Chapter 5
June
My alphas are taking me home, and for the first time since we all met, I will be alone with my scent matches.
I’m sitting in the back of Pack Wells’ matte black Audi, with Archer driving us to their house. Every time his golden eye meets mine in the rearview mirror, my pulse flutters, and I press my thighs together when I think back to the lingering kiss he pressed against my neck.
He didn’t dance, but when it was just us, he would dance with me.
And only me. That’s what he whispered into my ear right before he kissed my neck.
The way he keeps looking at me is so hot and hungry that the things we do in private will not be the sort of ballroom dancing we would do in public. I just know it.
Minutes before we got into the car, Callum slipped his suit jacket over my shoulder and led me from my parents' house. I held his hand and ignored my mom’s loud throat clearing when she saw it. Hand-holding isn’t appropriate behavior for a Harrington. I didn’t care.
“What happened to you?” Torin asks me, sitting on my left, while Callum is on my right.
“When?” I ask him.
Sandwiched between two alphas like this, both angled in their seats to face me as if they can’t take their eyes off me, has made relaxing in this backseat impossible.
And that was before Archer started eyeing me like dessert from the driver’s seat.
I keep thinking of what they’ll do to me when we get back to their house, and I can’t wait for it.
“After you left the library,” he explains, squeezing my hand.
My cheeks burn as I recall Ms. Arkwright ordering me into the shower and then to bed. “Uh, it’s kind of embarrassing to admit.”
Interest sparks in his and Callum’s gaze.
I blush harder, biting my lip as I avoid both their gazes.
With a groan, Torin captures my mouth in a toe-curling kiss. But just as quickly as he claims me, he pulls away and leans back. “Shit,” he softly curses, “I told myself I’d slow down after I manhandled you in the library.”
“It’s okay,” I say, licking my lips, hungry for another of those kisses.
“It’s not okay.” He runs his thumb along my bottom lip. “I want to take my time with you, show you how good it could be, and slow can be so very good.”
As if my panties weren’t already damp enough.
“Someone figured out what you and Torin were doing in the library, didn’t they?” Archer asks from the driver’s seat.
My cheeks burn as I briefly meet his gaze in the rearview mirror before he’s forced to refocus on the road.
“Yeah.” I clear my throat, still blushing hard.
“I think Ms. Arkwright was too embarrassed to ask me if I’d had sex with a man I barely knew in the library.
She just marched me back to the dorms, told me to get in the shower and go to bed. ”
Even if Ms. Arkwright somehow missed the smell of sex, she couldn’t have missed the fact that I left that library covered in alpha pheromones. Torin’s scent clung to me.
Callum releases a frustrated sigh. “Ah, that explains it then.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Explains what?”
“We looked for you in the ballroom and just outside, but couldn’t wander too far without someone noticing.
No one had seen you. Then Torin made the fatal mistake of telling one of the teachers who we were.
Someone overheard.” Callum’s voice is dry when he adds, “We couldn’t take a step without tripping over a teacher nudging an omega at one of us.
You can imagine how many dances we spent trying to dodge when whispers spread that Pack Wells was looking for an omega.
After that, looking for you was impossible. No one would leave us alone.”
I laugh. “That doesn’t sound fun.”
Torin makes a face. “We knew the mate bonding wouldn’t happen until tonight and decided to crash it, knowing you would be there.”
I feel a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. “I can’t believe you rammed the front gate.” I have no idea how much it would cost to replace those gates, but if anyone can afford it, Pack Wells with their millions absolutely can.
I passed through them when we left Haven Academy. They were hanging open and clearly broken. A security guard was standing nearby, speaking into a walkie-talkie as my parents drove River and me to their house, while Pack Wells followed behind in their car.
I’d wanted to drive with my alphas, but after I could barely keep my hands off them at the mate bonding, I didn’t think being alone in their car on the way to my parents' house was a good idea. They agreed.
Callum lifts my hand and kisses my knuckles. “You’re ours. We’d ram every single gate to get you back.”
I smile. No matter how many times I tell myself this is really happening, none of it feels real.
“While you were dancing, I took your things from your parents' house and switched cars,” Archer says, catching my eye in the rearview mirror. “That’s why we’re not in a car seconds away from breaking down on the side of the road. We wanted everything to be ready for you.”
My parent’s servants had packed all the clothes and things I wanted to take with me already, knowing I’d be moving out. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Didn’t have to,” Archer agrees. “But we wanted to.”
Callum leans over and touches his lips to mine. It’s a move I immediately follow up with a loud yawn.
“Sorry,” I apologize, covering my mouth to suppress the next big yawn trying to slip out.
Callum grins at me, gray-blue eyes twinkling with amusement. “It’s been a long day. You’re allowed to be tired.”
It has been a long day, but not so much physically as emotionally. I left Haven Academy for the last time and said a tearful goodbye to my sister and my parents. My entire life changed today. In some ways, I expected, and in other ways, only dreamed about. I have never been happier.
“There’s a lot we need to tell you.” Callum pulls me into his lap, slides an arm around my hip, and bends his head to press a kiss on the hollow of my throat. My breath catches, and I swallow a moan.
“About?” I ask, trying not to move with how hard Callum is right now. He wants me as much as I want him, but he’s going slow. His kisses have been for the most part, sweet. Sitting on his lap like this makes me realize just how much he’s holding back.
There’s a magic to scent matches that no one told me about.
Not that anyone would have, because I have never met anyone who found theirs.
There’s a push-and-pull that makes letting go impossible.
There are times I know I shouldn’t want them.
Inappropriate times. Like on the dance floor right in front of my parents.
But there’s a fire in my belly that makes me want to fling all reason away and tackle my scent matches to the floor.
Life is going to be very interesting, and I can’t wait.
“There aren’t a lot of people in our lives that we can trust,” Archer says quietly, the Audi slowing now as we near our final destination.
“Are you saying you trust me?” I ask as Torin takes my hand and I rest my head against Callum’s chest, yawning again.
I am so tired.
Today has been one of the longest days ever, but it's nearly over. I have three scent matches I adore, and a future I can’t wait to dive into. I found my scent matches, and nothing can tear us apart.
“We’re saying we have a lot to talk about,” Callum says, kissing my forehead as I fight to keep my eyes open. “But that can happen tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow is good enough for me.” My eyelids flutter shut as our car ride continues with the occasional sway and bump, but I feel perfectly safe wrapped up in Callum’s arms.
“How big is your kitchen?” I say tiredly as I snuggle into Callum’s chest, breathing in his warm ginger and vanilla scent.
“How big do you need it to be?” Torin asks.
“Just big enough to bake. I bake when I’m happy.”
“Then you’ll be baking every day,” Callum says, prompting a wider smile even as I drift off to sleep.
I snuggle into silk sheets, wanting to purr, curl my toes and never move again.
But the warmth of the sun is kissing my bare back, and I have always been an early riser who loved to wake with the sun. I stretch and yawn as I roll over, blinking my eyes open and ready to embrace this new life.
This happy life.
My room is perfect—everything I could have ever hoped for.
Someone brought my suitcases up to my room and didn’t stop there. The closet is slightly open, and through the gap, I see all my clothes hanging, with my shoes neatly lined up on the floor beneath my dresses and pants.
Even the package my sister gave me is on my bedside table, ready for me to open and reveal the book that means as much to her as it does to me.
I have a vague memory of Callum saying something about a housekeeper as he carried me up the stairs and tucked me into cool, silky sheets, but I was already more asleep than awake by that point.
Another door stands partially open. Not the bathroom.
I used that in the middle of the night when I woke up needing to pee and stubbed my toe on the doorframe.
Curious, I get to my feet, wrapping a sheet around myself as I cross over to investigate that partially open door.
Callum must have helped me out of my heels and dress before tucking me into bed.
When I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, I was just in my panties.
I push the door the rest of the way open, and every instinct in me that has ever craved soft and cozy stirs awake.
A nest is the most important space an omega can have.
It’s a sanctuary. A place to find peace, to feel safe when the world feels scary, a haven to burrow into soft coziness when she doesn’t have an alpha to give her the security she sometimes craves.