The sound came from somewhere deep in my chest — a high, thin cry of distress and relief tangled together, embarrassingly Omega, impossible to suppress. I keened while I fluffed pillows and smoothed blankets, while I adjusted the walls for the hundredth time, making them higher, stronger, better. I keened while my hands shook and my eyes burned with tears I refused to let fall.
I was vaguely aware of them watching.
They stood in the doorway — all four of them, a wall of Alpha males observing their Omega build her den. I should have felt self-conscious. Should have stopped, told them to leave, hidden my weakness behind walls of defiance and anger.
I couldn't. The compulsion was too strong. The nest was too important. Nothing mattered except making this space perfect, making it safe, making it mine.
They didn't interfere. Didn't offer to help. Didn't even speak.
Nest was Omega territory. They knew better than to intrude.
Finally — finally — it was done.
I crawled inside, pulled the walls up around me, and curled into a ball at the center of my creation. The keening stopped. The shaking stopped. For the first time in a week, the screaming wrongness in my chest went quiet.
I was safe. I lay there for a long time, just breathing. In and out. Slow and steady. Surrounded by softness, enveloped in warmth, protected by walls I'd built with my own hands.
Then I noticed something. Everything smelled like them.
Caleb's flannel was beneath my head, his cedar-and-woodsmoke scent filling my nose with every breath. Leo's blanket was wrapped around my body, leather and spice and wild things. Ethan's sweater cushioned my feet, old books andherbs. Mason's pillow was clutched to my chest, honey and smoke and Alpha.
I'd built my nest from their things. Filled my safe space with their scents. Created a den that was supposed to be mine, only mine, and saturated every inch of it with them. The realization should have horrified me. Should have sent me tearing through the blankets again, destroying what I'd built, rejecting their presence in my most private space.
Instead, I burrowed deeper. Breathed in their mingled scents. Let them surround me, fill me, hold me even though they weren't touching me.
My nest smelled like pack.
Like home. I don't know how long I lay there before I heard him.
"Ava." Mason's voice, low and careful, coming from somewhere near the door. I peeked over the wall of my nest and found him standing at the threshold, not entering, just... waiting.
"May we come in?" Mason asked. He was asking. The leader of the pack, the most dominant Alpha I'd ever met, was asking permission to enter my territory. Respecting my space. Acknowledging that here, in my nest, I had power.
I should have said no. Should have kept this one thing for myself, proven that I could still maintain boundaries, still resist them, still be something other than their kept Omega. I was so tired. And I was so lonely. And my nest, for all its warmth and softness, felt incomplete without them in it.
"Yes," I whispered.
Mason entered first, moving slowly, carefully, like I might spook if he came too fast. He approached the edge of my nest and stopped, waiting for another signal. I shifted over, making room, and he climbed in beside me with a grace that seemed impossible for a man his size. The others followed. Calebnext, his massive form somehow folding into the space without disturbing my carefully arranged walls. Then Leo, sliding in behind me, his chest pressing against my back. And finally Ethan, settling at the edge, one hand reaching out to rest on my ankle.
Four Alphas in my tiny nest. It should have felt claustrophobic. Instead it felt right.
Mason pulled me against his chest, and I let him. Leo's arms wrapped around my waist from behind, and I didn't flinch. Caleb's huge hand settled on my hip, warm and grounding, and I leaned into the touch. Ethan's fingers traced circles on my ankle, gentle and present, and I sighed.
Pack pile. That's what this was. An Omega surrounded by her Alphas, held and protected and claimed.
I was purring.
The sound vibrated through my chest without my permission, loud and constant and shamefully content. I tried to stop it, clenched my jaw, held my breath — but it just kept coming, pulled from somewhere deep inside me that knew what it wanted even when my conscious mind refused to admit it.
"There you go," Mason murmured against my hair, his own purr rumbling through his chest into my back. "Good girl. You needed this."
"I didn't—" I started, the automatic denial rising to my lips.
"You did," Mason interrupted gently, his arms tightening around me. "You need a nest. You need us. It's not weakness, Avalon. It's biology."
"I hate biology," I muttered, but there was no heat in it.
Leo laughed softly against my neck. "Biology gave us you, Red. I'm a fan."
