“You can sleep for as long as you want once we get you back home,” Cassian promises me, taking a stack of blankets from Simon.
Saints, that sounds divine.
We exit the jet into the frigid, darkest part of the December night and cross the tarmac to the black SUV that’s waiting for us—the same black SUV Marcus drove all term. I stumble, but Ian’s quick to catch me.
Marcus.
In the whirlwind of my escape, my heat and my mating with Cassian, I haven’t had time to think about my honor guard. Or, rather, my ex-honor guard. Willow dismissed him the day of my affinity test. Saints, I never even got the chance to say goodbye. Will I ever see him again?
I’m tempted to ask one of my men for their phone, aching to text the alpha who feels like home to me. He once said I was more than a client to him, but does that mean he’d reach out after he’d been dismissed? After I was no longer his responsibility?
“You’re troubled,” Cassian says in a low voice as he helps me into the backseat.
I shake my head. “More tired than anything,” I promise. “I’ll be all right after a good night’s sleep.”
My crush on Marcus, the deep longing I felt in every fiber of my being, was always doomed, was always going to end in this sharp, agonizing ache. It was only a matter of time.
Luca and Ian slide in around me in the SUV’s expansive backseat, and I snuggle into them, letting their scents surround me. Distract me.
Cassian and Simon take the front seat and we pull out of the private airstrip into the peaceful night. It’s clear and quiet in the wake of the winter storm that swept up the Atlantic coast, and as we take to the empty New Brunswick roads, it feels like we’re the only people in the world.
I must fall asleep, because I stir awake when Cassian parks the car in front of an expansive mansion. I can’t get a sense of how big it is from the drive, but I can already tell it’s a far grander home than Rose Manor. The stately wooden double doors open, spilling warm light across the brick driveway, and Pack Leclerc emerges. Cassian’s four alpha fathers surround his mother, a small slip of an omega.
Cassian turns enough to grasp my hand and give it a squeeze. “I’ll be back in a moment, all right? I’m not subjecting you to my parents at three o’clock in the morning.”
I grace him with a sleepy, thankful smile and nod.
He slips from the SUV and quickly crosses to his mother, who throws her arms around him. The whole pack speaks over each other, rumbling alpha voices punctuated by Beth’s light, sweet voice. She laughs and reaches up to ruffle Cassian’s hair. With some amusement, I note, she has to stand on her tiptoes to do it. After they’ve all hugged Cassian, they disappear inside, taking the clamor of their conversation with them.
Simon watches them go with fondness and then hops out of the SUV, heading around the back to the trunk to grab my nesting materials. Ian and Luca help me from the backseat, and then Cassian is there swooping me up into his arms and holding me close to ward off the biting wind. I would protest and insist that I’m perfectly capable of walking, but saints, he’s so warm, his heat like summer sunshine, his sea-salt scent in my nose.
We pass a few guards in long coats as we enter the mansion but see no one else as Cassian carries me down the quiet halls. In the distance, I can hear his family talking, but it’s an indistinct and pleasant hum. They’re giving us space for now, and I’m glad for it.
Simon rushes ahead and shoves a door open, directing Ian and Luca into the room before heading into the adjoining room.
Cassian sets me down and helps me out of my boots and coat as Ian and Luca begin arranging my nesting materials around the spacious yet cozy nest tucked into one corner of the large bedroom. Simon emerges from the adjoining room carrying a dark comforter that I know will smell like him and Cassian. He bundles me up in it and then bundles me into his arms as my alphas make up my nest, and the moment we all settle into it, my wonderful pack, I fall fast asleep.
Safe, content and mated.
* * *
I wake in a dark,unfamiliar nest, but I’m warm, pressed up against a familiar body, surrounded by familiar scents. I burrow down into my favorite silky blanket, clinging to the last few wisps of my dreams. For the first time in months, my dreams were sweet: summer days at the boardwalk, sugar-sweet and cherry slushie-tart kisses, our toes in the sand.
Cassian.
No wonder I dreamt of him. His scent is everywhere in the nest, woven through every thread of my nesting materials. It’s wound through my hair, soaked into my skin, tangled up in my senses. My mate.
Beyond Cassian’s sea salt and summer sunshine, there are the familiar scents of my other alphas: Ian’s bergamot and cedar, bright and spicy against Luca’s luscious red wine and juicy cherries.
I stretch, and Simon strokes his hand down my back as I press against him.
“Do you feel it?” he asks quietly, setting his laptop aside.
I roll over, about to ask what he means, but I don’t have to.
Because Idofeel it.
I feel Cassian down the length of our mating bond. He’s somewhere else in the sprawling estate, but he’s full of joy. It echoes down our bond, clear and bright like a silver Yule bell.
