Page 28 of Nesting With My Three Alphas (Hollow Haven #1)

Jonah

T he afternoon had been perfect. Kit settled in her nest, her heat building gradually and naturally while Reed finished his last job and Micah tied up loose ends at the bakery.

Charlie had left for Aunt Emma's that morning with excitement about their planned adventures, and our house felt charged with anticipation for what the evening would bring.

Kit was dozing peacefully in the master bedroom, her scent growing warmer and more compelling with each passing hour. I'd been splitting my attention between checking on her and handling the practical details that would ensure our pack's privacy and security during her heat.

Everything was exactly as it should be.

Which was why the sound of the security alarm activating on my phone followed by the splintering wood from the back of the house sent ice through my veins.

I was moving before my conscious mind had fully processed what I'd heard, my body responding to the primitive alpha imperative to protect my mate at all costs.

The back door hung open, the new deadbolt Reed had installed ripped clean out of the doorframe with the kind of force that spoke of desperate determination.

Someone was in my house. Someone had broken into my home while my omega was vulnerable.

"Kit!" I called up the stairs, my voice carrying an alpha command that would cut through any heat haze. "Stay in the bedroom and lock the door. Now."

Even through the door, her scent had spiked: fear laced with pheromones, the terrifying vulnerability of an omega in heat sensing a threat nearby.

The scent hit me before I saw him. Expensive cologne mixed with rage and obsession, tainted with the kind of bitter desperation that made even seasoned alphas dangerous. There was only one person it could be.

Marcus Blackwood stood in my kitchen like he owned the place, his designer clothes rumpled and his eyes wild with the kind of unhinged determination that said he'd driven here without stopping, probably without sleeping.

"Where is she?" Marcus demanded, his voice rough with exhaustion and fury. "Where's Kit?"

He knew. Somehow, he knew she was in heat, vulnerable, claimed by another pack. The thought of this man tracking Kit across state lines, breaking into her safe space while she was defenseless, made my vision tinge red with protective rage.

"You need to leave," I said, keeping my voice level despite the alpha fury building in my chest. "Right now. Before this gets worse for you."

Marcus laughed, a sound with no humor in it.

"Worse for me? Do you have any idea who I am?

What I'm capable of?" His gaze sharpened, taking in my defensive posture, the way I'd positioned myself between him and the stairs.

"I can smell her from here. She's in heat, isn't she?

My omega, wasting her cycle on some small-town nobody. "

My omega. The possessive claim in his voice made something primitive and violent unfurl in my chest.

"She's not your anything," I said, my own alpha energy beginning to push against his in a way that made the air between us crackle with tension. "Kit chose to leave you. She chose us. And you're going to respect that choice."

"Chose?" Marcus's expression twisted with disbelief and rage. "Kit doesn't make choices. She does what she's told. I've spent two years training that defiance out of her, teaching her exactly where she belongs."

Training. The word hit me like a physical blow, confirmation of every suspicion I'd had about what Kit had endured with this man.

"You made her afraid." I watched Marcus flinch, just for a second, proof he knew it was true. "But she's not afraid anymore. She's home, with the pack she was always waiting for."

"You?" Marcus looked me up and down with obvious disdain. "Some construction worker alpha who probably can't even afford to keep her in the lifestyle she deserves?"

"By three alphas who love her for who she is instead of trying to control what she becomes," I corrected, letting my scent spike with territorial aggression. "You lost her the moment you made her afraid to be herself."

Marcus's control snapped. I saw it happen, the moment his civilized veneer cracked and revealed the predator underneath. He lunged forward with the desperate strength of an alpha who believed he had nothing left to lose.

I'd been expecting it.

The fight was brief but vicious. Marcus had the advantage of desperation and obsession, but I had the advantage of protecting what was mine in my own territory.

Every punch I threw was powered by memories of Kit's careful walls, her fear of taking up space, the way she flinched when voices were raised.

This was the man who had made my omega afraid to want things.

Marcus went down hard when I connected with his solar plexus, the air rushing out of him in a whoosh that left him gasping on my kitchen floor. But even winded, he wasn't finished.

"She's mine," he wheezed, struggling to his feet with the kind of single-minded determination that made him dangerous. "We have contracts, legal agreements. She belongs to me."

"Your fake contracts don't mean anything here," I said, circling him carefully. "Sheriff Rowe already confirmed they're forgeries."

The mention of law enforcement made Marcus's eyes flash with something that might have been panic, but he covered it quickly with renewed aggression.

"You don't understand what you're dealing with," Marcus snarled, pulling something from his jacket pocket. A syringe filled with clear liquid. "Kit needs to be reminded of her place. Needs to remember who she really belongs to."

A syringe. My blood turned to ice as I realized what he was planning: some kind of chemical intervention, probably something to disrupt her heat, force her body into submission.

"You sick bastard," I growled, no longer human but pure alpha rage given form.

Marcus smiled, the expression so cold it made my skin crawl. "She'll thank me when her head clears. When she remembers what real alphas can provide."

He lunged again, this time aiming for the stairs, for Kit. The syringe in his hand gleamed with malevolent promise as he tried to push past me toward the woman I would die to protect.

I caught him at the base of the stairs, my hand closing around his wrist with enough force to make bones creak. The syringe clattered to the floor as Marcus cried out in pain and fury.

"You're not going near her," I said, my voice carrying the kind of alpha authority that could compel submission from weaker wolves. "Not today, not ever."

"Jonah!" Kit's voice from upstairs, high with panic and heat-addled confusion. "What's happening?"

She could smell the conflict, the foreign alpha in her safe space. Her heat would be making everything more intense, more frightening.

"Stay upstairs," I called back, not taking my eyes off Marcus. "Everything's under control."

But Marcus wasn't finished. With the desperate strength of someone who had nothing left to lose, he broke free from my grip and grabbed for a kitchen knife from the counter.

The flash of silver stopped my breath cold. A weapon. Not fists, not scent dominance, but something that could end lives. This had just escalated beyond a simple trespass.

"I'm not leaving without her," Marcus said, brandishing the knife with the shaky determination of someone who'd never actually used one in combat. "Kit belongs to me. I made her what she is."

"You made her miserable," I corrected, weighing my options. Marcus with a weapon was dangerous, especially with Kit vulnerable upstairs. "You made her afraid to trust, afraid to love, afraid to be herself."

"I made her perfect!" Marcus's voice cracked with hysteria. "Obedient, grateful, exactly what an omega should be!"

The sound of tires on gravel outside made both of us freeze. Car doors slamming, footsteps on the front porch, but I knew those sounds, knew that particular combination of hurried movement and protective urgency.

Micah.

"Jonah!" Micah's voice called from the front door, followed immediately by the sound of his key in the lock. "I could smell the distress from the driveway. What's..."

Micah appeared in the kitchen doorway and went completely still, taking in the scene with calm, assessing eyes. Marcus, wild-eyed and wielding a knife. Me, coiled for violence and radiating protective aggression. The broken back door and scattered evidence of a break-in.

"Get out," Micah said quietly, but his voice carried a weight of authority I'd rarely heard from my gentle friend. "Now. Before this gets worse."

Marcus spun toward the new threat, knife raised, and I saw something shift in Micah's expression. The gentle baker who fed half the town disappeared, replaced by something primitive and absolutely lethal.

Pack omega in danger. It was one of the few things that could turn Micah from caregiver to warrior in the space of a heartbeat.

"Two on one isn't fair," Marcus said, but his voice shook with the first hint of real fear he'd shown.

"You're right," Micah agreed, moving with fluid grace to flank Marcus while I held my position. "It's not fair to you. But you broke into our home, threatened our omega, brought a weapon into our territory. Fair stopped being relevant the moment you decided to escalate."

The coordination between us was seamless: years of friendship and now pack bonds making communication unnecessary. Micah moved left while I moved right, cutting off Marcus's escape routes with the kind of tactical precision that came from shared purpose.

"Last chance," I said, my voice carrying absolute finality. "Drop the knife and leave. Walk away, and we'll let the law handle this. Keep pushing, and we handle it ourselves."

Marcus looked between us, calculation flickering behind his desperate rage. Two determined alphas defending their mate versus one obsessed stalker with a kitchen knife. Even in his unhinged state, he could do the math.

But obsession rarely listened to logic.