Chapter 28 #2
After dinner, we moved to the living room. I poured more wine, stalling, my hands trembling slightly as I set the glasses on the coffee table. The nest was upstairs. I could feel it like a heartbeat, calling me, terrifying me.
"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 their broken 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 place I 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 their acceptance.
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.
I took it, pressed my face into it, inhaled deeply. Pine and woodsmoke and the essence that was distinctly Harper. "Yes." The word came out broken, grateful, my arms clutching the pillow like a lifeline. "Please. More."
Remy scent-marked three pillows in quick succession, grinning when I clutched them to my chest like treasures.
Silas was more deliberate, choosing just one pillow—the one closest to where Gumbo had resettled in the doorway—and pressing his wrist to it slowly, thoroughly, his gaze on mine the whole time.
When they were done, the nest smelled like all of us. Like pack.
I was still crying a little, still purring a lot, and when Remy pulled me down onto the pile of pillows and blankets, I didn't resist. Harper settled behind me, his broad chest warm against my back.
Silas took the edge of the nest, one hand resting near my ankle, his body angled toward the door like a guardian.
Remy curled into my front, his forehead pressed to mine, his amber eyes soft and close.
"First cuddle pile," he murmured, his breath warm against my lips, one hand coming up to brush a tear from my cheek. "How am I doing?"
"Terrible." I laughed through my tears, the sound watery but real. "You talk too much."
"You love it." His smile was real, unguarded, beautiful, crinkling the corners of his amber eyes.
The purr hadn't stopped. If anything, it had gotten louder, and now there was an addition—a chirp, high and bright, that escaped my throat when Harper's hand settled on my hip. An Omega sound I'd never made before, pure contentment given voice.
"That sound," Harper rumbled against my hair, his chest vibrating with his own response, his arm tightening around my waist. "Make it again."
I chirped again, and all three of them rumbled in response, and suddenly I was laughing and crying at the same time, overwhelmed by the rightness of it all.
The instinct came over me without warning—ancient, undeniable.
I tilted my head back, baring my throat, offering the most vulnerable part of myself to three Alphas who had already proved they wouldn't hurt me.
Harper made a sound low in his chest and pressed his face to my neck first, breathing deeply, his lips brushing the sensitive skin but not biting.
Just scenting. Just claiming in the gentlest way possible.
Then Remy, nuzzling into the other side, his nose tracing a path from my jaw to my collarbone.
And finally Silas, who leaned over to press his forehead to the curve of my shoulder, breathing me in like I was air.
"Pack," I whispered, and the word felt like a vow, like a prayer, like coming home.
Harper's answer was a rumble against my throat, wordless agreement that I felt more than heard. Remy pressed his lips to my collarbone, breathing the word back to me in French—"Meute"—soft and reverent. Silas didn't speak. He just pressed closer, and that was answer enough.
Gumbo watched from the doorway, ancient and unimpressed, but he didn't hiss or growl or try to eat anyone. In his own way, that was a blessing.
We stayed like that for hours—drifting in and out of sleep, shifting positions, trading soft words and softer touches. At some point, Remy hummed a melody I didn't recognize, and Harper's breathing deepened into sleep, and Silas kept watch even as his body relaxed into the pile.
My nest. My pack. My home.
For the first time since Aunt Marguerite died, I wasn't alone anymore.