21. Chapter Twenty-Two #4
I moved into it anyway. Luca’s scent was strongest around me now, sandalwood and herbs worked into my skin and the blanket covering us.
Malek’s cedar-and-rain scent remained faintly at my back, while traces of Tavian lingered on the little gifts sitting on the shelf and the camera strap in the next room.
My own scent had worked into the pillows and blankets too, leaving the sleeping space smelling different from when I had first walked into it.
“Sleep.” Luca murmured as his fingers moved slowly through my hair and his purr continued beneath my ear.
“You’re very bossy too.” I muttered to Luca, already struggling to keep my eyes open.
“I learned from Malek.” Luca answered, amusement slipping into his voice.
“That is a terrible excuse.” I told Luca as I shifted my cheek more comfortably against his chest.
“I thought it was convincing.” Luca replied before pressing a kiss to the top of my head.
“It wasn’t.” I answered Luca, although the word came out around a yawn. I fell asleep with Luca’s purr beneath my cheek, Malek’s shirt tucked against my back, and Tavian’s ridiculous little gifts sitting close enough to reach.
When I woke, pale morning light had only begun working through the shutters, turning the room from black to a dim gray-green.
For several seconds, I stayed exactly where I was, listening to Luca’s slow breathing and the first calls of birds outside the temple walls.
His hair had come completely free during the night, dark strands scattered across the pillow and one cheek, and sometime in the early hours his knot had softened enough for us to separate without either of us waking fully.
I shifted carefully and felt something crinkle behind me.
Malek’s shirt was tucked against my back where Luca had put it the night before.
His blanket had twisted around my legs, another pillow was pressed close against my other side, and my overnight shirt had somehow ended up beneath my cheek.
One of Luca’s smaller blankets had joined the collection during the night, although I had no memory of pulling it over.
Tavian’s green seed and tiny shell were still sitting on the shelf within easy reach.
I stared at the arrangement for several long seconds. My things were mixed with theirs, soft fabric tucked around nearly every side of my body, and each object I had moved the night before had ended up exactly where it felt most comfortable.
Then it clicked.
“Oh.” I whispered to myself as warmth crept into my face.
I had made a nest. Not exactly the same as tucking Malek’s shirt beside my pillow at the station.
I had known what I was doing then. That had been one familiar scent placed somewhere that made sleeping easier, the beginning of something I had consciously recognized even if I hadn’t wanted to think too hard about what it meant.
This had happened without me deciding to do it.
Malek’s shirt at my back. Luca’s blanket around me. Tavian’s little gifts close enough to reach. My clothes and pillows arranged between all of it until I had surrounded myself with pieces connected to all three of them.
In their home.
Apparently, sometime between lying down and falling asleep, my Omega instincts had decided one Alpha’s shirt beside my pillow wasn’t enough anymore. Luca’s eyes opened beside me, unfocused with sleep for the first couple of seconds.
“What?” Luca asked sleepily, his voice rough while the arm around my waist tightened instinctively before relaxing again.
“Nothing.” I answered Luca as I pulled the blanket slightly higher, which did absolutely nothing to hide the evidence around me and probably made me look guiltier. His gaze followed mine over Malek’s shirt, the blankets, my clothing, and Tavian’s ridiculous gifts before returning to my face.
The corner of his mouth started to lift.
“Do not.” I warned Luca, pointing at him from beneath the blanket before he could make whatever comment was threatening to appear.
“I didn’t say anything.” Luca answered as he pressed his lips together, although his green-gold eyes were far too amused for the innocent face he was attempting.
“You were about to.” I accused Luca, keeping my finger pointed at him.
“I was going to ask what time it is.” Luca replied as he settled more comfortably against the pillow, visibly fighting his smile.
I grabbed my watch from the low shelf.
Six seventeen. The time pushed at least some of the embarrassment aside because I had an actual reason to stop staring at the evidence of my own instincts.
“I need to work.” I told Luca as I pushed myself higher against the pillows, listening to the birds becoming steadily more active outside. “Morning light was half the reason I stayed out here.”
“You have time.” Luca answered as he checked the watch from where he lay beside me. “But probably not enough to spend twenty minutes glaring at me.”
“I could manage both.” I told Luca, although my gaze had already shifted toward the shutters and the increasingly bright strip of morning visible through them.
“I believe you.” Luca replied, his sleepy smile finally escaping when I continued glaring anyway.
I stayed beside him for another five minutes, maybe seven, which was different from going back to sleep no matter how comfortable I had become.
By six thirty-five, I was dressed, my hair pulled into a quick braid, and my camera was back in my hands.
Luca walked with me as far as the trail leading toward the upper stream before stopping.
He had already learned enough about the way I worked to understand that having someone directly behind me made wildlife photography considerably harder, so after pointing out the quickest route back to the temple, he left me to it.
The early light was worth the overnight.
I reached the upper stream while the canopy was still holding onto the softer light that disappeared once the sun climbed higher.
A motmot settled on an exposed branch above the water, the growing sunlight catching the green and blue in its feathers without washing out the darker forest behind it.
Farther upstream, a pair of toucans moved through fruiting branches while I worked from the edge of the bank, giving me several usable frames before disappearing deeper into the canopy.
An agouti appeared between the buttress roots a little later, moving cautiously through the leaf litter before stopping near the water long enough for me to get several photographs.
I stayed low and still until it continued into the undergrowth, then shifted farther along the bank as the sunlight began reaching through wider gaps above me.
For nearly an hour, everything else returned to the familiar rhythm of work—watching movement, adjusting for light, waiting, and changing position whenever the angle stopped working.
This was what I had been missing from the assignment.
Not simply different animals, but the upper stream before full daylight changed the shadows and flattened some of the depth I had been trying to capture.
By the time I headed back toward the temple, I had enough new frames on the memory card to know Mara’s overnight suggestion had been worth it. A little before eight, I returned to find Luca in the cooking area with breakfast already waiting and my empty overnight bag sitting nearby.
“You packed my bag?” I asked Luca as I stopped in the doorway, looking from him to the bag before giving him a suspicious look.
“No.” Luca answered as he set a bowl on the table. “I brought it out here so you could pack it.”