Epilogue
JUNE
Two Months Later
Iwake slowly, drifting up through layers of warmth and comfort like swimming toward the surface of a deep, still pool. The afternoon light filters through the curtains.
The bedroom is enormous. When we first moved in, the guys insisted on custom-ordering the biggest bed I’ve ever seen, large enough for all four of us to sleep side by side without anyone getting relegated to the foot of the mattress.
It dominates the room, draped in soft sheets and weighted blankets and more pillows than any reasonable person needs.
I’m tangled in those sheets now, my body twisted around them like I’ve been fighting in my sleep. Which, knowing the past few days, I probably have been.
Something has been wrong with me lately. Not wrong, exactly, but off. Different. I’ve been exhausted constantly. For the past three days, I’ve been sleeping more than I’ve been awake, dragging myself out of bed only when absolutely necessary before crawling back under the covers.
The only thing that seems to help is being in our bed surrounded by the scent of my Alphas, cuddling into every pillow and blanket and inch of fabric. Their scents settle something restless inside me.
I shift slightly, and my arm tightens around Kai’s body pillow pressed against my side. There are two others now, one with Carter’s image and one with Seth’s, all of them arranged around me in a configuration that probably looks ridiculous from the outside.
A nest, I realize suddenly. I’ve built myself a nest.
The thought should surprise me, but it doesn’t. It feels right and natural. When the guys come to bed at night, they toss the body pillows aside to make room for themselves. All except Kai, whom I once caught snuggling his own pillow with a completely unashamed grin on his face.
I smile at the memory, even through the fog of exhaustion still clinging to my brain. I stretch carefully.
I’m burning up, my skin radiating heat as though I’ve been lying in direct sunlight for hours. Even the light cotton of my sleep shirt feels unbearably heavy against my skin.
I kick off the blankets and immediately miss their weight. Then I pull them back up because I’m cold. Then I kick them off again because I’m too hot. The contradiction is maddening.
“What the hell?” I mutter, pushing myself up to sit.
The room tilts slightly before stabilizing, and I reach for the water bottle on the nightstand.
Someone has been keeping it filled for me, along with an array of snacks.
Chocolate. Cookies. Crackers and cheese.
Little things I can graze on when getting up feels like too much effort.
I drink deeply, but the water doesn’t help. If anything, it makes the inferno inside me worse, like I’m trying to cool a bonfire with a teaspoon.
Maybe we need another fan in here. Or to turn the air-conditioning down to arctic levels. Or to move to Alaska entirely.
I set the water bottle down and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. A shower, that’s what I need. So I get up and make it three steps before the first cramp hits.
It starts low in my belly, a dull ache that blooms into sharp, stabbing pain so quickly I don’t have time to brace for it. I double over with a gasp, my hands flying to my stomach, trying to press against the source of the agony.
“What the—”
Another cramp. Worse than the first. It feels like something is trying to claw its way out of me from the inside, and I stumble sideways, my shoulder hitting the wall hard enough to leave a bruise.
I can’t breathe or do anything except try to survive each wave of pain as it crashes over me.
“Oh God, what’s happening to me?”
I slide down the wall until I’m crouching on the floor, arms wrapped around my middle, gasping for air. The pain is everywhere now. Not just my stomach but my whole body, every nerve ending on fire, every muscle clenched tight against an onslaught I don’t understand.
I think this is what dying feels like.
Then a warming buzz spreads up my inner thighs. Hot and slick and unmistakable.
My hand moves without conscious thought, reaching between my legs, and when I pull it back, my fingers are coated in something thick and smooth. Something that glistens in the afternoon light.
Slick.
And suddenly everything makes sense. The exhaustion. The nesting. The fever that won’t break. The desperate need to surround myself with my Alphas’ scents.
My heat is finally here.
I let out a sound that’s half laugh, half sob, still crouched on the floor with my back against the wall. After all these weeks of waiting. Nights of lying awake wondering if I was broken, if I would ever experience what other Omegas take for granted, if my body would ever catch up with my heart.
Another cramp rips through me, and the relief is swallowed by a fresh wave of panic.
Because reading about heats and experiencing one are two entirely different things.
Nothing I read prepared me for this. The intensity.
The loss of control. The way my body has suddenly become a foreign country with its own laws and demands.
I stumble to the bathroom, leaving a trail of slick on the hardwood floor that I’ll be embarrassed about later. Right now, I don’t care. Right now, the only thing that matters is cooling down my body enough to function and finding the three men who can make this stop.
The shower is a blur. Cold water that does absolutely nothing to cool the fire under my skin. More slick sliding down my thighs almost as fast as I can wash it away. My hands shaking so badly I can barely hold the soap.
And underneath it all, a craving that’s growing stronger by the second. The desperate need to be filled and claimed and marked.
I dry myself as best I can, but my body isn’t cooperating. Slick keeps coming, soaking through the towel, and I’m trembling so hard my teeth are chattering. I wrap a fresh towel around myself and grip the bathroom counter, staring at my reflection in the mirror.
My eyes are glazed, cheeks are flushed, and my lips are parted, my breath coming in quick, shallow pants.
I look like a woman on the edge of losing control entirely.
Because I am.
I leave the bathroom and head for the stairs, moving as quickly as my unsteady legs will allow. Each step sends friction between my thighs, and the sensation is almost too much. I have to stop twice, bracing myself against the wall, fighting back moans that want to escape my throat.
“Where are you?” I call out. “You won’t believe—”
I don’t get to finish the sentence.
The three of them emerge from different parts of the house, converging on the living room with expressions of alarm.
Seth from the kitchen, Carter from the study, Kai from the yard.
They take one look at me, standing at the bottom of the stairs in nothing but a towel, flushed and trembling and barely holding myself together.
“What’s wrong?” Seth demands, already moving toward me. “June, what happened?”
I open my mouth to tell them. To explain that it’s finally here, that my heat has arrived, that I’m not broken after all. But what comes out instead is a moan, low and desperate, as another cramp doubles me over and sends a fresh wave of slick running down my thighs.
They’re at my side in seconds. All three of them, surrounding me, their hands reaching out to steady me. And the moment their skin touches mine, something inside me ignites.
Their nostrils flare simultaneously. I watch their pupils dilate as they inhale the scent pouring off me in waves. For a moment, nobody moves. Nobody breathes.
Then Kai’s face splits into a grin that’s equal parts delighted and predatory. “Oh, doll,” he breathes. “You’re priming yourself for us. Someone’s finally got their heat.”
“It’s insane,” I manage, but the words come out wrong, tangled up with a purr that rumbles through my chest without permission. “I don’t… I can’t…”
My body moves on its own. One hand fisting in Seth’s shirt, the other tangling in Carter’s hair, pulling them both closer with a strength I didn’t know I possessed. I need them like I crave air.
“Do something,” I moan. “Please. Before I die.”
“You’re not going to die,” Carter explains calmly.
“It sure feels like it,” I blurt out.
“We knew it would come,” Seth adds, his hands finding my waist, steadying me when my knees threaten to buckle. “Just had to be patient.”
“Patience is overrated,” Kai declares. “And so is this towel.”
He tugs at the fabric, and it slips away before I can protest. Not that I want anything except their hands on my skin, their mouths on my body, their cocks inside me.
“Oh my God.” The words tear out of me as a fresh wave of need crashes through my system. “If you don’t stop talking and take me now, I’m going to explode. Why does my body feel like this?”
The three of them exchange glances as they stare at me up and down. There’s hunger there, raw and undeniable. They’re holding themselves back, I realize, waiting to ensure I’m okay.
“It’s your first heat,” Carter says gently. “Your body is adjusting. The intensity will even out, but right now—”
“Right now I need you all to fuck me, or I’m going to lose my mind!” I’m reaching for them with shaky hands.
Kai scoops me up before I can say another word. His arms are strong around me, cradling me against his chest, and I bury my face in his neck and breathe him in.
“Let’s begin in the bedroom,” he instructs, already moving toward the stairs. “Then we can work our way through the rest of the house. Christen every room properly.”
Carter and Seth follow close behind, shedding clothes as they go. I catch glimpses of bare chests, defined muscles, cocks already hard and erect. Fuck, I need them now.
“Why would you say that?” I gasp, even as my mouth finds Kai’s pulse point and my teeth scrape against his skin.
“Darlin’,” Seth drawls from somewhere behind us, “heats can last anywhere from a day to a week. And the whole time, you’re going to want one of us inside you. Claiming you.”