Page 71

Chapter Forty-Eight

Ronan

R onan woke with the sun the following morning. As he slipped out of bed, the other men reconfigured themselves in their sleep, the omegas wrapped around one another in the middle of the mattress, the betas at their backs.

Watching them silently, Ronan knew he would do anything to protect these men. Without knowing it, he’d been preparing his whole life to be their alpha, their partner.

Heading downstairs, he sat in the kitchen as dawn illuminated the cheerful space.

Everything was the same. The boys’ school supplies were thrown haphazardly in a basket by the breakfast nook.

Zayne’s drawings covered the bulk of the refrigerator, held up by homemade magnets.

The bananas on the counter were ripe enough that he knew Niall’s special banana bread would be on the menu next week.

The furnace hummed. A heady aroma came from the coffeemaker.

Everything was the same, but also, everything had changed.

Ronan had a life to plan that would look a lot different from the one he’d pictured for himself even a few months ago.

It was exhilarating, the thought of a future with his new family.

And also daunting, because he knew there would be backlash.

Because they were about to embark on a course of action that wasn’t easily accepted by society.

But embark on it they would, because nothing was keeping Ronan from a future with Teal, Sorcha, Niall, Jax, and their boys.

Enjoying Teal’s heat together had been the best possible way to cement their bond.

Now, they just needed to work out the rest of the logistics and make a plan.

He’d asked Dayson to keep the boys until the afternoon, hoping he and his partners would be able to have a conversation today.

Ronan smiled. Of course, this meant his sleepy partners needed to get out of bed.

Jax was the first to join him. The beta walked into the kitchen, hesitating a step at the threshold, before pouring himself a cup of coffee.

Ronan wasn’t tolerating any nonsense. He came up behind Jax, bracing his hands on either side of him along the counter, boxing him in.

Using a deft hand to pull Jax’s hair back, Ronan nuzzled into his neck before planting a lingering kiss there. “Morning.”

Ronan felt the tension leave Jax as the beta relaxed into Ronan. “Hey.”

Keeping one hand on Jax’s hip as he doctored his coffee, Ronan asked, “Is everyone still sleeping?”

“They were all awake when I came down. Just having a slower time getting out of bed.”

Ronan sat back down at the table, gesturing for Jax to join him. “Even Teal? He seemed okay?”

“More than okay. I think he had a pleasant heat.” Jax offered a sly grin.

Ronan barked a laugh. “I think we all did.”

Face turning serious, Jax added, “He seemed…hopeful.”

Ronan nodded. They were all optimistic it had been a successful breeding.

But he crossed his fingers that Teal wouldn’t be too disappointed if it didn’t take.

His breeding orgasm had sounded definitive, but Ronan could admit it hadn’t been as strong as Sorcha’s.

That was likely because Teal was almost ten years older than the other omega, but still. Nothing was guaranteed.

Niall walked in with Sorcha. Sorcha wore a robe with joggers underneath, looking wrecked. Niall, as usual, looked perfectly put together. His dark jeans and expensive-looking navy sweater fit like a glove.

Ronan greeted them both with kisses as he said, “We need to talk. Do you think Teal is feeling well enough to come downstairs, or should we head back up to the bedroom?”

“Teal is okay coming downstairs, although he may have seriously overestimated his ability to remain upright,” Teal said, appearing rough and wheezing in the doorway.

His family jumped immediately to Teal’s side. Ronan squatted and hoisted the omega in his arms, carrying him effortlessly into the living room before laying him down on the couch. The other men followed.

“You shouldn’t have gotten up on your own!” Sorcha admonished. “I told you I’d help when you were ready to come down.”

“That’s where you went wrong,” Niall teased Sorcha. “Teal saw that as a challenge, didn’t you, sweetheart?” he asked, turning to Teal. “Did you misinterpret Sorcha’s offer to help as a throwing of the gauntlet?”

Teal smiled through his fatigue. “Maybe.”

“Well, if you’re being this stubborn, then it must mean you’re feeling better,” Niall concluded.

“I am,” Teal said. “In fairness, I probably shouldn’t have navigated the stairs on my own, but I wanted to try. I feel so much better than I have in weeks.”

Ronan ran a hand over Teal’s back to reassure himself that his husband spoke the truth. The color in Teal’s cheeks looked good, and his honey lavender scent was pure and strong. He certainly appeared well past the worst of it.

“Do you feel up to talking a bit about us?” Ronan asked Teal, moving his head in a circle to show he meant this was a conversation for all of them. “We should discuss what comes next before your post-heat slumber comes on.”

Teal propped himself up in a seated position against Ronan. Sorcha sat on Teal’s other side while Niall plopped down into an end chair. Jax rested his backside against the chair’s armrest.

“I would love to talk about what comes next,” Teal said.

“Us too,” Niall said, motioning to Jax. “We’ve been talking, and we have some ideas about how we could make this easier for you, Teal, with your job and everything.”

“Oh, really?” Ronan raised an eyebrow. “What were you thinking?”

“Well, we’re totally open to playing this however you want, whatever makes sense. We realize Teal is a public figure and will be for a while. Especially since the poisoning and Ronan’s little speech outside the courthouse, there is a lot of interest in you guys as a couple—”

“Yeah.” Jax picked up the thread. “There is a lot of interest in you. Luckily, most of it is positive. Everyone rooting for Teal to be okay. Niall and I don’t want to do anything to make things harder on you or jeopardize Teal’s position.

We want to help make sure you guys don’t have any undue stress on you, but we love you and still want to help take care of you and the boys. ”

“Again,” Ronan said, an edge to his voice. “What are you proposing?”

“Well,” Niall replied. “We keep living next door. To the rest of the world, we’re your neighbors, and your friends of course, since I’m the boys’ nanny.

If you need us to, we were thinking we could pretend that Sorcha lives on our side, that he’s our surrogate.

Betas do that all the time, provide their surrogates with money or housing. ”

A deep frown took over Ronan’s face.

Jax hurried to add, “Of course this would just be a story for the public. So they don’t bother you. Behind closed doors, of course, you could be a family and of course the baby will know who his real parents are.”

Sorcha and Teal joined in frowning at the betas.

“I’m sorry,” Niall said, shaking his head.

“This is clearly coming out all wrong. We don’t mean to overstep.

We just know that Teal’s work is important and his bosses might not like it if he’s in a polyamorous relationship, or if his alpha has another baby—” Niall put his fist in his mouth.

“Shit! I’m sorry if I’m making it sound awful.

You know how much Jax and I love you guys.

We’re just putting it out there as an option.

You know we’ll do whatever we can to help. Whatever you need.”

A heavy silence took over the room as Jax placed an arm around Niall’s shoulders, staring at Ronan levelly before murmuring, “We’re trying to help. If we’re out of line, we’re sorry, like Niall said.”

Ronan exhaled, long and loud. Gently transferring Teal’s weight over to Sorcha, he stood and began pacing behind the couch, shaking his head before speaking.

“Let me get this straight,” he boomed. “Your plan is for you and Jax to live on the other side of the duplex so that me and Teal and Sorcha can raise our family without the watchful eye of the public.”

“Basically, yes,” Niall said. “I mean, of course our friends would know, Dayson and whoever you wanted. And we don’t have all the details yet, but—”

“What about you and Jax?” Ronan interrupted.

Niall startled. “What about us?”

“Where are you in all this? Helping? Being part of our family?”

“Oh, Ronan!” Niall exclaimed. “Of course we’re a part of your family. Your betas. We love you guys so much and we want to be a in your lives, and with the boys, all of us together, and…and in your bed…however much you want us.”

Ronan paced faster, muttering as much to himself as in reply to Niall. “I feel like we’ve been clear. I don’t know how much clearer I can be without being an actual piece of glass. What more I need to say.”

“I’m sorry.” Niall sighed. “I don’t know what you mean. If you don’t like the plan, we’re happy to formulate a different one. Just name it.”

“No!” Ronan barked. He eyed Jax and Niall, rendering them silent with his alpha voice. “I need you to understand.”

Stunned into submission, the betas stared at Ronan, sensing the alpha’s underlying desire to roar as he rumbled deep in his chest.

But it was Sorcha who broke the silence.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” The little omega balanced Teal against the armrest and stood up, thundering through the kitchen and into the garage.

The distinct sound of metal hitting the concrete floor reverberated, followed by Sorcha tearing back into the living room, dragging a sledgehammer behind him.

Ronan watched with a mix of envy and pride as Sorcha went to the wall on the far side of the living room and attacked it with the heavy tool. His small, lithe muscles rippled and flexed as he swung the sledgehammer, pounding at the drywall while the others gaped at him.

After ten hard swings, Sorcha punctured a basketball-sized hole in the wall separating the two units of the duplex, until Niall and Jax’s living room could easily be seen.

Leaning on the sledgehammer like a cane, Sorcha glared at the betas. “Do you understand now?”

Niall and Jax stared at the hole but offered no immediate reply. Ronan’s growling continued.

“My betas,” Teal said diplomatically. “I love you. We all do.” Sorcha nodded enthusiastically.

Ronan’s rumbling subsided as he did the same.

“And I thought we’d been clear, but perhaps we haven’t done an adequate job trying to understand how all this must look from your point of view, to be a beta in a world where so much of the back and forth is between alphas and omegas.

Not to mention that we were so adamant about keeping things secret with Niall for so many years.

“So let me be clear. When Ronan said we need to talk about what’s next, it was already a foregone conclusion that what’s next will be the five of us, raising our boys together…” Brilliant orator that he was, Teal stopped for a dramatic pause. “Openly.”

“Openly?” Jax asked, incredulous.

“Openly,” Teal stated.

Ronan had been almost positive that was how Teal would feel, even if Ronan had been reluctant to codify it in the hospital while Teal was unconscious.

To see Teal— and Sorcha, fuck, Sorcha had been magnificent with that sledgehammer!

—expressing the sentiment now only made him feel even more sure of his own heart.

There would be no going back. No hiding.

“The only thing we need to discuss is what living openly looks like,” Ronan chimed in, calm enough to sit on the couch again. “We don’t owe the public anything, but that being said, we should probably prepare for some fallout.”

“Wait,” Niall said. “When you called us a family, you meant—”

“Equal partners,” Teal supplied.

Sorcha put down the sledgehammer and walked over to the chair, squeezing himself onto Niall’s lap and winding his arms around Jax.

“Equal partners,” he said. “You’re not going to be relegated to the other side of the duplex like some kind of dirty secret.

You’re not just ‘helping’ us like you’re guest stars in our lives.

And definitely not in our bed.” He placed one of Jax’s hands on his belly.

“I need my betas to help me raise our baby, okay? I need this little guy to call you ‘Daddy Jax’ and ‘Daddy Niall.’”

A tear escaped Niall’s eye. “Okay.”

Ronan pulled Teal close to him. “No one is going to be a ‘dirty secret’ because nothing dirty is going on here. I’m going to claim Sorcha and his baby, and any babies he and Teal have down the road.

If anyone asks, I’m going to tell them I’m also in love with two betas, a sharp, sassy caretaker who has been keeping me on my toes for years and a pragmatic, man-of-few-words with a heart of gold and a kickass tater tot casserole recipe.

There are going to be questions from the public.

We’d be na?ve to assume otherwise. And this will be an ongoing process for the boys, to exist in a family so different from their friends.

’ But I have to believe it’s better for them to be raised in a house full of love, even if it looks different, than it is to deny ourselves what we all want and need. ”

“Pack,” Niall whispered.

“What?” Sorcha asked.

“We’re a pack.” Niall straightened his spine. “I spoke to Dayson the other day, and he said it used to be more common for multiples to be in relationships. Humans got away from it, but sometimes, the instinct is still there. We’re a pack.”

Teal scrunched his nose. “I think we can come up with a better term. These are civilized times, and I didn’t just spend a year of my life and almost get myself killed fighting for omega rights just to default to our biology to explain things.

I, for one, am choosing you four. Choosing this.

Because it makes me happy. Because I need all of you. ”

“Let’s not argue semantics.” Ronan kissed Teal on the tip of his nose, loving his husband’s dynamic spirit and analytical mind. “If we must have a term for it, how about ‘polycule?’ It’s more modern, and even if they are rare, we’re not the only polyamorous family out there.”

“‘Polycule’ is fine,” Sorcha said. “But to be honest, I don’t really care.”

Jax grunted in agreement, still rubbing circles over Sorcha’s belly.

Ronan laughed. “I don’t care either, but it’s nice that Dayson had at least a bit of an explanation why these feelings might be so strong.”

“That part I can agree with,” Teal said. “It’s nice to know I’m not crazy for being able to smell Sorcha.”

“And I you,” Sorcha said. “I can’t decide what I like better, lavender honey or peppery sage.”

“Good thing you’ll never have to choose,” Ronan said.

“Good thing none of us will have to choose,” Teal amended. “Because we’ll always choose each other. All five of us.”