“That’s not a thing.”
“It’s a thing now.”
Somehow, I end up sandwiched between all three of them in the middle of the kitchen. Lucas’s arms around my waist. Theo’s chin on my shoulder. Nate’s hand in my hair.
Pack. Family. Home.
“I love you,” I say. “All of you.”
“Always,” Theo says.
“Always,” Lucas agrees.
Nate doesn’t say anything. Just holds me tighter.
Outside, Mr. Darcy meows pointedly, annoyed that his favorite human is occupied. The dishes are still half-done. Somewhere in the distance, a coyote howls.
None of it matters.
I’m home. I’m theirs.
And this time, I’m not running anywhere.
Epilogue
Cara
Four months ago, I forgot to take my contraceptive pill.
Best mistake I ever made.
Now I’m sixteen weeks pregnant, finally able to eat breakfast without my stomach staging a revolt, and watching my three alphas argue about window measurements through the kitchen window.
The morning light catches the sawdust in Nate’s dark hair as he measures a board for the third time. Lucas has his arms crossed, gesturing at something with the sharp precision of a man who’s never been wrong about an angle in his life. And Theo—Theo’s laughing, shoving Lucas’s shoulder, completely unbothered by the accusation that his work is “three degrees off center.”
The past two months have been a blur of saltines, ginger tea, and Nate holding my hair back at 3 AM while Lucas monitored my temperature and Theo hovered in the doorway looking like he might cry. But this morning I’m eating scrambled eggs, and the nausea that’s been my constant companion has finally, mercifully, eased.
Progress.
“You’re sure you’re feeling okay?” Lucas appears in the kitchen doorway, wiping his hands on a rag. His scent reaches me before he does—bergamot and cedar, clean and steady. It wraps around me like a familiar blanket, and I feel my shoulders relax.
“I’m fine.”
He crosses to the table and sits across from me, still in his old t-shirt and jeans from the construction work. There’s a smudge of dirt on his jaw that I don’t mention because he’d immediately go wash it off. “Your iron was low at your last appointment.”
“Lucas.”
“You should have spinach with that.” He nods toward my plate, already calculating nutritional values in his head. I can practically see him running the numbers.
“Lucas.”
“I’m just saying.” But he reaches across the table and squeezes my hand, his thumb brushing over my knuckles. Through the bond, I feel his concern—a low, steady hum beneath everything else. He worries. It’s what he does. I’ve learned to find it endearing instead of suffocating.
The back door opens and Theo shuffles in, still looking half-asleep despite having been outside for an hour already. His hair is sticking up in twelve different directions, there’s dirt on his knees, and he’s wearing a faded Holt Nursery t-shirt that’s seen better days.
His scent fills the kitchen—green and growing things, sunshine and fresh soil. It mingles with Lucas’s bergamot until the whole room smells likethem. Like pack. Like home.
He drops a kiss on my head as he passes, one hand smoothing over my belly. “How’s my little sprout this morning?”
