8. Elisabed

8

Elisabed

The thunder cracked so loudly it felt like the world had split in two. I jolted awake, my heart pounding, the sound still ringing in my ears. The sharp metallic tang of fear filled my nose.

After we’d left the alphas’ home in the neutral territory the day before, I’d been forced to admit that I couldn’t shift on command. My anger was so fresh that I didn’t even have it in me to feel my normal levels of shame. Let them call me defective, I’d thought, but the words never came. They’d simply said we’d continue on foot. But even their begrudging acceptance of my condition didn’t change my outlook. I kept my distance from them, barely speaking, still mad that they hadn’t allowed me a final goodbye with my sister.

I could see how my distance and silence affected them—my wolf and I were also affected—but I wasn’t going to bend to their will. It would take more than a little suffering to make me forget my anger.

We’d spent the day traversing some treacherous mountain terrain on two legs. I’d been more than relieved when we located this little safe house, especially now that the storm was rolling in so aggressively.

The room around me flickered with brief flashes of light from the storm outside, the shadows stretching and twisting in strange, menacing ways. Rain pounded on the roof, a relentless drumming that drowned out everything else.

“Get up. Now.”

August’s voice cut through the chaos, sharp and commanding. He was already standing in the doorway, his silhouette backlit by another flash of lightning, and ...was that fire?

“What’s going on?” I asked, my voice hoarse as I scrambled to my feet.

“We need to move,” Marshall barked from behind him, his tone clipped. He was already throwing supplies into a bag, his broad shoulders tense. “The storm’s coming in harder than we thought, and lightning struck the back of the cabin. The house won’t hold; everything will go up in flames in less than ten minutes.”

The wind howled outside so loud it sounded like a living thing clawing at the walls and shaking the house. I recoiled as the floor shook under my feet with another rumble of thunder.

Finn materialized at my side, his typical smile missing, and pushed my boots into my hands. “Unless you want to burn alive, sweetheart, you might want to hurry it up.”

I pulled on my boots with trembling hands, the leather chilly and hard on my flesh. My mind raced, trying to piece together what was happening. The storm had been building all day, but I hadn’t realized it was bad enough to force us out of our shelter.

I followed them out into the storm, the rain hitting me like icy needles. The wind whipped at my cloak, pulling at the edges and threatening to rip it away entirely. Lightning lit up the sky, illuminating the trees around us, their branches bending and groaning under the force of the gale.

“Stay close,” August ordered, his voice barely audible over the roar of the wind.

I stumbled after them into the forest, cursing my inability to shift into wolf form. Wolves were made for terrain like this, and I’d be far more sure-footed on the slippery ground than in my weak, two-legged human form.

The rain was relentless, soaking through every layer of clothing and chilling me to the bone. My heart pounded in my chest, each crack of thunder making me flinch.

“Over here!” Marshall called, pointing toward a rocky outcropping ahead.

A cave.

August reached it first, ducking inside and scanning the space quickly before gesturing for the rest of us to follow. I was next, practically collapsing against the wall the moment I was out of the rain. The cave was damp and cold but a thousand times better than being out in the storm.

Finn was the last to enter, shaking water from his hair and brushing past me with a low chuckle. “Hell of a wake-up call, huh?”

I glared at him, but my teeth were chattering too much to say anything in response.

“Fire,” August commanded, his voice calm despite the chaos around us.

Marshall grunted in acknowledgment, already moving to gather what little dry wood he could find near the cave’s entrance. I sat down slowly, my back against the cold stone wall, and pulled my knees to my chest, trying to stop the shaking.

The storm continued to rage outside, thunder and wind echoing off the cave walls. The fire took longer to start than usual—everything was damp—but Marshall finally coaxed it to life, and the warmth spread quickly through the small space.

“Better,” Finn said, stretching out near the fire with a lazy grin. He looked far too comfortable for someone who had just been nearly buried under a burning house and then swept away by a storm.

“Make yourself useful,” Marshall growled, shoving a pack toward him.

Finn raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue, digging through the bag for food while Marshall worked on drying out the woodpile. August stood near the entrance, his eyes fixed on the storm outside. He hadn’t said much since we arrived, but the tension in his shoulders was obvious.

I stayed where I was, close to the fire but not too close to any of them. My mind was still racing, trying to make sense of everything. The storm had been bad, but something about their urgency, the way they moved and spoke, felt...off, like there was something they weren’t telling me.

“You still haven’t told me where we’re going,” I said. “Or why.”

Finn looked up from the bread he was tearing into, his sharp blue eyes flicking to me with interest. “You’ve got a knack for asking big questions at inconvenient times, you know that?”

I ignored him, turning my attention to August instead.

“We’re heading north,” August said.

No shit.

“Yes, August, I know ‘we’re heading north.’ But where to?” I pressed. Why were they keeping the exact location such a secret?

“To safety,” Marshall said, his voice low but firm.

“That’s not an answer,” I said, my frustration rising. “Safety from what? Raol? Is he the only reason we’re running? You knew what he was like when you decided to take me. Why did you even bother?”

The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the fire crackling and the thunder rumbling.

“We’re heading to a settlement,” August said eventually, his voice quieter now. “A place where all three of our packs can come together. Where we can prepare for what’s coming.”

Three packs together? That’s unheard of.

My stomach twisted at his words. “Prepare for what? What’s coming?”

He didn’t answer, and neither did the others.

“That’s ominous,” I muttered, leaning back against the wall. “Why can’t you just tell me the truth? I know I’m a weak, defective omega, but I can handle—”

“You’re not weak, and you’re not defective. Don’t call yourself that again,” Marshall growled, shocking me into silence.

Finn chuckled, though there was no humor in it. He ignored Marshall’s outburst completely. “Trust us, sweetheart. The truth is a lot harder to swallow than you think.”

I wanted to argue and demand answers, but Marshall’s comment and the look on August’s face stopped me. Whatever they were hiding, it wasn’t just about me. It was bigger. Darker.

And for now, they were right. Maybe they didn’t see me as weak or defective, but that didn’t mean I was ready to face it—not when I was still mourning my past life.

Instead of asking all the questions I still had, I felt a call to action somewhere deep inside me. I began gathering the blankets and supplies the alphas had stuffed into packs before vacating the house and arranging them into something that felt familiar and safe.

A nest.

My normally silent wolf was now restless, clawing at the edges of my mind, urging me to settle, claim this space as ours, and stop distancing myself from the alphas. She came to life around them, lured out by the promised safety of a bond, and she wanted a nest .

Marshall was the first to notice what I was doing. He said nothing, but his dark eyes followed me, sharp and assessing. His lips pressed into a firm line as he leaned back against the cave wall, his broad frame casting long shadows across the stone.

“You making that for all of us, Omega?” Finn asked.

I glanced at him, my cheeks warming as I caught the glint of mischief in his blue eyes. He was sprawled lazily near the fire, but there was nothing lazy about the way he was watching me—his gaze was hot and predatory, like he was waiting for me to make the first move.

I swallowed hard, forcing myself to keep arranging the blankets. “It’s for whoever wants it,” I said, my voice wavering.

“Oh, I want it,” Finn said. “Don’t you ever doubt that, sweetheart.”

“Stop distracting her,” August said sharply. He was standing near the cave entrance, his green eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made my pulse race after days of barely any interaction. “Let her finish.”

I hesitated for a moment, my hands faltering as I glanced between the three of them.

August’s expression was calm and controlled, but his gaze burned. Marshall’s jaw was tight, his hands resting on his knees as if holding himself back. And Finn...well, Finn was practically smirking, his eyes roaming over me with a hunger that made my breath hitch.

The nest was finished sooner than I expected, a circle of soft furs and blankets that looked inviting and comforting. My wolf hummed in approval, an emotion I only felt from her in the past when comforting my sister, but no one moved to step into it.

“Well?” Finn drawled, pushing himself up from the ground and sauntering to me, “Are you going to invite us in?”

“Finn,” August warned, though there was no mistaking the interest in his voice—he also wanted to know.

“What?” Finn said, glancing back at him with a grin. He crouched down beside me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off him. His fingers brushed against mine as he reached for one of the furs, his touch light but electric. “You made this for us, didn’t you?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but no words came out. My wolf was howling in my head, the loudest I’d ever felt her, urging me to lean into him, to let them all in.

“Finn,” Marshall said, his voice low and rough. “Don’t scare her off.”

Finn snorted, his grin widening as he leaned closer, his breath warm against my ear. “She doesn’t look scared to me.”

My breath hitched, and I glanced at August before I could think better of it. He hadn’t moved from his spot near the entrance, but his green eyes were darker now, his control slipping just enough for me to see the hunger beneath.

“You made the nest,” he said softly, his voice like velvet over steel. “Now you need to decide what happens in it.”

The choice was mine, but the way they looked at me—waiting, wanting—made it feel inevitable. My wolf urged me forward, and I couldn’t deny her. I finally let go of the hesitation that had been holding me back.

I reached out, my hand brushing against Finn’s chest as I met his gaze. “Stay,” I whispered, my voice trembling but steady enough to make him pause.

Finn’s grin faltered for a moment, replaced by something more profound and unadulterated. “I’d jump off a bridge if you asked me to, sweetheart.”

He kissed me, passionate and demanding. He drew me onto his lap, his body warm and firm beneath mine, and his hands roamed over me.

Marshall gripped my waist, pulling me back slightly to claim my lips with a slower, deeper kiss, his teeth grazing my bottom lip.

August finally stepped into the nest and reached to cup my chin with an unexpected gentleness. He kissed me, too, steady and controlled, but it left me just as breathless as the others had.

They surrounded me, their hands and mouths worshiping every inch of me, their voices low and rough as they murmured my name like a prayer. The nest wasn’t just mine anymore—it was ours, a place where the storm outside didn’t matter, where the fire between us burned brighter than the lightning that lit up the night.

Before anything could go too far, though, they all pulled away, just enough that I could drag in a gasp of air. I glared at Marshall as he settled in front of me.

He offered a small smile, his entire demeanor more relaxed than I had seen it before. “You’ve been through a lot today,” he said. “We don’t need to do more than this. Okay?”

He leaned forward and pressed our lips together in another kiss, this one much more tender, and when he pulled away, the three alphas settled in around me. Marshall rested with his arm bent under his head in front of me, and August wrapped his arm around my middle from behind, pulling me up until he was pressed against every inch of me.

Finn laid his head against my belly, his torso intertwined with my legs, pressing a tender kiss to the top of one of my thighs as he shot a wicked grin up at me.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he teased. “We’ll take care of you eventually. What’s a little edging between packmates, right?”

I couldn’t stop myself from rolling my eyes at him, a gesture that got a genuine laugh from him, but then we all settled down to wait out the storm. It was a joke, but we all knew I never had a pack that treated each other with respect and care, and that was part of the reason I was still holding back along with my anger. Every person in my old pack was influenced by Raol’s pride and greed. As an omega, I had barely come out of it unscathed, but even the betas in the pack suffered. Raol believed the pack alpha should be free to do whatever they wanted with no consequences. It was an old-fashioned belief, one that many packs had rejected. But the world wasn’t progressing fast enough, not with omega auctions still being held and the council refusing to curb pack alphas who terrorized everyone in sight.

I scanned my eyes over the three alphas around me. Did they lead like Raol? No, I couldn’t see any of these powerful men acting as insecurely as Raol did. They all had distinct personalities, all with different triggers and reactions to my everyday emotions.

I would find out about their pasts soon enough, if only I could get myself to let go of my own past.

I sighed and sank into the warmth of the makeshift nest, simultaneously unfamiliar yet comforting. The storm raged outside, loud and aggressive, but here, in the nest, I was warm and safe and surrounded on all sides by alphas.

It was enough to make my eyelids quickly grow heavy with sleep, and I felt the moment that Marshall and Finn fell into sleep as well. Behind me, August seemed to be having the most difficulty relaxing, and when he pressed up against me, and I felt the swelling length of his erection against my ass, I knew why.

I shifted back against him, but my mind was too tired to do more than that. His low growl of frustration and pleasure was the last thing I heard before I fell asleep, promising myself that I would make it up to him...sometime soon.