Chapter 30
Maya
The sauce has been simmering for twenty minutes, and the kitchen smells like garlic and something faintly sweet I can't identify. Bash refuses to tell me what it is because apparently that would violate some deeply held cooking philosophy.
“That’s not a real cooking philosophy,” I argue playfully.
“All cooking philosophies are real,” he says as he moves past me to grab the wooden spoon.
His hand settles briefly at my waist, guiding me a step to the side.
The contact is light enough to miss if I wasn't paying attention, carrying a familiarity that makes me realize how quickly this has become normal.
I reach past him for the small dish of salt, and before I can get there, he hands it to me without looking. The synchrony of it catches in my chest for a second.
“You should be sitting down,” he says.
“I’m busy standing,” I reply.
“My point exactly.” He gestures toward the island stools with a wooden spoon. There’s a smear of sauce on the handle, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
“I’m helping plate,” I say.
“You are technically hindering the plating process,” he says flatly.
“Then stop putting things where I have to reach for them,” I shoot back.
He glances at me from the corner of his eye, and his mouth does that thing where it doesn’t quite smile but comes close. I’ve started recognizing that expression. It’s the one he wears when he knows he’s losing the argument but isn’t prepared to admit it yet.
I pick up the stack of plates from the cabinet beside the stove and start carrying them to the island. He makes a sound of protest behind me.
Outside, a car pulls into the driveway. The sound of the engine is familiar. A moment later, two car doors open and close. Anticipation makes my omega lift her head and start paying attention.
The front door opens, and I hear their voices.
Adrian’s voice is low, he’s saying something to Elias that I can’t make out.
I’m standing at the island with a plate in each hand that I should be placing on the table. Then they come through the kitchen doorway and the smell of the house changes completely.
One moment the kitchen smells like dinner.
The next, the house smells like them. Amber and cedar.
Spiced bergamot with that dark clove edge underneath it, already familiar from a day spent with Bash.
And now the cool mineral scent that belongs to Elias, filling the last space my nose had been waiting for without realizing it.
Together, they hit me like a wave.
Heat blooms in the center of my chest and spreads outward in under two seconds. My pulse jumps so hard I feel it in my throat. The plates in my hands suddenly become very difficult to hold. My hands have gone unsteady. Heat crawls up the inside of my arms, along my neck, and behind my knees.
My skin feels wrong. The sensation is immediate and overwhelming.
This is different than before when I just wanted their proximity. I could understand those feelings, even when my omega pushed insistently toward them.
Adrian moves toward the stove to investigate whatever is cooking. He passes close enough that his scent washes over me as he goes.
I grab him.
My hands close on the front of his shirt before the decision reaches my conscious brain. The fabric wrinkles in my fists.
I step into him. My face finds the side of his jaw, then the curve of his throat, and I breathe in.
Cedar and amber flood through me.
My knees go weak.
I don't let go.
For one full second, neither of us moves.
Then his arms come around me.
There’s no hesitation. He’s immediately there, one hand at my waist and the other settling at the back of my neck.
“Hey,” he says. “Breathe.”
I breathe. It comes out ragged.
“You’re okay.” His hand at my neck moves in a slow circle, once. “We’ve got you. Breathe again.”
His scent is doing something my omega finds necessary in a way that's beyond preference, beyond comfort. Like finally catching my breath after running too far, too fast.
Bash is already beside me. I don't see him move. One moment he's across the kitchen, the next there's a shift in the air, and he's there, his sleeve brushing my shoulder.
“I'm here,” he says.
My right hand loosens on Adrian's shirt and finds Bash's sleeve instead. I curl my fingers into the fabric without opening my eyes.
His arm shifts immediately, making it easier to hold on.
Elias.
I feel him before I open my eyes. That clean, cool presence arrives at my other side, close enough to touch.
Something in the center of my chest finally stops screaming.
The way a sound you've been braced against for too long suddenly falls silent.
I lean toward him without meaning to. My shoulder finds the edge of his sleeve.
I have both hands full of fabric now. I'm leaning against Adrian. Holding on to Bash. Pressing toward Elias.
And the only thought I manage to complete is: They came to me.
All three of them. Immediately. Without a word to each other.
They just moved because I needed them.
The heat in my skin starts to ease back slowly. My pulse slows.
Adrian’s hand is still moving at the back of my neck.
I finally open my eyes and look down at the front of his shirt. The fabric is wrinkled where I'd gripped it, my fingerprints practically visible in the creases.
“Sorry,” I say. My voice sounds strange to me. “I didn’t— I couldn’t—“
“Don’t,” Adrian says softly. “Don’t apologize for that.”
I loosen my hands. Adrian doesn’t step back. Bash doesn’t move away. Elias stays at my shoulder, close enough that the cool mineral steadiness of him keeps my omega from surging forward again.
“I’ll get you some water,” Bash says, and he’s gone before I can respond, the bergamot note briefly fading and then returning as he crosses the kitchen and comes back with a glass, which he presses into my hand.
I drink half of it standing there between the three of them.
Nobody says anything for a moment.
The kitchen settles around us. The sauce bubbles softly on the stove. The music keeps playing
After a few moments, Bash rescues the sauce from scorching. Elias's gaze remains fixed on me while Adrian keeps one hand resting lightly at my waist as I finish the water. Both of us pretend he isn't monitoring my breathing.
I look at the plates still sitting on the island.
The two plates I'd been holding.
At some point, I'd set them down.
“I'm okay,” I say, mostly to myself.
“Yeah?” Adrian asks.
“Yeah.” My voice is even enough that I almost believe it. “That was...”
“I know,” he says.
I press the back of my wrist against my cheek. My face is hot from the overwhelming embarrassment of watching my own body do something I had absolutely no control over.
“Does it get better from here?” I ask.
Even as I say it, I already know the answer.
Bash turns from the stove with an expression that is almost sympathetic.
“No,” he says. “But we'll be here to help you through it.”
The heat in my face intensifies. He says it so matter-of-factly, like he isn't referring to the biological equivalent of a natural disaster.
We manage to finish putting dinner together. I don't do much of the work, and Bash doesn't argue about it a second time. Elias sets the table. Adrian pours water into four glasses.
Somehow, the kitchen finds its rhythm again.
Dinner is quiet. All three of them sit around me at the table. Adrian is on my left, Elias across from me, and Bash beside him. At some point, my knee comes to rest against Adrian's beneath the table. Neither of us moves away.
I keep thinking about the moment I grabbed him. The strength of the reaction. My body had an opinion, and it expressed that opinion before I had any say in the matter.
This is my alpha.
I need his scent right now.
End of discussion.
Not any alpha.
Him.
I poke at the food on my plate. The sauce is actually good, Bash’s cooking philosophy secrecy aside. I eat most of it before I realize I’ve been eating, which probably tells me something about how depleted I actually am.
Bash’s hand loosely settles over mine on the table. He doesn’t say anything. I turn my hand beneath his, and he threads his fingers through mine.
We stay like that through the rest of dinner.
After the plates are cleared, the kitchen gets wiped down, and the house settles into its evening sounds. Bash puts something on in the living room at a low volume.
Elias takes one end of the couch. I settle beside him. Adrian sits on my other side while Bash claims the opposite corner, stretching out like he owns the furniture.
At some point, Adrian takes one of my hands. Elias ends up holding the other. Neither of them makes a thing of it, and after everything that happened in the kitchen, neither do I.
Around nine, Adrian stands, stretches, and meets my eyes. “Try to sleep,” he says. He squeezes my hand once. “We’ll be here.”
He means it literally. That’s the part that keeps surprising me. It’s not a figure of speech. They will be here. Down the hall, in the same house, under the same roof, for whatever the next few days bring.
Elias stands a moment later and says goodnight as well. His eyes hold mine for a second, and his expression says everything he doesn’t put into words.
I get to my feet and hesitate.
My empty nest is upstairs waiting.
I'd be alone with my thoughts for the first time all day, with nothing to distract me from the reality that I’d been dismissed from the set.
“Bash,” I say.
He’s just pushing himself up from the couch. He pauses and looks at me.
“Will you stay with me tonight?” My voice drops on the question even though there’s no reason for it. “I just... I don’t want to be in there alone.”
He’s silent for a second.
Then he smiles.
“Yeah,” he says. “Of course I will.”
Relief moves through me so quickly my knees almost go weak.
We linger in the living room for a few more minutes, then turn off the lights and head upstairs together.
The nest room is exactly what I left this morning.
The lamp glows in the corner, casting pale gold light over everything—the soft gray and cream blankets layered on the bed.
The room's scent wraps around me the second I cross the threshold.
Warm amber and cedar sit beneath everything, with Bash's dark spice worked into the blankets nearest the window and the familiar scent of Elias lingering in the heaviest one I always reach for first.
I do my usual bathroom routine, change into comfortable clothes, and slide beneath the blankets. Bash disappears into the bathroom after me. A few minutes later, he returns, settles into bed beside me, and lowers the lamp another degree. The room softens into shadow and pale gold light.
I roll onto my side to face him and find he's already looking at me.
His expression is different from what it was downstairs.
The easy confidence he usually carries has softened into something more open.
The blue of his eyes catches the low light as he reaches over and brushes a strand of hair away from my face, his fingers barely touching my temple before withdrawing.
Then his hand settles against my cheek.
His thumb moves once, slowly, across my cheekbone.
I sink a little deeper into the blankets, holding his gaze. Neither of us says anything for a moment.
“You've handled things really well,” he says. “I don't think you realize.”
I let out a small laugh. “I grabbed Adrian hard enough to wrinkle his shirt.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
His thumb traces my cheekbone again, so lightly I barely feel it.
“Everything. The production. Last night. All of it.” His eyes hold mine. “You keep moving forward. That's harder than people think.”
My throat feels tight.
“You don’t have to earn this,” he says. “You don’t have to earn being here, and you don’t have to earn any of us wanting you here. We’re not keeping score. There isn’t some point in the future where we decide you’ve finally proven yourself enough to stay.”
He says it simply, like it’s something I should already know.
“You already belong here, Maya.”
My omega pushes forward, and I move before I've fully decided to.
I close the small distance between us and kiss him.
His mouth meets mine, careful, like he’s asking a question he already knows the answer to. He holds still for one breath—one steady, drawn-out breath—and then he kisses me back, slow and certain, like he’s got all night and intends to use every minute of it.
His hand slides from my cheek to the side of my neck, his thumb settling along my jaw.
He doesn’t pull me in. He stays exactly where he is, fingers resting against my skin, letting me set the pace, letting me choose how far and how fast. The faint smell of cedar and clean cotton on his shirt fills the space between us, and my fingers curl into the fabric without my permission.
When he finally draws back, it’s slow, unhurried, his forehead coming to rest against mine. His thumb strokes once more along my jaw, and I feel the curve of his smile before I see it.
“You should sleep,” he says, rough and low.
“Mm.” I don’t move. My fingers are still wound into his shirt like I’ve forgotten how hands work.
His thumb traces the line of my jaw again, slower this time.
“Your heat is two days out.” He says it slowly, like he's choosing each word with care.
“I don't want you pushing toward something tonight and waking up tomorrow wondering whether you only wanted it because your body was already running ahead of you.” He tilts his head slightly, enough that I can make out his eyes in the near-dark. “We have time. None of this has to happen tonight.”
My chest aches in a way that has nothing to do with heat symptoms.
He's right.
He's completely right, and the fact that he's the one saying it—while I can feel the restraint it costs him—means more than anything else he's said tonight.
“Okay,” I say.
He presses a soft, brief kiss to my forehead before settling back against the pillow.
I curl closer to him and rest my head against his chest. His arms come around me immediately, surrounding me until I'm tucked securely against his side.
His warmth has already worked its way into the blankets.
For the first time since the heat flare in the kitchen, my omega is completely content.
Bash's breathing gradually slows. His arm stays wrapped around me.
I close my eyes.