The low lights Ren had me string up hours ago, warm and golden instead of harsh and white. The white fabric draped from the ceiling, creating a canopy around the couch. The cushions and blankets and pillows in a cozy pile in front of it. The spread of food—unpretentious, comforting, unmistakably us.
Just… a pack. If my pack were allowed to exist without duty strangling it.
Ren wrings her hands again, nerves creeping back in now that the room has gone quiet. “I, um. I know this isn’t exactly… standard. Not what you’re used to.” She sounds apologetic.
I feel it then. A shift.
The way all four alphas subtly turn toward her, becoming their whole focus. The way the air changes, pressure building without a single scent or sound. They can see what I do. The nerves. The fear of this not being good enough for us, for them. She’s bracing for their judgment.
And that?
That makes something in my chest ache.
Forsythe takes a step forward, breaking the moment before it can curdle into the self-doubt she and I have been battling all day. He reaches out—not touching her—but close enough that she stills, her attention snapping to him.
His voice is calm. Warm. Curious. But also slightly demanding, as though he knows she needs someone else to take control for a moment.
His lips twitch into the barest of smiles, his eyes never straying from her face. “Now, then, omega,” her breath hitches, just a little at the word, “tell us what you have planned.”
And the storm outside chooses that exact moment to thunder its approval.
Episode 27: Blanket Forts and Broken Rules
“Now then, omega, tell us what you have planned,” Forsythe orders, but gently. Like he can tell I need someone else to be in control, but I also need a soft hand.
Uncertainty floods my system. I had been so sure that this was the right move. That this is what they needed as a pack. But now I’m doubting my instincts.
Well, I’ve been doubting them all day.
I look at the pile of carefully arranged pillows and blankets, the canopy hanging from the ceiling around the couch blocking out the rest of the room, then over to the food spread out on the small counter. “It's… it's not much,” I say, shifting my weight nervously. “I just thought… I imagined you might get tired ofgoing out, of always being on, you know. Especially now. Here. Where none of us really get a break.”
I glance around at them, still feeling uncertain as hell, and wishing I had more confidence that this is the right move. Though at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter.
This was my date night. And this is what I wanted to do with them.
“So I know that a lot of the other omegas have planned really fancy dates, helicopter rides and five star meals and limos and nights to the opera or whatever… but to me all of that is just… noise. Not important. When you’re a part of a pack,” I hope they don’t notice how my voice cracks on the word pack, how my chin wants to wobble, because I’m realizing more and more that a pack isn’t something that will ever be in my future. No matter how much I might want it to be. Because now that I’ve metthispack—one that is so fucking far out of my league, that I know will never be mine—I’m pretty sure I’m never going to find one that compares. Ever. “When you’re part of a pack, the times that matter the most are when you’re all together, when you can just relax and be yourself. When it’s okay to be a little aggro about losing at Mario Kart or being greedy and eating all of the peanut butter M&Ms. Let your mask slip and be real for once.”
I wave a hand at the pillow fort weakly. “And I’m an omega so I couldn't resist adding pillows and blankets to the mix.” I really fucking hope that they don’t read this as me building a nest for us, even if I’d attacked this set up with the same obsessiveness I set up my little closet nest at home. They don’t need to know that. But I’m pretty sure I’ll have a meltdown if even one of them scoffs at the fort.
No matter how much I tell my omega side that this pack is not mine, she just will not listen.
Courtland wanders over to the fort looking down at the bundles of fabric tied with ribbon lined up at its entrance. “These for us?”
My cheeks flare bright pink, and I fidget with my fingers in front of me. “Ye-Yes. I um, I actually made them for you.”
When no one moves to open them, I scurry over to the bundles and start to hand them out. Each of the alphas take them, but don’t make a move to open them, like they’re waiting for me to give them the go ahead to open them.
When I shove a package at Piers his brows jump in surprise. “For me?”
I flick my eyes up to the camera in the corner. I want to tell him he’s part of the pack too, so of course he should get a present, but for whatever reason they want to keep that under wraps and so I just smile at him and nod.
When I turn around the rest of the pack is just staring at me, expressions I can’t quite decipher on their faces.
I flap a hand. “Open them.”
When they look at the presents and away from me, I let out a relieved breath. I’ve avoided having all of their attention fixed solely on me for most of the show. There have only been a few instances, but this, this close proximity, the smaller space, the intimate setting?
It’s too much.
