Nothing was right.
I'd destroyed my nest.
I'd torn it apart in a fit of defiance almost a week ago, ripped through the blankets and pillows and soft things I'd arranged just so, scattered them across the room like they meant nothing. Like I didn't need them. Like I didn't need the safety they represented.
Stupid. So fucking stupid.
Now the absence of it was a physical ache in my chest. My Omega instincts screamed at me constantly,unsafe, exposed, vulnerable, no den, no territory, nowhere to hide, and I couldn't make them stop. Couldn't reason with biology. Couldn't pretend I was fine when every cell in my body was begging for a safe space that no longer existed.
I tried to ignore it. Tried to push through the discomfort, the anxiety, the constant low-level panic that hummed beneath my skin. I was stronger than my instincts. I had to be. On the third day, I found myself wedged into the corner of the closet in my room, knees pulled to my chest, rocking slightly without meaning to. I didn't even remember walking in here. One moment I'd been trying to read on the couch, the next I was in the dark, surrounded by clothes that didn't smell like anyone, shaking.
This was pathetic. I was pathetic.
The door opened and light spilled in. I flinched, pressing further into the corner, some primal part of me snarling at the intrusion even as I recognized Caleb's massive silhouette in the doorway. He didn't say anything. Didn't ask what I was doing crouched in the closet like a wounded animal. Just looked at me with those ice-blue eyes, something soft and understanding in his scarred face.
Then he left. I stayed in the closet for another hour before I could make myself move.
Things started appearing after that.
A worn flannel shirt draped over the arm of the couch where I usually sat. I recognized it as Caleb's, soft from years of washing, saturated with his scent of cedar and woodsmoke. I told myself I wouldn't touch it. Told myself I didn't need it.
I was wearing it within the hour, the fabric wrapped around my shoulders like armor, his scent filling my lungs with everybreath. A blanket showed up next, folded neatly at the foot of my bed. This one smelled like Leo, leather and spice and something wild. I found myself pressing my face into it before I could stop myself, breathing deep, some of the tension in my shoulders finally easing.
Then a sweater. Ethan's. Clean and soft, smelling faintly of old books and something herbal. I added it to my growing pile without thinking. A pillow appeared on the chair in the corner. Mason's pillow, from his bed, drenched in honey and smoke and Alpha. I clutched it to my chest while I pretended to watch TV, refusing to acknowledge what I was doing.
No one said anything. Not when I started hoarding the items like a dragon guarding treasure. Not when I dragged them from room to room, unable to let them out of my sight. Not when I arranged them around myself on the couch, building tiny walls of softness that weren't a nest, weren't, I wasn't nesting, I was just...
Fuck.
I was nesting.
The realization hit me on the fifth day, when I caught myself growling — actually growling — when Leo got too close to my pile of stolen comfort items. He'd reached for his blanket, probably wanting it back, and the sound that came out of my throat was pure Omega: territorial, possessive,mine.
Leo froze, his hazel eyes going wide. Then a slow grin spread across his face.
"Easy, Red," Leo said, pulling his hand back, both palms raised in surrender. "I'm not taking anything. Just wanted to add to the collection."
He held up another blanket, this one thick and soft, the kind you could sink into. He set it down carefully at the edge of my pile, like he was making an offering at a shrine.
"There," Leo said, still grinning. "Tribute paid. Don't bite me." I should have been mortified. Should have shoved the pile away, rejected the gift, reminded him that I wasn't some feral Omega who needed a den to feel safe. Instead I snatched the blanket and pulled it into my arms, burying my face in the softness, breathing in his scent.
Leo's grin softened into something else. Something tender.
"You know," Leo said quietly, watching me clutch his offering, "there's a whole room upstairs with a proper nesting space. Big enough for all of us. Just sitting there empty."
I didn't answer, didn't trust myself to speak. He left without pushing. They all did. They kept leaving things for me, more blankets, more pillows, worn clothes that smelled like them, and they never once acknowledged what was happening. Never forced the issue. Never made me admit that I needed this, needed them, needed a safe space that smelled like pack.
But on the seventh day, I broke.
The compulsion was overwhelming.
I woke up with my hands already moving, gathering blankets, arranging pillows, my body operating on pure instinct while my mind screamed at me to stop. I couldn't stop. The need was too strong, too primal, too deeply encoded in whatever part of my brain made me Omega instead of Beta or Alpha.
I needed a nest and I needed it now. I would die without it. I didn't go to the nesting room Leo had mentioned. That felt like too much of a concession, too obvious an admission of what I was doing. Instead I claimed the corner of my bedroom, the space between the wall and the window where the morning light fell soft and warm.
I dragged everything with me. Every blanket, every pillow, every piece of clothing I'd hoarded over the past week. I piled them high, arranged them just so, wove them together into wallsof softness that blocked out the world and created a space that was mine, only mine, safe.
The whole time I was building, I was keening.
