"Artemis." Harper's voice was soft, and when I looked up, his gray eyes were steady on mine. "You don't have to do anything you're not ready for."
"I know." I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling suddenly small, my shoulders hunching like I could protect the vulnerable thing inside my chest. "But I want to. I want you to see—" I stopped, swallowed hard against the lump in my throat. "There's something I want to show you. Upstairs."
The three of them exchanged glances—quick, wordless communication that was starting to feel familiar. Then Harper stood, and the others followed, and I led them up the narrow staircase to the room I'd never shown anyone.
My nest.
I'd converted Aunt Marguerite's old sewing room into something that was entirely mine. Fairy lights strung along the ceiling cast everything in a warm golden glow. A daybed piled with pillows and blankets in jewel tones—emerald, sapphire, amber, amethyst. A reading corner with an overstuffed chair and a stack of books I'd read so many times the spines were cracked. And on the small table by the window, wrapped in silk the color of moonlight, Marguerite's tarot deck.
I stopped in the doorway, suddenly unable to move. "This is—I've never shown anyone this. Ever." My voice came out smaller than I intended, barely above a whisper. "It's where I go when the world gets too loud. When I need to feel safe."
They stood behind me, and I could feel their scents shifting—protective and tender mixing with the ever-present Alpha musk. No one spoke. No one pushed.
"You can come in." I stepped inside, my bare feet silent on the worn rug, my pulse loud in my ears. "If you want."
Harper entered first, moving slowly, carefully, like he was approaching sacred ground. His gaze swept the room, taking in every detail—the fairy lights, the pillows, the books with theirbroken spines. When he spotted the silk-wrapped tarot deck, recognition flickered across his face. Understanding, maybe. Or reverence.
Remy followed, and I watched his performer's mask slip away entirely as he looked around. "Chère," he breathed, the word catching in his throat. "It's beautiful. It's so completely you."
Silas came last, and he didn't look at the room at all. He looked at me—really looked, the way he always did, like he was reading a language written beneath my skin. Then he walked to the corner where Gumbo had somehow materialized and settled on the floor beside the gator, cross-legged, quiet, claiming nothing.
"The cards were my aunt's." I moved to the table, my fingers tracing the silk wrapping. "Marguerite. She taught me to read when I was fourteen, right after I came to live with her."
Harper nodded, moving to stand beside me but not touching, giving me space even as his presence warmed my side. They knew the story—I'd told them about my parents, about being kicked out at sixteen. But knowing and seeing were different things.
I unwrapped the deck slowly, the silk whispering against my fingers like a secret being told. The cards were old, worn soft at the edges from decades of use. "This was her sewing room. After she died, I..." I traced the edge of the Death card—transformation, not ending, she'd always said. "I needed somewhere that felt safe. Somewhere that was just mine."
"And you built this." Remy's voice was soft, awed, as he looked around at the fairy lights, the pillows, the careful arrangement of comfort. "All of this."
"It's the first place that ever felt like home." My voice cracked, and I hated how vulnerable it sounded. "The first placeI wasn't a problem to be solved or a disappointment to be hidden."
Harper's hands curled into fists at his sides, the knuckles going white. Even knowing the story, hearing it here—in the space I'd built from the wreckage of my childhood—hit different. His scent spiked with that familiar protective fury.
"Fils de pute." Remy's curse was soft this time, more grief than anger. His gaze had gone dark, his scent sharp with emotion. "Every time I think about what they did to you..."
"They were wrong." Silas's voice came from the corner, quiet but absolute, like he was stating a law of the universe. He hadn't moved from his spot beside Gumbo, but his pale gaze was fixed on me with an intensity that made my chest ache. "And you built something beautiful from it."
The simplicity of it broke a dam inside me. Not pity, not rage on my behalf—just acknowledgment of what I'd survived and what I'd made from the ruins.
Harper moved then, closing the distance between us, and his hand came up to cup my face so gently I almost couldn't feel it. "You deserve this," he said, his voice rough, his gray eyes bright with emotion. "A nest. A pack. People who see you and stay." His thumb traced my cheekbone. "We're not going anywhere."
The first tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it. Harper caught it with his thumb, and then Remy was there too, his hand warm on my lower back, and Silas had risen from his corner to stand with them, a solid wall of Alpha surrounding me.
"We see you." Remy's voice was thick, his accent heavier than usual, his hand rubbing slow circles on my lower back. "All of you. This place you built, this life you made—it's beautiful, chère. You're beautiful. And we're honored you let us in."
A sound escaped my throat—half laugh, half sob—and then I was crying in earnest, years of grief and loneliness and carefully maintained walls crumbling under the weight of theiracceptance. Harper pulled me against his chest, and I felt Remy's arms wrap around me from behind, and then Silas's hand was on my shoulder, grounding and solid. Three Alphas holding me together while I fell apart, their scents mingling into warmth that smelled like safety, like home, like pack.
I don't know how long we stood there. Long enough for the tears to slow. Long enough for my breathing to steady. Long enough for the purr to start in my chest—unbidden, unstoppable, a sound I hadn't made in years.
"Is that—" Remy's voice was wondering, awed, his hand stilling on my back. "Chère, are you purring?" The delight in his voice made me purr louder.
I nodded against Harper's chest, too overwhelmed to be embarrassed. The purr rumbled through me, and I felt answering vibrations from all three of them—deep Alpha rumbles that harmonized with mine, creating a resonance I felt in my bones.
"The pillows." The words came out without permission, muffled against Harper's shirt, my fingers curling into the fabric. "Will you—I want—" I couldn't finish the sentence, but somehow they understood.
We moved to the daybed together, a tangle of limbs and warmth and mingled scents. I pulled the pillows close, and one by one, they took them—pressing their faces into the fabric, rubbing their cheeks against the softness, leaving their scents behind. Marking my nest as theirs. As ours.
"This okay?" Harper asked, holding a pillow he'd just scent-marked, offering it to me like a question, like a gift, his gray eyes soft with something that looked like hope.
