“Good, I’ve also got this if you want it.”
I hold up a foil packet with a distinctive logo that I found in our villa’s bathroom with the other supplies typically included in a heat kit. Her eyes widen as she recognizes it.
“Emergency birth control,” she says, voice wavering.
“Using it is up to you,” I reply with a shrug. “I know we’re moving fast, but nobody expects you to movethatfast.”
She gives me a smile of relief before tearing open the packet and swallowing the small pill inside. “Thank you.”
“Don’t ever thank me for giving you what you need.”
As we board the jet, I make a silent promise to myself and to her. Trinity’s first heat with us will be everything she deserves to feel—safe, cherished, and completely overwhelming in the best possible way. Whatever happens at thirty thousand feet will set the foundation for everything that comes after.
The engines begin to spin up as we settle into our seats for takeoff, and I catch Trinity’s scent shifting, becoming richer and more complex by the minute. Soon, there will be no hiding, no pretending, no careful boundaries.
Just Trinity, her heat, and a pack that is completely, irrevocably hers.
FORTY-TWO
TRINITY
I stare downat the neatly made bed in the bedroom of the private jet, feeling lost and confused. The cream-colored linens are pristine and perfectly tucked, almost too perfect to disturb.
My heat symptoms are getting stronger by the hour—the sensitivity, the warmth pooling low in my belly, the way every scent seems amplified.
What was I supposed to be doing?
The sound of someone entering the bedroom behind me makes me startle. Lucas appears in the doorway with what appears to be an over-filled duffle bag that is almost as big as he is slung over his shoulder, his face lit up with boyish excitement.
“Special delivery,” he announces cheerfully, hefting the bag higher as he empties its contents on the bed.
Pillows fall out first, enough that I have no idea how he stuffed them all in there. Then come the blankets: silk throws, cashmere wraps, and what looks like the softest cotton quilt I’ve ever seen.
“Lucas,” I breathe, reaching out to touch a plush velvet pillow. “Where did you get all this?”
He grins, running a hand through his blond hair. “I may have liberated them from our villa at the resort. Figure they can bill me for it if they want, but nesting materials probably get destroyed on a regular basis anyway, right?”
My omega hindbrain practically purrs at the sight of so many perfect nesting materials. The urge to arrange them, to create something soft and safe and mine, hits me with surprising intensity.
Cash appears behind Lucas, his arms full of food supplies. He methodically lines up water bottles along the small dresser, followed by snack-size bags of trail mix, energy bars, and what looks like enough provisions to last days.
“Hydration and nutrition,” he explains matter-of-factly when he catches me staring. “Heat burns through a lot of calories and?—”
“Cash,” I interrupt, warmth spreading through my chest as I watch him fuss over the details. “You don’t have to obsess over me like this.”
“I want to,” he says simply, adjusting the water bottles into perfect rows.
Watching them both—Lucas fluffing stolen pillows like someone who is very much still a kid at heart and Cash methodically arranging snack bags because he doesn’t want me worrying about anything—something clicks into place. No one has ever taken care of me like this. Not during heat, not out of heat, not ever. The alphas I’ve dated before always seemed to expect me to handle everything myself, to be self-sufficient even when I was at my most vulnerable.
But here are Lucas and Cash, anticipating my needsbefore I even voice them. Creating a space designed entirely for my comfort and safety.
The realization hits me like a physical force, arousal spiking through me so sharply I actually gasp. This isn’t just attraction to their bodies or their scents. This is something deeper—the omega part of me responding to genuine care, to being cherished and protected.
Before either of them can react, I grab Lucas with surprising strength, my hands fisting in his shirt as I drag him down to the floor among the scattered pillows.
He laughs as we tumble together, his arms immediately wrapping around me. “Easy there, sweetheart. Don’t you want to make your nest first?”
But rational thought has abandoned me completely. All I can focus on is the heat building inside me, the need for connection, for touch, for them.
