I stood in the middle of the room, breathing hard from the exertion, and looked around with growing frustration. What was wrong? What was missing?
Reid's flannel.
The thought surfaced unbidden, and with it came an almost physical craving—the desperate need to have his scent close, to wrap it around myself like armor. And not just his. Kol's hoodie, the one he'd left draped over the couch. Nolan's soft henley that smelled like eucalyptus. Even something of Sawyer's, though the thought made my cheeks burn.
I wanted their scents. Needed them, in a way I didn't fully understand and couldn't begin to explain. I sank down onto the edge of the bed—my bed, in my room, in my home—and pressed my hands to my face, trying to steady my breathing.
What was happening to me?I didn't have an answer. But when I finally crawled under the covers, exhausted from rearranging furniture I wasn't even sure why I'd moved, I found myself thinking about soft flannels and worn hoodies and the way their combined scents made something in my chest settle.
Tomorrow. I'd figure it out tomorrow.
I woke to sunlight streaming through the window and the smell of coffee drifting up from downstairs. For a long moment, I just lay there, blinking at the unfamiliar ceiling—different from the bunkhouse, different from the guest room, different from anywhere I'd ever slept before. The bed was pushed into the corner at an odd angle, the dresser sitting where I'd shoved it in my midnight rearranging frenzy.
It didn't feel wrong anymore. It felt like the beginning of something.
Somewhere below, I heard Kol's laugh, bright and infectious. Heard Reid's low voice saying something in response, and Nolan's softer reply. Heard the ordinary sounds of a household waking up, of a pack starting their day.
Home
I pressed my face into the pillow, breathing in the faint traces of cedar and clean linen, and smiled. Then I got up and went downstairs to join them for breakfast.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ASTER
The kitchen was chaos when I came downstairs. Kol was at the stove, wearing an apron that said "Kiss the Cook" in faded letters, waving a spatula around while he argued with Nolan about the proper way to scramble eggs. Sawyer sat at the table with a mug of coffee, watching the debate with the faintest hint of amusement in his pale blue eyes. And Reid was at the counter, slicing bread for toast with the kind of focused precision he brought to everything he did.
They all turned when I appeared in the doorway—four sets of eyes finding me at once, four different expressions that somehow all said the same thing: welcome.
"Morning, sunshine!" Kol's voice was bright and warm, his amber eyes crinkling with genuine delight as he brandished his spatula in my direction. A bit of egg flew off the end and landed on the floor, which he pretended not to notice. "Sleep okay? How's the room? Did you rearrange the furniture? I always rearrange furniture when I move somewhere new. It's a thing."
"Kol." Nolan's voice was gentle but pointed, his green eyes flickering between Kol and the stove. He reached past the younger Alpha to turn down the heat under the pan, his freckled face soft with fond exasperation. "You're burning the eggs."
"I am not burning the eggs." Kol turned back to the stove, then made a small sound of dismay as he saw the slightly crispy edges forming. His honey-blond hair flopped across his forehead as he frantically scraped at the pan. "Okay, I'm slightly burning the eggs. But they'll still be delicious. Crispy eggs are a delicacy in some cultures."
"Name one." Sawyer's voice was a low rumble, dry as dust, but when I glanced at him I caught the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth. His pale blue eyes met mine for just a moment, and something warm flickered in their icy depths before he looked away.
"I don't have to name one, I just have to believe it's true." Kol didn't miss a beat, still working to rescue his eggs. His scent filled the kitchen—orange blossoms and warmth—mixing with the smell of coffee and toast and something that was starting to smell suspiciously like char.
"Coffee?" Reid's voice was soft, and when I turned I found him already holding out a mug, steam curling up toward his weathered face. His dark eyes were warm as they rested on me, his lips curved in a small smile that made my heart do something complicated in my chest.
"Thank you." I wrapped my hands around the ceramic, letting the warmth seep into my palms. Our fingers brushed in the exchange, and I felt the contact all the way to my toes. "You didn't have to?—"
"Wanted to." Reid's voice was simple, certain. He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, the gesture so casual and intimate that it stole my breath. Then he turned backto his toast like nothing had happened, like touching me was the most natural thing in the world.
Maybe it was starting to be. I made my way to the table and slid into what had become my usual seat—between Reid's spot at the head and Kol's chair, across from Sawyer. The wood was worn smooth from years of use, and I found myself tracing the grain with my fingertip, marveling at all the meals that had happened here before me. All the conversations, the arguments, the laughter.
"Eggs are done!" Kol announced triumphantly, turning from the stove with a pan held aloft like a trophy. His apron was splattered with grease, his hair was sticking up in three different directions, and his grin was so wide it looked like it might split his face. "Only slightly burnt. Barely even noticeable."
"They're black on the bottom." Nolan peered into the pan, his green eyes crinkling with barely suppressed laughter. He was standing close to Kol, their shoulders almost touching, and I watched the easy way they moved around each other—years of familiarity in every gesture.
"That's not black, that's caramelized." Kol dumped the eggs onto a serving plate with a flourish, completely unrepentant. He set the plate on the table and dropped into his chair, immediately scooting it closer to mine until our elbows nearly touched. "Aster will back me up. Aster, tell them the eggs look delicious."
I looked at the eggs. They were definitely burnt on the bottom, the edges crispy and dark, the whole pile slightly lopsided where it had been scraped too aggressively from the pan.
"They look..." I searched for the right word, feeling four sets of eyes on me. "Enthusiastic." Sawyer made a sound that might have been a laugh—short and rough, barely more than a breath—and Kol let out a theatrical gasp, pressing his hand to his chest.
"Enthusiastic! She called my eggs enthusiastic!" His amber eyes were dancing with delight rather than offense, his whole body radiating warmth and good humor. "I'll take it. Enthusiastic is good. Enthusiastic means I tried."
