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I slide out from under his arm. I don’t turn on the light. I push the pillows up around the headboard, roll the heavy blankets to make walls, and put the soft ones inside. There’s a cashmere throw that goes right in the middle, where my face will be resting. I get Dec’s suit jacket off the chair, his shirt off the floor, and place them in the middle too. Then I move the big pillow, move it back, move it again.

There. Much better. I snuggle into my new nest with my alpha.

Then I realize I’m starving. Which is crazy. This man fed me half a roast chicken at midnight. But also, I’m hot, my breasts ache, and I feel like I could eat the whole entire kitchen.

When I look up, he’s awake, propped up on one elbow, watching me. The firelight’s on his ruggedly handsome face and his eyes have gone gold again.

“What?” I ask. I’m sitting on the bed, naked, holding a pillow. “It wasn’t right.”

The beard twitches. “You’re nesting.”

I roll my eyes. “I know what I’m doing, Declan.”

“You’re nesting in our bed.” His voice is rough. “You’re building your nest in our house, with my clothes in it.”

I huff. He grabs me around the waist and pulls me down in the middle of the nest…

* * *

I’ve got a hearing at ten and I’m not missing it. I’m a lawyer; I’ve got a client who isn’t my husband, and she needs me in that courtroom.

Declan doesn’t argue. He just doesn’t like it.

The whole thing gets settled at breakfast, and I don’t even get a vote! Sunshine’s driving. Dumbo will sit at the front with him. We’ll have a car ahead and another behind us, four men in each one. I point out that this is a lot of security for a forty-minute drive, and my husband looks at me across the table and replies, “No, it’s not,” and that’s the end of the whole thing!

Rian comes in and without sitting, he bends and says something in Declan’s ear.

I watch my husband’s face change. It goes scary: cold and hard. He puts his fork down.

“Where?”

“Dock Street. The old cannery. One of Jimmy’s guys saw him go in an hour ago, with six men.”

Eamon Callaghan. Has to be.

Declan looks at me, I look at him. I know what he’s about to go do, I’ve known since the day he told me don’t ask.

So I don’t ask.

He gets up, comes around the table, and kisses me hard. Then he tells me, “Go to work, sweetheart.”

He walks me out to the car, checks my seatbelt, says something low to Sunshine that I don’t hear, and Sunshine nods, real serious. Then he puts his hand on the roof of the car and leans in the window.

“I love you, mo chroí.”

“I love you too, Alpha.”

I watch him in the side mirror as we pull away. He’s standing in the driveway in his white shirt with the sun in his hair and his brothers coming down the steps behind him. He lifts one hand.

I wave.

Then we go around the bend in the drive, and I can’t see him anymore.

We come down a hill toward an old stone bridge. It only has one lane, there’s a creek running under. Our lead car slows down to cross, and a garbage truck comes out of nowhere… Out of a side road doing sixty and doesn’t brake. It hits the lead car in the side so hard it goes over the wall and into the creek! Everything happening in a matter of seconds…

“DOWN!” Sunshine roars.

Dumbo’s over the seat before I can move. He lands on top of me, shoves me into the footwell, and the world fucking explodes.