely aware of my surroundings. Now with a clear head, the place is even more impressive—all glass and timber and stone, perched on the mountainside like it grew there naturally.
Kai and Grayson lead the way up the cleared path to the front door, carrying my bags despite my protests. I follow behind, my shoulder bag clutched to my chest like a shield. The house looks different in the evening light, larger and grander, but also somehow more welcoming at the same time.
As we step inside, warm air envelops me, and I instinctively take a deep breath. The faint scent of them and the houseimmediately reminds me of being in the throes of heat. My omega responds to the combination, a sense of rightness settling over me that I quickly try to suppress.
This isn’t my home. This isn’t my pack. This is all just...temporary.
I stand awkwardly just inside the door, unsure where to go or what to do with myself. Kai and Grayson move with the easy familiarity of men who live here, setting my bags down and shrugging off their coats.
“Where’s Noah?” I ask before I can stop myself, the question slipping out unbidden.
Grayson makes a sound low in his throat that I’ve come to recognize as his version of annoyance. He moves toward the kitchen without answering, leaving Kai to deal with my question.
“Probably out for a walk,” Kai says, hanging his coat on a hook by the door. “He does that when he needs to think. Stomps around in the woods until he figures things out.”
“Oh.” The word comes out smaller than I intended. Even though I know it’s ridiculous, I can’t help but feel somewhat rejected. Noah is literally slogging through the remnants of a blizzard to avoid being in the same house as me.
Kai must read something in my expression because he quickly adds, “He’s been doing that since we were kids. It’s not about you. Well, not entirely about you.”
That doesn’t exactly make me feel much better.
“Come on,” Kai says, gesturing for me to follow him. “Let me show you where you can stay.”
I trail behind him through the great room and down a hallway lined with what looks like original artwork—landscapes of Heat Mountain in different seasons, portraits of people I don’t recognize, abstract pieces that add splashes of color to the otherwise neutral palette of the house.
We pass several closed doors before Kai stops in front of the one I recognize as the heat suite where I spent the last few days. I hesitate, memories flooding back—the desperate need, the relief when the alphas arrived, the things we did together...
Kai notices my hesitation. “You don’t have to stay in here if you don’t want to,” he says quickly. “There are other rooms. I just thought...you might want to be somewhere that was familiar. Everything is still the way you left it.”
I give him a wavering smile, touched by his attempt to be considerate. “No, this is fine. I don’t want to give your housekeeper any more work to do.”
Kai’s eyebrows shoot up in mock offense. “How do you know I have a housekeeper?”
I gesture around at the immaculate hallway, the perfectly dusted artwork, the gleaming hardwood floors. “It’s hard for me to imagine you scrubbing six thousand square feet worth of baseboards.”
He laughs, a warm sound that makes some of the tension in my shoulders ease. “The cleaning service only comes twice a week, thank you very much,” he says with exaggerated dignity. “And I do my own dishes.”
“If you keep making food as good as those crepes,” I say, surprising myself with the teasing note in my voice, “I’ll happily handle the kitchen cleanup.”
Kai’s eyes light up, and he winks at me, the gesture playful but with an undercurrent of something more. “The French aren’t always the best example, but they know how to keep a woman hooked. I’ll take whatever advantage I can get.”
Before I can formulate a response to that loaded statement, Kai turns and walks back down the hallway, leaving me blushing in the doorway of the heat suite.
What the hell did he mean by that?
I shake my head, trying to clear it enough to make sense of his demeanor. I know I’m overthinking things, as usual, but the knowledge I’m doing it isn’t enough to get my brain to stop. Kai obviously flirts like he breathes, automatically and as a necessary bodily function. It doesn’t have to mean anything.
I step into the heat suite, closing the door behind me. The room doesn’t look any different—bed covered in a rumpled pile of sheets and blankets that looks like a nest built by an omega in the midst of a psychotic episode. I’d be embarrassed if that particular feeling hadn’t already been wrung completely out of me.
I set my shoulder bag down on the bed and begin unpacking the few items I’d brought from my cabin—clean clothes, toiletries, my laptop, and the medical journals I’d been reading. As I move around the space, arranging my things, my mind wanders.
I’d just assumed that Kai, Grayson, and Noah were a pack, because three men living together in the city would absolutely be packed up. But now I’m not so sure. There’s an ease between Kai and Grayson that speaks of a long friendship, but I haven’t seen the same level of comfort between either of them and Noah.
And if they were a formal pack, wouldn’t they have mentioned it?
Packs have pretty much become the norm for most alphas. Too many omegas don’t want to mate a single alpha. It makes the omega too vulnerable. There are too many women, especially, who end up mated to the wrong man and regret it, particularly when omegas are so much more limited by work restrictions and the burden of raising children. Pack bonds create a safety net—multiple providers, multiple protectors, multiple sources of emotional support.
Not that I’m thinking about packs or bonds or anything.
