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“Okay.” Mia sounded disappointed, but understanding. “I’m holding you to ‘soon,’ though.”
She crossed the distance separating them and stood on tiptoes, pulling Emiel down for a kiss. I tried to examine the odd twist in my gut, but it was tangled up too tightly to identify.
“I love you, Emiel,” she said earnestly. “Welove you.”
She smiled brilliantly when Emiel scuffed a toe and whispered, “Love you, Mia.” Then, her eyes fell on Zalen.
“So, what aboutyou?”
Zalen looked wry, shooting a glance my way. “Nat needs to buy me dinner, first.”
Mia crumpled up a napkin that had been sitting on the breakfast bar and threw it at his head. “I’m serious!” she said.
“So am I,” Zalen told her gently. “Never, ever think it’s because I don’t want you, Mia. We both know I do. But you four still have some things to figure out before you add yet another person into the mix. And I’m not going anywhere.”
“Well,” Luca said, “I mean... itisyour house.”
Zalen covered a smile and lifted one hand toward him as though to say, ‘See?’ “There you go. Luca gets it.”
“Maybe I should make Nat buymedinner, too,” Luca said, mock thoughtfully.
“You’re in luck, both of you,” I told them. “It just so happens that I co-own a really good restaurant.”
Zalen let out a quiet laugh. “Handy, that. Now, go on, you crazy kids. Just don’t break anything, or I’ll have to take back your rental deposits.”
“You don’t charge us rent,” Luca pointed out.
Byron, who’d been watching the interplay, crossed his arms. “No promises,” he growled, and I couldn’t help noticing Mia’s little shiver of anticipation. Mostly because it matchedmine.
Holy shit. What was I signing up for, tonight?
Zalen accepted a kiss from Mia as well, after which he and Emiel left the rest of us on our own. Once they were gone, Byron turned to Luca.
“You and Mia go get Mia’s strap from the nest. And don’t try to pretend you didn’t buy her one, because I know you did. Grab anything you want for yourself while we’re at it, and meet us in my room.” Byron’s voice still held that hint of a growl, and it was continuing to do strange things to the nerves in my spine. Gray eyes fell on me. “You. Come with me.”
He pivoted on his heel and swept past me to the door. I jerked around, following him as though tugged by an invisible string. Behind me, I could hear Luca and Mia whispering to each other.
I’d never been upstairs to the second-floor bedrooms. It had always felt like I’d be intruding. I knew Byron and Zalen were on this floor, along with Luca and Mia’s nest. And wasn’tthata strange idea?
Mia had always maintained that she didn’t need a nest. She’d been raised by beta parents and she was in a beta marriage, she’d said. Therefore, a shared beta bedroom was fine. I wondered if she’d been lying, or if she truly hadn’t known she wanted it?
When I’d come to stay in the pack’s guest bedroom after getting out of the hospital, I’d been surprised by the sheer number of pillows and blankets piled on the bed. I’d realized quickly that Mia had made the space into a kind of hybrid between a beta and an omega room. Out of curiosity, I’d tried sleeping with all of that softness—and discovered, to my surprise, that I kind of liked it.
Especially with my injuries, it was nice to be able to shove pillows under anything that felt sore until my entire body was supported perfectly. After restless sleep interrupted by nightmares in the hospital room, I’d promptly passed out and slept like the dead for eleven hours straight, surrounded by Mia’s scent.
By contrast to that cozy, soft space, Byron’s room was a monument to classic maleness. Leather and dark wood abounded; the bookshelves were filled to overflowing with hardbound tomes. A massive TV screen took up a good chunk of one wall, and an open door on the opposite wall led to an en suite bathroom. The room was large, one corner holding a king-size bed in an alcove.
My dick, which had been achingly hard for what felt like hours now, gave an insistent twitch. Byron rounded on me, raking his eyes up and down my body before holding my gaze, unblinking.
“You’ve caused a shit-ton of trouble for Mia,” he said coldly.
My cock wilted slightly. “I know.” The words were unsteady.
Byron tilted his chin to the side, assessing me. “She seems to have forgiven you. So has Luca, and that’s really saying something.”
“What about you?” I asked, my heart in my throat.
A lazy smile tugged at one corner of the alpha’s lips, reminding me why I’d first been pulled into his orbit in a long-ago singles bar. “Me? I think you might need a bit of good old-fashionedpunishingbefore we can put all of this mess in the rearview mirror.”