He filled me completely, stretching me past the point of fullness I thought I’d reached with Alfie. It was a heavy, dense pressure that pushed against my cervix, claiming the space, verifying the territory.
"Mine," Euan choked out, biting the air near my collarbone, fighting the urge to mark me. "Calculated match. Perfect fit. Mine."
"Let him," Kit soothed, rubbing his cheek against my temple as I whined at the stretching sensation. "Adjust to him. He’s not going anywhere. He’s docked."
Docked. The technician's term. It fit Euan so perfectly it made my heart ache.
"Euan," I breathed, running my hands down his sweat-slick back, feeling the muscles bunch and tremble. "You’re stuck."
"Affirmative," he panted, lifting his head to look at me. His usual calmness was obliterated. He looked wrecked, vulnerable, and fiercely proud. "Biological lock engaged. Duration unknown. I am... I am currently occupied."
I laughed, a wet, breathless sound. "You're occupied."
He leaned down to kiss me. It wasn't a containment kiss this time. It was soft, grateful, and terrified. "I'm inside, and I never want to leave."
The three of them settled around me again. The nest readjusted.
I lay there, pinned by Euan’s knot, held by Kit’s arms, with Alfie curling around my legs like a protective seal. The pressure inside me was immense, grounding, a constant reminder that the "Do-Nothing Protocol" had been permanently overwritten.
All I could process was the weight of the pack, the colors of their voices in the dark, and the absolute, terrifying certainty that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
"Euan?" I whispered into the quiet that followed the storm.
"Listening," he murmured against my mouth.
"Do not fix the airflow," I said. "I want to smell you. All of you."
Euan let out a long, shuddering breath. "Copy that. Filtration offline."
He kissed me again, and for the first time, I kissed him back without thinking about the mix. I just let the music play.
The loss of Euan was a physical bereavement. One moment I was filled, structured, held together by the architectural precision of his knot; the next, the pressure reached its calculated end. He pulled back, a wet, heavy slide of friction that left my nerves screaming at the sudden void. The absence left me trembling and hollowed out against the mattress.
"Signal loss," I gasped, my hands scrabbling at the sheets. The heat flared instantly, refusing to let me rest in the downtime. It wasn't a wave anymore; it was a rising tide, drowning out logic, demanding the next input source. "I need... the signal is dropping."
"We're re-patching," Kit’s voice rumbled, closer now. "Don't panic. The rig is live."
I expected him to slide into the space Euan had vacated, to simply replace the specific weight I’d lost. But Kit was the drummer. He controlled the rhythm section, and he decided when the time signature changed.
Large, calloused hands, hands that I’d watched tape cables and hoist flight cases, clamped onto my waist. They weren't surgical like Euan’s or frantic like Alfie’s. They were heavy. Immovable.
"Up," Kit commanded. The word vibrated through his chest and into my back. "On your knees, Z. Let’s see the structure."
He didn't wait for my brain to process the request. He guided me, his grip firm but careful, pulling me up from the tangle of limbs and sheets until I was on my hands and knees in the center of the nest. It was a vulnerable position, animalistic and exposed. The cool air from Euan’s scrubbers hit my damp skin, making me shiver, but the heat radiating from the three Alphas crowded around me was a furnace.
"That’s it," Kit murmured, the Manchester accent thick and dark as treacle. "Arch your back. Let me see the line. Present for me."
I pressed my hands into the mattress, my fingers splaying over a discarded flannel shirt. In front of me, Alfie scrambled to adjust, moving to face me. He looked wrecked, his hair a disaster, his lips swollen from where I’d kissed him. He dropped to his elbows, bringing his face level with mine, his scent of burnt sugar and crushed blackberries hitting me in a chaotic, sugary wave.
"Hi," Alfie whispered, reaching out to tuck a strand of sweaty hair behind my ear. His pupils were blown so wide the gold was just a thin, desperate ring. "You look... fuck, fox. You look like a ruin. A beautiful, perfect ruin."
"Alfie," I whined, leaning into his touch. "It’s too quiet back there. The silence is loud."
"I'm fixing the noise floor now," Kit growled from behind me.
I felt him move, a massive, shifting weight. Then, his chest pressed against my back, forcing me lower, sandwiching me between the mattress and his bulk. He didn't enter me immediately. He ground against the slick, aching entrance, teasing the swollen flesh with the broad head of his cock.
"Jesus," I hissed, my head falling forward.
