24. Calliope
Calliope
The first sound that wakes me is fabric dragging over the floor. I lie still beneath Sloane’s arm and listen while the sound comes again, soft and determined, followed by a quiet thump and the little huff Theo makes when something refuses to cooperate.
Sloane is hot against my back, one thigh hooked over mine and his face buried in the curve of my neck. He’s been running warm all evening, cedar and brown sugar thick in the room, his hands drifting even in sleep like his body can’t remember how to stop checking that I’m there.
Idris is on the other side of the bed, not asleep the way Sloane is asleep, with one hand resting near my hip and his breathing too measured for true rest. His eyes open before I’ve done more than shift beneath Sloane’s arm, clear and immediate in the dark.
“Princess,” Idris says softly, his hand settling at my waist. “What did you hear?”
“Shuffling.” I peel Sloane’s arm up carefully, but he only tightens it and makes a low sound against my skin. “Theo, I think.”
Sloane’s mouth brushes the back of my shoulder. His voice comes out sleep-rough, and the single word is already half growl. “Theo?”
“I’m going to check.” I turn enough to kiss whatever part of him is closest, which ends up being his cheekbone. “Stay here for two minutes before you come charging down the hall.”
Sloane snorts like I’ve said something insulting, but Idris touches two fingers to the back of his hand and keeps him from following immediately. I feel the quiet command pass between them without a word, and Sloane grumbles into my pillow while he lets me go.
The hallway is dark except for the soft spill of light from Theo’s room.
His door is open halfway, and the shuffling grows clearer as I get close: blankets whispering over the floor, a drawer opening and shutting with a careful click, Theo breathing through the kind of concentration that makes the rest of the world disappear.
When I reach the doorway, I stop with one hand on the frame. Theo has taken the room apart.
The bed is stripped down to the fitted sheet, and every blanket, sweater, pillow, and stolen piece of the pack has been dragged into the center of the room.
He’s building something wide and low across the rug, bigger than the closet nest, bigger than the sunroom bench, with one of Idris’ dark throws spread flat underneath and Sloane’s sweatshirt bunched into a warm wall near the back.
A shirt I recognize as Garrett’s is folded near the left side, precise in a way that tells me Theo handled it carefully. One of my soft old sweaters sits near the middle, not buried or hidden, but placed.
Theo looks up when he sees me. His hair is a mess, his cheeks are flushed, and his eyes are bright with that near-heat shine that makes every instinct in the house lean toward him, but he smiles like I’m arriving exactly where he meant to put me.
“Callie,” he says.
I step inside, keeping my voice low. “Hi, Star.”
He pats the place beside my sweater. “Here.”
I look at the nest again, then back at him. “What are you doing?”
“Nest.” He says it like I’ve asked him why the sky is dark at night, then pats the spot again with more insistence. “Here.”
My chest goes soft enough to ache. “You want me there?”
Theo nods, curls falling into his eyes. “You.”
I cross the room slowly, stepping over the corner of a blanket and the pair of socks Sloane has been missing since Monday.
Theo watches every movement, his fingers twisting in the edge of my sweater until I sit where he pointed, and the second I’m down, he exhales like something painful has finally unlocked.
“There?” I ask, trying not to smile too hard.
He considers me very seriously, then catches my ankle and tucks it farther into the nest. After that, he takes the throw behind me and pulls it up around my shoulders with careful little tugs. “There.”
“Bossy tonight,” I murmur, and my laugh comes out soft because his face is too earnest for teasing to land hard.
Theo’s mouth curves. “Yes.”
The warmth moving through me has nothing to do with the blankets.
He doesn’t look frightened, and he doesn’t look like he’s hiding.
He looks focused, fever-bright, and pleased with himself in a way I haven’t seen enough from him, and when he crawls closer to press his cheek against my knee, I put my hand near his hair without touching until he nudges into it.
A shadow fills the doorway a minute later. Sloane leans there in sleep pants and nothing else, hair wrecked, eyes dark, and every inch of him already awake now that he’s found me on the floor with Theo.
His gaze drops to the nest, then to my sweater in the middle of it, then to Theo’s cheek against my knee. His scent rolls into the room, heavy and warm, and Theo lifts his head like Sloane’s presence has pulled on some invisible thread inside him.
“Well,” Sloane says, voice still rough from sleep. “Someone’s been busy.”
Theo reaches for him. “Sloane.”
“Yeah, sweetheart.” Sloane pushes away from the doorframe, but he stops at the edge of the nest instead of stepping in. His eyes flick to mine for half a second, and beneath the sleepy heat, I see the question. “You want me in there too?”
Theo nods, then points behind me. “Callie.”
Sloane’s face changes so fast it almost hurts. The rut-edge in him doesn’t soften, but something under it melts completely, and he steps into the nest like Theo has just offered him something holy.
He lowers himself behind me, one knee on either side of my hips, and his chest is hot against my back before he even settles fully. His arms slide around my waist, his mouth brushing my hair, and the low sound he makes has my toes curling against the blanket.
“Look at you,” he murmurs. “Got yourself placed like treasure.”
I laugh, helpless and quiet. “Don’t start.”
“I didn’t start anything.” His mouth brushes my shoulder, then the side of my neck, soft enough to tickle. “The bossy little menace did.”
Theo makes a pleased sound and tugs Sloane’s hand until it rests over the blanket across my stomach. Sloane follows every direction like Theo has handed down sacred law, though his mouth keeps moving against my neck until my laugh catches and thins.
“Sloane,” I warn, tilting my head even while I try to make the warning sound convincing.
His teeth graze the place just below my ear. “What, baby?”
The second kiss isn’t meant to make me laugh. It lands slower, warmer, with his arm tightening across my ribs and his body curling around mine like he plans to take root there, and my breath changes before I can stop it.
Sloane smiles against my skin because he feels the exact second the laughter leaves me. Theo watches the movement of Sloane’s mouth on my neck with wide, hungry eyes, and something inside me answers before anyone asks for it.
Idris appears in the doorway without a sound. He has pulled on loose pants but not a shirt, and his hair is still sleep-rumpled in a way he’ll deny if anyone mentions it.
His gaze moves over the room once: the stripped bed, the nest, Theo flushed and proud near my knee, Sloane wrapped around me and already too scent-heavy for anyone’s good sense.
Then his eyes come to mine, and something in my chest settles because he doesn’t look surprised.
He looks like the room has handed him a puzzle and he already understands the shape.
“Theo,” Idris says, low and even. “Color?”
“Green.” Theo answers quickly, then reaches toward him. “Idris. Here.”
Idris steps in at once. “Where do you want me?”
Theo looks around the nest, frowning with concentration. He pats the space near my legs first, then changes his mind and points closer to Sloane’s side, where Idris can reach all of us. “There.”
“There,” Idris agrees, and the faint smile in his voice makes my throat tighten.
He settles where Theo points, close enough for one hand to rest at my ankle and the other to brush Theo’s shoulder.
The pressure in the room changes again, not heavier, but held, with Sloane’s mouth still at my neck, Theo’s cheek against my knee, and Idris’s thumb moving once over my ankle like he’s counting my pulse through skin.
Theo turns toward the door before any of us hear the next footsteps. “Garrett.”
I go still for half a second before I can help it. Sloane’s arms tighten around me, not enough to restrain, only enough to say he felt it, and Idris’ eyes flick up, sharp and unreadable, as Garrett appears in the doorway in a dark robe over sleep clothes, his hair slightly mussed for once.
Garrett takes in the room more slowly than Idris did.
His gaze lingers on Theo first, then on the nest, then on Sloane’s arms around me and Idris’s hand at my ankle, and when he looks back to Theo, his expression softens in that head-Alpha way that has made the house feel steadier a hundred times before.
“You called?” Garrett asks.
Theo nods and pats the space on his other side, the one away from me. “Here.”
Garrett doesn’t look at me for permission, and he doesn’t look at Sloane for challenge. He looks at Theo, because Theo is the one who asked. “Color?”
“Green.”
Then Garrett enters the nest.
He moves with more care than I expect, lowering himself on Theo’s other side and letting Theo arrange him with a flushed little huff of concentration. Garrett’s robe brushes my calf as he settles, close enough that his mint and leather slides into the warm tangle of Sloane, Idris, Theo, and me.
Theo sits between us, one shoulder angled toward Garrett and one knee pressed against my thigh, and for a moment, no one moves. This is the shape Theo wanted: Garrett on one side of him, me on the other, Sloane behind me, Idris close enough to touch all the seams.
Theo looks around at all of us, cheeks pink, eyes shining, and whispers, “Stay.”
Sloane’s breath leaves him against my neck. Idris’ hand tightens gently at my ankle, Garrett’s palm settles between Theo’s shoulders, and I put my fingers palm-up on the blanket near Theo’s knee. He covers them with his own.
“We’re staying,” Garrett says.