Page 47

Kit

T he first hint that my heat was approaching came on a Tuesday morning, when the scent of Jonah's coffee made me dizzy with want and Reed's casual touch against my lower back sent electricity straight through my entire nervous system.

I'd been expecting this, tracking my cycle, preparing emotionally, discussing timing with my pack, but the reality of my body beginning its transformation still caught me off guard.

Fifteen months. Fifteen months since my first heat with them, since the night everything changed and I stopped running from love. We’d had other heats since then, each and every one had been magical in its own way.

This time was different, though. This time, I was choosing this heat cycle with the full knowledge of what it meant and what I wanted from it.

"Charlie," I said carefully over breakfast, watching our now eight-year-old daughter carefully arrange her cereal into color- coordinated groups, "you know how we talked about you going to Aunt Emma's this weekend?"

"For your special omega time," Charlie said matter-of-factly, not looking up from her organizational project. "So you and the dads can have privacy for important pack bonding."

The casual way she discussed heat cycles never failed to amaze me.

In the world I'd grown up in, such things were shrouded in secrecy and shame.

But Charlie had grown up with age-appropriate explanations about biological realities, treating heat cycles as a normal part of omega health rather than something mysterious or embarrassing.

"Well, we might need to move that timeline up a little," I said, catching the way all three of my alphas went very still around the kitchen. "I think my special omega time might be starting sooner than we planned."

Charlie's head snapped up with interest. "How soon?"

"Maybe tonight or tomorrow," I said, already feeling the telltale restlessness that preceded full heat onset. "Which means..."

"I need to pack!" Charlie jumped up from her chair with the enthusiasm of someone whose favorite aunt spoiled her shamelessly and let her stay up past bedtime. "Can I bring my new art supplies? Aunt Emma said she wanted to learn watercolor techniques."

"Yes, you can bring your art supplies," Jonah said, his voice carefully controlled in the way that meant he was managing alpha instincts while trying to have a normal parental conversation. "But first, finish your breakfast."

Charlie dutifully returned to her cereal, but I could feel the anticipation radiating from everyone at the table. Not anxiety. We'd moved far beyond that particular emotion. But the focused intensity that came with preparing for something important.

Something sacred.

Because that's what this heat felt like. Not just biological necessity or physical bonding, but a conscious choice to deepen the connections we'd built, to officially try for the baby we'd been discussing for months, to claim this future we'd constructed together.

"I'll call Emma," Reed said, already reaching for his phone. "Let her know Charlie's coming over early."

"And I'll finish the prep work at the bakery," Micah added. "Lily can handle things for the next few days."

It was a dance we'd choreographed over every heat that had come before, each alpha knowing exactly what needed to happen to ensure my heat cycle could progress without outside interruptions or obligations.

No work emergencies, no social commitments, no anything that might interfere with the intimate bubble we'd create around our bond.

"What about you?" Jonah asked me quietly. "How are you feeling? Really?"

I considered the question seriously, taking inventory of both my physical state and my emotional landscape. The restlessness was building, yes, and my body temperature was already climbing. But underneath the biological preparation, there was something else.

Peace. Complete, settled peace about what was coming.

"Ready," I said simply. "More ready than I've ever been for anything."

By afternoon, there was no question that my heat was imminent. My scent had shifted to something that made all three alphas move with the careful precision of predators maintaining control, and my skin felt hypersensitive to every casual touch.

Charlie had been dispatched to Aunt Emma's with enough art supplies to stock a small studio and strict instructions to call if she needed anything. The house had been prepared with everything we might need over the next few days. All work responsibilities had been handed off or postponed.

We were ready.

"Kit," Micah said as we finished an early dinner, his voice carrying the gentle authority that meant he was shifting into caretaker mode, "how do you want to do this?"

It was the question I'd been thinking about for weeks.

During my first heat with them, everything had happened in a blur of overwhelming sensation and emotional intensity.

Since then it had always been a magical sensual time of renewing bonds and weaving ourselves closer into a family unit that seemed truly unbreakable.

But this time, I wanted to be present for every moment, to consciously experience what it meant to bond with all three of my alphas simultaneously.

"Together," I said without hesitation. "All of us, from the beginning. I don't want to take turns or build up gradually. I want to experience what we are as a complete pack."

The silence that followed was loaded with anticipation and barely controlled alpha arousal. My request wasn't unusual in established packs, but it required a level of coordination and trust that we'd never attempted before.

"You're sure?" Reed asked, his green eyes already darkening with heat-response. "Because once we start, we won't be able to stop and regroup."

"I've never been more sure of anything," I said, meaning it completely. "I want to bond with my pack. All of it. All of you."

We moved to our bedroom, the master suite we'd shared since moving into the house, with its king-sized bed and carefully controlled lighting and the nest I'd been unconsciously perfecting for days. But tonight felt different. Tonight felt ceremonial.

Sacred.

My alphas arranged themselves around me with the careful coordination of people who'd discussed this moment extensively, each understanding their role in what we were about to create together.

Jonah's steady strength anchoring me, Reed's passionate intensity challenging me, Micah's gentle worship healing me.

All of them loving me.

When the first wave of heat truly hit, I stopped thinking in words and started thinking in sensation and scent and the overwhelming rightness of being exactly where I belonged.

My pack surrounded me with their care and their desire, and for the first time in my life, I experienced what it meant to be completely, unquestionably cherished.

This wasn't just heat. This was homecoming.

The claiming, when it came, felt like destiny fulfilling itself.

Three alpha marks refreshed and deepened, three bonds renewed and strengthened, three promises made flesh.

But more than that, it felt like the conscious creation of new life, new possibility, new hope.

Exactly what we’d all hoped would happen this time.

When the intensity finally ebbed and we lay tangled together in our nest, scent-drunk and bonded deeper than ever before, I felt the fundamental shift that told me everything had changed.

We'd created something new.

Not just renewed bonds or satisfied heat. We'd planted the seed of our future together. I could feel it settling into place, this new life we'd consciously chosen to bring into our family.

"Are you okay?" Micah whispered against my hair, his voice rough from hours of passionate claiming.

"Perfect," I whispered back, meaning it with every fiber of my being. "Absolutely perfect."

Six weeks later.

The pregnancy test sat on the bathroom counter like a small miracle, two blue lines that confirmed what my body had been telling me for days. I stared at it for a long moment, letting the reality settle into my bones.

We'd done it. We'd created a baby.

"Kit?" Jonah's voice came from the other side of the door, carrying the careful concern that meant he'd noticed my extended absence. "Everything okay?"

I opened the door to find all three of my alphas standing in the hallway, their faces showing varying degrees of worry and hope and barely contained excitement.

"Everything's perfect," I said, holding up the test with a smile that probably looked slightly unhinged. "We're having a baby."

The silence lasted exactly two seconds before Charlie's voice carried up from downstairs: "Did someone say baby? Are we getting a baby?!"

What followed was the kind of chaos that only a family of five could generate.

Charlie racing upstairs to examine the pregnancy test with scientific interest, three alphas trying to ask medical questions and express their joy simultaneously, and me laughing until I cried because this was my life now.

This beautiful, chaotic, love-filled life.

Seven months later.

Labor, as it turned out, was exactly as intense as everyone had warned me it would be. But what no one had mentioned was how surreal it would be to go through it surrounded by three alphas who were all trying to be supportive while managing their own instinctive responses to their mate in distress.

"You're doing amazing," Reed said for the hundredth time, his hand gripping mine with careful strength. "Just a little longer."

"You said that two hours ago," I panted between contractions, but I was smiling despite the pain.

"Because it's been true for two hours," Micah said from my other side, where he was providing a steady stream of encouragement and ice chips.

Jonah was handling the practical aspects, communicating with the medical team, timing contractions, making sure everyone knew what was happening. But I could see the awe in his expression, the wonder of watching new life enter the world.