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“You love me?” she asks, her big blue eyes glossy with unshed tears. She’s so beautiful, her blonde hair mussed up and her cheek rumpled from where it lay pressed against the blanket beneath her.

“Yeah. Yeah, sweet. I love you, so, so much.”

“I love you too.”

I pull her close, wrapping my arm around her, and she presses her face to my neck. She clings to me like I’m a lifeline and I hold her just as tight. She’s certainly mine.

“Has the heat broken, then?” I dare to ask.

She shakes her head, breathing deep, scent marking herself against the gland in my neck. “No,” she whines. “Sorry.”

“Don't apologise,” Matiu interjects. His hand runs over the back of her thigh and onto the curve of her ass, where he gives her a playful squeeze. “This is our dream come true.”

“I’m just tired, but I need a knot,” she pouts.

“Roll over, then,” I tell her gently. “There we go. You can relax for the rest of this heat.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely.” I’m already lining my cock up with her pussy, teasing her entrance with the tip. “You don't lift a muscle. You just lay back and let your alphas take care of you.”

She sighs, tired but happy. “Thank you.”

“Of course, sweet.” I lean over her, kissing her slowly, fresh berries on my tongue. “I love you, my omega,” I tell her, squashing my worries about what she doesn’t know until they no longer sit at the forefront of my mind.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Lizzie

The feeling after a heat has broken is always strange. I’m both relaxed and a little unsettled all at once, comfy and heavy-limbed in my nest, yet so very aware of how sticky I am, despite my alphas’ best efforts to clean me up from time to time.

Both Matiu and Scott are in a deep sleep. They look good, happy, but I know they need the rest.

I sigh, looking around at the sloping walls that are now so familiar, the whorls and knots in the wood forming imaginary shapes. A wolf directly above my head. A full moon over to the left. A pōhutukawa branch overhanging the water—if I tilt my head just so while squinting at the other wall.

I love simply existing in the peacefulness of this place.

Time passes, and the morning light filters through the back window. I drag myself across the mattress until I’m lying with my face in the sun, and hum with happiness.

I could get used to this.

I should get used to this.

I wake sometime later to the sound of quiet rustling. Scott freezes and I grin at his comical pose, eyes wide and as still as a statue, one of the dirty blankets from the nest in his hand, half of it already tucked into a laundry basket. “Sorry,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s fine.” I yawn, stretch my legs and wiggle my toes, and contemplate getting up. I should. Scott continues his task, gathering all the bedding and clothes from the nest, his eyes flicking to me in the centre of the bed. “I can move,” I laugh, rolling until I’m only on the fitted sheet. “Where’s Matiu?”

“Cooking.”

Now that he’s said it, I can smell it. “That’s good, because I’m starving.”

“Do you want to wash first?”

“Is that a hint?” I tease. I smell like sex. I need a shower.

“No!”

I laugh at the blush on Scott’s cheeks.