Dax stood in the center of the brightly lit room, sipping his afternoon coffee. My bond brother was a strange one sometimes, and this was one of his tics. Only water in the morning, but come three o’clock? Coffee. Dark roast. No sugar.
“What are you thinking?” I asked, stepping down into the room to join him. The sunroom, that was what we were calling it, was a few inches lower than the rest of the house.
“I don’t know.” He turned to look at me over his shoulder. “I imagine a porch, but it feels like cutting off its potential.”
He wasn’t wrong. “I know what you mean. We don’t have to decide today.”
“I finished painting the baseboards while you were on the phone with your parents.”
“Good. I hate that part. What’s next on the agenda?”
We migrated into the living room where our grand plan was written on a dry-erase board. A small weight lifted from my shoulders as I checked off the office downstairs. We’d bought this place because of the land and the number of rooms, with our future in mind. That was over a year ago. Most of the house was done but two rooms in particular that had been left for last—on purpose.
The mating suite and the omega nest.
“Mating suite or nest first?” I asked. I hated to work in either room without the input of our omega, but we hadn’t met her yet. We had thought about apps and dating sites and services but decided as a pack to let it happen organically. If we trusted Fate, and we did, then she would show us our mate.
Assuming our mate was still out there. That our omega hadn’t mated with someone else, scent-sympathetic or simply because she was in love.
I’d gotten to a point where I just wanted her to be happy, wherever she was.
Aw, fuck me. Not true at all. I wanted her here, with us, so we could cherish her like she deserved.
“I say we bite the bullet and work on the nest. We have to prep for her as though she were waiting around the corner. Like we are going to bump into her next week at a random spot.”
“Didn’t know you were a positive thinker.”
Dax chuckled. “Someone has to be.”
“Did we decide on a color?” I asked, ignoring his dig at Archer and me. Grumpy and brooding came naturally to Archer, but somewhere along the line of becoming a pack and never finding our mate, some of it had rubbed off on me.
“Lavender. That’s what my gut says.”
“Lavender it is. We have to go into town and get the paint. The floors need redoing as well. Should we measure now?”
“How about you take the measurements? I need to go check on the chickens. They’ve been knocking over their water lately.”
“Got it.”
This was how our pack operated and, it worked well. Archer ran his project management businessonline, needing only Wi-Fi and a place to sit with his laptop.
Dax raised the animals. We had chickens, quails, and one goat. I thought the goat was mostly for company for Dax, since we had no plans to breed her. We adopted Emma as soon as we moved in, when she was nothing more than a doeling. I’d gotten used to hearing her bell ring all the time.
We all kept up our modest garden but didn’t come close to the self-sufficiency I dreamed of.
We were living this life and this dream for the first time, and patience could not be counted among my virtues.
Probably a byproduct of my upbringing—old money. I had a trust fund, and my parents supported everything I did, including buying this place.
Dax and Archer worked hard, and so did I but not because I needed the money. Not pursuing a goal in this life seemed like a waste to me. And providing a home and security for our pack and our potential mate seemed like a good way to spend my time.
“What’s going on?” Archer asked, coming in to hold the metal clip of the tape measure at the other end of the room.
“Measuring for the flooring. We are starting on the nest today.”
Archer sighed and tensed his shoulders. “Are we sure about that?”
“Dax thinks it’s making space for our omega. We can’t expect Fate to shine on us if we’re not prepared for her.”
