We were all in the living room — one last calm moment before the storm. I was curled between Jae-won and Hwan on the couch, Min-jun on the floor at my feet, Jin-ho in the armchair with a book he wasn't really reading, Tae-min pacing by the window with barely contained energy.
"Keira. Your scent just changed." Jae-won's voice was low, careful, his nearly-black eyes studying my face, his jaw tightening, his whole body going still.
I knew. I could feel it — the shift from pre-heat to something more imminent, the way my body was tipping over an edge I couldn't climb back from.
"It's starting. I can feel it. It's starting." I said, and my voice came out rough, breathless, barely recognizable, my hands trembling slightly against my thighs. The room went still. Five alphas, five sets of eyes, all fixed on me with varying degrees of intensity and restraint.
"Are you ready?" Jae-won asked, his hand finding my face, tilting it up to meet his gaze, his thumb brushing my cheekbone with trembling gentleness, his nearly-black eyes searching mine.
I looked at him — at all of them. Hwan with his sunshine smile and golden heart. Jin-ho with his quiet intensity and poet's soul. Tae-min with his eager energy and desperate need to be enough. Min-jun with his gentle hands and endless care. And Jae-won, this pack alpha who had given me every chance to run and waited patiently for me to choose to stay.
My alphas. My pack. My home.
"I'm ready. Take me to the nest." I said, and the words felt like a vow, like a promise, like the beginning of everything, my grey eyes holding his, my voice steady despite my racing heart. Jae-won stood, lifting me with him like I weighed nothing, his arms secure around me, his cedar-and-thunder scent flooding my senses. The others fell into step behind us — a pack moving as one, united in purpose, ready to claim and be claimed.
The nest room door opened.
The fairy lights glowed soft and warm.
As Jae-won laid me down among the blankets and pillows, surrounded by the mingled scents of everyone I loved, I felt the last of my fear dissolve into something fiercer.
Anticipation.
Want.
Need.
Soon,my omega whispered, and for once I didn't argue.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
KEIRA
The heat hit like a wave crashing over me. One moment I was lying in the nest, surrounded by their scents, waiting. The next, my entire body was on fire — not pain, but need. Desperate, consuming, overwhelming need that clawed at my insides and shattered every rational thought into fragments I couldn't piece back together. My skin burned from the inside out, every nerve ending screaming for something I couldn't name. The silk of the pillowcase felt like sandpaper against my cheek. The soft cotton of my tank top scraped against my nipples like rough fabric. Everything was too much, too intense, too everything.
Alpha,my omega keened, clawing to the surface with a ferocity I'd never experienced.Need alpha. Need knot. Now. Now. NOW.
My skin felt too tight, too hot, sweat beading along my hairline and sliding down my temples in thin rivulets. More gathered in the hollow of my throat, pooling in the dip between my collarbones. I writhed against the blankets, whimpering — the sound high and needy and foreign to my own ears— my body moving without my permission as slick pooled between my thighs. The wetness was hot and slippery, soaking through my underwear, the fabric clinging uncomfortably to my oversensitized skin. In any other context it would have been shameful, but here, now, it was exactly what my body was supposed to do. The scents of five alphas surrounded me like a symphony — cedar and citrus and vanilla and ocean and woodsmoke — and my omega wanted all of them, needed all of them, couldn't think past the desperate ache that throbbed between my legs with every frantic beat of my heart.
"Keira." A voice cut through the haze — warm, familiar, safe. I turned toward it blindly, my grey eyes unfocused and glazed, the fairy lights above blurring into smears of golden light. Platinum blonde hair materialized in my vision, catching the soft glow like a halo, and warm brown eyes swam into focus — dark with concern and something else, something primal that made my omega purr with recognition. Hwan knelt at the edge of the nest, the mattress dipping slightly under his weight, his famous smile nowhere to be seen, replaced by an intensity that made my core clench with desperate want. "Talk to me. What do you need?"
Alpha, my omega answered before I could form words.
"Alpha." The word came out broken, barely human, more whine than speech, my voice cracking on the single syllable as I reached for him with trembling hands. My fingers shook so badly I could barely control them, grasping at air, at nothing, needing to touch him so desperately it hurt. "Need— please— Hwan?—"
He was there in an instant, closing the distance between us so fast I barely registered the movement — just a blur of golden skin and platinum hair and then his body was covering mine. The contact was electric. I cried out at the first brush of skin against skin, my back arching off the nest so sharply my spinecracked, as his sunshine-and-citrus scent flooded my senses until I couldn't smell anything else, couldn't think of anything else. The weight of him pressed me into the mattress, solid and warm and grounding. Everything disappeared — the room, the others watching from the edges of the nest, my own name. There was only him, only this, only the desperate need burning through my veins like liquid fire, scorching me from the inside out.
"I've got you. Alpha's got you." Hwan murmured against my throat, his lips hot and slightly chapped against my racing pulse, his voice rough in a way I'd never heard from the group's happy virus — deeper, rawer, almost a growl. His hands slid beneath my tank top, palms flat against my stomach, and every touch felt magnified a hundredfold. The calluses on his fingertips from years of practice caught against my skin, leaving trails of fire across my flesh, making me gasp and arch into each point of contact. "I'm here. I'm going to take care of you."
"Please." I didn't recognize my own voice — high and desperate and broken, nothing like the woman I'd been an hour ago. My fingers tangled in his platinum hair, my body moving against his on pure instinct, hips rolling, seeking friction. The hard length of him pressed against my thigh through his clothes and I whimpered at the contact, grinding against it shamelessly. "Need you. Need— alpha, please?—"
"I know, sweetheart. I know." Hwan's hands found the hem of my shirt, and he pulled it over my head with careful reverence — the fabric dragging against my nipples and making me cry out at even that brief stimulation. His warm eyes roamed over my exposed skin with naked hunger, darkening as they traced the curve of my breasts, the dip of my waist, the flare of my hips. The cool air hit my heated flesh and I gasped, goosebumps rising across my skin even as sweat continued to bead along my hairline. My nipples hardened instantly, but his hands werethere immediately — warm and grounding, cupping my breasts with a gentleness that made me whimper. The heat of his palms seared into me, his touch almost too hot against my feverish skin. "So beautiful. My beautiful omega."
Yours,my omega purred, the word echoing through my haze-addled mind like a mantra.Yours. Alpha's omega. Please please please?—
"Yours." I gasped the word out loud, not sure if I meant to, my eyes struggling to focus on his face hovering above mine. His features kept blurring, sharpening, blurring again as waves of heat rolled through me. "Alpha— yours?—"
Something dangerous flickered across Hwan's features — the carefully constructed sunshine persona cracking completely to reveal the alpha beneath. His jaw tightened, the muscle jumping beneath golden skin, his warm brown eyes darkening to nearly black, pupils blown so wide only a thin ring of brown remained. Possessive. Primal. Hungry. The look made more slick form between my legs, my inner walls clenching around nothing, desperate to be filled.
