Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
AVA
Something was wrong with me.
Not the usual wrongness, not the anger or the fear or the constant thrum of awareness that came from being bonded to four Alphas I hadn't chosen. This was different. Physical. A crawling discomfort under my skin that I couldn't shake no matter what I did.
I couldn't settle. The couch was wrong. Too exposed, too open.
The bed in the room they'd given me felt empty and cold without walls of softness around me.
Even the corners I kept finding myself in, tucked behind the armchair, pressed into the space between the bookshelf and the wall, weren't right.
Nothing was right.
I'd destroyed my nest.
I'd torn it apart in a fit of defiance almost a week ago, ripped through the blankets and pillows and soft things I'd arranged just so, scattered them across the room like they meant nothing. Like I didn't need them. Like I didn't need the safety they represented.
Stupid. So fucking stupid.
Now the absence of it was a physical ache in my chest. My Omega instincts screamed at me constantly, unsafe, exposed, vulnerable, no den, no territory, nowhere to hide, and I couldn't make them stop.
Couldn't reason with biology. Couldn't pretend I was fine when every cell in my body was begging for a safe space that no longer existed.
I tried to ignore it. Tried to push through the discomfort, the anxiety, the constant low-level panic that hummed beneath my skin.
I was stronger than my instincts. I had to be.
On the third day, I found myself wedged into the corner of the closet in my room, knees pulled to my chest, rocking slightly without meaning to.
I didn't even remember walking in here. One moment I'd been trying to read on the couch, the next I was in the dark, surrounded by clothes that didn't smell like anyone, shaking.
This was pathetic. I was pathetic.
The door opened and light spilled in. I flinched, pressing further into the corner, some primal part of me snarling at the intrusion even as I recognized Caleb's massive silhouette in the doorway.
He didn't say anything. Didn't ask what I was doing crouched in the closet like a wounded animal.
Just looked at me with those ice-blue eyes, something soft and understanding in his scarred face.
Then he left. I stayed in the closet for another hour before I could make myself move.
Things started appearing after that.
A worn flannel shirt draped over the arm of the couch where I usually sat. I recognized it as Caleb's, soft from years of washing, saturated with his scent of cedar and woodsmoke. I told myself I wouldn't touch it. Told myself I didn't need it.
I was wearing it within the hour, the fabric wrapped around my shoulders like armor, his scent filling my lungs with every breath.
A blanket showed up next, folded neatly at the foot of my bed.
This one smelled like Leo, leather and spice and something wild.
I found myself pressing my face into it before I could stop myself, breathing deep, some of the tension in my shoulders finally easing.
Then a sweater. Ethan's. Clean and soft, smelling faintly of old books and something herbal.
I added it to my growing pile without thinking.
A pillow appeared on the chair in the corner.
Mason's pillow, from his bed, drenched in honey and smoke and Alpha.
I clutched it to my chest while I pretended to watch TV, refusing to acknowledge what I was doing.
No one said anything. Not when I started hoarding the items like a dragon guarding treasure.
Not when I dragged them from room to room, unable to let them out of my sight.
Not when I arranged them around myself on the couch, building tiny walls of softness that weren't a nest, weren't, I wasn't nesting, I was just.. .
Fuck.
I was nesting.
The realization hit me on the fifth day, when I caught myself growling — actually growling — when Leo got too close to my pile of stolen comfort items. He'd reached for his blanket, probably wanting it back, and the sound that came out of my throat was pure Omega: territorial, possessive, mine.
Leo froze, his hazel eyes going wide. Then a slow grin spread across his face.
"Easy, Red," Leo said, pulling his hand back, both palms raised in surrender. "I'm not taking anything. Just wanted to add to the collection."
He held up another blanket, this one thick and soft, the kind you could sink into. He set it down carefully at the edge of my pile, like he was making an offering at a shrine.
"There," Leo said, still grinning. "Tribute paid.
Don't bite me." I should have been mortified.
Should have shoved the pile away, rejected the gift, reminded him that I wasn't some feral Omega who needed a den to feel safe.
Instead I snatched the blanket and pulled it into my arms, burying my face in the softness, breathing in his scent.
Leo's grin softened into something else. Something tender.
"You know," Leo said quietly, watching me clutch his offering, "there's a whole room upstairs with a proper nesting space. Big enough for all of us. Just sitting there empty."
I didn't answer, didn't trust myself to speak.
He left without pushing. They all did. They kept leaving things for me, more blankets, more pillows, worn clothes that smelled like them, and they never once acknowledged what was happening.
Never forced the issue. Never made me admit that I needed this, needed them, needed a safe space that smelled like pack.
But on the seventh day, I broke.
The compulsion was overwhelming.
I woke up with my hands already moving, gathering blankets, arranging pillows, my body operating on pure instinct while my mind screamed at me to stop. I couldn't stop. The need was too strong, too primal, too deeply encoded in whatever part of my brain made me Omega instead of Beta or Alpha.
I needed a nest and I needed it now. I would die without it.
I didn't go to the nesting room Leo had mentioned.
That felt like too much of a concession, too obvious an admission of what I was doing.
Instead I claimed the corner of my bedroom, the space between the wall and the window where the morning light fell soft and warm.
I dragged everything with me. Every blanket, every pillow, every piece of clothing I'd hoarded over the past week. I piled them high, arranged them just so, wove them together into walls of softness that blocked out the world and created a space that was mine, only mine, safe.
The whole time I was building, I was keening.
The sound came from somewhere deep in my chest — a high, thin cry of distress and relief tangled together, embarrassingly Omega, impossible to suppress.
I keened while I fluffed pillows and smoothed blankets, while I adjusted the walls for the hundredth time, making them higher, stronger, better.
I keened while my hands shook and my eyes burned with tears I refused to let fall.
I was vaguely aware of them watching.
They stood in the doorway — all four of them, a wall of Alpha males observing their Omega build her den. I should have felt self-conscious. Should have stopped, told them to leave, hidden my weakness behind walls of defiance and anger.
I couldn't. The compulsion was too strong. The nest was too important. Nothing mattered except making this space perfect, making it safe, making it mine.
They didn't interfere. Didn't offer to help. Didn't even speak.
Nest was Omega territory. They knew better than to intrude.
Finally — finally — it was done.
I crawled inside, pulled the walls up around me, and curled into a ball at the center of my creation. The keening stopped. The shaking stopped. For the first time in a week, the screaming wrongness in my chest went quiet.
I was safe. I lay there for a long time, just breathing. In and out. Slow and steady. Surrounded by softness, enveloped in warmth, protected by walls I'd built with my own hands.
Then I noticed something. Everything smelled like them.
Caleb's flannel was beneath my head, his cedar-and-woodsmoke scent filling my nose with every breath.
Leo's blanket was wrapped around my body, leather and spice and wild things.
Ethan's sweater cushioned my feet, old books and herbs.
Mason's pillow was clutched to my chest, honey and smoke and Alpha.
I'd built my nest from their things. Filled my safe space with their scents.
Created a den that was supposed to be mine, only mine, and saturated every inch of it with them.
The realization should have horrified me.
Should have sent me tearing through the blankets again, destroying what I'd built, rejecting their presence in my most private space.
Instead, I burrowed deeper. Breathed in their mingled scents. Let them surround me, fill me, hold me even though they weren't touching me.
My nest smelled like pack.
Like home. I don't know how long I lay there before I heard him.
"Ava." Mason's voice, low and careful, coming from somewhere near the door. I peeked over the wall of my nest and found him standing at the threshold, not entering, just... waiting.
"May we come in?" Mason asked. He was asking. The leader of the pack, the most dominant Alpha I'd ever met, was asking permission to enter my territory. Respecting my space. Acknowledging that here, in my nest, I had power.
I should have said no. Should have kept this one thing for myself, proven that I could still maintain boundaries, still resist them, still be something other than their kept Omega. I was so tired. And I was so lonely. And my nest, for all its warmth and softness, felt incomplete without them in it.
"Yes," I whispered.