Caleb's purr joined the chorus, so deep I felt it more than heard it. He didn't say anything — he rarely did — but his hand on my hip said everything.I'm here. I'm not leaving. You're safe.
"Your stress hormones are probably dropping already," Ethan said quietly, his thumb still tracing those soothing circles on my ankle. "Nesting behavior triggers oxytocin release. Combined with pack contact, you'll feel better than you have in days. Maybe weeks."
"Is that your way of saying I told you so?" I asked, exhaustion making me more vulnerable than I would normally allow.
"It's my way of saying I'm glad you stopped fighting it," Ethan replied, and there was warmth in his voice, something soft beneath his usual composure. "Watching you suffer was... difficult." The admission surprised me. I twisted slightly to look at him, and found his green eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made my breath catch.
"You were suffering," Ethan said quietly, holding my gaze. "And there was nothing I could do. You wouldn't let us help. Wouldn't let us give you what you needed. All we could do was leave offerings and hope you'd eventually give in."
"The blankets," I realized. "The pillow. That was you. All of you."
"Caleb's idea," Leo said, pressing a kiss to my shoulder. "Big guy noticed you hiding in the closet and decided to do something about it." I turned to look at Caleb, and found him watching me with those soft blue eyes, a faint flush on his scarred cheeks.
"You needed things that smelled like us," Caleb said simply, his deep voice rumbling through the nest. "Couldn't give you a nest. That's Omega territory. But I could give you materials." I didn't know what to say. These men had kidnapped me, claimed me against my will, refused to let me go. Yet here they were, leaving me gifts because I was hurting, respecting my territory when they could have easily forced their way in, asking permission to enter my nest even though they were four Alphas and I was one small Omega.
They were trying. In their own fucked up, possessive, Alpha way, they were trying to make this work. Trying to give me space while still being present. Trying to love me without breaking me. I didn't know if that made it better or worse.
"Thank you," I whispered finally, the words feeling strange on my tongue, too soft, too vulnerable. "For the things. For... this."
Mason's arms tightened around me. "You don't have to thank us for taking care of you. That's our job. Our privilege."
"Our pleasure," Leo added, and there was a smile in his voice, but it wasn't mocking. Just warm.
"Just let us," Caleb rumbled. "Please." I closed my eyes. Let their warmth seep into me. Let their scents fill my lungs. Let their purrs vibrate through my body until I couldn't tell where I ended and they began.
"Okay," I breathed. "Okay." It wasn't a surrender. Not exactly. It was... a truce. A temporary laying down of arms. A willingness to let them love me, at least in this moment, at least in this space.
My nest. Our nest. Filled with their scents and their warmth and their unwavering presence. I still wasn't ready to fully accept what I was becoming. Still wasn't ready to admit that I needed them as much as they needed me. Still wasn't ready to say the words that would make this real, permanent, undeniable. For now, wrapped in their arms, surrounded by their scents, purring in my nest like the Omega I'd never wanted to be...
For now, this was enough. I fell asleep to the sound of our mingled purrs, my Alphas curled around me like a living wall, safe and warm and impossibly, terrifyingly content.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
AVA
I didn't get a say in going to Caleb's workshop.
One moment I was curled up on the couch with a book I wasn't really reading, the next I was being lifted into the air like I weighed nothing. I yelped, the book tumbling from my hands, and found myself cradled against a chest that felt like it was carved from warm stone.
Caleb.
At twenty-five, he was the youngest of my four Alphas, but you'd never know it by looking at him. He was massive, easily six-foot-five, with shoulders broad enough to block doorways and arms thick as tree trunks. His body was a contradiction: built like a man who could tear someone apart with his bare hands, but he held me like I was made of spun glass.
"What are you—I can walk," I protested, squirming uselessly against his grip.
He looked down at me, and I found myself caught in those ice-blue eyes. They were striking against his dark skin, pale as a winter sky, framed by thick lashes that seemed too delicate forsuch a brutal face. Because his face was brutal, not ugly, never that, but marked. Three parallel scars ran from his left temple to his jaw, puckered and white against his brown skin.
Most people flinched when they saw those scars. I'd stopped flinching a long time ago. Now I just saw Caleb. A low growl rumbled through his chest, vibrating against my side. Not threatening. Possessive. The sound traveled through my body and made something deep in my hindbrain go quiet and still.
"I know you can," Caleb said, his voice a low rumble that seemed to come from somewhere deep in his massive chest. "I don't want you to."
"That's not really your choice—" I started, but he cut me off.
"Please." The word was soft, almost hesitant, so at odds with his intimidating frame. "Let me have this." The please undid me. It always did with him. This massive, scarred Alpha who could probably snap me in half without breaking a sweat, reduced to asking permission to carry me across the cabin.
I stopped fighting. Let my body relax against his chest. Let him win this one. His arms tightened around me, and a soft, satisfied rumble emanated from somewhere deep in his throat. Not quite a purr, but close. The sound of an Alpha content with his Omega in his arms.
He carried me through the cabin, past the kitchen and the living room, out a back door I'd never used before. A covered wooden walkway connected the main cabin to a separate building — a large structure that looked like it had once been a storage shed but had been transformed into something else entirely.
