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synopsis: your love language is acts of service. dean's fluent in making you happy. (or: six times dean went out of his way to show you he loves you in everyday life.)
WARNINGS: cussing, suggestive, car accident mention
a/n: holy yapathon
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1.
Early on in your relationship with Dean you made a few things clear. The most important of those being that you both had to communicate in a way that the other would understand.
That includes your love languages.
You learned very quickly that physical touch was what Dean liked and needed. If the going gets tough, you leaned on words of affirmation a bit, too.
On the other hand, you have always been partial to acts of service.
Dean didn't ask you what that meant, so you assumed he understood.
But, away from you, Dean asked many questions.
At the Hockey House, the guys snorted when they heard the question.
It's not everyday that the resident fuckboy asks what acts of service are and if thats an innuendo he failed to read.
Logan snorted and rolled his eyes, deciding to let the scene play out without his interference.
Tucker let out a tired sigh, way too akin to that of a teacher whose heard one too many stupid questions for their patience to not run thin.
Garrett was the only one who provided anything of use. After laughing his ass off, of course.
"Okay. Acts or service isn't a sex thing, Dean. It just means she likes small gestures. Like opening the door for her or making her coffee the way she likes it, bro", Garrett earnestly answers.
Dean lets out a sigh of relief. "That's easy. I just have to pay attention", he sounds way too confident for everyone liking.
"Easier said than done", Tucker mutters under his breath.
Logan had already left the room and Garrett wasn't too far behind. Something about texting Hannah that Dean's suddenly become a romance guru.
Despite his not-so-great track record and his teammates' lack of belief in him, acts of service came easily to Dean.
He wasn't sure if it was because he was trying his hardest to love you the right way or if it was that loving you came so easily that the rest just followed.
For instance, during date nights.
You and Dean have a system where he picks where date night will be one week and you pick the time after.
Your turn has become predictable.
Nine out of ten times you're going to choose the local Mexican spot. It's small and not at all fancy. Exactly how you like it.
You always either get al pastor tacos or quesabirrias. Both of which require (atleast in your books) some lime to be squeezed on top.
With your nails being freshly done, you hesitated to get them all dirtied up. Once, that is.
Dean saw you take a longing look at the limes for a second too long.
Immediately, he asked, "Can I?"
You nodded, suprised he noticed your lime-related troubles.
He squeezed the lime juice all over the tacos like it was nothing.
And, sure, it wasn't a big deal.
But, often the smallest gestures mean the most.
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2.
Ever since studying at Briar, your favorite dessert has changed for the better. Before college, you lived and died for raspberry cheesecake.
Now, Della's cherry pie reigns supreme.
You don't get to eat it often, though.
With your closing shifts at Malone's, late-night study sessions, and weekly date nights, you don't find yourself at Della's as often as you used to.
Today's different.
The entire group's meeting up at the 50's-themed diner to celebrate the team's success at the Frozen Four.
When you arrive, everyone's already sitting.
Logan whistles at your entrance and Tucker jokes that he can't believe they've all been graced with your presence after all.
You roll your eyes and jokingly flip them off.
In no time, the conversations pick up and laughter becomes the background music of the hour.
You realize Dean has his hand on a fork that's barely touching a slice of cherry pie. You raise an eyebrow and your eyes signal towards the pie.
"Oh. This?", he asks.
You nod. "You don't like anything cherry", you remind him. As if he doesn't know himself, you realize a second too late.
"I know. I saved it for you", he explains.
"Oh", your mouth is left slightly gaping.
"The guy ordering at the counter was gonna grab it. I asked him if I could take it instead. I think if he hadn't seen the jacket he would have left with it", he says, referring to his Hawks Letterman jacket.
"Big-time star saved me a slice? What did I do to deserve this?", you joke. You don't think your sarcasm does a good enough job to hide the blush on your cheeks, though.
He smirks, but thinks better than saying what he wanted to.
Instead, he scooches you closer to him.
Your thighs are pressed against Dean's and your left hand is wrapped up in his.
Your right hand and 70% of your attention is wrapped up in the last slice of cherry pie.
The other 30% is all Dean.
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3.
The last time Dean had the dorm all to himself was last Labor Day. For whatever reason, none of the guys were home and no parties called his name.
Before today.
Tucker's staying at Sigma Tau, Logan's spending the night with Grace since Ramona's out of town, and Garrett is in Boston on some Bruins media run.
This means you're definitely coming over for date night.
You were surprised when he told you the location of date night (his turn and all), but even more surprised when he mentioned dressing nicely.
When you arrive at the famous Hockey House in a red mini dress and platforms, Dean looks the part. He also looks suspiciously sheepish.
The countertop is decorated nicely, three fake candles and rose petals adorning the space.
Once you've sat, he clears his throat.
"You're probably wondering why you're dressed formally at the dorm", he begins. You nod, willing him to get on with it. "I had a plan. It was a good one. An ambitious one. But, uhm, not a very successful one", he rambles on.
"Dean", you say sternly.
Instead of responding he turns around and grabs two plates.
Before setting them down he says, "Don't laugh."
It was impossible not to when you realized what was right in front of you.
It was a sad excuse for chicken parmesan. Or, atleast you believe it was supposed to be.
The chicken was missing half it's breading and burnt to a crisp.
The pasta looked both raw and undercooked.
And the sauce...was closer to a tomato water than a marinara.
"Oh, baby", you managed once you stopped laughing.
The tips of Dean's ears were bright red (redder than the tomato sauce in front of you) and his eyes refused to look at his creation.
"This is so sweet", you say earnestly.
"It's inedible", Dean objects.
"Well, yes. But! You made it. For us", you argue.
"It was supposed to be big romantic gesture", he laments.
"It was! Nobody said romantic gestures have to be edible", you tease.
He grunts, but lets out a smile.
"Plus", you theorize. "Isn't it just as romantic to order from Tao's?"
Dean dramatically gasps. "Wooow. My efforts mean nothing to you, do they?"
You dissolve into a puddle of laughter. "I love you. So much. Your cooking "skills" on the other hand..."
Dean tickles you until you're begging for mercy.
Not every romantic gesture is successful. But, they are all appreciated in your book.
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4.
Sometimes you stare at Dean's hair with pure jealousy in your heart.
It's straight and thin, the exact opposite of yours.
Your hair has been unruly all your life. It's curly in most places and wavy in others. It's layered and thick.
Don't get me wrong, it's beautiful. But, the upkeep is...tiring.
Washing your hair is a weekly event. It takes so long you could probably watch a mini-doc in the time it takes you to get your hair in shape.
Dean knows you hate wash days. To make it even a little more manageable, he usually tries to brighten your mood.
He'll bring you a matcha or sit around with you while your hair mask does its wonders.
He's watched you wash your hair almost as many times as you've watched him play hockey.
Today, he's decided to lend a helping hand.
When he offered his hairwashing services, you figured he was joking.
"Ha ha, D. I know it's a mess, but it's a one person job", you insist.
"Yeah. I'll be the one person", he doubles down.
After twenty minutes of you insisting it wasn't necessary and Dean insisting otherwise, you were sat at the kitchen sink.
He's using the cowash. Correctly, you may add.
He's not too soft, but he's also not ripping your coils off your head.
You almost let out a moan at how well he's washing your scalp.
You didn't see it, but his smile widened when he realized how much you're enjoying this.
"Okay, now for conditioner", he mumbles.
You open one eye. "Be gentle when you're detangling, baby. My curls and your locks aren't the same", you softly remind him.
Again, he surprises you. He starts at your ends and works his way up to your roots. He doesn't yank or pull, he works at the strands until they're all untangled and soft.
Lastly, he washes out the conditioner. His rough hands do their best to treat your tender head nicely.
After an hour of the best hair wash of your life, Dean smiles. "All done."
You open your eyes to a very proud Dean...whose clothes are sticking to his defined chest.
You weren't gonna mention how he looked like he's been on a lazy river. He won that today.
"Thank you, baby", you start. "You really didn't have to."
"I wanted to", he informs you as his hands tangle with yours.
You kiss his jaw softly once. Then, twice. He groans and you stop there.
A kiss on his cheek is all you give him before you're up. "I still have to scrunch my hair. I'll be back", you wink at him.
When you came back out, you were dressed in his favorite lingerie set. Your wet hair was heavy on your back, but your heart felt light.
To have someone love you enough to make the things you dislike easier is a gift. You're not sure how you got so lucky.
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5.
Driving is not fun to you. At all.
When everyone was obsessed with getting their licenses in high school, you were too.
A freak car accident that left you with a concussion and a broken arm your senior year changed that forever.
But, still you had to drive out of necessity.
You don't live on campus and you like to visit your parents when you can. Only a car allows you to do these things.
Or, as it turns out, Dean does, too.
He learned quickly that driving was one of those unavoidable fears you faced everyday.
Maybe it was how tightly your knuckles gripped the steering wheel. Or how you checked your mirrors six times before you even turned on the car. It could have been the way you could barely speak when you're driving, too laser-focused on staring at every car and pedestrian outside your control that could change the course of your life forever.
Slowly, Dean made it so he would become the default driver no matter what.
To the grocery store? Oh, cool, he'll join in because he needs to buy ingredients Tucker's asked for.
You need to stop home to grab clothes? Perfect, he's been wanting to stop at the convenience store a block away.
Often his excuses were ridiculous. But, your phobia was so great that you couldn't find it in you to call his crap.
The weirdest thing, though, is that Dean hates driving, too.
Not that you know anything about it. But, most everyone else does.
It's a combination of things. Dean hates traffic. He hates not being on his feet, the car feeling like a cage he can't escape. He's also technically a New Yorker. What New Yorker drives?!
But, none of his sorry excuses compare to the watery eyes you looked at him with when you recounted the car accident. When you told him that you were trapped in the car for thirty minutes, praying to someone somewhere that you'd survive.
He'd rather feel annoyed and a bit of road rage every once in a while than ever put you in the position you dread being in again.
Love is inconveniencing yourself to make your loved one's life just a little easier.
Dean would put the world on his shoulders to take the burden off yours.
What's a drive in comparison?
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6.
The only reason you can attend BriarU is your academics. You were valedictorian of your school and wrote a killer Common App essay to cement your spot.
While the massive Dean's scholarship should give you some peace of mind, it honestly does the opposite. You feel like you have to work twice as hard as everyone to make sure you can be at the place the scholarship demands you stay in.
Due to this, you stay at the campus library until closing at least twice a week.
Dean tries to act like he doesn't, but he hates this habit of yours.
He worries. Worries you won't get home safe. Worries you won't get enough sleep. Worries you've got too much pressure on your shoulders at such a young age.
So, instead of texting you every five minutes (which has gotten him told off once...or twice), he's decided on a better alternative.
At eight, when the real studying begins, he shows up with a slice of cherry pie, an iced americano, and a club sandwich.
You're not sure how he got the delicious smelling food through Mrs. Dilano who once scolded you for bringing in a pack of saltines. But, that's a worry for another day. One when you're not starving and extremely grateful your boyfriend saved your night.
"Hey", you greet him with a warm smile.
"Hey, yourself", he responds.
He doesn't explain himself. He doesn't have to.
He simply sets the sandwich out of its aluminum wrapper, puts a napkin under your drink, and grabs a fork from his...back pocket (?!) to place next to the pie.
"I love you", he says once he's done. "Eat it all. Send me a picture when you're done so I can actually sleep well tonight."
Your insides melt into a puddle of goo.
"You didn't have to, Mama bear. But, I love you two", you tease.
He kisses your nose and lets his forhead settle on yours. "I know. We've established that, haven't we? I do things like this because I love you and I want you to know that in your language, too."
He was getting ready to walk right out the library when you pull him onto the seat next to you.
He stays. Not just until you're done eating your sandwich or nibbling through the pie.
He stays until you're ready to go. He doesn't speak much, but his presence is enough.
You don't think anyone sees Dean like this. Soft, comfortably quiet, and observant are not three adjectives anyone but you would use to describe him.
- Summary: A fragile marriage between dragonblooded houses becomes something far more dangerous than politics: love.
- Pairing: male!targ!reader/Helaena Targaryen
- Note: This one-shot uses a HOTD-inspired premise, but the characterizations, worldbuilding, and canon details are based on Fire & Blood rather than the show.
It smelled of smoke, hot stone, old fish, horse sweat, rotten fruit, scented oil, dragon musk, and the stink of too many men pretending that silk made them less mortal. From above, upon the saddle of Velyrax, the city looked almost worthy of songs: the Blackwater glittering under the pale morning sun, the Red Keep rising red and severe above Aegon’s High Hill, the Dragonpit crouched like a half-buried crown upon Rhaenys’s Hill, its great bronze doors swallowing beasts that had once made kings kneel. From closer, the illusion always curdled. Streets narrowed into veins. Flea Bottom steamed. Sept bells rang. Somewhere below, someone was being born, someone was dying, and someone was selling watered wine to a fool who deserved worse. It was the same city your kin had ruled, the same city your father had mocked, the same city King Viserys still tried to hold together with feasts, marriages, smiles, and the rotting remnants of his own flesh.
Velyrax descended in a long, smooth spiral, his wings catching the wind over the Blackwater before folding close to his body as he dropped toward the Dragonpit. He was not the largest dragon in the world, not while Vhagar yet lived and not while Caraxes still coiled around towers and cliffs like a red nightmare made obedient by will alone, but he was no hatchling either. Your mother had chosen his egg herself, a dark sea-green thing veined in dull silver, warm beneath her hand before you had even been named. Laena Velaryon had told Daemon Targaryen that the egg looked as if the sea had swallowed moonlight and refused to give it back. Daemon, never one to allow poetry to go unchallenged, had called it ugly. Three moons later it hatched in your cradle, snapping at the wet nurse and curling its tail around your ankle as if deciding the matter of ownership before gods or men could interfere. You had named him Velyrax when you were still young enough to think names were simple things. A Velaryon sound for your mother’s blood, a hard Valyrian ending for your father’s. A dragon fit for a son born between salt and fire.
His scales had deepened with age, green as storm-dark water across the back, fading to pale silver along the throat and belly. In sunlight his wings showed threads of bronze, and when angered, the membranes flushed almost black. His eyes were amber, bright and mean, with an old intelligence that made stableboys cross themselves and dragonkeepers mutter to each other in High Valyrian when they thought you were not listening. His flame burned pale at the center and green at the edges, beautiful in the way wildfire was beautiful, which meant no sane man wished to admire it for long.
He landed with a shudder that rattled through the stones. Dust leapt around his claws. Dragonkeepers came forward with chains, hooks, and low voices, careful as priests serving a god they knew would gladly eat them. You slid from the saddle, one gloved hand still against Velyrax’s neck until he lowered his great head beside you. His breath washed over your shoulder, hot and metallic.
“Rȳbās,” you murmured, and his rumble vibrated through your bones.
The dragonkeepers bowed. One old man, scarred from brow to chin by some beast’s past displeasure, looked past you toward the great doors. “Prince Y/N,” he said. “The queen’s daughter waits within the yard.”
You did not correct him. No one did, not anymore. Helaena was Princess Helaena by birth, your wife by law, beloved of the smallfolk by some miracle of gentle manners and maternal softness. Yet in King’s Landing, titles clung to people like cobwebs, and men spoke them wrong whenever fear made their tongues stupid. Queen Alicent’s daughter. Daemon’s good-daughter. Viserys’s peace offering. Your wife. Your Helaena, though even thinking it so plainly would have made half the court itch with offense, as if love were vulgar when not first approved by a council table.
You found her waiting beneath the inner archway of the Dragonpit, not close enough for Velyrax to take insult and not far enough to seem afraid. She wore pale blue silk today, soft as washed sky, with a mantle embroidered in silver thread over her shoulders. Her hair, silver-gold and heavy, had been braided simply and bound with small pearls. She had never had your father’s taste for display, nor your stepmother’s regal severity, nor Alicent’s careful pageantry. Helaena always seemed dressed for herself first and the realm second, a quiet rebellion so harmless in appearance that no lord knew where to place his disapproval.
At her side stood your son, Jaehaerys, three years old, solemn as a maester and clutching a carved wooden dragon in one fist. His hair was pale like hers, curling slightly at the ends, and his eyes were yours, dark violet with a ring of blue around the iris. Viserys had wept when the babe was named, because Viserys could weep at a song, a memory, a wound, or a plate of honeyed figs if it came garnished with enough sentiment. Your father had scoffed. Alicent had prayed. Otto Hightower had smiled the way men smiled when counting future coins. Helaena had only looked at the child against her breast and said the name suited him, which had ended the argument more cleanly than any royal command.
Jaehaerys saw you and broke from his nurse with all the dignity of a charging puppy. “Father!”
You went down on one knee before he reached you, catching him against your chest. His little arms locked around your neck. He smelled of milk, soap, and the lavender sachets Helaena tucked among his linens. For a moment, the city vanished. The court vanished. Blood claims, succession, gossip, bastardy, councils, Driftmark, Dragonstone, Oldtown, all of it shrank into nothing beside the warm weight of your son in your arms.
“You have grown taller since dawn,” you told him gravely.
He leaned back and frowned as if weighing the truth of this. “No.”
“No? Then heavier.”
“Maybe.”
“Helaena, the boy admits to maybe. We are raising a cautious prince.”
Helaena’s mouth curved. She came toward you, her gaze moving briefly past your shoulder to Velyrax, who watched her with one narrowed amber eye. Unlike many in the Red Keep, Helaena had never hated dragons merely because they were dangerous. Dreamfyre was her own, after all, old and pale and strange, with blue wings and a roar like tearing silk. But Velyrax was your father’s son in spirit, ill-tempered, proud, and fond of frightening men who had not yet earned the courtesy.
“Caution is rare enough in this family,” she said. “We should treasure it before someone teaches him glory.”
You rose with Jaehaerys still in your arms. “Someone will try by supper.”
“Your father arrived last night.”
There it was, spoken softly, as though the words were a cup placed near the edge of a table. Daemon Targaryen had returned to King’s Landing with Princess Rhaenyra and their children, as commanded by the king for the matter of Driftmark, for Lord Corlys lay wounded and fevered after war in the Stepstones, and men had begun gathering like flies wherever inheritance bled. Vaemond Velaryon had come to press his claim. Your alleged cousins, Jacaerys and Lucerys, had come because their names were always the knife men reached for when striking at Rhaenyra. Your sisters, Baela and Rhaena, had come because they were Laena’s daughters and could not be kept from a question of their mother’s house. And you had been summoned because you were the oldest child and only son of Daemon Targaryen and Laena Velaryon, which made you inconvenient in every possible direction.
The realm called Jacaerys and Lucerys Velaryon because the realm had been told to do so. Songs could lie prettily. Heralds could lie loudly. Septons could sanctify a lie until men knelt before it. But blood had eyes, hair, mouths, gestures, and the court had never stopped looking. You had grown beside Baela and Rhaena knowing that truth could be a blade even when left sheathed. Laena had never taught you cruelty. Daemon had taught you that mercy was often a luxury purchased by someone else’s weakness. Between them, you had learned to keep your own counsel.
Helaena reached out and brushed a loose strand of hair from Jaehaerys’s brow. “Vaemond has asked to speak with you before the petition.”
“Has he?”
“He asked my mother where you were housed. She said she did not know.”
That meant Alicent knew precisely where you were housed and had chosen not to give Vaemond the satisfaction. A small mercy, or a calculation. With Alicent, it was often both.
“You should not see him alone,” Helaena added.
You studied her face. She did not look frightened. Helaena was seldom as fragile as those who wished to use her believed. She had a softness to her, yes, and a tenderness that had somehow survived the Red Keep, which was a rarer thing than dragon eggs. But softness was not stupidity. Silk could cover mail. A gentle voice could refuse more cleanly than a shout.
“Do you think he means to threaten me?”
“I think men say honor when they want something bloody done by another hand.”
You kissed Jaehaerys on the temple and gave him back to his nurse. “Stay with your mother.”
The boy looked at Velyrax. “Can I see him?”
“From far away.”
“I am brave.”
“You are three.”
“I am brave three.”
Helaena laughed then, low and warm, and the sound loosened something in your chest. She took Jaehaerys’s hand. “Brave three-year-old princes stand with their mothers and do not become breakfast.”
Velyrax snorted, smoke curling from his nostrils as if offended by the suggestion that he would stoop to eating something so small. Jaehaerys stared in awe. The dragonkeepers tightened their hands around their chains and pretended not to be afraid, which was a fine summary of Targaryen rule.
You walked with Helaena from the Dragonpit toward the covered way where litters and guards waited to return you to the Red Keep. Your sworn sword, Ser Corwyn, fell in behind at a respectful distance, and two of Helaena’s ladies followed with the nurse and child. The city moved around you in a blur of faces and bowed heads. Some called blessings for Princess Helaena. A woman with a basket of onions lifted a hand and shouted that the gods keep the sweet princess and her boy. Helaena smiled to her, not the empty court smile of someone acknowledging furniture that had learned to speak, but a real expression, brief and kind. The woman nearly wept.
“You do that too easily,” you said.
“What?”
“Make them love you.”
She gave you a sidelong look. “It is not difficult to be kind to people who have done me no harm.”
“That philosophy would kill my father.”
“Your father survives many things out of spite. He would survive kindness too, though he would resent it.”
You almost smiled. “He did when he learned I was to marry you.”
Helaena’s gaze lowered for a moment. The old wound had long scarred over, but scars were still proof that something had been cut.
You remembered it too well. The king had still been stronger then, though already swollen in places and missing two fingers. Viserys had summoned Daemon to the council chamber, where Otto Hightower sat with his hands folded, Lord Beesbury blinking over accounts, Grand Maester Mellos smelling faintly of herbs and old cloth, and Alicent standing beside the king’s chair in green velvet. You had been young, not yet wise enough to hide all your feelings and no longer young enough to be excused from the consequences of them. Helaena had stood across the chamber with her mother’s hand upon her shoulder, eyes down, cheeks pale, her hair pinned beneath a net of pearls. The king had spoken of healing divisions, of binding branches, of old hurts soothed by new vows. He had called you his blood twice and Helaena his dearest girl three times. Then he had announced the betrothal.
Daemon’s laughter had been worse than rage at first. A brief, bright sound without mirth. “No.”
Viserys had winced. “Brother.”
“No,” Daemon said again, and this time the word had teeth. “You do not get to heal your house by selling my son across the table like a cup of Arbor gold.”
Alicent’s face tightened. “Princess Helaena is not a cup to be sold.”
“Then take your father’s fingers from the bargain.”
Otto’s expression did not change. That was one of the things you had hated first about him, that stillness. It was not calm. It was practice.
Viserys had pushed himself upright, breathing hard. “This is not a punishment.”
“It is not a kindness.”
“It is a marriage,” the king said, voice cracking with effort. “A marriage between kin, between dragonriders, between the blood of my brother and the blood of my daughter. You think I do not know what is said in this castle? You think I do not hear the whispers? My house is splitting before my eyes. Let this be one knot tied before the rope frays beyond repair.”
Daemon had stepped closer to the table. Every guard in the room had become more aware of his sword. “You want peace? Name Rhaenyra plainly again. Send your leeches in green back to Oldtown. Stop letting these carrion birds pick at your heir’s children. That would make peace.”
“Enough,” Viserys snapped, and for a heartbeat he looked like the young king he had once been, angry, flushed, and certain the world should obey because he wished it so. Then pain took him, and he sank back.
Helaena had looked at you then. Not pleading. Not pleased. Only looking, as if trying to see whether you would become another man deciding the shape of her life while speaking over her head. You had hated the match because it was a chain, because it was Viserys trying to stitch a wound with living thread, because Daemon’s fury moved in your blood as naturally as breath. But you had hated more the way everyone spoke as if Helaena were a chair to be moved from one side of the hall to another.
So you had asked, “Does the princess consent?”
The chamber had gone silent.
Alicent’s hand tightened on Helaena’s shoulder. Daemon’s eyes cut to you, unreadable. Viserys looked startled, and then ashamed. Helaena had lifted her chin.
“I will do what is required,” she had said.
“That was not the question,” you replied.
Something changed in her face then. Not much. Enough.
“I would rather marry someone who asks than someone who does not,” Helaena said.
Not love. Not joy. Not even hope. But it had been the first honest stone laid between you. Years later, it remained the one that mattered most.
Now, walking through King’s Landing with your son behind you and your wife at your side, you wondered whether Viserys had ever understood what he had made. He had wanted a bridge. The court had wanted a hostage shaped like a husband. Daemon had seen a theft. Alicent had seen a risk and a safeguard woven together. Otto had seen numbers moving across a board. Helaena had seen a stranger who asked. You had seen a girl given no room to refuse, and perhaps that was where affection began: not with desire, not with songs, but with the simple act of not turning another person into a thing.
The Red Keep received you with its usual appetite. Servants moved through corridors carrying linen, wine, rushes, polished trays, and secrets. Guards stood beside doors trying not to overhear what their wages depended on them hearing. Courtiers bowed, murmured, retreated. Everywhere there were colors. Black and red. Green and gold. Seahorse silver. Hightower flame. Dragons on breasts, dragons on cloaks, dragons carved into lintels, dragons painted on shields. A dead dynasty could not have decorated its own tomb better.
Vaemond Velaryon found you before the hour of petition.
He waited in a small gallery overlooking the outer ward, a proud man with a hard mouth and silver hair bound at the nape of his neck. His cloak was sea-blue, clasped with a silver seahorse. He bowed, correctly but without warmth.
“Prince Y/N.”
“Ser Vaemond.”
“I thank you for granting me this moment.”
“I did not grant it. You stood in my path.”
His nostrils flared. “You have your father’s courtesy.”
“And my mother’s patience. Spend it carefully.”
Vaemond’s gaze shifted past you, perhaps seeking listeners. Ser Corwyn remained by the archway with one hand resting near his sword. Not near enough to insult. Near enough to remind.
“I come for justice,” Vaemond said.
“Most men who say that come for advancement.”
“Driftmark is not an advancement. It is my blood.”
“It is Lord Corlys’s seat.”
“Lord Corlys lies near death.”
“Then pray for him.”
Vaemond stepped closer. “Do not play the fool. You are Laena’s son. Her firstborn. A dragonrider. The blood of the sea snake runs in you, as it does not run in the boy they mean to seat upon the Driftwood Throne.”
There it was, naked at last. Men dressed ambition in law the way corpses were dressed for burial, but rot always found air.
“You mean Lucerys,” you said.
“I mean the truth.”
“You mean treason, if spoken too loudly.”
“I mean to prevent a theft. If you will not support my claim, press your own. Many would follow you.”
You watched him. “Would you?”
Vaemond’s mouth closed.
“No,” you said. “You would use my name to break his, then call me ungrateful when I did not kneel to your counsel afterward.”
“You dishonor your mother by allowing her house to pass to a bastard.”
Your hand moved before thought completed itself, closing around the front of his cloak and driving him back into the carved stone beside the window. Ser Corwyn shifted, but you did not draw steel. Not yet. Vaemond’s eyes widened, less with fear than surprise. Men who called themselves truth-tellers were often shocked when their truth earned fingers at their throat.
“My mother,” you said quietly, “rode Vhagar before you ever thought yourself brave. She crossed seas, defied comfort, and laughed at men who mistook lineage for worth. Do not place her name in your mouth to sweeten your hunger.”
Vaemond’s face darkened. “You know what those boys are.”
“I know what they have been named.”
“Names do not change blood.”
“No,” you said. “But men have drowned in less than what you are stirring.”
He stared at you for a long moment, then gave a thin smile. “Your marriage has softened you.”
Your grip tightened once, enough to pull cloth against his windpipe. “My marriage has taught me that men who speak of family often mean possession.”
You released him. Vaemond smoothed his cloak with stiff, furious hands.
“When the king dies,” he said, voice low, “all these pretty arrangements will die with him.”
“Then be careful you do not join them first.”
The petition was heard in the throne room beneath the blades of dead kings.
He left you there, his footsteps hard on stone. You watched him go without satisfaction. There were men at court who could be dismissed as fools, which made life easier. Vaemond was not a fool. That was worse. He had measured the weakness in the realm and found the seam. If he had not been so proud, he might have been truly dangerous. As it was, pride would put a sword or an axe through him soon enough. Westeros loved nothing so much as a man loudly carrying kindling into a room full of candles.
You stood with Helaena near the side of the hall, Jaehaerys kept away with his nurse, thank the gods. Rhaenyra stood tall in black and red, heavy with pregnancy, her face controlled but pale around the mouth. Beside her were Jacaerys and Lucerys, trying to look older than they were. Poor Luke looked as if the weight of Driftmark might crush him before he ever saw its tides again. Your sisters stood nearby, Baela fierce-eyed, Rhaena quieter but no less watchful. Daemon leaned with one hand on Dark Sister’s pommel, boredom draped over him so elegantly that only those who knew him saw the violence beneath it.
Alicent sat in green beside the Hand. Otto Hightower held court with the calm of a man who had already written three endings and was waiting to see which fool chose which road. The king was absent at first, too ill, it was said, and the Hand began in his name. The air tasted of dust and iron. Men whispered. Women watched. Vaemond spoke boldly, his voice carrying through the hall, laying out bloodlines, claims, rights. He did not press your name. Not after the gallery. But he let it hover. Laena’s son, unspoken. Laena’s blood, available in the room. A better claim than the boy’s, if one wished to pretend this was all about law and not about gutting Rhaenyra before witnesses.
Rhaenyra answered. Her words were careful, her anger hidden beneath royal composure. She spoke of Lord Corlys’s wish, of betrothals, of the king’s declared will. Then the doors opened.
Viserys came in wearing the crown of the Conciliator.
No one forgot that sight. Not afterward. Not even those who hated him. He was half a corpse and yet still the king, leaning on his cane, face masked in gold where disease had taken him, breath harsh enough to carry in the silence. Every step looked like punishment. Every inch forward was a commandment. He crossed the throne room because Rhaenyra had asked, because his brother watched, because his house was tearing itself apart and some ruined stubbornness in him still believed a father might forbid the storm.
No one helped him at first. Pride would not let them, or shock. Then Daemon moved. He went to his brother and lifted the fallen crown, placing it back upon Viserys’s head with a tenderness so brief it almost seemed imagined. Your throat tightened despite yourself. Daemon was many things, few of them safe, but he had loved his brother in the bitter, furious way dragons loved anything: possessively, destructively, beyond reason.
Viserys climbed the Iron Throne and bled for it.
When he spoke, his voice was weak, but the throne room bent to hear. Lucerys was heir to Driftmark. Lord Corlys’s wishes stood. The matter was settled.
It should have ended there. In a better realm, it might have. In this one, Vaemond Velaryon decided that pride was worth more than survival.
He denounced the boys. He called them what half the court whispered and no one with a functioning neck spoke before the king. Rhaenyra’s face went white. Alicent rose. Otto’s eyes closed for the briefest moment, as if he had seen the abyss and found even his appetite overmatched. Viserys dragged himself upright in a fury that seemed to tear the last strength from his bones.
“I will have your tongue for that,” the king rasped.
Daemon was already moving.
Dark Sister flashed once.
Vaemond’s head did not fall cleanly as songs would later claim. No death was as clean as singers made it. Blood struck the stone. Someone screamed. Helaena flinched, not dramatically, not like a maiden in a mummer’s farce, but as a woman startled by the sudden arrival of death in a room where men had been pretending words were not weapons. You stepped half in front of her on instinct. Daemon looked down at the corpse and said something low enough that only those nearest heard it.
“He can keep his tongue.”
The throne room erupted into noise.
Helaena’s hand found your sleeve. Her fingers pressed into the black fabric. You looked at her, expecting horror, disgust, perhaps the quiet condemnation of someone who had grown up among Hightowers and septons and still hoped men might solve things without spilling blood beneath the king’s eyes.
Instead she said, very softly, “He should have stopped.”
It was not approval. It was worse, perhaps. It was understanding.
Your father cleaned Dark Sister as though removing rainwater. Rhaenyra did not look at the body. Alicent did. Otto began issuing orders. Viserys sagged upon the throne, and for one moment you saw what this had cost him. Not the petition. Not Vaemond. The knowledge. He knew. Gods help him, he had always known. He had simply chosen love, or denial, or both, and called it law because kings had the privilege of naming their grief.
By evening, the Red Keep had done what it always did with blood. It scrubbed the stone, changed the rushes, lit candles, roasted meat, poured wine, and pretended the smell had gone.
The king commanded a supper.
That was Viserys all over. A man could lose half his face, a brother could behead a lord in open court, succession could sit at the table like a starving dog, and Viserys would still ask for music, cups, and reconciliation. He had built his reign out of avoidance and affection, and now, near its end, he reached for the same tools with trembling hands.
The feast was held in the queen’s apartments, smaller than a great hall banquet but no less heavy with performance. Viserys was carried in and set among cushions, the gold mask removed for part of the meal at his own insistence. The sight of him made many look away. Helaena did not. She rose, went to him, kissed his remaining cheek, and asked whether the pain was less after milk of the poppy. He patted her hand and called her his sweet girl.
You sat beside her with Jaehaerys on your knee for the first part of the meal. The boy behaved with grave dignity until offered sugared almonds, at which point he became a traitor to all discipline. Helaena took the dish away after his fifth, and he accepted this injustice with a wounded silence clearly inherited from no one in your family.
Rhaenyra sat across from Alicent. They exchanged courtesies that sounded almost real if one had never heard sincerity before. Jacaerys spoke politely to Baela. Rhaena smiled at Luke, perhaps to comfort him. Aegon drank too much and watched everything with that unpleasant mixture of boredom and resentment found in men who had been given every privilege except purpose. Aemond sat straight-backed, one eye covered by a sapphire beneath his patch, his mouth still as a carved line. Daeron was away in Oldtown, which may have made him the cleverest of Alicent’s sons by simple geography.
Daemon watched you more than he watched his wife’s enemies.
You felt it across the table. A father’s claim. A prince’s assessment. A dragon’s irritation that one of his own had chosen to roost in another wing of the castle. He had not forgiven the marriage. He had tolerated it because Helaena had given him no cause to despise her personally, because Jaehaerys was his grandson no matter whose daughter birthed him, and because Daemon, for all his violence, was not stupid enough to mistake your affection for weakness. But he had never stopped seeing the marriage as Viserys’s chain.
Viserys called for silence after the first courses. The room obeyed.
He spoke of family. Of old wounds. Of his love for them all. He asked, not as king but as a dying man, that they set aside grievances. It was painful because it was useless, and more painful because he meant it. Rhaenyra lifted her cup to Alicent, praising her care for the king. Alicent answered with grace and something like emotion. For one frail moment, peace entered the room and sat among you. Not strong peace. Not honest peace. But enough to make Viserys smile.
Helaena leaned closer to you. “He believes it while it is happening.”
You looked at the king. “That may be the kindest thing anyone can say of him.”
“He wanted us to be happy.”
“He wanted us to be useful.”
“Both can be true.”
You looked at her then, at the candlelight touching her cheek, at the calm intelligence in her eyes. “Are you?”
“Hm?”
“Happy.”
The question was too bare for the table, too intimate for a room full of enemies wearing kinship like borrowed cloaks. Helaena did not blush. She looked down at Jaehaerys, who had fallen asleep against your chest with one fist twisted in your sleeve.
“Yes,” she said. “Not always safely. But yes.”
A strange answer. A true one.
Aegon, already flushed with wine, leaned toward Jacaerys and muttered something that made Baela’s eyes flash. Jace went rigid. You did not hear the words, but you recognized the shape of them. Aegon had the gift of making even silence feel soiled. Helaena heard enough. She lifted her cup and said lightly, “Brother, if wine has made you clever, perhaps you should drink water before the miracle fades.”
Baela choked on a laugh. Rhaena hid her smile behind her cup. Aegon blinked, then smirked as if he had chosen to be amused rather than embarrassed. Alicent’s mouth tightened, but Viserys chuckled weakly, delighted by any sound that resembled family mirth.
Jace rose not long after and asked Helaena to dance, perhaps in courtesy, perhaps to prove himself unmoved, perhaps because kindness still lived in him despite all the men sharpening him for future war. In another life, in another arrangement, that moment might have belonged to different rumors. Here, Jace bowed to your wife as a prince to a princess, and then turned to you as well.
“With your permission, cousin?”
The word cousin hung between you. Legal cousin. Alleged cousin. Beloved cousin, if affection could decide what blood did not. You shifted Jaehaerys carefully to his nurse, then inclined your head.
“Helaena grants herself where she wishes. But if she treads on your foot, suffer nobly.”
“I do not tread,” Helaena said, rising.
“You do if distracted.”
“You speak as if you dance well enough to judge.”
“I survive.”
“You endure music until it ends and call that dancing.”
Jace laughed, and even Luke smiled. Helaena went with him, blue skirts moving softly over the floor. She danced well, not with Rhaenyra’s command or Baela’s fire, but with lightness, listening to the music rather than trying to conquer it. You watched her because you were her husband and because half the room watched who watched whom. That was marriage in the Red Keep. Even tenderness became evidence.
Daemon moved beside your chair while the musicians played.
“You refused Vaemond,” he said without preamble.
You did not look away from Helaena. “He asked for refusal.”
“He asked you to claim Driftmark?”
“He suggested justice might look improved with my face on it.”
Daemon laughed through his nose. “Fool.”
“Ambitious men often are when forced to speak plainly.”
“He insulted Laena.”
“He did.”
Daemon’s amusement thinned. “And yet he left that gallery with his head.”
“He was not worth making Helaena step over blood twice in one day.”
At that, your father looked at you fully. Daemon Targaryen’s eyes were pale and hard, and in certain moods they made men remember that dragons had never been domesticated, only negotiated with.
“You think like a husband.”
“I am one.”
“You were my son first.”
“I remain your son.”
“Do you?” His voice stayed soft. “When the king dies, there will be no more suppers like this. No more tears into wine. No more of Viserys holding a blanket over a pit and calling the floor mended. You know what comes.”
Across the room, Helaena turned under Jace’s hand, smiling faintly at something he said. Alicent watched them, not displeased, but not easy. Rhaenyra watched Alicent. Otto watched everyone.
“I know what men want to come,” you said.
Daemon leaned closer. “Then know where you stand before the ground cracks.”
“I stand with my wife and son.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only answer that is not filth.”
His jaw worked. For a heartbeat you were a boy again, desperate for his approval and furious that you wanted it. Daemon had loved you fiercely after Laena died, but not gently. He taught by blade, by silence, by expectation. He had taken Baela’s wildness in stride, Rhaena’s quieter hurt with less ease, and your grief with the brutal confidence that sons should bleed standing. You had adored him. You had hated him. Often in the same breath.
“Do not let them make you their shield,” he said.
“Do not ask me to become your sword against them.”
Daemon’s eyes flicked to Helaena again. “She is Alicent’s blood.”
“She is my wife.”
“She is Aegon’s sister. Aemond’s. Otto’s granddaughter.”
“And Jaehaerys is your grandson. Shall we keep tally until everyone at this table is reduced to a threat?”
His smile came then, slight and dangerous. “You have Laena’s tongue when angered.”
“Better than yours. Mine has not been promised to the king for removal.”
Daemon looked almost proud. That hurt more than anger would have. “You are wasted in this place.”
“Most people are.”
“Come to Dragonstone after this. Bring the boy.”
You did look at him then. “And Helaena?”
His silence was answer enough.
“No,” you said.
“She would be treated with honor.”
“She is not a banner to capture politely.”
“Honor matters.”
“So does being asked.”
His face hardened. “You think I would force you?”
“I think you would call it rescue and expect gratitude.”
The music ended. Applause rose, brittle and relieved. Helaena curtsied to Jace and returned toward you. Daemon stepped back, the conversation folding itself away behind his eyes.
“Think on what I said,” he murmured.
“I have thought on little else for years.”
Then Aemond rose.
The toast that followed would later be retold in a dozen ways, each uglier than the last. He praised his nephews in a voice clean enough to cut meat, calling them strong, and the word landed as intended. Jace struck him. Luke shouted. Aegon laughed. Baela stood so quickly her chair scraped stone. Guards shifted. Alicent cried Aemond’s name. Rhaenyra called for her sons. For one brief, absurd moment, Viserys seemed not to understand why the word had wounded, and that was the saddest thing in the room.
Daemon moved like a drawn blade, placing himself before Aemond. You stood too, not toward Aemond, not toward Jace, but beside Helaena, whose face had gone still. Jaehaerys woke and began to cry in the nurse’s arms, startled by the noise. That sound cut through your restraint more cleanly than Aemond’s insult. Helaena took the child at once, murmuring to him, her hand steady against his back.
Aemond met Daemon’s stare and, to his credit or stupidity, did not look away. The room held its breath. If war had begun there, no one who knew that family would have been surprised. But Daemon smiled, slow and cold, and Aemond stepped back first.
The supper ended soon after.
So did Viserys’s peace.
Later, when the corridors had emptied and the castle settled into its midnight murmurs, you stood in the chamber assigned to you and listened to rain begin against the shutters. King’s Landing rain always sounded unclean, as if even the sky regretted touching the city. A fire burned low in the hearth. Two candles remained lit beside the bed. Jaehaerys slept in the adjoining nursery with his nurse nearby, guarded by men you trusted because trust, in the Red Keep, was not a feeling but an arrangement backed by wages, fear, and repeated testing.
Helaena stood at the table, unpinning her hair. Pearl after pearl clicked softly into a shallow dish. Her gown had been loosened at the back by her maid before the woman withdrew, leaving the fabric held at her shoulders by habit more than fastening. The exposed line of her neck looked pale in the candlelight. There was a faint red mark near her collarbone where Jaehaerys had clutched her too hard when frightened.
You closed the door bar.
She heard it and turned. “Is your father angry?”
“My father wakes angry. The day merely gives it shape.”
“That sounds tiring.”
“For everyone near him.”
“Did he ask you to leave with him?”
You crossed the room slowly. “He asked me to come to Dragonstone.”
“And me?”
You did not answer. Helaena nodded once, unsurprised.
“My mother asked me to remain in the queen’s apartments after you leave,” she said. “She said the child should stay close. She did not say close to what.”
“Otto?”
“Power. Fear. The king’s bedchamber. All of them, perhaps.”
You stopped before her. “I am not leaving you here as hostage to anyone’s courage or cowardice.”
“And I am not leaving my father to die among strangers.”
“He will not be among strangers.”
“He will be among people waiting.” Her voice remained calm, but pain lived under it. “Waiting for his breath to stop. Waiting to count ravens. Waiting to lock doors. Waiting to say what they have rehearsed in private for years.”
You touched her arms, lightly at first. “Helaena.”
She looked up at you. “Everyone thinks because I do not shout, I do not see. My mother sees danger and calls it duty. Your father sees insult and calls it truth. Rhaenyra sees birthright and calls it law. Aegon sees chains because no one taught him the difference between being denied and being unloved. Aemond sees every slight ever given to him and feeds them until they bite. My father sees what he wants to save and not what he has neglected. And you...”
“And I?”
“You stand in the middle and think that if you are strong enough, no one will make you choose.”
The words struck harder because she spoke them without accusation. You looked at her face, at the woman Viserys had handed to you as a treaty, the woman who had become the one person in the Keep before whom you had no appetite for disguise.
“I chose,” you said. “I chose you.”
Her breath caught. Only slightly. Enough.
“You choose me in this room.”
“I chose you before Vaemond. Before my father. Before every man who has mistaken our marriage for a road into my obedience.”
Helaena’s eyes shone, though she did not cry. “Do you ever hate it? What was done to us?”
“Yes.”
It would have been easy to soften the truth. A worse husband might have. “I hate that you were offered to me by men who had not earned the right to decide the hour you woke. I hate that my father looked at you and saw your mother’s blood before he saw your face. I hate that your grandfather counted the dragons our children might ride before he cared whether you smiled at supper. I hate that the king made a bridge of us and then wondered why everyone marched across it with boots.”
Helaena’s mouth trembled. “And us?”
“No.” You cupped her face. “Never us.”
The rain thickened, tapping against the shutters like small fingers. She leaned into your palm, eyes closing for a moment. When she opened them again, something had changed. Not abruptly. Helaena was not a storm. She was slower than that, more deliberate. She stepped closer and set her hands against your chest, fingers curling in the dark fabric of your tunic.
“I do not want to be peace tonight,” she said.
The words went through you with a heat that had nothing to do with the fire.
“What do you want to be?”
“Your wife.”
You bent and kissed her.
At first it was gentle because grief had filled the day, because blood had been spilled in front of her, because your son had cried against her breast while grown men played at honor with knives behind their teeth. Then her hands tightened, pulling you closer, and the kiss deepened into something less careful. Helaena made a small sound into your mouth, not fragile, not uncertain, but hungry in a way she rarely allowed herself outside the privacy of locked doors. You answered it with your own restraint fraying, one hand sliding into her loosened hair, the other settling at her waist where silk had gone slack beneath your fingers.
Her gown slipped lower. You drew back just enough to look at her, asking without making the moment small with words. She held your gaze and let the sleeves fall.
The blue silk whispered down her body and pooled at her feet.
Candlelight loved her. There was no other way to think it. It touched the curve of her shoulders, the fullness of her breasts, the soft strength of her belly, the pale marks motherhood had left low on her body, silvered and faint as old lightning beneath the skin. The first time you had seen those marks after Jaehaerys was born, she had watched you with wary eyes, as if expecting disappointment. You had kissed every one of them until she laughed and told you that you were being absurdly solemn over something half the women in the realm carried. But they were not half the women in the realm to you. They were hers. Proof of pain survived, life made, body changed and still desired.
You touched her now with the same reverence, though reverence did not remain clean for long. Your mouth found her throat, then the place below her ear where she always inhaled sharply. Her fingers moved to the ties of your tunic, impatient when one caught, and you laughed against her skin.
“Careful,” you murmured. “This is fine work.”
“I have seen you tear a man’s sleeve because he annoyed you.”
“That sleeve was offensive.”
“So is this knot.”
She pulled again, and the knot surrendered. You helped her strip the tunic from your shoulders, then your undershirt, then stood bare to the waist as she set her hands upon you. Helaena had a way of touching that undid you more thoroughly than boldness would have. Her palms moved over your chest, your ribs, the old scar near your left side from a tourney lance you had been too proud to avoid properly. Her mouth followed, pressing warmth to skin, and when her teeth grazed lightly near your collarbone, your hand clenched in her hair.
“Helaena.”
She looked up, and there was no court in her eyes, no council, no queen’s daughter, no reluctant treaty. Only a woman who knew exactly what her name sounded like when it became need in your mouth.
You lifted her onto the edge of the table because the bed was too far, and she laughed softly, breathless, as a cup nearly tipped beside her. You caught it and set it aside without looking. She parted her knees for you to stand between them. Your hands moved along her thighs, pushing the last layer of linen upward until there was no barrier left but your own remaining clothes and the final shreds of patience. She kissed you again, slower this time, open-mouthed and deep, her fingers working at your belt with increasing frustration.
“Now who is cautious?” you asked.
She bit your lower lip, not hard enough to hurt, hard enough to silence. “Do not become pleased with yourself. It makes you resemble your father.”
“That is cruel.”
“It worked.”
Your belt hit the floor. Then the rest. Her amusement faded when you touched her between her legs, replaced by a soft, unguarded gasp that you felt against your mouth. You stroked her with the care you had learned over years, not from instruction, not from brothel boasting, but from listening to her breath, her hands, the way her body tilted toward pleasure when her mind finally stopped carrying the realm like a basket of stones. She was warm and slick beneath your fingers, opening for you in increments, one hand braced behind her on the table, the other gripping your shoulder.
Outside, thunder rolled over the Blackwater.
Inside, Helaena whispered your name.
You kissed her breast, drew one nipple into your mouth, and felt her legs tighten around your hips. Her head tipped back. Her hair fell loose down her spine, pale as moonlit water. You worked her until her composure fractured, until her breath came unevenly and the quiet sounds she tried to swallow began escaping anyway. You loved that most perhaps, not the sounds themselves, though gods knew they could ruin you, but the trust of them. The knowledge that she could be unguarded here. With you. In a castle that had made every softness dangerous.
When she reached for you, you did not make her ask.
You entered her slowly, forehead pressed to hers, one hand at her back and the other on her thigh. Her eyes closed. Her lips parted. The first tight heat of her nearly broke what restraint you had left, but you held still until her body eased around you, until she pulled you closer with a small, deliberate movement that was permission and command together.
“Please,” she breathed.
So you moved.
Not as Daemon’s son. Not as Laena’s heir, not as Rhaenyra’s kin, not as Alicent’s good-son, not as a name to be counted by grasping men. You moved as her husband, flesh to flesh, breath mingling, her arms around your neck and your mouth at her jaw. The table creaked beneath her. The candles trembled. Rain blurred the windows. Her legs locked around your waist, drawing you deeper, and you felt the shiver move through her before it fully took hold.
You knew her body well enough to follow. Your hand slipped between you again, thumb circling where she needed it, and she broke against you with a soft cry muffled into your shoulder. Her inner muscles tightened around your cock, pleasure pulsing through her in waves, and you held her through it, thrusting slower, then harder when she whispered yes against your skin.
It did not take long after that. You buried yourself deep, shaking with the force of holding back until there was no holding. Release tore through you, hot and consuming, your mouth finding hers as you spent inside her. For several moments there was nothing but breath, rain, skin, the dying fire, the aftershocks of her body around yours.
Helaena rested her forehead against your chest. You held her there, still joined, one hand spread over her back. Her heartbeat gradually slowed beneath your palm.
After a while, she said, “The table was a poor choice.”
You laughed before you could stop yourself. It came out low and rough, startling in the quiet room. “You did not complain.”
“I was distracted by your fine arguments.”
“My fine arguments?”
She leaned back enough to look at you. Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes were bright. “You are more persuasive without a tunic.”
“That should be placed in the histories.”
“No. Maesters would ruin it.”
You kissed her again, softer now. Then you lifted her carefully and carried her to the bed, both of you cleaning yourselves with warmed water from the basin before slipping beneath the covers. The intimacy afterward had always mattered to her. Perhaps to you too, though you had taken longer to understand that staying was its own language. You drew her against your side, and she came willingly, one leg over yours, cheek resting on your chest.
For a long time, neither of you spoke.
Then Helaena said, “When Jaehaerys was born, my mother told me sons belong first to the realm.”
Your fingers moved through her hair. “Your mother says many bleak things when frightened.”
“She was not wrong.”
“She was not entirely right.”
“The realm will want him.”
“The realm wants everything.”
“And your father?”
“He wants loyalty.”
“Rhaenyra?”
“Recognition.”
“Otto?”
“Leverage.”
“Aegon?”
You paused. “Escape, though he would not call it that.”
“Aemond?”
“Vindication.”
“And you?”
You looked down at her. “A morning where no one asks me who I would kill for.”
She was quiet for a moment. “That may be too much to ask of this family.”
“Yes.”
Her hand rested over your heart. “Promise me something that is not foolish.”
“Name it.”
“Do not promise there will be no war. Do not promise my brothers will become better men by dawn or your father will learn restraint or the king will live to see another winter. Do not promise me safety if safety must be purchased with lies.”
You waited.
“Promise me,” she said, “that whatever comes, you will remember Jaehaerys is not a claim first. He is a child.”
Your chest hurt. You turned onto your side, facing her fully. “I promise.”
“And that I am not a side.”
“You are not.”
“Say it plainly.”
“You are not a side,” you said. “You are Helaena.”
Her eyes searched yours. Then she nodded, satisfied not because words could save anyone, but because some vows mattered even when doomed men laughed at them.
Near dawn, the rain stopped.
You woke to grey light and an empty space beside you. For one cold instant, the old fear of the Red Keep moved through you, irrational and immediate. Then you heard voices from the adjoining nursery. Helaena’s low murmur. Jaehaerys answering with sleepy seriousness. The nurse laughing softly.
You dressed before the fire had been stirred back to life. Outside, the castle was beginning to move. Servants with ash buckets. Guards changing posts. Ravens being fed. Somewhere below, a lord was likely composing a letter that would help ruin thousands of lives. Dawn made men no less stupid, only better lit.
Helaena entered with Jaehaerys in her arms. The boy had one cheek creased from sleep and his wooden dragon tucked beneath his chin.
“He wants the Dragonpit,” she said.
“He always wants the Dragonpit.”
“He says brave three must inspect Velyrax.”
“Brave three may inspect Velyrax from a distance approved by sane adults.”
Jaehaerys lifted his head. “Dreamfyre too.”
Helaena kissed his hair. “Dreamfyre does not like loud boys before breakfast.”
“I am quiet.”
“You are not.”
“I can be.”
You exchanged a look with Helaena, and for a moment the ordinary absurdity of parenthood stood between you and the coming abyss. It was almost enough.
Almost.
The king asked to see you before the court gathered again.
Viserys lay in his bedchamber surrounded by the smells of medicine, incense, old linen, and decay. The curtains had been drawn back to allow in morning light, but it did him few favors. Without the crown, without the mask, he seemed less a king than a man already halfway claimed by whatever waited beyond breath. Alicent sat beside him, reading softly from a book of prayers, though she stopped when you entered. Her eyes moved from you to Helaena, then to Jaehaerys, whom Helaena held by the hand.
The king brightened when he saw the boy. Pain could not keep the love from his face. That was the best and worst of Viserys. He had loved so much, so poorly, so selectively, so sincerely, and the realm would pay for every contradiction.
“Jaehaerys,” he rasped. “Come here, lad.”
The boy looked at you first. You nodded. He went to the bed, careful in the way children became careful around sickness when they did not understand it but understood enough. Viserys touched his hair with shaking fingers.
“My brave prince.”
“I saw Velyrax yesterday,” Jaehaerys said.
“Did you? And was he fearsome?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Viserys gave a faint smile. “A dragon should be.”
Alicent’s expression tightened. She loved her father’s gods but had married into a house where children were praised for admiring monsters. A cruel arrangement, though not the cruelest she had endured.
Viserys looked to you. “Leave us a moment. Not Helaena. You.”
Alicent hesitated.
“Please,” the king said.
That word moved people more effectively than command in that room. Alicent rose, kissed his brow, and withdrew with Helaena and Jaehaerys. Helaena gave you one glance before leaving. Not fearful. Present.
When the door closed, Viserys breathed for some time before speaking. “You look like her.”
You knew he meant Laena. People usually did when they softened around the eyes.
“So I am told.”
“She was very brave.”
“She was.”
“Daemon loved her.”
“I know.”
Viserys’s mouth twisted. “He loves like a dragon guards meat.”
Despite yourself, you huffed a laugh. “He would call that complimentary.”
“He would.” The king stared toward the ceiling. “He hated me for the marriage.”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
You considered lying. Then did not. “Yes.”
His eyes closed. “But not now.”
“No. Not now.”
“I wanted peace.”
“I know.”
“I thought if I joined the lines, gave each side blood in the other, they would hesitate.” His breath caught, wet and painful. “Men hesitate before kin.”
You thought of Vaemond’s blood on stone, of Aemond’s toast, of Daemon’s offer to bring you to Dragonstone without your wife. “Some do.”
Viserys opened his eyes again. “Not enough?”
“No.”
A tear slipped from the corner of his eye into the ruined hollow of his face. He did not seem to notice. “I have failed them.”
There was no answer that was both kind and true. You stood beside the bed and listened to the king breathe.
At last he reached for your hand. His grip was weak, fingers swollen, skin hot with fever. “Protect her.”
“Helaena?”
“All of them,” Viserys whispered. “If you can. Her. Rhaenyra. The children. My sons. Gods help me, my sons too. Do not let them devour each other.”
There it was, the final command of a dying king: stop dragons from being dragons.
You bowed your head. “I will do what I can.”
Viserys looked at you with sudden, terrible clarity. “That is an honest oath. I have heard too few.”
When you left the bedchamber, Alicent was waiting in the outer room. Helaena stood near the window with Jaehaerys, showing him the pale line of Blackwater Bay beyond the walls. Alicent looked tired in a way paint and jewels could not hide.
“What did he ask of you?” she said.
“To do the impossible.”
Alicent’s laugh was short and humorless. “Then he remains himself.”
You studied her. She had never been cruel to you in the simple ways that would have made hating her easy. She had been wary, devout, proud, frightened, political, sometimes cold, sometimes unexpectedly gentle with Jaehaerys when she thought no one saw. She loved Helaena. That did not absolve her of anything. It made everything more difficult, which was generally how families arranged their worst disasters.
“My daughter should not be made to suffer for your father’s ambitions,” Alicent said quietly.
“No.”
That answer seemed to catch her off guard.
“Nor for yours,” you added.
There. Less caught off guard now.
Her eyes hardened. “You think me ambitious.”
“I think you are afraid, and afraid people often hire ambition to guard the door.”
“You speak like Daemon.”
“I was trying to be less insulting.”
Alicent looked toward Helaena. “She loves you.”
“Yes.”
“If that is true, do not take her where she will be hated.”
“If you mean Dragonstone, say Dragonstone.”
“Would she be welcomed there?” Alicent asked. “Truly? By your father? By Rhaenyra? By those who see my children as obstacles born from my womb?”
You said nothing.
Alicent stepped closer, lowering her voice. “You think staying here makes her a pawn. You may be right. But leaving may make her a prisoner of another color.”
The worst part was that she was not wrong. People were exhausting enough when stupid. When they had a point, they became nearly intolerable.
“Helaena will not be moved without her consent,” you said.
Alicent’s mouth pressed flat. “Consent. Men in this house discover that word when it suits them.”
“I discovered it before I married her.”
For a moment, grief passed over her face. Old grief. Young grief. The kind that began in a girl and hardened around a queen. Then it was gone.
“Then remember it,” she said.
By midday, Rhaenyra and Daemon prepared to return to Dragonstone. The court assembled in the yard with all the affection of rival armies forced to share a well. Horses stamped. Wheelhouses waited. Servants carried chests. Princes exchanged farewells stiff enough to stand unsupported. Luke kept his eyes away from Aemond. Aemond watched him anyway. Aegon complained of the light. Baela embraced you hard and whispered that the Keep made her want to bite someone. Rhaena hugged Helaena, which surprised some watchers and pleased you more than was safe to show.
Rhaenyra came to you last. Her pregnancy made her movements slower, but her gaze remained steady.
“You will not come,” she said.
“Not today.”
Her eyes flicked to Helaena, then Jaehaerys. “You would be welcome.”
“Would we?”
A pause.
Rhaenyra’s answer, when it came, was careful. “You are my blood.”
“Helaena is my wife.”
“Yes.”
That single word held weariness, regret, and calculation. Rhaenyra was not unkind. She had held you as a child after Laena’s funeral when Daemon had vanished into his grief and your sisters had cried themselves sick. She had taught Baela to command a room with silence. She had once told you that being born royal meant strangers would build cages and call them duties. You had loved her for that. You still did. Love, unfortunately, did not make people safe.
“I will not raise my son among people waiting to decide which part of him they can use,” you said.
Rhaenyra’s expression softened. “Then where will you raise him? Such a place does not exist for us.”
No answer came. None worth giving.
Daemon approached behind her, already gloved for riding, Dark Sister at his hip. Caraxes screamed somewhere beyond the walls, shrill and savage. Velyrax answered from the Dragonpit with a lower roar, less piercing but no less hostile. The yard fell silent around the sound. Dragons conversing over human heads. A fair image for the realm.
Daemon looked at Helaena. To his credit, he inclined his head. “Princess.”
“Prince Daemon,” she replied.
Then he looked at Jaehaerys. The boy stared back with solemn interest. Daemon crouched before him, which startled nearly everyone present.
“You have been inspecting dragons, I hear.”
“Yes,” Jaehaerys said.
“Good. Inspect men too. They are more treacherous and less impressive.”
“Daemon,” Rhaenyra murmured.
“What? It is sound advice.”
Jaehaerys considered this. “Are you treacherous?”
Baela made a strangled sound. Rhaena turned away, shoulders shaking. Helaena pressed her lips together. Even Rhaenyra looked briefly defeated by amusement.
Daemon smiled at his grandson. Not his court smile, not his killing smile. A real one, small and unexpected. “Very.”
“Are you impressive?”
“Extremely.”
Jaehaerys nodded, accepting the answer as one accepts weather.
Daemon rose. His gaze met yours. “Stay, then.”
“I will.”
“But when the fire starts, do not pretend smoke surprised you.”
“I never have.”
He clasped your shoulder. Hard. Affection, warning, farewell. With Daemon they were often the same gesture. Then he turned and went to Rhaenyra.
You watched them leave through the gate, black and red moving away from green walls, children following, guards around them, dragons waiting beyond the city like judgments with wings. The yard emptied slowly afterward. Alicent withdrew to the king. Otto to the council. Aegon to whatever cup had missed him most. Aemond lingered just long enough to look at you, at Helaena, at your son. His one eye was unreadable.
“Brother,” Helaena said to him.
Aemond bowed. “Sister.”
Then to you, “Good-brother.”
“Aemond.”
His mouth curved. “A rare thing, to be wanted by both sides.”
“A rarer thing to enjoy it.”
“Do you not?”
“No.”
“Then you lack imagination.”
“I lack your appetite for grievance.”
His smile vanished. For a heartbeat the boy he had been showed through, wounded, furious, half-blind and never allowed to stop proving he had become dangerous. Then the man he had made himself returned.
“Careful,” he said. “Men standing between doors are crushed when both open.”
You stepped closer. “Men kicking at doors should first ask what waits behind them.”
Aemond held your gaze, then gave a slight bow to Helaena and walked away.
Jaehaerys tugged at your sleeve. “Is he treacherous too?”
Helaena sighed. “We will not make that your new word.”
You lifted him into your arms. “Your uncle is complicated.”
“Like knots?”
“Like knots tied by angry people in the dark.”
“Can we see Velyrax now?”
Helaena looked at you. The yard was nearly empty. The road to Dragonstone had swallowed your father and Rhaenyra. The Red Keep rose around you, full of listeners, prayers, plots, sickbeds, swords, and doors that would soon close or open or break. Above the city, clouds moved apart, revealing a hard, bright strip of sky.
“Yes,” she said before you could answer. “Let us see the dragons.”
So you went together: Helaena, Jaehaerys, and you, with guards behind and the city below. Not Black. Not Green. Not peace, not war, not yet. Only a husband, a wife, and a child walking toward the Dragonpit while the realm held its breath and pretended it was not already burning.
Velyrax heard you before you entered.
His roar rolled through the stone like thunder beneath the earth. Dreamfyre answered from the shadows, old and pale and restless. Jaehaerys buried his face in your neck, brave three overcome for the moment by scale and sound. Helaena set her hand on your arm.
You looked at her.
She smiled, small but real. “He is still brave.”
You kissed your son’s hair. “The bravest.”
And above you, chained in darkness by men who thought chains meant mastery, the dragons stirred.
pairing – garrett graham x reader
summary – four times garrett’s chain causes problems, and one very smug hockey captain pretends he isn’t loving every second of it.
warnings – suggestive content, making out/grinding, mild sexual references, implied oral sex, drinking, party setting, garrett being smug and whipped.
notes from me – as part of my 1k celebrations, here's the top requested fic!! enjoy 🫶🏼
word count – 5k
navigation – masterlist | taglist
The first time Garrett realises his chain is a problem, they're in his room with the door locked, the bass from downstairs moving through the floorboards in lazy, uneven pulses and the old house doing what the old house always does around a party, which is pretend it’s not seen worse.
There are voices below them, Logan’s laugh cutting through once in a bright, drunken bark, Dean yelling something that sounds like an accusation and Tucker answering with the sort of dry, patient tone that means someone is absolutely about to be called an idiot.
But up here, everything has gone smaller. Warmer. The room narrowed down to Garrett’s weight between her thighs, the soft give of his mattress under her back, the skirt shoved high enough on her hips that there's no point pretending it’s even a skirt anymore, and his mouth dragging over hers like he has all night and no better use for it.
He kisses like an athlete too, which is deeply annoying information to have about him because it makes too much sense. Confident, paced, unfairly good at changing pressure right when she starts thinking she’s adjusted to him.
One hand is braced beside her head, the other curled around her thigh, thumb pressing absent little circles into skin like he doesn't know it’s making her thoughts get weird and slippery around the edges. He’s still wearing his t-shirt, which feels rude considering she’s in a bra and skirt and whatever dignity survived the trip up the stairs is now lying somewhere dead near his laundry basket.
His chain has slipped out from under his collar while he kisses her, warm gold catching against the side of her throat every time he grinds down into her and makes her breath come out embarrassingly thin.
“Garrett,” she gets out, though it doesn't have much purpose beyond giving her mouth something to do when his is suddenly leaving it.
He hums like he’s heard her and decided to take it under advisement at a later date. His mouth drifts to her jaw, then lower, slow and pleased and entirely too smug about the way her body moves before she can stop it.
He kisses down her throat, over the spot where her pulse is doing something humiliating, then lower still, along the top edge of her bra, and she should probably let him. She should probably enjoy the fact that Garrett Graham, Briar hockey captain, walking campus hazard, has decided her chest deserves sustained attention.
But the second his mouth leaves hers properly, some spoiled little part of her lights up in objection.
“No,” she whines, which is not her proudest moment, and is made worse by the fact that Garrett pauses against her skin like he’s trying not to laugh. She reaches down and gets her fingers in his hair, gentle but insistent, tugging him back up until his face appears over hers again, curls mussed, mouth shiny, eyes bright with the kind of amusement that makes her want to either kiss him harder or shove him off the bed. “Come back.”
His grin spreads slowly. “Bossy.”
“You stopped kissing me.”
“I was kissing you somewhere else.”
She pouts. “Wrong somewhere.”
He gives one of those little laughs that starts in his chest before it reaches his mouth, warm and low and stupidly pleased, and then he comes back happily, because that’s the worst part of Garrett.
He has all this cocky-boy resistance in theory, all this mouth and attitude and captain-of-every-room energy, and then she asks for him directly and his body gives him away before his ego can file an appeal. He kisses her again, deep enough that the complaint evaporates under her tongue, and for a few seconds she forgets about the chain entirely.
Then he pulls back to sit up on his knees, one thigh planted on either side of her hips, and reaches behind his neck for his shirt.
“Oh,” she says before she can stop herself.
Garrett pauses with the hem already half up his stomach, eyebrows lifting. “Oh?”
“Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
His teeth catch at his bottom lip. “I was about to ask if you needed a minute to process.”
She narrows her eyes at him, which would probably have more force if she were not lying under him with her skirt bunched around her waist and her hands already drifting up his exposed stomach. “You’re so annoying.”
“Yeah, but you’re still looking.”
And she is. Tragically. Openly. With no legal defence. The shirt comes off the rest of the way and lands somewhere near the chair, and Garrett is there above her in the soft lamplight, shoulders broad from hockey, stomach tight under her palms, chain resting against his chest like it’s been placed there for the express purpose of ruining her life.
It's not even that fancy. That’s the insulting part. Just a gold chain. Simple. Warm from his skin. Sitting right at the base of his throat.
Her hands slide up his stomach, over the hard shift of muscle when he breathes, and she catches her bottom lip between her teeth without meaning to.
Garrett’s grin softens into something more dangerous because he knows. Because Garrett is many things, but oblivious is not one of them, especially not when a girl is looking at his chest like she’s discovered a new academic field.
“Baby,” he says, amused.
She doesn't answer. She hooks two fingers under the chain and pulls. Garrett comes down with it, one hand shooting to the mattress beside her head, the other catching her waist as he laughs into the space above her mouth. “Jesus. Okay.”
She smiles, breath already uneven again. “Come here.”
“I was here.”
“Closer.”
His mouth hovers over hers, his chain trapped between her fingers, the metal a little warm, a little slick where it’s been resting against his skin. “You always this demanding?”
She tugs again, smaller this time, mostly because she likes the way his eyes drop to her mouth when she does it. “Only when you’re slow.”
Garrett stares at her for one beat, and then the smile goes all bright and helpless at the edges, like she’s pleased him against his will.
“Yeah,” he murmurs, bending until the chain brushes her collarbone and his mouth is almost on hers again. “That’s gonna be a problem.”
The second time is quieter, though quiet in the hockey house is a relative concept and mostly means no one is actively breaking furniture within their line of sight. They're downstairs on the couch after dinner, the living room dim except for the television throwing blue-white light over everyone’s faces and the standing lamp Tucker keeps insisting gives the room ambience, which Dean keeps calling divorced dad lighting.
A movie’s on, something Logan picked with the confidence of a man who would be asleep within twenty minutes, and sure enough he’s already slumped in the armchair with his head tipped back and one socked foot on the coffee table, snoring faintly through the loudest action sequence anyone has ever failed to respect.
Garrett’s stretched out behind her on the couch, one arm tucked under her head like a pillow, the other lying heavy over her waist. She’s settled half on top of him, half against him, legs tangled beneath the old throw blanket that smells faintly like fabric softener and Garrett’s laundry detergent and whatever popcorn crime Dean committed earlier.
The whole room has that late-night, lived-in warmth to it. Empty bowls on the coffee table, Tucker leaning on the other end of the couch with his phone in one hand and his attention somehow still half on the movie, Dean sprawled on the floor with his back against Allie’s legs while she runs her fingers lazily through his hair like she’s rewarding a large, badly behaved dog.
Garrett’s chain has worked its way out again. She doesn't mean to start fiddling with it. Her hand is just there, resting against his chest, and the chain is right under her fingertips, cool at first and then quickly warming up.
Her thumb catches the tiny curve of one link. Then another. Then she’s sliding it back and forth lightly against his skin, not really thinking, only listening to the movie and the steady sound of his breathing under her cheek and the occasional thud of Dean kicking the coffee table because he refuses to understand where his legs end.
Garrett lets it happen for a while. Long enough that she forgets she’s doing it. Long enough for the metal to move in a tiny, repetitive drag under her fingers, a private little rhythm tucked beneath explosions and the muffled rain starting against the windows.
His chest rises under her palm. His hand at her waist flexes once, absent, and she shifts closer without lifting her head. Then his fingers close around her wrist. Warm and sure, stopping the motion.
She glances up. “What?”
Garrett looks down at her with the deeply patient expression of a man being tortured in a way he’s not allowed to enjoy too obviously. “You’ve been doing that for ten minutes.”
“Doing what?”
His eyes flick to the chain. Then back to her. “That.”
“Oh.” She looks down at her hand, caught in his like evidence. “Was I annoying you?”
“No.”
“You stopped me.”
“Because,” he says, lowering his voice as Dean makes a disgusted noise at the movie and Allie tells him to stop talking before she smothers him with a cushion, “you keep touching my neck, and I’m trying to be a decent citizen in a communal living space.”
Her mouth twitches. “Your neck?”
“My chain is on my neck.”
She bites back a smile. “That’s very scientific of you.”
“I go to college.”
“For hockey.”
He sucks at his teeth, a grin spreading across his face. “For hockey and the pursuit of knowledge.”
She laughs into his chest, and he immediately looks pleased with himself in that quiet Garrett way, like making her laugh while half the room is asleep counts as a personal win.
His hand slides from her wrist to her fingers, lifting them to his mouth. He kisses her knuckles once, soft and warm, then again, slower, like he can get away with it because nobody’s looking directly at them. The contact sends a stupid little wave through her, low and gentle, a sudden looseness in her ribs and the sense that her body has settled another inch into his.
“Stop playing with it,” he murmurs against her hand.
“I didn’t know it was an activity with rules.”
“It is now.”
“Sounds controlling.”
“Sounds like you’re too hot for your own good and I’m a responsible man.”
She lifts her head just enough to look at him properly. “You’re so full of shit.”
Garrett smiles like that’s his favourite thing she’s said all day. “A little, yeah.”
Then he threads his fingers through hers and brings their joined hands down to rest against his stomach, trapping her there with him. Garrett’s hand stays wrapped around hers. Firm. Warm. His thumb moves once over the side of her finger, slow enough that it feels accidental and deliberate at the same time.
The third time, she should know something’s wrong with the whole arrangement because Garrett offers it too easily. It's the morning of her exam, a big one, the kind that has lived in the back of her head for three weeks like an unpaid bill and ruined several perfectly good evenings by existing near them.
She’s already eaten half a banana, stared at her notes until the words lost meaning, changed shirts twice, and accused Garrett of breathing too loudly while he sat on her bed watching her spiral with the sort of affectionate calm that made her want to throw a highlighter at him.
“You studied,” he says, for maybe the fourth time, lying on his side with one elbow propped under him and his curls still damp from the shower. “Like, a disgusting amount. I know because you made me quiz you last night and I learned things against my will.”
She stands in front of the mirror, smoothing her top down and then immediately undoing the smoothing because now it looks too deliberate. “That doesn’t mean I know it.”
“That’s actually exactly what studying means.”
“No, studying means I knew it at midnight in your bed while you were half asleep and kept pronouncing things wrong on purpose.”
“I was keeping morale up.”
She turns to glare at him, and he grins at her from the bed, annoyingly gorgeous and unhelpfully relaxed, his chain sitting against his bare collarbone because he hasn’t put a shirt on yet. Which is also rude. Honestly, the whole morning has been a campaign of emotional terrorism.
“I’m serious,” she says, and the words come out thinner than she wants.
His face changes then. The grin doesn't disappear entirely, because Garrett without some amount of grin would be genuinely concerning, but it settles. He sits up properly, feet hitting the floor, and reaches for her when she comes close enough. His hands land at her hips, warm through the fabric, thumbs pressing once like he’s reminding her she has a body and it's standing here, not drowning somewhere in the imagined future of a badly answered essay question.
“I know you are,” he says. “I also know you’re gonna kill it.”
“Don’t say that.”
“What, kill it?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. You’re gonna… respectfully and academically dominate.”
“Garrett.”
He laughs under his breath and tugs her closer until she’s standing between his knees. Then, with the sudden seriousness of someone remembering an ancient ritual and not a bit he came up with seven seconds ago, he reaches behind his neck and unclasps the chain.
She looks down at it. “What are you doing?”
“Good luck.”
Her eyes lift to his. “What?”
He holds it up between them, gold catching the morning light from her window. “It’s lucky.”
She stares at him. “Your chain is lucky?”
“Extremely.”
“You’ve never said that.”
He looks almost offended. “I don’t tell everyone my deeply personal athletic superstitions.”
“You told Dean you had to wear the same socks for playoffs.”
“That was different. He touched them.”
“That feels like a public health issue more than a superstition.”
Garrett ignores this, and gestures for her to turn around. She does, suspicious but too nervous to fight him properly. He stands behind her, and for a second the mirror catches both of them: her in exam clothes and stress, him shirtless and too calm, chain hanging from his fingers.
He lifts it around her neck, his knuckles grazing the sides of her throat as he brings the clasp together. The metal lands cool against her skin, heavier than she expects, and something in her chest gives one stupid little pull.
“There,” he says, hands settling briefly on her shoulders. “Guaranteed.”
She touches the chain with two fingers. “Guaranteed?”
“Yeah.”
“If I fail, I’m blaming your jewellery.”
“If you fail, I’ll fake my death and start over somewhere chainless.”
She laughs then, finally, and it comes out shaky but real. Garrett’s eyes meet hers in the mirror, his mouth tipped in a way that’s half smug and half proud of having pulled the sound out of her.
He bends and kisses the side of her head, quick, easy, like he doesn't know the chain suddenly feels like some ridiculous little anchor against her collarbone.
“Go,” he says. “Ace it. Then come back and be unbearable about it.”
She does ace it.
She walks out of the exam hall two hours later with the weird, floating, slightly manic clarity of someone who knows the questions landed exactly where she needed them to, who wrote until her hand cramped, who remembered the thing from the bottom of page seven that she had absolutely expected to die with no audience.
She calls Garrett from the sidewalk and says, “I think I nailed it,” and he shouts so loudly through the phone that a girl walking past looks over in alarm.
“Tell the chain I said thank you,” she says later that night, when she’s in his room again, sitting cross-legged on his bed with takeout containers open between them and his hoodie swallowed over her exam clothes because the adrenaline crash has finally arrived and brought a mild existential fog with it.
Garrett looks up from stealing one of her fries. “What?”
“The chain.” She taps it where it still sits at her throat. “Your ancient family luck charm.”
There's a pause. It's tiny. Almost nothing. But Garrett Graham has many gifts, and hiding guilt from his girlfriend while his mouth is full of stolen fries is not one of them.
Her eyes narrow. “Garrett.”
He chews slowly.
“Garrett Graham.”
He swallows. “Okay, before you get mad–”
“Oh my God.” She sits up straighter. “It’s not lucky?”
“It’s, uh, lucky adjacent.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’ve worn it to some good games.”
“You told me it was extremely lucky.”
“I was trying to get you out of your head.”
“You lied!”
“I motivated.” He points at her with a fry. “And you crushed your exam, so actually, where’s my thank you?”
She stares at him for one second. Then another. The chain’s warm now from her skin, and the fact that he made it up should be annoying. It is annoying.
It's also so Garrett that something in her gives up and goes soft around the edges despite herself, because he saw her standing in front of the mirror two seconds from vibrating through the floorboards and decided the solution was to hand her something of his and make it sound official enough for her nervous system to believe him.
“You’re unbelievable,” she says.
His grin comes back immediately, bright with relief and bad ideas. “But effective.”
“You’re never getting this back.”
“Baby, I look really good in that chain.”
“I look better.”
He studies her for a second, eyes dropping to where the gold sits against the oversized neckline of his hoodie, and his mouth does something slower.
“Yeah,” he says, voice rougher. “You do.”
Her fingers move to the chain. His eyes track the motion. The takeout goes forgotten between them, steam thinning in the cartons, the lamp laying warm light over his bed and the stupid little lucky-not-lucky object at her throat.
She crawls toward him, slow enough to make his brows lift.
“What?” he asks, though his hands are already moving to her waist when she pushes the cartons aside with the care of someone who doesn't want to get sauce on his sheets but absolutely does want to ruin his evening in other ways.
“You want a thank you?”
Garrett’s mouth opens, then closes. He tilts his head, trying for casual and missing by a heroic distance. “I mean, I’m not gonna say no to gratitude.”
“Good,” she says, and leans in to kiss him once, soft enough that he follows when she pulls away.
His hands tighten on her hips. “Good?”
“Mhm.”
Then she slides off the bed onto her knees between his legs, and Garrett goes very, very still. For once in his life, he doesn't have a comeback ready.
She looks up at him, the chain hanging forward from her neck, gold swinging slightly in the space between them, and his eyes drop to it like he’s experiencing several personal revelations at once.
“Still think it’s lucky?” she asks.
Garrett exhales through his nose, a smile breaking helplessly at one corner of his mouth as his hand comes up to brush her hair back, careful and warm and already a little wrecked.
“Baby,” he says, voice low with absolute reverence and zero shame, “I’m about to start fucking worshipping it.”
The fourth time is after a home game, which means the hockey house is operating at a volume level that could probably be reported to local authorities if local authorities hadn't long ago made peace with the fact that Briar hockey players were simply going to make too much noise.
The living room is packed in that loose, post-win sprawl of bodies and beer and boys shouting over one another from distances that don’t require shouting at all. Someone has put the game highlights on the television and every single person in the room is pretending they're not watching themselves while absolutely watching themselves.
Logan is arguing with a guy from the second line about whether his assist should have been cleaner, Tucker is sitting on the arm of the couch with a beer in hand and the calm expression of a man who played very well and doesn't need to scream about it, and Dean is stretched in the middle of the room like a Renaissance painting sponsored by bad decisions, loudly explaining to Allie that his defensive effort has layers.
Garrett’s on the couch below her, sitting with his legs spread, one arm hooked along the back cushions, hair still damp from the post-game shower and curling messily. He looks good in the obnoxious, lived-in way he always does after a win. Tired under the eyes, mouth lazy with satisfaction, hoodie pushed up at the forearms, chain glinting at his throat every time he turns his head to answer someone.
There's a faint bruise starting near one cheekbone and stiffness in the way he holds his shoulders that he’s pretending doesn't exist because men who willingly block shots with their bodies have a complicated relationship with the concept of pain.
She’s standing behind the couch with her arms looped around his shoulders, her cheek resting against the side of his head, close enough that when he laughs she feels it before she hears it. The room smells like beer and aftershave and pizza grease and wet pavement dragged in from outside.
Her chin is tucked near his temple, and his hand comes up every so often to touch her wrist where it crosses his chest, as if checking she’s still there even though she’s been draped over him for fifteen minutes like an affectionate scarf.
“You’re tense,” she murmurs near his ear.
Garrett tilts his head slightly toward her. “I got checked into the boards by a guy built like a refrigerator.”
“I saw.”
“You also yelled ‘get up’ at me.”
“You did get up.”
He huffs. “Supportive.”
“I’m very motivational.”
He smiles, eyes still on Logan across the room. “Yeah, Coach, you’re a real asset.”
She presses her thumb into the muscle at the top of his shoulder before he can get too smug, and his mouth shuts in the middle of whatever he was about to say. There’s a small drop in his posture, a breath leaving through his nose, his head tipping forward half an inch because the pressure hits somewhere useful.
“Oh,” she says softly, pleased. “There he is.”
“Don’t sound so happy about my suffering.”
“I’m happy about being right.”
He hums quietly. “You usually are.”
She starts working at his shoulders properly, thumbs pressing slow circles into the hard knots there, fingers sliding under the edge of his hoodie collar. Garrett tries to keep participating in the conversation around him, because Garrett Graham could be dying and still find time to chirp a teammate, but she feels him lose focus by degrees.
His answers get shorter. His hand drops from his beer to rest loosely on his thigh. When she presses into the muscle beside his neck, he makes a low sound under his breath that is almost nothing and somehow still deeply satisfying.
Dean notices, of course. Dean would notice a private moment through drywall.
“Oh, that’s cute,” he says from the floor, voice carrying with surgical precision. “Captain’s getting a little spa treatment.”
Garrett doesn't open his eyes. “You jealous, Di Laurentis?”
“Of a shoulder rub? No. Of your girlfriend looking at you like you just returned from war? Little bit.”
Allie leans around him. “He did get slammed pretty hard.”
Dean points at her. “See? This is why I date women. Compassion.”
Tucker takes a sip of beer. “You date Allie because she tolerates you.”
“That too.”
She ignores them, and keeps working her thumbs into Garrett’s shoulders. The only problem is the chain. It keeps getting in the way, slipping under her fingers every time she moves toward the base of his neck, catching lightly against her knuckle, dragging sideways over his skin. She shifts it once. Twice. The third time, Garrett reaches up without looking, catches her wrist, and then lifts his other hand to the clasp.
“Here,” he says.
She pauses. “What?”
He takes the chain off in one smooth motion, turning his head enough to glance up at her with that soft, amused look that always feels worse when other people are around because it's not performative. It's just his face, open for one second before he remembers to make a joke. “Here, baby. Wear it before you strangle me with it.”
The room hears baby. Naturally. The room reacts with the dignity of wolves spotting an injured deer. Logan’s head snaps over. “Oh, wow.”
Dean sits up so fast Allie has to move her knees. “Did he just give her the chain?”
Tucker’s mouth twitches. “Big night.”
Garrett points vaguely at all of them without turning around. “Everybody shut up.”
No one shuts up. That would go against the entire founding philosophy of the house.
She bends down anyway, smiling despite herself, hair falling forward over one shoulder. Garrett lifts the chain around her neck from where he sits, reaching back and up, his fingers careful as they brush the sides of her throat. It's an awkward angle, and he fumbles once with the clasp.
Dean gasps. “He’s putting jewellery on her. In public. Garrett Graham has fallen.”
“I will throw this beer at you,” Garrett says.
“No, you won’t. Your girl’s wearing your chain and touching your shoulders. You’re domesticated now.”
Logan lifts his cup. “RIP to a slut.”
Garrett finally opens his eyes and looks over. “I’m still alive, asshole.”
She laughs into Garrett’s hair before she can stop herself, and his hands settle briefly at her collarbone once the clasp is done, thumbs brushing over the chain where it sits against her skin.
The touch is quick. Almost hidden. But his eyes stay there for a second too long, and the whole loud room blurs slightly at the edges in that private way it sometimes does around him, even when Dean is three feet away preparing to be the worst person alive.
The chain is warm from Garrett’s skin when it lands against her throat. Something about that should not matter as much as it does.
Garrett’s head tips back until he can look up at her. “Good?”
She nods, fingers touching the chain. “Good.”
“Can I have my massage now, or are we hosting a ceremony?”
“Ceremony,” Dean says immediately. “I have a speech.”
“No one wants that,” Tucker says.
“I do,” Logan contributes, raising a hand.
Garrett groans and drops his head forward again, but she can see the grin at the corner of his mouth, tucked away where the boys cannot fully get to it.
She goes back to his shoulders, the chain now resting against her instead of him, rising and falling gently with her breathing as she works the tension out from under his hoodie.
The boys keep going, because of course they do.
“Whipped,” Dean says.
“Tragically,” Logan adds.
“Clinically,” Tucker says, which makes Allie laugh so hard she almost spills her drink.
Garrett lifts one hand just enough to flip them off without opening his eyes. “Keep talking. I’m cutting all of you from the power play.”
“You can’t cut me from the power play,” Dean says. “I am the power play.”
She leans closer, thumbs pressing into Garrett’s neck, and murmurs, “They’re not wrong, you know.”
His eyes open slightly. “Careful.”
“What?” she says, voice innocent near his ear. “You gave me your chain in front of everyone.”
“You were choking me with it.”
“I was massaging your shoulders.”
“Poorly.”
She pinches him lightly.
He laughs, catching her wrist and bringing her hand down just long enough to kiss the inside of it, quick and warm and entirely too natural for a room full of men actively trying to ruin his reputation. Then he lets her go and sinks back against the couch, shoulders finally loosening under her hands.
Across the room, Logan makes a wounded noise. “Oh my God. He kissed her hand. We lost him.”
Dean presses his beer to his heart. “He was so young.”
Tucker, dry as dust, says, “He died doing what he loved. Pretending he wasn’t in love.”
Garrett’s jaw ticks once, but the smile wins. She feels it more than sees it, the small shift under her cheek when she bends down again and rests against him for a second, her arms around his shoulders, his chain warm at her throat, the whole loud, stupid house moving around them.
“Love is a strong word,” Garrett says, which is exactly the sort of thing Garrett says when everyone is looking and the truth has wandered too close to the middle of the room.
She smiles against his cheek. “Mm.”
His hand comes up and covers her forearm, fingers curling there, thumb sweeping once over her skin in a slow little pass that says more than his mouth is willing to risk with Dean waiting to pounce.
Around them, the boys keep chirping, the television keeps replaying Garrett’s goal from the second period, someone in the kitchen shouts about beer pong, and the chain rests against her collarbone like a tiny, ridiculous victory.
Garrett turns his head just enough that his mouth brushes near her temple, hidden from most of the room by the angle of her body.
“You look good in it,” he says quietly.
Her hands pause on his shoulders for half a second.
Then Dean yells, “I can see you whispering sweet nothings, Graham,” and Garrett closes his eyes like he’s begging a very unhelpful God for patience, and she laughs so hard into his hair that the chain jumps lightly at her throat.
alpha!Dean Di Laurentis x alpha!Garrett Graham x alphaJohn Logan x alpha!John Tucker x omega!Reader
Summary: you came to Briar to disappear — no pack, no destiny, just a beta trying to outrun her own pity. One night changes all of that. By morning, four hockey players are looking at you like you belong to them, and the terrifying part is that your body already agrees
Warning: 18+ content
Read part one here
Garrett rips the jersey over your head and tosses it blindly across the room. It hits the wall with a soft thud.
The heavy, suffocating scent of your true heat hits the alphas like a physical blow. The vanilla and rain are entirely swallowed by something dark, musky, and violently demanding. The room feels like the air has been sucked out of it, replaced entirely by pheromones that trigger the most primal, feral instincts in the four men surrounding you.
Garrett’s eyes are completely black. He looks down at you, his massive chest heaving. There is no trace of the civilized college student left.
“Mine,” Garrett snarls, the word vibrating right through your sternum.
He grips the waistband of your soaked sweatpants and tears them down your legs in one brutal, efficient motion, taking your underwear with them. You are completely bare in the center of the nest, slick with your own heat, your skin flushed a feverish, mottled red.
You let out a desperate, keening whine, your hips bucking up off the blankets. “Please. Garrett, please.”
“I know, baby,” Garrett growls, his voice a harsh rasp. “I know.”
He sheds his own clothes in seconds. The sight of his massive, heavy erection makes your mouth go dry. The base is thick, the distinct ridge of his knot already starting to form under the skin from the sheer force of his arousal.
He crawls over you, parting your knees with his thighs. He doesn’t bother with foreplay. Your body has been prepping for this for days, and the slick pooling beneath you on the blankets is evidence enough. Garrett grips your hips, his thumbs pressing hard into your pelvic bones to hold you absolutely still.
“Take it all,” Garrett commands.
He thrusts forward.
You scream as he stretches you open, tearing a ragged gasp from his own throat. He is massive, thick and impossibly hot, filling the hollow, aching void inside you that has been driving you insane. He doesn’t stop. He drives in completely to the hilt, burying himself inside your wet heat.
“Fuck,” Dean curses from the edge of the nest, his voice thick with lust. He’s already completely naked, his own cock fully hard as he watches Garrett stretch you. Logan and Tucker are stripping down, the heavy scents of cedar, mint, and leather spiking into a chaotic frenzy of alpha arousal.
“Garrett,” you sob, your nails digging violently into his broad shoulders. “It’s so full.”
“You’re perfect,” Garrett groans, gritting his teeth as he forces himself to hold still for five agonizing seconds, letting your body adjust to the invasion. “You feel so fucking good, Y/N. So tight.”
He pulls back almost entirely, the slick sound of his retreat echoing in the quiet room, and then he slams back into you.
The sensation is blinding. You throw your head back into the pillows, a continuous, breathless cry tumbling from your lips. Garrett sets a brutal, punishing pace. He isn’t making love to you; he is claiming you. His hips snap against yours with a heavy, wet smack, every thrust driving deeper, hitting exactly the spot that makes your vision white out.
“That’s it,” Logan murmurs, crawling up to your head. He grips your jaw, forcing you to look at him. His dark eyes are blown wide. “Take his knot, baby. Let him fill you.”
You are lost in the friction, the overwhelming smell of pine, and the heavy weight of Garrett’s body. The ache is finally, blissfully being met.
“I’m close,” Garrett snarls, his thrusts turning choppy and erratic. “I’m knotting you. I’m claiming you right now.”
He reaches under your neck, tilting your head to the side, exposing your scent gland.
“Do it,” you beg, your hips rising to meet him. “Bite me.”
Garrett sinks his teeth into the crook of your neck exactly as he drives his hips forward one final, brutal time.
You scream as his teeth break the skin, the sharp pain instantly flooded by the euphoric, blinding rush of the mate bond sealing. At the exact same moment, the base of his cock violently swells inside you. The knot expands, locking him deep inside your canal.
Garrett lets out a deafening, guttural roar against your neck. Hot, thick semen jets directly into your womb, wave after wave of it filling you entirely.
The sensory overload triggers a violent orgasm. You convulse around his knot, sobbing uncontrollably, your hands gripping his hair. Pure instinct takes over. You twist your head, finding the thick muscle of Garrett’s shoulder, right over his own scent gland.
You open your mouth and bite down as hard as you can.
Garrett groans loudly, his hands tightening on your hips as your teeth break his skin, marking him back. The bond snaps completely into place — a two-way street of absolute, unyielding devotion.
You collapse onto the blankets, gasping for air, locked together. Garrett crushes you against his chest, his nose buried in your hair, purring violently as his knot slowly begins to recede.
“One,” Dean whispers from your side, his voice a dark, rough promise.
As soon as Garrett’s knot softens enough, he pulls out with a wet, heavy sound. Your slick, mixed with his semen, spills out onto your thighs. The heat instantly flares back up. The moment Garrett is gone, the hollow ache returns with a vengeance.
“More,” you whine, reaching out blindly.
“I’ve got you, sweetheart,” Dean says.
He slides into Garrett’s place, positioning himself between your legs. Dean is relentless. He grabs your thighs, throwing them over his shoulders, and buries his face directly between your legs.
You shriek as his hot, wet tongue laps at your swollen clit, lapping up Garrett’s mess and your slick without a second thought. Dean groans into your folds, his fingers sliding inside you, stretching you for his own width.
“God, you taste incredible,” Dean mutters, his lips slick. He pulls back, his blue eyes blazing. He wastes no time. He slides his cock home in one long, smooth thrust.
“Dean!” You cry out, arching off the bed.
“Yeah, baby,” Dean praises, his voice a filthy, decadent purr. He begins to move, his thrusts shallower but impossibly fast, rubbing directly against your g-spot over and over again. “Look at you taking my cock. You are the prettiest fucking thing I have ever seen. You’re my omega.”
The praise breaks you. You shatter into another orgasm within minutes, sobbing Dean’s name as he bites down hard on your collarbone, his teeth sinking in to lay his claim. His knot swells, locking him inside you, his hot seed flooding your core. You bite him back, marking the side of his neck, tasting his blood and sweat.
The hours blur into a feverish, chaotic haze of skin, sweat, and pheromones.
Logan takes you from behind. He flips you onto your hands and knees in the center of the nest, pulling your hips back against his thighs. He is the quietest of the four, his dominance expressed entirely through the bruising grip of his large hands on your waist and the deep, relentless power of his thrusts.
“Logan, please,” you sob, your face pressed into a pillow as he completely wrecks you.
“I’m here,” Logan rumbles. He leans over your back, his broad chest pressing you down into the mattress. He bites the back of your neck, his teeth sinking into the sensitive skin just below your hairline. He knots you with a violent shudder, claiming you with absolute, possessive certainty. You twist your head back, sinking your teeth into his jaw, sealing the bond.
By the time Tucker takes you, you are a boneless, exhausted, completely delirious mess.
Tucker is slow. He rolls you onto your back, holding your face in both hands. His dark eyes are full of an intense, reverent love that makes your
heart physically ache. He kisses you deeply, swallowing your moans as he sinks into your wet, overused cunt.
“My beautiful girl,” Tucker whispers, his thrusts deep, agonizingly slow, and completely devastating. He makes love to you in the middle of a feral heat, his control slipping only when you wrap your legs around his waist and beg for his knot. He bites you right over your racing pulse point, filling you with his seed, and you bite his shoulder in return, completing the circle.
Four bites. Four marks. Four mates.
You fall asleep locked around Tucker’s softening knot, completely dead to the world.
***
You wake up to the feeling of a cold, wet cloth wiping down your face.
You pry your eyes open. The living room is dark, the only light coming from the streetlamps outside the large windows. Tucker is kneeling beside you, holding a damp towel.
“Hey,” Tucker murmurs, leaning in to press a kiss to your swollen lips. “Drink this.”
He lifts your head, pressing a straw to your mouth. You suck greedily, the cold Gatorade hitting your dry throat like liquid heaven.
“How long was I asleep?” You croak, your voice completely hoarse from screaming.
“Three hours,” Garrett says. He’s sitting on the edge of the nest, wearing only a pair of sweatpants. He has a massive plate of pasta in his hands. “It’s Thursday night. Day two of the heat.”
Day two.
You try to sit up, but every single muscle in your body screams in protest. You are completely sore, your core throbbing with a heavy, residual ache.
“Don’t move,” Logan says, appearing on your other side. He slides his arm under your back, propping you up against his chest.
Garrett feeds you the pasta. You eat mechanically, your body desperate for the calories. But with every bite you swallow, you feel your core temperature begin to rise again. The Gatorade and food are doing exactly what they are supposed to do: fueling your body for the next wave.
By the time the plate is empty, the itching heat beneath your skin is back.
You let out a soft whine, shifting your hips against Logan’s thigh. The friction sends a jolt of arousal straight to your clit.
“Already?” Dean asks, walking into the room with a fresh towel. He drops it when he sees the feverish glaze returning to your eyes.
“The first heat is always the most violent,” Tucker says, his own scent of fresh mint instantly spiking to match your rising pheromones. “Her body has two years of suppressed biology to burn through.”
You don’t care about the biology. You only care about the ache.
“Garrett,” you whimper, reaching for him.
“I’m right here, baby,” Garrett growls, setting the empty plate on the coffee table.
The second wave is less about the formal claiming and entirely about the feral, unbridled need. The pack dynamic shifts from structured turns into an absolute, chaotic free-for-all.
Time loses all meaning. It is just a cycle of fucking, sleeping, eating, and fucking again.
On Friday, Dean and Logan take you together. You are lying on your back, your legs spread wide. Logan is inside you, driving his thick cock deep into your cunt, his hands bruising your hips. Dean is kneeling over your face, his hard length pressed against your lips.
“Open up, sweetheart,” Dean commands, his fingers threading through your hair.
You take him into your mouth, sucking fiercely while Logan pounds into you from below. The sensory overload is maddening. You are completely stretched, filled on both ends, choking on Dean’s thick cock while Logan hits your cervix over and over again.
“Good girl,” Dean praises, thrusting his hips forward, fucking your mouth in tandem with Logan’s rhythm. “Take it. Take your pack.”
Logan groans loudly, his hips snapping forward. “I’m knotting.”
“Swallow it,” Dean orders, his own climax hitting.
Dean ruins the back of your throat with his hot seed exactly as Logan’s knot swells inside you, flooding your womb for the second time. You gag, tears streaming down your face, but you swallow every drop, your body convulsing around Logan’s knot in a violent, world-shattering orgasm.
On Saturday, the fever peaks. You are practically delirious, your skin burning hot to the touch.
Garrett and Tucker have you pinned against the armrest of the couch. You are completely exhausted, your body barely able to support its own weight, but the biological drive refuses to let you rest.
Tucker is holding you up, his arm wrapped securely around your chest, while Garrett takes you from behind. Garrett’s thrusts are brutal, unforgiving, driven by the pure, possessive need of a captain protecting his center.
“Garrett, it hurts,” you sob, the sensitivity turning into a sharp ache.
“I know, I know,” Garrett murmurs, biting the back of your neck to release a flood of soothing alpha pheromones into your bloodstream. “Just let it out, baby. I’ve got you.”
Tucker kisses you, swallowing your cries, his thumb rubbing rhythmic, soothing circles into your clit while Garrett pounds into you.
“Focus on me,” Tucker whispers against your lips. “Just breathe with me.”
You shatter in Tucker’s arms as Garrett’s knot locks inside you, the force of his climax making your vision go completely black for a few terrifying, blissful seconds.
By Sunday afternoon, the house smells like a warzone. The air is so thick with the mingled scents of sex, sweat, vanilla, and alpha musk that it is almost hard to breathe.
You are in the final wave. The crescendo.
You are on your hands and knees, completely wrecked. Your inner thighs are trembling so badly you can barely hold yourself up. Dean is behind you, his cock sliding in and out of your swollen, slick-drenched cunt.
But it isn’t enough. The heat demands more.
“Please,” you sob, looking blindly over your shoulder. “I need … I need …”
“I know,” Garrett says.
Garrett steps up in front of you. He grabs your hips, lifting you slightly, and positions himself at your second, tighter entrance. He presses his thick head against your slick-covered rim.
You gasp, your eyes flying open. “Garrett-”
“Relax,” Garrett orders softly, his hands moving to massage your thighs. “You can take us both. We’ll be slow.”
Dean slows his thrusting, pulling almost entirely out to give Garrett room. Garrett pushes forward.
You scream as the blunt, thick head stretches you open. The pain is sharp for a fraction of a second before the immense, overwhelming fullness drowns it out. Garrett slides all the way in, locking you entirely onto his length.
“Fuck,” Dean hisses, seeing Garrett buried inside you right next to him.
Dean pushes forward, sliding back into your cunt.
The feeling of being entirely, completely filled by two alphas at once breaks your brain. You collapse forward onto the pillows, unable to support yourself, completely surrendering to them.
“That’s it,” Garrett groans, his chest pressing against your back. He sets a slow, agonizing rhythm.
Dean catches the rhythm perfectly. They move in tandem. As Garrett pulls back, Dean thrusts deep. As Dean retreats, Garrett slams forward.
It is a completely synchronized, devastating assault on your senses.
Logan is at your head, kissing you deeply, his tongue mimicking the brutal rhythm of his packmates. Tucker is beside him, his hands roaming over your flushed, sweaty skin, pressing firm, grounding touches to your shoulders and arms to keep you from flying apart.
“You are so fucking good,” Dean praises, his voice tight with approaching climax. “Taking both of us. Best omega.”
“Mine,” Garrett snarls, his control completely snapping.
He drives his hips forward, burying himself to the hilt, and holds it. Dean slams into you a second later, completely bottoming out.
Both of their knots swell simultaneously.
You let out a shattered, breathless scream. Your body cannot physically handle the stretch. You convulse violently, a full-body climax ripping through you with the force of a hurricane. The pleasure is so intense it hurts.
Garrett and Dean roar in unison, their hot seed flooding both of your canals simultaneously.
Your eyes roll back in your head.
The heat finally, mercifully breaks. The fever drops. The frantic, biological push vanishes, leaving behind a completely empty, thoroughly wrecked shell.
You pass out before Garrett and Dean even pull out.
***
When you finally, fully regain consciousness, the world is quiet.
You are lying on your stomach in the center of the nest. The ruined blankets have been swapped out for fresh, clean ones, though they still smell heavily of the pack.
Your body feels like it was hit by a freight train, but the burning, frantic itch beneath your skin is gone. You feel heavy, grounded, and entirely sated.
You turn your head slowly.
Garrett, Dean, Logan, and Tucker are all in the living room. They are dressed in sweatpants, looking incredibly exhausted but thoroughly at peace. The feral, aggressive edge to their pheromones is gone, replaced by a warm, protective, and overwhelmingly contented hum.
Logan notices you are awake first. He drops his phone on the coffee table and immediately moves to the edge of the nest.
“Hey,” Logan says softly, his voice a deep rumble. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”
You let out a hoarse hum, too tired to speak.
Garrett, Dean, and Tucker immediately abandon what they were doing and crowd around the nest.
You look down at yourself. You are naked, but you feel sticky.
You lift your arm. Your skin is covered in a slick, fragrant sheen.
“We didn’t wash you,” Tucker explains, his voice entirely devoid of shame. He sits on the edge of the mattress, reaching out to gently stroke your hair. “The heat broke, but your body was leaking heavily. Slick, semen. It’s the most concentrated form of our mingled scents.”
Dean kneels beside Tucker, a smug, incredibly satisfied smirk on his face. “In the wild, a pack rubs the excess into the omega’s skin. It seals the scent. It acts as a biological warning to any other alpha who comes near you that you are thoroughly claimed, marked, and bred.”
You blush furiously, the heat rising to your cheeks. “You rubbed it into my skin?”
“Every inch of you,” Garrett confirms, his eyes dropping to your bare shoulders. He looks incredibly proud of himself. “You smell like us. You smell like mine.”
You let your head drop back onto the pillows, a soft, breathless laugh escaping your lips. It’s feral. It’s disgusting. It’s the most beautifully possessive thing you have ever heard.
“I’m so tired,” you whisper, closing your eyes.
“Sleep, sweetheart,” Logan murmurs, sliding into the nest and pulling the heavy duvet over your body. He wraps his arms around you, burying his face in the juncture of your neck, directly over the four distinct, healing bite marks. “We’re right here. We’re not going anywhere.”
Dean crawls in on your other side, throwing his arm over your waist. Garrett settles at your feet, his heavy hands resting on your calves. Tucker sits at your head, keeping watch.
You are completely surrounded. Fully claimed. Thoroughly ruined in the best possible way.
The beta who thought she was destined to be alone is gone. In her place is the center of a pack.
And you wouldn’t trade it for the world.
***
The aftermath of a five-day heat doesn’t leave you glowing. It leaves you feeling like you were tossed in a dryer on the highest setting alongside a bag of bricks.
It’s Tuesday morning. You are sitting at the kitchen island, wearing nothing but one of Logan’s oversized grey t-shirts and a pair of fuzzy socks. You are staring blankly at a mug of Earl Grey tea.
“Drink,” Tucker says, walking past you to pull a carton of eggs from the fridge. He stops, taps the rim of your mug with his knuckle, and waits until you actually pick it up and take a sip. “Good girl.”
You let out a soft sigh, leaning your chin on your hand.
Your entire world has been flipped off its axis. You missed your first full week of college classes. You no longer live in a dorm. You share a house with four massive, ridiculously attractive hockey players who currently treat you like a delicate piece of blown glass.
And then there’s your neck.
Every time you turn your head, the dull, healing ache of four distinct bite marks pulls at your skin. They are perfectly spaced — Garrett’s over your scent gland, Dean’s on your collarbone, Logan’s just beneath your hairline, and Tucker’s right over your pulse point. You catch glimpses of them in the bathroom mirror and your breath still hitches.
You are marked. You are mated.
“What’s going on in that beautiful head of yours?”
Dean slides onto the stool next to you. He’s fresh out of the shower, his blond hair damp and sticking up in every direction. He smells like expensive soap, rain, and absolute contentment. Without asking, he wraps his arm around your waist, pulling you flush against his side, and buries his face in the crook of your neck right over his bite mark.
He inhales deeply, letting out a low, vibrating hum of satisfaction.
“I need to call my parents,” you say, your voice quiet.
Dean freezes. Tucker stops whisking the eggs.
Logan and Garrett walk into the kitchen from the living room, instantly picking up on the shift in the air. Garrett’s eyes immediately lock onto you, assessing you for distress.
“Your parents,” Garrett repeats, leaning his hips against the counter across from you. “Right. It’s been over a week since you left New York.”
“My mom has texted me forty-two times,” you say, pulling your phone out of your pocket and setting it on the granite counter. “And Mae left six voicemails. They think I’m ignoring them because I’m depressed about being a beta surrounded by omegas at college.”
“You’re not a beta,” Logan states flatly, walking over to press a kiss to the top of your head.
“I know that. And you know that,” you say, dragging a hand down your face. “But they don’t. The last time they saw me, I was packing my beat-up sedan, entirely unbonded, without a drop of scent to my name. If I FaceTime them right now, the first thing they’re going to see are four massive bite marks on my neck.”
Dean lifts his head, his blue eyes crinkling with amusement. “And the problem is …”
“The problem, Dean, is that omegas don’t just magically present at eighteen and instantly find a four-alpha fated pack,” you groan. “It’s medically unheard of. My dad is going to have a heart attack. My mom is going to cry. And Mae is going to ask so many inappropriate questions I might actually die of embarrassment.”
Tucker sets a plate of scrambled eggs and toast in front of you. “They love you. They’ll be happy.”
“They’ll be shocked,” you correct, picking up your fork. “And they’re going to want to know everything. I can’t exactly tell them I got roofied at a frat party my first night here. My dad will drive to Massachusetts and burn the campus down.”
Garrett’s jaw tightens at the mention of the party. The feral, protective alpha in him is still violently angry about what happened, even if Brad the lacrosse player is currently nursing a shattered hand somewhere out of state.
“So don’t tell them about the drink,” Garrett says reasonably. “Tell them the stress of the move triggered a delayed presentation. It happens. Rare, but it happens. And the moment your pheromones hit the air, we smelled you from across campus and the bond snapped.”
“That makes us sound like bloodhounds, G,” Dean snorts.
“We basically are,” Logan points out, stealing a piece of toast off your plate. You smack his hand with your fork, and he just grins, chewing happily.
You look at the four of them. They are so relaxed, so entirely confident in their claim over you. There is no jealousy, no weird posturing. They operate as a single, cohesive unit built entirely around keeping you safe and happy.
“Okay,” you breathe out, pushing your plate away. “I’m going to do it. Right now. Before I lose my nerve.”
“Want us to leave the room?” Tucker asks, already reaching for a dish towel to dry his hands.
“No,” you say quickly. Your inner omega spikes with immediate, irrational panic at the thought of them leaving you to face this alone. “No. Stay. Just … maybe stay out of the camera frame for the first five minutes? Let me ease them into it.”
“We can do that,” Garrett says, crossing his arms over his chest. He leans back against the counter, giving you a clear sightline but staying out of the phone’s camera angle. Logan leans next to him. Tucker stays by the stove, and Dean smoothly slides his stool back a few feet.
You pick up your phone, unlock it, and take a deep breath.
You hit the FaceTime icon next to your mom’s name.
It rings exactly once before the screen connects.
Your mother’s face fills the screen. She’s in the kitchen of your childhood home, the familiar floral wallpaper visible in the background. Her eyes are wide, and she looks incredibly stressed.
“Y/N!” Your mom gasps, practically dropping the phone. “Oh my god, David! Mae! Get in here, she’s calling!”
“Mom, hi,” you say, offering a small, nervous smile.
“Honey, why haven’t you been answering my texts? Are you okay? Is the dorm awful? Are the classes too hard? You look …” Your mom leans closer to the screen, her brow furrowing. “You look different. Are you sick? Your cheeks are so flushed.”
“I’m not sick, Mom.”
There’s a scuffling sound, and suddenly your older sister Mae squeezes into the frame, shoving her face next to your mom’s.
“You’re alive!” Mae says dramatically. “We thought you got kidnapped by a cult.”
“Not a cult,” you say, glancing nervously off-screen at Logan, who is trying very hard not to laugh.
“Well, what is it?” Your mom asks, her tone shifting from panicked to strictly maternal. “You’ve been gone for over a week. We called the freshman dorm yesterday, and your roommate Brooke said you moved out! Y/N, where are you living?”
“Okay, Mom, take a breath,” you say, holding the phone steady. “I have a lot to tell you. But you have to promise not to freak out.”
Your dad’s face appears in the background, looking over your mom’s shoulder. “If you tell us you dropped out of college to join a band, I’m cutting off your credit card.”
“I didn’t drop out,” you roll your eyes. “I just … I’m not in the dorms anymore because I had a medical emergency.”
The color drains from your mother’s face entirely. “Medical emergency? What happened? Are you in the hospital?”
“No, I’m completely fine,” you assure her quickly. “I’m better than fine, actually. I’m … well.”
You pause. You look off-screen again. Garrett gives you a slow, encouraging nod, his eyes steady and warm.
You look back at the screen. You reach up and pull the collar of the oversized t-shirt to the side, exposing the left side of your neck, and take a deep breath.
“I’m an omega,” you say.
The silence on the other end of the phone is absolute. It is a thick, heavy silence.
Mae’s jaw actually drops open. Your dad blinks rapidly. Your mom just stares at you, her eyes darting from your face to the deep, unmistakable claiming bite resting right over your scent gland.
“You …” your mom stammers, her voice breaking. “You presented?”
“Last Friday,” you confirm. “It was sudden. The doctor said the stress of moving and being in a new environment must have triggered a delayed biological response. But I presented. I have a scent. It’s vanilla and rain.”
Tears instantly well up in your mom’s eyes. She covers her mouth with her hand, letting out a choked sob of pure, overwhelming relief. For two years, she had watched you suffer, watched you pull away from the family out of shame.
“Oh, my baby,” your mom cries, wiping her cheeks. “Oh, honey, I’m so happy for you. We were so worried. But wait … you presented last week? Alone? You went through your first heat alone?”
Your dad’s eyes narrow, his protective alpha instincts finally catching up to the shock. He leans closer to the screen, his gaze locking onto your neck.
“You didn’t go through it alone,” your dad says, his voice low and serious. “You have a bite mark, Y/N. Who bit you?”
Mae gasps. “Wait, you found your mate? Already?! You’ve been there for a week!”
“It happened really fast,” you say, a nervous laugh escaping you. You rub the back of your neck. “My pheromones hit the air, and the bond just … snapped. We couldn’t fight it.”
“Who is he?” Your dad demands. “Is he a student? An alpha? What’s his name?”
You bite your lower lip. This is it. This is the part that is going to break their brains.
“Dad, Mom,” you start slowly. “You know how sometimes, fated bonds can be … unique?”
“Unique how?” Your mom asks, wiping her nose with a tissue.
“Well. I didn’t just find a mate.” You clear your throat, feeling the intense heat of four gazes burning into the side of your head. “I found a pack.”
Mae’s eyes bug out of her head. “A pack? Like, an established pack adopted you?”
“No,” you say. “I mean … my fated bond. It tied me to four alphas.”
Complete, utter silence descends on the FaceTime call again.
“Four,” your dad repeats, his voice completely flat.
“Four,” you confirm softly.
“At the same time?” Mae asks, her voice pitching up an octave.
Before you can answer, Dean decides he has been patient long enough.
“Actually,” Dean’s smooth, charming voice cuts in as he rolls his stool right into the camera frame, popping his head over your shoulder. He flashes a blinding, million-dollar smile at your family. “We prefer to think of ourselves as a heavily coordinated unit. Hi! I’m Dean Di Laurentis. It is an absolute pleasure to finally meet you.”
Your mother lets out a tiny, high-pitched squeak.
Dean is shirtless, casually leaning his chin on your shoulder, looking like a literal underwear model. He wraps his arm securely around your waist, his thumb gently stroking your side. The physical intimacy is so casual, so deeply ingrained, it screams of a fully sealed bond.
“Dean,” you sigh, though you lean into his touch instantly.
“What? You said wait five minutes. It’s been six,” Dean reasons.
“He’s not wrong,” Garrett says, stepping into the frame from the left.
Garrett is wearing a tight black t-shirt that highlights every single inch of his heavily muscled chest and arms. He steps right behind you, placing his large, calloused hands heavily on your shoulders. The dominant, authoritative aura radiating off him is palpable even through a phone screen.
“Garrett Graham,” Garrett introduces himself smoothly, nodding at your dad. “Sir. Ma’am.”
Your dad is staring at the screen like he’s watching a hallucination. “Garrett Graham. The hockey player. My buddy watches Briar games. You’re the captain.”
“Yes, sir,” Garrett says. He leans down and presses a soft, lingering kiss to your temple, entirely unfazed by your father’s scrutinizing glare.
“Okay, move, you’re hogging the screen,” Logan mutters, shoving Garrett slightly to the side to squeeze in.
Logan leans down on the counter on your right side. His dark hair is messy, his arm flexing as he rests his weight on the granite. He offers your family a relaxed, easygoing smirk.
“John Logan,” Logan says. “Most people just call me Logan.”
Mae is practically vibrating out of her skin on the other end of the phone. “Are you all on the hockey team? Wait, is this a joke? Y/N, did you hire models to prank us?”
“I assure you, we are very real,” Tucker says, stepping into the background of the frame holding a fresh cup of tea. He walks up and swaps out your empty mug for the full one. He smiles warmly at the camera. “John Tucker. It’s wonderful to meet you all. Y/N has told us a lot about her family.”
Your mother is clutching the edge of her kitchen counter for dear life. She is staring at her youngest daughter, the girl they had pitied for two years as a scentless beta, who is now sitting in a massive, gorgeous kitchen surrounded by four hulking, intensely protective alpha athletes who are quite literally treating her like a queen.
“Four,” your dad says again, apparently stuck on a loop. “You are mated to four alphas. All of them.”
“Yes, sir,” Garrett says, his voice taking on a slightly harder, firmer edge. The captain asserting his claim. “We share the bond. She is the center of our pack. She’s safe with us.”
“And where is she living?” Your mom asks, her voice trembling slightly. “Because she’s not in the dorms.”
“She lives here,” Dean says cheerfully. “With us. In our off-campus house. We went and packed up her dorm last weekend. It wasn’t safe for a newly presented, unbonded omega to be in a freshman dorm anyway. The pheromones were too unpredictable.”
Your dad narrows his eyes. “You moved my eighteen-year-old daughter into a house with four college boys?”
“Four fated mates,” Logan corrects softly, though his dark eyes are entirely serious. “It’s different, sir. You know how the bond works.”
Your dad opens his mouth, likely to argue, but he stops. Because he does know how the bond works. You can see the realization dawning on his face.
He looks at the screen. He sees the way Garrett’s hands are anchored to your shoulders, a grounding, heavy weight. He sees the way Dean is leaning into your side, practically breathing your scent. He sees Tucker making sure you have hot tea, and Logan standing guard.
Most importantly, he sees you.
You aren’t shrinking into yourself. You aren’t forcing a tight, polite smile to hide your pain like you had for two years at every family dinner. You are relaxed, glowing, and completely at peace. You look utterly, thoroughly loved.
Your dad’s shoulders drop. The aggressive alpha posturing drains out of him.
“You’re taking care of her?” Your dad asks, his voice thick with emotion. It’s not a threat. It’s a genuine plea from a father who just wants his kid to be safe.
“With our lives, sir,” Garrett says without a single second of hesitation. The absolute, fierce devotion in his voice leaves absolutely no room for doubt.
Your mom bursts into fresh tears.
“Oh, my goodness,” she cries, waving a hand in front of her face. “I’m sorry, I’m just so overwhelmed. Y/N, honey, I’m so happy for you. We were so worried you would be lonely up there.”
“Definitely not lonely, Mom,” you laugh softly, leaning your head back against Garrett’s stomach.
“I’ll say,” Mae mutters, her eyes raking over the four massive athletes. “Jeez, Y/N. Talk about overcompensating for being a late bloomer. You hit the absolute jackpot.”
“Hey,” Dean points a finger at the camera, a charming grin on his face. “She’s the jackpot. We just got lucky.”
The compliment makes your heart flutter. You look up at Dean, and he winks at you.
“Well,” your dad clears his throat, recovering his composure. “If you’re going to be taking care of my daughter, we expect to meet you in person. Thanksgiving is in two months. I assume you all have a break in the hockey schedule?”
The four alphas freeze.
Meeting the parents over FaceTime is one thing. Walking into a house full of a generational pack to present themselves as the men who claimed the family’s youngest daughter is an entirely different level of terrifying.
“Absolutely, sir,” Tucker says smoothly, saving the rest of them from their panic. “We would be honored. We can drive down.”
“Good,” your dad nods. “We’ll have the guest rooms ready. Though I suppose you won’t be needing all of them.”
A dark blush floods your face. “Dad! Please.”
Your mom laughs, wiping her eyes. “We’ll let you go, honey. I know you missed a lot of classes, you probably have a lot to catch up on.”
“Actually, we handled the administration,” Logan says casually. “She’s got a medical exemption for the first two weeks, and Tucker picked up the syllabi for all her classes. We’re tutoring her.”
Your mom stares at Logan. “You guys … you already took care of all her classes?”
“Of course, ma’am,” Logan says, looking slightly confused as to why that was surprising. “It’s our job.”
Your mom lets out a long, shaky breath. “Well. It’s very nice to meet you boys. Take care of my girl.”
“Always,” Garrett promises.
“Love you, Mom. Love you, Dad. Bye, Mae,” you say, waving at the screen.
“Love you, Y/N! Tell Dean I said hi!” Mae yells right before your dad hangs up the phone.
The screen goes black.
You set the phone down on the counter and let out a massive, explosive breath, slumping forward onto the granite.
“That was incredibly stressful,” you groan into your arms.
Garrett chuckles, a deep, rumbling sound in his chest. His hands slide off your shoulders and down your back, rubbing soothing circles between your shoulder blades. “You did great, baby. They took it well.”
“My dad invited you to Thanksgiving,” you point out, turning your head to look at him. “He’s going to corner you all in the garage and interrogate you about your intentions.”
“Let him,” Logan says, picking up his piece of toast again. “My intentions are to marry you, buy a house in the suburbs, and never let anyone look at you ever again. He can interrogate me all he wants.”
You blink, completely stunned by the casual drop of the ‘M’ word.
Dean bursts out laughing at the look on your face. He wraps both arms around you and pulls you out of your chair, spinning you around until you are caged against his chest.
“Logan’s not subtle, sweetheart,” Dean grins, kissing the tip of your nose. “But he’s not wrong. You’re stuck with us. Forever. Might as well get used to the Thanksgiving interrogations now.”
“I think I can handle it,” you smile, wrapping your arms around Dean’s neck.
Tucker walks over, wrapping his arms around both you and Dean, pulling you into a tight, warm hug. Logan steps in a second later, wrapping his arms around the group. Garrett completes the circle, his massive frame enveloping all of you.
You stand in the middle of the kitchen, entirely surrounded by the physical weight and the heavy, intoxicating scents of pine, cedar, mint, and leather.
You are a long way from the scared, lonely girl packing a suitcase in New York. You are exactly where you are supposed to be.
“Now,” Garrett says, his voice a low, commanding rumble against the top of your head. “Who’s helping her study for History 101, and who is helping me scrub the nesting blankets before practice?”
“I call history,” Dean says immediately.
“Coward,” Logan scoffs.
You just laugh, burying your face in Dean’s chest, letting the sounds of your pack wash over you. Life at Briar University is going to be incredibly, wildly complicated.
But you have never felt safer.
***
“Absolutely not.”
You stand in front of the full-length mirror in the upstairs hallway, holding a tiny wand of liquid concealer. You haven’t even uncapped it yet, and the veto is already unanimous.
“Garrett, be reasonable,” you sigh, looking at the hockey captain through the reflection. He is leaning against the doorframe of his bedroom, his arms crossed over a tight grey t-shirt, looking like a brick wall of stubborn alpha instinct. “I can’t just walk into a freshman seminar looking like I survived a vampire attack.”
“They’re bite marks, sweetheart, not hickeys,” Dean points out, walking past Garrett to stand directly behind you. He plucks the concealer out of your hand and tosses it casually into an open bathroom drawer. “And you didn’t survive a vampire attack. You survived a heat with four fated mates. There’s a difference. A very proud, very biological difference.”
You touch your neck. The four claiming bites have healed from open wounds into neat, silver-pink scars. They form a ring around your collar, an undeniable, permanent collar of ownership.
“I’m going to get stared at,” you grumble, though you lean back against Dean’s chest when he wraps his arms around your waist.
“Let them stare,” Logan calls out from the bottom of the stairs. “If anyone stares too long, I’ll gouge their eyes out. Simple.”
“Please don’t gouge anyone’s eyes out on my first day of college,” you call back. “I’m already a week behind on the syllabus. I don’t need to be an accessory to assault.”
Tucker walks up the stairs, carrying a travel mug of coffee. He hands it to you, his dark eyes scanning your outfit. You are wearing a simple pair of fitted jeans and a white tank top.
“Are you sure you don’t want to wear one of our jackets?” Tucker asks gently.
You take a sip of the coffee. “It’s seventy degrees outside, Tuck. If I wear a team jacket, I’ll sweat to death before I make it to the quad.”
“She’s right,” Garrett concedes, pushing off the doorframe. He steps up to your side, his eyes dropping to your exposed neck. A deep, satisfied rumble vibrates in his chest at the sight of his mark resting right over your scent gland. “The bites are visible. And she smells like us. Anyone with half a working nose will know exactly who she belongs to.”
You roll your eyes, but your omega preens at the possessiveness.
It has been four days since your heat ended. The transition from the hazy, sex-drenched bubble of the off-campus house back to reality has been jarring. You are officially an enrolled freshman at Briar University, and today is your first actual day of classes. The university administration, thanks to a very aggressive phone call from Garrett and some smooth talking from Tucker, excused your first-week absences due to a “medical emergency.”
But you can’t hide in this house forever.
“Alright,” Garrett says, checking his watch. “Pack up. Logan has the truck running. We’re dropping you at the humanities building.”
“You guys don’t all have to walk me to class,” you say, grabbing your backpack from the floor. “Don’t you have your own schedules?”
“We are upperclassmen, baby,” Dean smirks, grabbing his keys. “We schedule our classes for the afternoon so we can sleep in. Which means our mornings are entirely free to escort our beautiful new mate across campus.”
You don’t bother arguing. You’ve quickly learned that arguing with four fated alphas about your personal safety is a completely useless endeavor.
You follow them down the stairs and out the front door. The crisp September air hits your face, a welcome shock to your system. You climb into the middle of the truck’s backseat, sandwiched between Garrett and Dean, while Tucker takes shotgun and Logan drives.
The ride to campus is short. Logan pulls the massive truck right up to the curb of the main quad, illegally parking in a loading zone.
“Logan, you’re going to get a ticket,” you say, unbuckling your seatbelt.
“I’ll pay it,” Logan shrugs, putting the truck in park. He kills the engine. “Let’s go, boys.”
All four of them get out of the truck.
The second your sneakers hit the pavement of the Briar University quad, the atmosphere completely shifts.
The quad is packed with students rushing to their 9 AM classes. Alphas, betas, and omegas are everywhere, laughing, drinking coffee, reading on benches. But as the five of you begin to walk up the main paved path, a strange, rippling silence begins to spread through the crowd.
It starts with the scent.
Your vanilla and rain pheromones are sweet and undeniably omega, but they are heavily, aggressively smothered in the dark, dominant musk of pine, cedar, mint, and leather. To any alpha on campus, the scent profile is a massive, blaring stop sign.
Then comes the visual.
Garrett Graham, Dean Di Laurentis, John Logan, and John Tucker are practically campus royalty. They are the star players of a championship hockey team, notoriously single, and completely out of reach.
And they are currently walking in a tight, protective diamond formation around a tiny, dark-haired freshman.
Logan is walking a step ahead of you, his broad shoulders clearing a path through the crowd. Dean is practically glued to your right side, his hand resting casually but firmly on the small of your back. Garrett is on your left, his expression carved out of absolute stone, his eyes tracking every single male student within a fifty-yard radius. Tucker guards your rear, his calm, imposing presence preventing anyone from walking up behind you.
“They’re staring,” you whisper, ducking your head slightly.
“Keep your chin up, sweetheart,” Garrett orders softly, his hand sliding off his hip to intertwine his fingers with yours. He gives your hand a reassuring squeeze. “You have nothing to hide.”
You force yourself to look up.
A group of upperclassman alphas leaning against a brick wall stop talking entirely as you pass. One of them, a guy wearing a lacrosse hoodie, takes a subtle breath in, trying to catch your scent.
Garrett doesn’t break stride. He just turns his head, his eyes locking onto the lacrosse player with a look of such pure, unadulterated murder that the guy actually takes a physical step backward, dropping his gaze to the pavement in immediate submission.
“Easy, G,” Tucker murmurs from behind you.
“Just establishing boundaries,” Garrett mutters.
You reach the heavy oak doors of the humanities building. Logan pulls the door open, holding it as the pack files inside. The hallway is lined with classrooms.
“Room 104,” you say, checking your schedule on your phone. “It’s right here. Intro to European History.”
“Perfect,” Dean says, leaning down to press a quick, hard kiss to your lips right in the middle of the hallway. Several passing students actively trip over their own feet watching the legendary Dean Di Laurentis kiss a freshman. “Have a good class, baby. Learn about … whatever it is Europeans do.”
“Thanks, Dean,” you smile, your cheeks burning.
“We’ll meet you at the student union for lunch at noon,” Tucker says, smoothing down a stray piece of your hair. “Text if you need anything. Seriously. Anything.”
“I will,” you promise.
You turn to Logan, who bumps his fist gently against your shoulder, and then to Garrett. Garrett pulls you in for a deep kiss, entirely uncaring of the audience, before stepping back.
“See you at lunch,” Garrett says.
You wave to them, take a deep breath, and walk into Room 104.
The lecture hall is huge, tiered with rows of long desks. It’s mostly full of other freshmen. You find an empty seat in the middle row, sliding into the desk and dropping your backpack on the floor.
You pull out your laptop, trying to ignore the blatant staring from the girls sitting a few seats away from you. You know exactly what they are whispering about. The silver-pink bite marks on your neck are on full display under the fluorescent lights.
“Is this seat taken?”
You look to your right. A guy with sandy blonde hair and a friendly, open smile is standing there. He smells faintly of citrus. A beta.
“No, it’s open,” you say politely.
He slides into the seat, dropping his notebook on the desk. “I’m Mark. First day?”
“Yeah. Medical stuff kept me out last week,” you say, opening your laptop. “I’m Y/N.”
“Nice to meet you, Y/N.” Mark leans back in his chair, tapping his pen against his notebook. He glances at your neck, his eyes widening slightly before he quickly looks away, trying to be polite. “So, uh, you’re a little late to the party, but the professor is pretty chill. He posts all his slides online.”
“That’s a relief,” you sigh. “I have a lot of catching up to do.”
“I can share my notes with you,” Mark offers, offering a genuinely helpful smile. “If you want. We could study-”
Mark doesn’t get to finish his sentence.
The heavy wooden door at the back of the lecture hall swings open. The professor, a short, balding man in a tweed jacket, is already at the podium setting up his microphone. He looks up, frowning.
“Class has begun, young man,” the professor says.
Logan ignores him.
Logan walks down the tiered steps of the lecture hall, his dark eyes scanning the rows until he finds exactly what he’s looking for. He walks straight down your row.
Your jaw drops. “Logan? What are you doing here?”
“I missed you,” Logan says completely deadpan.
He stops right next to Mark. Logan is towering over the seated beta, his arms crossed over his chest. Logan’s scent — sharp, aggressive cedar — floods the immediate area, a heavy, dominant warning.
Mark pales instantly. He looks up at Logan, then looks at you, then looks at the bite marks on your neck. The math clicks in his head in record time.
“I … I think I left my water bottle in the back,” Mark stammers, frantically grabbing his notebook and practically scrambling out of the seat. He relocates to the absolute farthest corner of the lecture hall.
Logan doesn’t even watch him go. He just slides into the seat Mark vacated, stretching his long legs out under the desk.
“Excuse me!” The professor calls out from the podium, pointing a laser pointer at Logan. “Are you enrolled in this course? I don’t recognize you.”
“Auditing, sir,” Logan calls back, entirely unbothered. He leans back in the chair, pulling a single, crumpled piece of paper and a pen out of his pocket. “Just really passionate about the French Revolution.”
The professor squints at him, recognizes the star defenseman of the Briar hockey team, and apparently decides he isn’t paid enough to argue. “Very well. Let’s begin with the fall of the Bastille.”
You turn your head to glare at Logan. “You’re an upperclassman. You have a business major. What are you doing?”
“Garrett told me to go back to the house,” Logan whispers, clicking his pen. “But I didn’t want to. So I decided to further my education.”
“You scared that poor kid half to death,” you hiss.
Logan glances at the empty seat on your left, and then casually drapes his heavy arm over the back of your chair, his fingers brushing the nape of your neck. “He was flirting with you.”
“He was offering me notes!”
“Notes are a gateway drug to flirting, sweetheart,” Logan says smoothly. He leans closer, his breath warm against your ear. “Besides, I like sitting next to you. Pay attention to the board. We’re learning.”
You let out a huff of exasperated laughter, shaking your head, but you don’t push his arm away.
For the next hour, Logan sits through an entirely useless freshman history lecture just to act as your personal bodyguard. He doesn’t take a single note. He spends the entire time playing with the ends of your hair, casually scent-marking you in front of a room full of two hundred students.
When the bell finally rings, you pack up your laptop.
“Lunchtime,” Logan announces, standing up and stretching. “Come on, baby. The animals are waiting.”
***
The student union is the social epicenter of Briar University. It is a massive, two-story cafeteria packed with different food vendors, long tables, and thousands of gossiping students.
When you and Logan walk through the double doors, the noise level in the room actually dips.
“I feel like an exhibit at the zoo,” you mutter, sticking close to Logan’s side.
“They’re just jealous,” Logan says effortlessly. He points toward the back corner of the cafeteria. “There they are.”
Garrett, Dean, and Tucker have commandeered an entire circular booth near the floor-to-ceiling windows. The table is covered in food — pizza, salads, sandwiches, and fries.
Dean spots you and immediately slides out of the booth, gesturing grandly. “The queen has arrived!”
You laugh, walking over. You slide into the booth. Dean slides in right next to you, pinning you against the window, while Garrett and Tucker take the opposite side. Logan grabs a chair and pulls it up to the end of the table.
“How was history?” Tucker asks, pushing a salad and a slice of pizza toward you.
“It was fine,” you say, shooting a pointed look at Logan. “Until a certain hockey player crashed the lecture and terrorized a friendly beta into switching seats.”
Garrett pauses mid-bite of his sandwich, raising an eyebrow at Logan. “You stayed in the classroom?”
“He was going to give her his notes, G,” Logan defends himself, reaching for a handful of fries. “I was doing my civic duty.”
Garrett looks at you. “Did this guy make you uncomfortable?”
“No, Garrett,” you sigh. “He was literally just saying hi.”
“Good,” Garrett says, though his eyes sweep the cafeteria with a cold, predatory warning. “But Logan’s right. No notes from strange guys. You need notes, you tell Tucker.”
“I don’t know European History,” Tucker points out mildly.
“Then you’ll learn it, Tuck,” Garrett deadpans.
You roll your eyes, taking a bite of your pizza. The sheer, ridiculous alpha hovering would be annoying if it wasn’t so incredibly endearing. They are entirely incapable of turning off their protective instincts.
“Well, well, well.”
You look up. Brooke is standing next to the booth, holding a plastic tray with a sad-looking sandwich on it. Her hair is tied up in a messy bun.
“Brooke!” You say, your face lighting up. You haven’t seen her since the night of the party.
“I was wondering when you were going to emerge from the alpha fortress,” Brooke says, popping a piece of gum in her mouth. She looks around the table at the four massive hockey players, completely unfazed. “Dean. You owe me a coffee.”
Dean grins, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a crisp fifty-dollar bill. He holds it out to her. “For your silence, Brooke. You kept the secret well.”
Brooke snatches the bill, tucking it into her bra. “Pleasure doing business with you. Can I sit? The usual tables are full, and I’m not sitting near the lacrosse team today, they smell like cheap body spray and depression.”
“Sit,” you invite her eagerly.
Logan kicks out a chair for her, and Brooke sits down.
“So,” Brooke leans forward, resting her chin on her hand, looking at your neck. “The rumors are true. The entire campus is losing their minds, by the way. I had three different girls in my lit class ask me if you used a love potion.”
“No potions,” Garrett says smoothly, leaning his arm on the back of the booth. “Just fate.”
“It’s insane,” Brooke shakes her head. “I literally helped you carry your boxes up the stairs because you were a beta. And now you’re wearing four claiming marks. You know there’s a betting pool on whether or not you’re going to survive the semester without dropping out from sheer exhaustion?”
You choke on your pizza.
Dean bursts into laughter, slapping the table. “They think we’re going to tire her out?”
“I mean, look at you guys,” Brooke gestures vaguely at their massive, heavily muscled frames. “And look at her. It’s a valid concern.”
“I am perfectly fine, thank you,” you wheeze, your face burning scarlet.
“She is very well taken care of,” Tucker says, offering you a napkin with a polite, completely unbothered smile.
“I can see that,” Brooke says, taking a bite of her sandwich. She looks at you, her expression turning genuine. “But seriously, I’m glad you’re okay. You vanished at that party, and I felt bad for leaving you by the kitchen.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” you say quickly. “I’m okay. Really.”
The comfortable banter at the table is suddenly interrupted by a sharp, sour scent cutting through the air.
You look up. A group of three girls are walking past the booth. They are all omegas, dressed in expensive clothes, and they are staring directly at you with pure, unfiltered hostility.
“Is that her?” One of the girls, a blonde with a harsh, overpowering scent of lilies, sneers loudly. “The freshman who trapped them?”
The table goes dead silent.
Brooke rolls her eyes. “Ignore them, Y/N. That’s Jessica. She’s a puck bunny. She’s been trying to get Garrett’s attention since sophomore year.”
You shrink back slightly into the booth, your inner omega flinching at the aggressive hostility from another of your dynamic.
Before you can even process the insult, Garrett moves.
He doesn’t stand up. He doesn’t yell. He simply turns his head, locking his eyes onto Jessica. He drops his casual, relaxed posture, and his alpha violently surges to the surface. He floods the immediate area around the booth with a dark, suffocating wave of dominant pheromones — a clear, territorial warning.
“Keep walking, Jessica,” Garrett says. His voice is dangerously quiet, but it carries easily. “And keep my mate’s name out of your mouth.”
Jessica freezes, her face draining of color. The sheer force of Garrett’s alpha command physically pushes her back a step. She whimpers, her scent turning sour with fear, and practically sprints away, dragging her friends with her.
Garrett turns back to the table, his pheromones instantly smoothing out into the comforting, protective pine scent you love. He picks up his sandwich as if nothing happened.
You stare at him, entirely awestruck.
“That was incredibly hot,” you whisper before you can stop yourself.
Dean groans, dropping his head onto your shoulder. “G, you can’t just do the alpha voice in the cafeteria. She’s going to jump you in the middle of the food court.”
Logan smirks, finishing his fries. “She can try. I’ve got next.”
Brooke watches the entire exchange, completely deadpan. “I’m going to go get my coffee before I witness something that violates the student code of conduct. See you in the dorms, Y/N. Oh, wait. No, I won’t.”
You laugh as Brooke waves and walks away.
The rest of lunch passes without incident. Garrett’s display of dominance has clearly sent a message across the cafeteria. No one else dares to approach the table, and the whispers become a lot more hushed.
***
“You don’t have to stay,” Garrett says, adjusting his helmet as he steps off the rubber matting and onto the ice.
The Briar University ice rink is freezing. You are sitting in the front row of the bleachers, wrapped in a massive, heavy Briar Hockey fleece blanket that Tucker pulled out of the equipment room for you.
“I have two hours before my next class,” you say, pulling the blanket tighter around your shoulders. “And Dean said if I didn’t watch him do a slap shot, his ego would permanently deflate.”
“It’s true,” Dean shouts from the ice, skating backward in a flawless, fluid circle. “I require constant validation, sweetheart! Watch this!”
Dean winds up and fires a puck at the empty net. It pings off the crossbar with a loud clatter.
“Missed!” Logan chirps, skating past him and casually knocking Dean’s stick out of his hands.
“You’re a menace to society,!” Dean yells, scrambling to pick up his stick.
You laugh, watching them mess around during the warm-ups. It’s entirely different seeing them in their element. In the house, they are your fiercely protective, attentive mates. On the ice, they are lethal, aggressive athletes. The speed and power they possess is terrifying and incredibly impressive.
Coach Jensen blows the whistle, and the team lines up for drills.
You sit quietly in the stands, watching Garrett lead the team. He is a commanding presence, barking out plays, his strides powerful and effortless. Every time he skates past the glass where you are sitting, he shoots you a quick, heated glance, completely unable to ignore you.
About thirty minutes into practice, the doors to the rink open.
A group of girls walk in, giggling and holding coffees. They climb into the stands, sitting a few sections away from you. The puck bunnies.
They don’t say anything to you, but their presence is a clear, annoying buzz. They are watching your alphas.
Your omega bristles.
Without thinking, you pull the heavy fleece blanket down slightly, exposing your neck. You shift on the bleacher, letting your own scent — sweet, claiming vanilla and rain — drift into the cold air of the rink. It’s a subtle, deeply biological display of ownership.
Down on the ice, Garrett feels the shift instantly.
He stops mid-stride. He turns his head, his eyes locking onto you in the stands. He takes a deep breath, his chest expanding as he catches the spike in your pheromones. He looks at the group of girls sitting a few sections away, puts two and two together, and a slow, devastatingly wicked smirk spreads across his face.
“Logan,” Garrett calls out, tapping his stick on the ice.
Logan skates over. Garrett whispers something to him, pointing at the net.
Logan grins, showing his teeth. He skates back to the blue line.
Garrett takes the puck. He explodes forward with terrifying speed, deking past two defensemen who look completely lost. Logan trails him perfectly. Garrett fakes a shot, completely fooling the goalie, and passes the puck backward between his own legs.
Logan catches it perfectly and roofs it into the back of the net.
The whistle blows.
Garrett and Logan don’t celebrate with the team. Instead, they skate directly to the glass right in front of where you are sitting. Dean and Tucker join them a second later.
All four massive, sweating, incredibly dominant alphas line up on the other side of the plexiglass.
Garrett taps his stick against the glass, right in front of your face. He pulls his mouthpiece out, grinning up at you.
“Did you see that, baby?” Garrett asks, his voice carrying perfectly through the small gap between the glass panes.
“I saw it,” you smile, leaning forward.
“Good,” Dean winks, resting his gloves on the top of the glass. “Because we only show off for our girl. Nobody else.”
The group of puck bunnies in the stands are dead silent. The message is painfully, visually clear. The star players of the Briar hockey team aren’t looking at anyone in the stands except the tiny, marked freshman in the front row.
Coach Jensen blows the whistle again, yelling for them to get back to the center circle.
“Gotta go,” Tucker smiles, blowing you a quick kiss through his cage. “Wait for us after practice. We’ll walk you to your afternoon class.”
“I’ll be right here,” you promise.
They skate away, leaving you sitting in the freezing rink, wrapped in their blanket and their heavy, suffocating devotion.
You look over at the group of girls. They are already standing up, their expressions sour as they grab their coffees and walk out of the rink.
You smile, pulling the blanket back up to your chin.
Your first day of college wasn’t exactly what you pictured when you packed your bags in New York. You didn’t expect to have four bodyguards, a reputation as campus royalty, or a permanent set of claiming marks on your neck.
But as you watch Garrett snap another shot into the net, entirely for your benefit, you realize you wouldn’t change a single thing.
***
The “Welcome to Oakville” sign flashes past the tinted windows of Dean’s massive, matte-black SUV.
You shift in the passenger seat, your knee bouncing with a nervous, frantic energy. The familiar sights of your small New York hometown are rolling by — the local bakery, the hardware store, the single-screen movie theater. It all looks exactly the same as it did two months ago when you left.
But you are entirely different.
“Stop bouncing, sweetheart. You’re going to shake the car off the road,” Dean murmurs from the driver’s seat. He reaches over the center console, capturing your knee with his large, warm hand. The grounding weight of his palm instantly soothes the frantic buzzing under your skin.
“I can’t help it,” you exhale, leaning your head back against the leather headrest. “The whole town is going to be watching.”
“Let them watch,” Garrett says from the seat directly behind you. He leans forward, his massive chest brushing the back of your seat, and buries his nose in your hair, taking a deep drag of your vanilla and rain scent. “You have nothing to be nervous about.”
“Easy for you to say,” you mutter. “You’re not the one who spent her entire high school career being treated like a fragile, scentless ghost. Everyone here knows my business. My aunt Carol is probably standing on the front porch with binoculars right now.”
Logan snorts from the other side of the backseat. “If Aunt Carol gets out of line, I’ll put her in a snowbank.”
“No putting relatives in snowbanks, Logan. That’s a ground rule,” Tucker chimes in from the very back row of the extended SUV.
Dean turns the steering wheel, turning onto your childhood street. The neighborhood is quintessentially suburban, lined with neat houses, manicured lawns, and minivans. Dean’s Range Rover, packed with four massive, elite athletes who smell like a literal alpha strike team, sticks out like a sore thumb.
As the car rolls slowly down the street, you see exactly what you feared. Mrs. Gable from next door is “watering her lawn” in thirty-degree weather, her eyes glued to the incoming vehicle. Mr. Henderson is lingering aggressively by his mailbox.
Dean pulls the SUV into your parents’ driveway, the tires crunching against the pavement.
Your mom and dad are already on the porch. Your older sister, Mae, and her mate, a perfectly nice but entirely average alpha named Ben, are standing behind them.
“Okay,” you whisper, taking a shaky breath. “Showtime.”
Dean cuts the engine. The four alphas move with terrifying, coordinated precision. They are out of the car before you even unbuckle your seatbelt. Logan opens your door, offering his hand to help you down. You take it, stepping out into the crisp November air.
The moment your sneakers hit the driveway, your dad’s posture changes.
He stiffens, his chest puffing out slightly, his own alpha instincts flaring as four massive, unknown dominant males step onto his territory.
It’s entirely biological, a primal reaction to the sheer, suffocating wall of pine, cedar, mint, and leather pheromones rolling off your mates.
Ben, Mae’s mate, actually takes a physical step backward on the porch, completely overwhelmed by the proximity of the Briar pack.
“Mom. Dad,” you say, walking up the front steps.
“Oh, my baby!” Your mom bursts into tears the second she sees you, rushing forward to pull you into a bone-crushing hug. She buries her face in your neck, taking a deep breath, and lets out a watery laugh. “Oh, you smell so beautiful. My sweet omega.”
You hug her back tightly, a lump forming in your throat. “I missed you, Mom.”
She pulls back, cupping your cheeks, her eyes immediately darting to the four silver-pink scars ringing your collar. The claiming marks. Her eyes widen slightly, but she offers a warm, teary smile.
Your dad steps forward. He looks past you, his gaze landing squarely on the four men standing at the bottom of the porch steps.
Garrett takes the lead. He walks up the steps, his eyes steady and respectful, but his posture radiating absolute authority. He doesn’t shrink under your father’s scrutiny. He stops just out of your dad’s personal space, offering a large, calloused hand.
“Mr. Y/L/N,” Garrett says, his voice a deep, gravelly rumble. “I’m Garrett Graham. It’s a privilege to finally meet you in person.”
Your dad looks at Garrett’s hand for a long, tense second before taking it. The handshake is firm, a silent, alpha-to-alpha test of strength. Garrett doesn’t flinch.
“Garrett,” your dad says, his voice tight. He looks over Garrett’s shoulder. “And the rest of you?”
Dean saunters up the steps next, flashing his trademark dimpled smile. He shakes your dad’s hand with easy confidence. “Dean Di Laurentis, sir. Your house is beautiful.”
Logan and Tucker follow, introducing themselves with firm handshakes and polite nods.
“Come inside, it’s freezing,” your mom insists, ushering everyone through the front door.
The moment all five of you are inside the house, the hallway feels instantly claustrophobic. Your childhood home isn’t small, but it wasn’t built to contain four men who all stand over six-foot-two and possess shoulders broad enough to block doorways.
Mae practically tackles you, squealing. “I can’t believe it! Look at you! And look at them!” She lowers her voice to a completely unsubtle whisper. “Y/N, they are huge. Ben looks like a child standing next to them.”
You smack her arm, your face burning as you glance back to see Logan smirking, having clearly heard her. “Be quiet, Mae.”
“Alright, boys,” your dad says, crossing his arms over his chest. “Put your bags in the guest room. Boys … why don’t you two come out to the garage with me. Let me show you the vintage Mustang I’m restoring.”
It’s the universal dad code for an interrogation.
Garrett catches your panicked eye and gives you a slow, reassuring wink. “We’d love to, sir.”
***
Dinner is a beautifully chaotic spectacle.
Your mom went all out, the dining room table groaning under the weight of a massive turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and pies. The pack seamlessly integrates themselves into the flow of the house. Tucker spends an hour in the kitchen helping your mom make gravy, entirely charming her to the point where she is giggling like a schoolgirl. Dean helps Mae set the table, casually dodging her rapid-fire, invasive questions about pack dynamics with smooth, political answers.
When you all finally sit down, the seating arrangement is incredibly telling.
You are seated near the middle. Garrett takes the chair immediately to your left, Logan to your right. Dean and Tucker take the seats across from you. They naturally box you in, creating a physical barrier of protection.
Everything is going perfectly until Aunt Carol, who arrived twenty minutes late smelling strongly of cheap perfume and gossip, decides to open her mouth.
“So, Y/N,” Aunt Carol says loudly, her fork poised over her turkey. “I was just telling the girls at the salon about your … situation. Four alphas! My goodness. I suppose when you wait that long to present, you just take whatever the universe throws at you, huh?”
The entire table goes dead silent.
Your dad’s fork clatters against his plate. Mae’s jaw drops.
A sharp, violent spike of aggression floods the dining room. It’s a bitter, terrifying scent, heavy with the promise of violence. You don’t even have to look to know it’s Logan. His hand, resting on his knee beneath the table, balls into a fist so tight his knuckles pop.
Before you can even formulate a response to the backhanded pity, Garrett speaks.
“Actually, Carol,” Garrett says. His tone is conversational, polite, and entirely lethal. He rests his forearms on the table, fixing your aunt with a cold stare that makes the woman physically shrink back in her chair. “She didn’t ‘take whatever the universe threw at her’. We fought for her. We scented her the night she presented, and the bond snapped because she is perfect.”
Garrett leans back, swirling his wine glass, completely owning the room. “We consider ourselves the luckiest men alive to have been chosen by her biology. But if anyone in this town thinks they need to pity our mate because she was a late bloomer … well. I suggest they keep those thoughts to themselves. Before my pack takes it personally.”
The silence stretches, thick and suffocating.
Aunt Carol swallows hard, her face draining of color. “I … I just meant-”
“Pass the potatoes, would you, Ben?” Dean interrupts cheerfully, completely shattering the tension with a blinding smile.
Ben practically throws the bowl of potatoes across the table.
You look at Garrett, your heart swelling with so much affection it physically aches. Under the table, Logan’s rigid hand relaxes. He slips his hand over your thigh, giving you a warm, reassuring squeeze.
Your dad clears his throat, picking up his fork again. He looks at Garrett, a new level of profound respect settling in his eyes.
“The potatoes are excellent,” your dad says to your mom.
The dinner resumes, but the dynamic has irrevocably shifted. Your alphas have drawn a hard, violent line in the sand regarding your respect in this town. You are theirs. And nobody speaks down to their center.
***
By 11 PM, the house is finally quiet.
Your parents offered the pack the two spare guest rooms, but everyone knew that was a formality. You are currently lying in your childhood bedroom, the space drastically altered by the massive bodies occupying it.
The full-size bed is pushed against the wall. Garrett is lying on his back, his arm wrapped tightly around you, pulling you flush against his chest. Dean is spooning you from behind, his face buried in your neck. Logan is stretched out on a thick air mattress on the floor right next to the bed, one of his hands resting possessively on your dangling ankle. Tucker is in the corner, quietly shucking off his jeans.
The room smells overwhelmingly of them, completely drowning out the lingering scent of your teenage years.
“I can’t believe you threatened my Aunt Carol at Thanksgiving dinner,” you whisper, though there is no heat in your voice. You drag your fingers through the hair on Garrett’s chest.
“I didn’t threaten her,” Garrett rumbles, his voice a low vibration against your ear. “I just clarified her misconceptions.”
“You terrified her, G,” Dean chuckles, pressing a soft kiss to your claiming mark. “Her scent smelled like burnt hair for the rest of the night.”
“She deserved it,” Logan mutters from the floor.
Tucker walks over, wearing nothing but a pair of grey sweatpants. The moonlight filtering through your old lace curtains highlights the heavy, defined musculature of his chest and abdomen. He kneels on the edge of the bed, leaning over Garrett to press a sweet, lingering kiss to your lips.
“Are you okay?” Tucker asks softly, pulling back just enough to look into your eyes. “It was a long day. Being back here, dealing with the town gossip.”
“I’m more than okay,” you smile, looking around the small room at your mates. “I used to sit in this room and cry because I thought I was broken. I thought I would never have this.”
Garrett’s grip on you tightens possessively. “You were never broken, baby.”
Dean shifts behind you, his hand sliding under the hem of your oversized sleep shirt. His large, warm palm flattens against your bare stomach, his thumb tracing the dip of your navel. The casual touch sends an immediate, sharp jolt of heat straight down to your core.
“We need to be quiet,” you gasp softly, clamping your hand over Dean’s wrist. “My parents are literally down the hall.”
“We’ll be quiet,” Dean purrs, his hand trailing lower, slipping past the waistband of your underwear. His fingers brush against your slick, swollen center, and a soft, filthy groan escapes his lips. “Fuck, you’re already wet for us. So responsive.”
“Dean,” you whine, biting your lower lip as he strokes you.
Garrett rolls you onto your back, pinning you beneath his heavy frame. His eyes are dark, completely consumed by the feral, predatory instinct that your scent triggers in all of them. He rests his forearms on either side of your head, boxing you in.
“Your dad spent two hours in the garage telling us exactly what he’d do to us if we ever broke your heart,” Garrett whispers, his nose brushing against yours. “He’s a good alpha. Protective. But I need to scent you. I need to claim you in this house. I need every corner of this room to smell like what we do to you.”
“Yes,” you breathe, your omega completely surrendering to his dominance.
Logan rises from the floor like a dark shadow. He climbs onto the foot of the bed, his dark eyes fixed on you. He grabs your ankles, gently but firmly pulling your legs apart, throwing them over his shoulders.
The bed creaks ominously under the combined weight of three massive athletes.
“Shh,” Logan commands softly, pressing a kiss to the inside of your thigh. “Not a sound, sweetheart.”
Tucker moves to the head of the bed, kneeling behind the pillows. He lifts your head, pulling you flush against his chest so you are half-sitting,
half-lying against him. He covers your mouth with his large, warm hand, a physical barrier against the screams he knows are coming.
The sensory overload is absolute.
Garrett sheds his sweatpants in one fluid motion. His thick, heavy erection is fully hard, the ridge of his knot already painfully visible under the skin. He settles between your thighs, replacing Logan, who moves to your side, his hands exploring your breasts through your shirt.
“Look at me,” Garrett orders.
You look up, your eyes wide, your breathing ragged against Tucker’s palm.
Garrett doesn’t bother with preparation, Dean’s fingers have already left you completely slick and ready. Garrett grips your hips, his thumbs pressing bruisingly into your hip bones, and drives forward.
A muffled, broken scream tears from your throat, entirely swallowed by Tucker’s hand.
Garrett fills you completely in one brutal, agonizingly perfect thrust. The stretch is massive, hitting your cervix with a heavy, wet smack. Your nails dig into Tucker’s forearms as your body reflexively arches into the invasion.
“That’s it, baby,” Tucker praises, his lips brushing against your ear. “Take him. Be quiet and take your captain.”
Garrett sets a slow, punishing pace. Because they have to be quiet, there are no loud, slapping thrusts. Instead, he grinds his hips in deep, rolling circles, keeping the thickest part of his shaft buried deep inside you, maximizing the friction against your most sensitive nerves.
“God, you’re so tight,” Garrett groans, his jaw clenched, sweat beading on his forehead. “You feel so good, Y/N.”
Dean is on his knees beside the bed, his face buried in your neck. He bites down exactly over his claiming scar, his teeth pressing into the healed tissue, sending a fresh, euphoric spike of the mate bond directly into your bloodstream. His hand is relentless between your legs, his thumb finding your clit and pressing hard, rhythmic circles into the swollen nub.
“Dean,” you try to sob, but it comes out as a wet, muffled whimper against Tucker’s hand.
You are completely overstimulated. The heat of their bodies, the overwhelming, heavy scents of pine, cedar, mint, and leather completely choking the air in the small bedroom. Logan’s mouth replaces Dean’s at your neck, his tongue swirling over your pulse point, his rough hands squeezing your breasts.
“I’m knotting,” Garrett snarls quietly, his thrusts stuttering, becoming frantic and shallow. “I’m knotting you in your childhood bed, mine, you’re all fucking mine.”
The base of his cock violently swells inside you.
You thrash wildly as the knot locks into place, stretching you to your absolute limit. The intense, searing pressure triggers a catastrophic orgasm. You convulse around him, your hips bucking helplessly off the mattress, tears of pure bliss streaming down your face into Tucker’s palm.
Garrett shudders violently, a guttural, silenced groan ripping from his throat as he pumps wave after wave of his hot, thick seed deep into your womb.
You ride out the climax trembling, completely wrecked, your body slick with sweat.
Tucker slowly removes his hand from your mouth, replacing it with his lips, kissing you deeply, swallowing your exhausted pants.
“My turn,” Logan whispers darkly from your side.
The night blurs into a silent, desperate marathon of claiming. By the time the sun begins to rise, all four of them have knotted you. The small bedroom smells like an absolute den of sin — a heavy, unmistakable cocktail of alpha musk, vanilla, slick, and sex.
You are deeply, comfortably pinned beneath Dean’s heavy arm, completely exhausted, and absolutely glowing.
***
The next morning, Black Friday, is a town tradition. The Oakville Diner is packed with locals grabbing breakfast before hitting the local shops.
When you push through the glass doors of the diner, the bell jingling overhead, the entire restaurant seems to pause.
You are wearing one of Logan’s flannel shirts over your leggings, the sleeves rolled up. Your neck is bare, the claiming marks on full display. And flanking you on all sides are the four most terrifyingly gorgeous men this town has ever seen.
“Table for five?” The hostess asks, her eyes practically bugging out of her head as she looks at your alphas.
“Booth in the back, please,” Tucker requests smoothly.
You follow the hostess through the crowded diner. You can feel the eyes on you. You can hear the hushed whispers.
*Isn’t that the Y/L/N girl? The beta?*
*Look at her neck.*
*Who are they?*
You slide into the large, red leather booth. Once again, you are boxed in. Garrett on your left, Dean on your right. Logan and Tucker take the opposite side.
“I want pancakes,” Dean announces, picking up the laminated menu. “With extra syrup. Knotting takes a lot out of a guy.”
“Dean!” You hiss, kicking him under the table, your face turning scarlet.
Logan laughs, a deep, rumbling sound. “Don’t be shy, baby. You smell like us. Everyone in this diner knows exactly what we spent the last eight hours doing.”
Before you can argue, a shadow falls over the table.
“Y/N?”
You look up. Standing by the booth is Brittani Weston. She was the head cheerleader in your high school, an omega who presented perfectly at sixteen and spent the next two years looking at you with a mixture of pity and smug superiority.
“Hi, Brittani,” you say, keeping your voice even.
Brittani is staring at you, completely bewildered. Her eyes dart to your neck, lingering on the four distinct bites, and then she looks at the four men sitting with you. The unfiltered shock on her face is almost comical.
“I … I didn’t know you were back in town,” Brittani stammers. “And I … you presented.”
“I did,” you smile, a genuine, relaxed expression.
“And these are …” Brittani trails off, her gaze landing heavily on Garrett. She takes a subtle breath, trying to catch his scent, an unconscious, flirty omega response to a dominant alpha.
Garrett’s reaction is instantaneous.
He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t introduce himself. He simply shifts his weight, leaning his body entirely into yours. He drapes his arm over the back of the booth behind your shoulders, his hand coming to rest possessively on the curve of your neck, his thumb resting directly over his own claiming mark.
He unleashes a wave of dark, territorial pine scent that is so aggressive it makes the air feel thick.
“We’re her mates,” Garrett says, his voice cold and flat. It leaves absolutely no room for conversation.
Brittani physically recoils, her face flushing bright red with embarrassment as she is completely shut down. “Oh. Wow. Well. Congratulations. It was nice to see you, Y/N.”
She practically sprints away from the table.
You look at Garrett, shaking your head, though a huge smile breaks across your face. “You really have zero chill, do you?”
“Zero,” Garrett confirms, leaning down to press a kiss to your temple. “You’re ours. The whole damn town is going to know it before we leave.”
Tucker picks up his coffee mug, taking a sip. “What can we say, sweetheart? We like to make an impression.”
You lean your head against Garrett’s shoulder, your hand finding Dean’s under the table. You look at Logan’s easy smirk and Tucker’s warm eyes. The town of Oak Creek might never recover from the Briar pack’s visit, but as far as you are concerned, it is the best Thanksgiving you have ever had.
***
The morning sun filters through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows of the master bedroom, falling gently over the tangled mess of limbs and expensive sheets.
You stretch with a soft groan, your toes brushing against a thick, heavily muscled calf. The custom-built, California-king-and-a-half bed was a ridiculous purchase, but an absolute necessity.
“Don’t get up,” a sleep-rough voice mumbles into your ear.
Dean wraps his arm tighter around your waist, pulling your back flush against his chest. He smells like sleep, expensive cologne, and the sharp, underlying stress of a Harvard Law student during midterms.
“I have a 9 AM seminar, Dean,” you whisper, though you lean back into his warmth.
“Skip it,” Dean argues, burying his face in your hair. “I have to read three hundred pages on tort law today. I need emotional support. I need my omega.”
“You’re a menace to my GPA,” you laugh, finally prying his arm off and sitting up.
You look around the room. Two years changes a lot of things. You aren’t in a cramped off-campus hockey house anymore. When the boys graduated last spring, they passed the Briar house down to the incoming seniors and bought a massive, sprawling estate in an affluent Boston suburb. It sits perfectly nestled between Boston, where the guys work, and Hastings, so you can commute to Briar for your junior year.
It is a literal fortress, equipped with a state-of-the-art security system and surrounded by high walls — because four alphas with a young omega mate do not take chances.
You slide out of bed and pad downstairs to the kitchen.
The domestic chaos of your pack is in full swing.
Tucker is standing at the marble island, dressed in a sharp, tailored navy suit, looking every inch the ruthless, successful businessman he has become. He’s typing rapidly on his phone while simultaneously flipping a perfectly golden pancake on the stove.
“Morning, beautiful,” Tucker says, not looking up from his phone. “Coffee is hot. Pancakes will be done in two minutes.”
“You’re a superhero, Tuck,” you sigh, grabbing a mug.
The back door swings open, and Garrett and Logan walk in. The blast of cold October air follows them, mingling with the heavy scents of pine, cedar, and sweat. They just got back from their morning run.
Garrett looks absolutely massive. Turning pro for the Boston Bruins had only broadened his shoulders and sharpened his lethal edge. When he signed as an undrafted free agent — a move that shocked the sports world but allowed him to dictate his own terms and stay in Boston — the Bruins knew they were getting a generational talent.
Logan is right beside him, wearing a Providence Bruins hoodie. He’s starting his pro career in the AHL, working his way up the Bruins system. And thanks to a chunk of his signing bonus, Logan & Sons mechanic shop back in New York is fully staffed with a manager, freeing Logan to finally live his own life.
Garrett catches sight of you and doesn’t even hesitate. He crosses the kitchen, his sweaty chest pressing against your silk pajama top as he hauls you in for a deep, breathless kiss.
“Morning, baby,” Garrett rumbles, his eyes warm and entirely devoted. He presses a kiss to the ring of silver-pink bite scars on your neck.
“You’re sweaty,” you complain, though you don’t push him away.
Logan walks over, grabbing a piece of bacon off a plate. He bumps his hip against yours. “We have practice at the Garden at eleven. Dean has class. Tucker has a board meeting. Who is driving you to campus?”
“I have my own car, Logan. I can drive myself,” you remind him.
Logan scoffs. “Right. And let you walk from the parking lot to the humanities building alone? Funny.”
“I’ll drive her,” Dean announces, shuffling into the kitchen wearing Harvard sweatpants and a t-shirt. He looks exhausted, but his eyes brighten the second he looks at you. “My first lecture isn’t until 11. I’ll drop you at the quad.”
“Perfect,” Garrett nods, stealing Tucker’s coffee. “We’ll all meet you at the Briar student union for lunch at one-thirty. It’s been a few weeks since we reminded the student body who you belong to.”
“They know who I belong to,” you roll your eyes, taking a bite of the pancake Tucker slides onto your plate. “I literally smell like a pine forest mixed with a humidor. Nobody comes within ten feet of me.”
“Let’s keep it that way,” Tucker smiles, pressing a kiss to your forehead before grabbing his briefcase. “See you at lunch, sweetheart. Don’t let these animals make you late.”
***
The Briar University quad is bustling with autumn energy.
You walk out of your European Literature class, pulling the strap of your backpack higher on your shoulder. You are twenty years old now, a junior, and fully settled into your skin. The agonizing insecurity of your late presentation is a distant memory, replaced by the deep, unshakable confidence of an omega who is thoroughly loved, protected, and completely satisfied.
You walk toward the student union, checking your phone. Garrett texted you five minutes ago saying they were pulling into the visitor parking lot.
You stop near the bronze statue in the center of the quad to wait for them.
“Hey. You’re Y/N, right?”
You look up. A guy you have never seen before is standing a few feet away. He is tall, built like a tank, wearing a Briar Hockey jacket. His scent hits you a second later — a sharp, overly aggressive mix of cheap cologne and sour citrus. An alpha. And a very poorly mannered one, based on how he is actively pushing his pheromones into your space.
“I am,” you say, taking a subtle step back, crossing your arms. “Can I help you?”
“I’m Caleb,” he says, flashing a cocky, uneven smile. “I just transferred here from Minnesota. I’ve heard a lot of rumors about you.”
Your internal alarm bells start ringing. Transfer students never know the unwritten rules of Briar University. They don’t know the legend of the Graham-Di Laurentis-Logan-Tucker pack.
“Rumors are usually boring,” you say smoothly, looking past him to scan the quad for your mates.
Caleb steps closer, invading your personal bubble. He takes a loud, entirely inappropriate sniff of the air. You physically flinch, your upper lip curling in disgust.
“They said you were an omega, but you smell … crowded,” Caleb sneers slightly, his eyes dropping to the scars on your neck. “Four bites. That’s a lot of real estate for a pack of washed-up grads. I mean, they aren’t even on campus anymore to protect you.”
“They aren’t washed up,” you say, your voice dropping into a cold, dangerous octave. Your inner omega bristles with immediate, violent offense on behalf of your pack. “And you need to back up. Now.”
Caleb laughs, reaching out to lazily twirl a piece of your hair around his finger. You smack his hand away instantly.
“Feisty,” Caleb smirks. “Look, a pretty little omega like you shouldn’t be tied down to guys who are too busy working to even walk you to class. Four mates? Sounds to me like none of them are man enough to handle you on their own. You need a real alpha. A present alpha. Drop the dead weight and let me show you-”
“Caleb.”
The voice comes from ten yards away.
You look over Caleb’s shoulder. Two seniors, Mike and Dave, who were freshmen on the hockey team when Garrett was captain, are standing frozen on the pavement. They are both staring at Caleb with expressions of sheer, unadulterated horror.
“What?” Caleb snaps, looking over his shoulder.
“Dude,” Mike says, his voice actually trembling. He takes a physical step backward, raising his hands in surrender. “Back away from her. Right now.”
Caleb scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Relax, Mike. I’m just introducing myself. Showing the omega what a real-”
“Caleb, shut up,” Dave hisses, looking wildly around the quad as if anticipating a sniper. “You are soooo dead. Worse than dead, really. You don’t know who she is.”
“She’s some junior who got knocked up with bites by guys who don’t even go here,” Caleb argues, turning back to you.
“You’re right. We don’t go here,” a voice rumbles.
The temperature around you drops ten degrees. The sour citrus scent of Caleb’s alpha is instantly, violently obliterated by a suffocating, lethal wave of pine, cedar, mint, and leather.
You exhale a shaky breath, a massive smile breaking across your face.
Caleb freezes. The biological urge to submit hits him so hard his knees actually buckle slightly. He turns around slowly.
Garrett, Dean, Logan, and Tucker are standing in a line directly behind him.
They are no longer college boys. They are grown, elite, incredibly successful men.
Tucker is in his bespoke navy suit, his arms crossed, looking at Caleb like the transfer student is a bug he is debating crushing under his Oxford shoe. Dean is wearing a tailored cashmere coat over a black turtleneck, his charming smile entirely absent, replaced by a cold, patrician glare.
Logan is wearing a Providence Bruins quarter-zip, his hands shoved into his pockets, though his jaw is locked so tight a muscle ticks visibly in his cheek.
And Garrett.
Garrett is wearing a Boston Bruins team jacket, his broad shoulders practically blocking out the sun. His eyes are pitch black. The absolute, unhinged feral rage rolling off him is so intense that students walking thirty feet away are actively changing directions to avoid the blast radius.
“We don’t go here,” Garrett repeats, his voice a low, terrifying rasp that vibrates the pavement. He takes one slow, deliberate step forward. “But we still own this campus.”
Caleb swallows audibly, his face draining of every drop of color. He realizes, entirely too late, exactly who he is looking at. “G-Graham. I … I didn’t-”
“You didn’t know?” Dean cuts in, his voice dripping with icy condescension. “You didn’t know she was our mate? Because the four bite marks on her neck didn’t give it away?”
“You touched her hair,” Logan states. It isn’t a question. It is a death sentence. Logan pulls his hands out of his pockets, cracking his knuckles. “I saw you touch her hair from across the quad.”
Caleb looks at Mike and Dave for help, but the two seniors have literally turned their backs and are briskly walking away, entirely unwilling to be caught in the crossfire of the Briar pack’s wrath.
“I was just … we were just talking,” Caleb stammers, his alpha instincts completely crumbling under the sheer weight of four vastly superior, enraged dominants.
Tucker steps forward, smoothly bypassing Caleb to stand right beside you. He places a warm, grounding hand on your lower back. “Did he touch you anywhere else, sweetheart?”
“No,” you say, leaning into Tucker’s touch. You look at Caleb, your eyes narrowing. “He just told me my mates were washed up and not man enough to handle me.”
A collective, deadly silence falls over the five men.
Logan lets out a dark, humorless laugh.
Garrett closes the distance. He doesn’t throw a punch. He doesn’t have to. The sheer physical intimidation of a 6’3“, 220-pound NHL center closing in on you is enough. Garrett stops inches from Caleb’s face, staring down at the trembling transfer student.
“You play right wing, right?” Garrett asks softly.
Caleb nods frantically.
“If you ever speak to my mate again,” Garrett says, his voice perfectly level, “If you ever look at her, if you ever breathe in her general direction … I won’t just break your legs. I will make a phone call to every single scout in the NHL, the AHL, and Europe, and I will make sure you never lace up a pair of skates professionally as long as you live. Do you understand me?”
Caleb is trembling so badly his teeth are chattering. “Yes, sir.”
“Get out of my sight,” Logan snaps.
Caleb turns and practically sprints across the quad, abandoning any shred of dignity he had left.
Garrett watches him go for exactly three seconds before he completely drops the terrifying alpha persona. His shoulders relax, the heavy, suffocating pheromones instantly smoothing out into the warm, comforting pine scent you adore.
He turns to you, his eyes softening completely. “You okay, baby?”
“I’m fine,” you laugh, stepping forward and wrapping your arms around his waist. “You guys have a real flair for the dramatic, you know that?”
Garrett wraps his massive arms around you, burying his face in your hair. “I was fully prepared to go to jail today.”
“I have my law textbook in the car,” Dean says, walking up and wrapping his arms around you from behind, sandwiching you between him and Garrett. He kisses your cheek. “I could have represented him. It would have been great practice.”
“You’re not licensed yet, idiot,” Logan snorts, walking over and ruffling your hair. “Come on. I’m starving. Let’s go get food.”
The five of you walk toward the student union, falling effortlessly into your natural formation. Logan clears the path, Dean and Garrett flank your sides, and Tucker guards your back.
The stares from the students on the quad are different this time. There is no gossip. There is only absolute, unadulterated awe and respect. The legend of the Briar pack has just been violently, definitively reinforced for a whole new generation.
***
Lunch is a loud, chaotic affair.
You sit in the center of a massive circular booth in the student union, eating off everyone else’s plates while they bicker over hockey stats, Harvard professors, and stock portfolios.
It is entirely surreal to sit here and realize how perfectly your lives have woven together.
Two years ago, you walked onto this campus as a broken, terrified beta who thought she would never have a place in the world. You thought you were biologically defective.
Now, you are the center of gravity for four of the most successful, fiercely devoted alphas on the eastern seaboard.
“Are you even listening to me?” Dean asks, nudging your shoulder.
You blink, pulling yourself out of your thoughts. “Sorry. What?”
“I said, Logan owes me fifty bucks because he bet me the Bruins wouldn’t make the playoffs this year,” Dean complains, stealing a fry off your plate.
“I didn’t say they wouldn’t make it, I said they’d get knocked out in the second round,” Logan argues, pointing a fry at Dean. “There’s a difference.”
“Garrett is literally the starting center,” you point out, looking at Logan. “Why would you bet against your own packmate?”
“Because Logan is a cynic,” Garrett smirks, wrapping his arm around your shoulders and pulling you into his side. “And because he knows I’m going to win the Cup before he does.”
“I’m in the AHL, G, give me a minute to get called up,” Logan groans, rubbing his face.
Tucker smiles into his coffee cup, watching the banter with fond amusement. He meets your eyes across the table, his dark gaze incredibly warm. He reaches under the table, his hand finding your knee and giving it a gentle, grounding squeeze.
You smile back at him, your heart swelling.
“We need to get going,” Tucker says, checking his watch. “Garrett and Logan have afternoon practice, and I have a conference call at three.”
“And I have to go read about personal injury lawsuits,” Dean sighs dramatically, sliding out of the booth. “My life is a tragic, boring shell of what it once was.”
“You love Harvard, Dean, shut up,” Logan laughs, standing up and grabbing his duffel bag.
You all walk out of the student union and across the quad toward the visitor parking lot. The crisp autumn wind whips the red and orange leaves around your feet.
When you reach the massive SUV, the goodbyes are exactly as intense as the hellos.
Tucker pulls you in first, wrapping his arms securely around your waist and pressing a deep, lingering kiss to your lips. “Have a good afternoon, sweetheart. Text me when your last class is over.”
“I will,” you promise.
Dean is next, dramatically dipping you backward over his arm for a cinematic, breath-stealing kiss that makes a group of passing freshmen giggle and blush. “Don’t miss me too much, beautiful.”
Logan grabs the back of your neck, pulling you in firmly. His kiss is rougher, demanding, and tastes like cedar and possessive warmth. “Be safe. Call if anyone even looks at you wrong.”
“I can handle myself, Logan,” you roll your eyes, but you smile against his mouth.
Finally, Garrett steps up. He doesn’t say anything at first. He just frames your face with his large hands, his thumbs tracing your cheekbones. His eyes are incredibly soft, completely stripping away the hardened NHL captain.
“I love you,” Garrett murmurs, leaning down to press a soft, slow kiss to your mouth.
“I love you too,” you whisper back, opening your eyes to look at him. You look past his shoulder, meeting the eyes of Dean, Logan, and Tucker. “I love all of you.”
“We know,” Dean winks.
“Get in the car, you animals,” Garrett says, swatting the back of Dean’s head.
You stand in the parking lot, wrapping your cardigan tighter around yourself against the autumn chill, and watch as the four of them pile into the SUV. Logan rolls the window down, shooting you one last smirk before pulling out of the parking lot.
You watch the taillights disappear down the street.
The hollow, agonizing ache in your chest that you carried for two years before coming to Briar is a distant, almost unimaginable memory. Your biology didn’t make a mistake. It didn’t forget about you. It was simply waiting.
It was waiting for the perfect moment, for the perfect scent of pine, cedar, mint, and leather. It was waiting for a pack that wouldn’t just claim you, but would build an entire world around keeping you safe.
You touch the silver-pink scars on your neck one last time, a soft, involuntary purr vibrating in your chest.
You turn around and walk back toward the quad.
You have a class to get to. And a very, very good life to go home to.
alpha!Dean Di Laurentis x alpha!Garrett Graham x alphaJohn Logan x alpha!John Tucker x omega!Reader
Summary: you came to Briar to disappear — no pack, no destiny, just a beta trying to outrun her own pity. One night changes all of that. By morning, four hockey players are looking at you like you belong to them, and the terrifying part is that your body already agrees
Warning: 18+ content
Read part two here
The zipper of your suitcase snags on a stray thread, and you yank it hard enough to tear the fabric. You don’t care. You just need it closed.
“You’re packing a lot of sweaters.”
You don’t look up from the bed. Your older sister, an omega who smells infuriatingly like vanilla and newly mated bliss, leans against your doorframe.
“Massachusetts gets cold, Mae,” you say, finally forcing the zipper past the snag. You haul the suitcase off the mattress. “It’s not exactly sunny here anyway.”
“You don’t have to go,” Mae says. Her voice drops into that soft, placating tone that makes your back teeth grind together. The Pity Tone. “Mom and Dad are worried. Being so far away from the family … from the pack. It’s going to be hard for you.”
“I’m eighteen. I’m going to college. People do it every day.”
“But Briar?” Mae crosses her arms, her scent souring slightly with anxiety. “You don’t know anyone there. And you’re … well.”
“A beta,” you finish for her. You turn to face her, grabbing your duffel bag. “You can say the word, Mae. It’s not a dirty word. I’m a beta. I have no scent, I have no fated mate waiting in the wings to bite my neck, and I don’t need a pack to keep me safe. I just want to play intramural sports, get a degree, and not get looked at like a tragic charity case every Sunday at family dinner.”
“We don’t look at you like a charity case.”
“Right. Which is why Mom left a pamphlet for ‘Finding Fulfillment Outside the Bond’ on my pillow last Tuesday.” You sling the strap over your shoulder. “I’m going to Briar. I need a change of scenery. I need to be somewhere where nobody knows my medical history.”
Mae sighs, stepping aside as you move into the hallway. “Just … call us when you get there. Please?”
“I will.”
You walk down the stairs of the only house you’ve ever known, surrounded by the heavy, mingled scents of three generations of alphas and omegas. It’s overwhelming. It’s suffocating. For the past two years, ever since you turned sixteen and didn’t present, the waiting game had been agonizing. When eighteen came and went without a single heat, a single scent drop, the verdict was final. You’re a beta.
You push out the front door, the crisp morning air a welcome relief against your skin. You toss your bags into the trunk of your beat-up sedan. No mate. No destiny. Just you, the highway, and a desperate need to breathe.
***
Two states away, the kitchen of the off-campus hockey house smells like burnt toast, stale beer, and the distinct, woodsy musk of four agitated alphas.
“I’m telling you, the girl is a menace,” Dean complains, leaning back against the kitchen island with a mug of black coffee. He’s wearing nothing but sweatpants, his hair sticking up in every direction. “She texted me six times before 8 AM. Who does that?”
Logan snorts from the kitchen table, not looking up from his phone. “Maybe she actually likes you, Di Laurentis. Terrifying concept, I know.”
“She likes the idea of me,” Dean corrects, taking a sip of his coffee. “She likes the trust fund and the fact that my parents own half of Manhattan. And the jawline. Mostly the jawline.”
“Your humility is truly a gift to us all,” Tucker says mildly. He’s at the stove, patiently scraping Dean’s ruined attempt at breakfast into the trash and starting fresh with a carton of eggs. Tucker is the only one in the house who actually knows how to use a spatula without setting the smoke alarm off. “You could just tell her you’re not interested.”
“And break her heart? Tuck, I’m a lover. I can’t be cruel.”
“You’re a whore,” Logan corrects, finally setting his phone face down.
There’s a tight set to Logan’s jaw that wasn’t there five minutes ago. Dean notices it. Tucker notices it. As alphas in a pack, the shift in pheromones is impossible to miss — a sharp, bitter spike of stress cutting through Logan’s usual easygoing cedar scent.
“Everything good?” Tucker asks, keeping his eyes on the eggs.
“Fine,” Logan clips out. He taps his fingers against the wooden table. “Just … my brother. Texted about the shop. The old man went on a bender last night, didn’t lock up. Some kids spray-painted the garage doors.”
Dean frowns, setting his mug down. “Do you need to go back? I can wire you cash if they need to cover damages-”
“No, Dean. Keep your money,” Logan says, rubbing a hand over his face. The irritation softens into exhaustion. “My brother handled it. That’s the deal. He holds down the fort with Logan & Sons while I’m here. Once I graduate, I take the shop, take the old man, and he gets his life back. I just hate … I hate that he’s dealing with it alone.”
“He’s not alone,” a new voice cuts in.
Garrett steps into the kitchen. He’s already in his workout gear, a towel draped around his neck. The house immediately shifts. The tension in the air doesn’t vanish, but it stabilizes. Garrett is the captain, on and off the ice.
“Your brother knows what he signed up for, and you’re keeping your end of the bargain by staying here and finishing your degree,” Garrett says, walking over to the fridge to grab a bottle of water. He looks at Logan. “If it gets to be too much, the pack steps in. You know that. We’ll drive down there this weekend and paint the damn doors ourselves if we have to.”
Logan looks up, offering a tired but genuine smirk. “Yeah. Okay. Thanks, G.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I’m bagging you on the ice today for being late to the kitchen.” Garrett unscrews the cap of his water. “Where are we on groceries? Because if I have to eat another one of Tucker’s healthy kale things, I’m going to start chewing on the drywall.”
“Hey, my cooking keeps you animals in peak physical condition,” Tucker defends, flipping an omelet. “And we’re out of everything. Someone needs to do a run.”
“Not it,” Dean says immediately.
“Not it,” Logan echoes.
Garrett sighs. “Fine. I’ll go after practice.”
He turns around, gripping the edge of the counter. His knuckles are white. Dean catches Logan’s eye, a silent conversation passing between them. Garrett’s phone had been buzzing all morning. Every time it rang, the caller ID flashing a New York area code, Garrett’s scent turned dark, heavy, and bruised.
His father.
Nobody says a word. The pack doesn’t push when Garrett gets like this. They just close ranks. Tucker slides a plate of eggs toward him.
“Eat,” Tucker says softly. “We’ve got drills in an hour.”
Garrett nods, his grip loosening on the counter. “Yeah. Let’s eat.”
***
The drive up I-95 is a blur of highway signs and bad radio stations. You keep the windows cracked, letting the wind whip your hair around your face. You’ve been driving for hours, alone with your thoughts.
You think about your parents. You know they love you. You know their pity comes from a place of genuine concern. In a world dictated by biology — by alphas protecting and omegas nurturing — being a beta feels like being a ghost. You don’t trigger instincts. You don’t fit the grand, biological design.
Your mom had cried when you packed the car. Your dad had awkwardly patted your shoulder and told you to keep your pepper spray on your keychain. Because you don’t have an alpha to protect you.
“I don’t need one,” you say aloud to the empty car. Your voice sounds small against the rush of the wind.
You grip the steering wheel tighter. Briar University is a fresh start. A massive campus filled with thousands of students. You can just be a face in the crowd. A girl getting a degree in history, or maybe English. You haven’t decided yet. The point is, you get to decide. Not your biology. Not a fated mate. Just you.
You pull into a rest stop somewhere in Connecticut to get gas and stretch your legs. The air here is different. Colder. Sharper. You walk into the convenience store to buy a coffee, stepping aside as a couple walks out. The guy is massive, clearly an alpha, with his arm wrapped protectively around a smaller omega who smells strongly of peaches and contentment.
You feel the familiar pang in your chest — a sharp, stabbing ache that you quickly push down. It’s not jealousy, exactly. It’s grief. Grief for an experience you were told you would have, a promise the universe broke.
You pay for your black coffee, ignore the cashier’s bored expression, and walk back out to your car.
“No more feeling sorry for yourself,” you mutter, climbing into the driver’s seat. “You’re done with that.”
You put the car in drive and merge back onto the highway. Briar is waiting.
***
The ice is where it all makes sense.
For Garrett, the rink is the only place where the noise stops. The ringing in his ears from his father’s screaming voicemails — calling him a disappointment, a failure, telling him he’ll never be half the player his old man was before he wrecked his knee. The memories of his mother, fading away in a hospital bed, the only person who ever looked at him with something other than expectation or rage.
Out here, the cold bites his lungs, and all that matters is the puck.
“Pass it, G!” Logan yells, his skates carving a sharp turn near the boards.
Garrett doesn’t hesitate. He snaps a perfect, blind pass right to Logan’s stick. Logan catches it, dekes past a freshman defenseman who looks like he’s about to pee his pants, and roofs the puck over the goalie’s shoulder.
The net bulges.
“Yeah, baby!” Dean howls, slamming his stick against the ice in approval.
Coach Jensen blows the whistle. “Alright, that’s it! Bring it in!”
The team gathers around the bench, chest-heaving, sweat dripping from their helmets. The alpha pheromones rolling off the squad are intense — a chaotic mix of adrenaline, aggression, and dominance. But Garrett’s scent cuts through it all, a grounding, authoritative winter-pine that forces the younger guys to straighten up and pay attention.
“Good hustle today,” Coach barks. “Graham, you and the seniors keep the rookies in line. First game is in three weeks. We don’t slack off.”
“Yes, Coach,” Garrett says.
As the team filters into the locker room, the banter starts up immediately. Towels are snapped, chirps are thrown. Dean is already talking about a party off-campus tonight.
“Delta house on frat row,” Dean says, unlacing his skates. “I hear it’s an open invite. We should make an appearance.”
“I have a paper due,” Tucker says, pulling his jersey over his head.
“Tuck, it’s the first week of classes. You don’t have a paper due.”
“I like to get ahead of the syllabus.”
Logan laughs, tossing a roll of tape at Dean’s head. “He’s not going, man. And I’m exhausted. Count me out.”
Dean looks at Garrett, a desperate plea in his eyes. “G. Come on. Captain. Leader. Wingman. Don’t leave me hanging.”
Garrett pulls his skates off, staring at the concrete floor. His phone is in his locker. He knows if he checks it, there will be another message. Another reminder of the man waiting for him back in New York, the man who owns him until Garrett signs an NHL contract and can finally cut him off for good.
“Fine,” Garrett says, standing up. “We’ll go. For an hour. But if you start making out with someone in the kitchen again and leave me standing around holding a red solo cup, I’m walking home.”
Dean grins, a triumphant, blinding smile. “You’re the best, G. Truly a man of the people.”
Logan shakes his head, leaning over to bump his shoulder against Garrett’s. “You don’t have to babysit him, you know.”
“If I don’t, he’ll end up accidentally pledging a sorority,” Garrett deadpans.
Logan laughs, the tight stress from this morning fully melted away. They walk toward the showers, a unified front. The four of them against the world. They don’t need anyone else.
***
You drag your second suitcase up three flights of stairs because the elevator in the freshman dorm is broken. Of course it is.
By the time you find Room 382, you’re sweating, out of breath, and seriously questioning your life choices. You unlock the door and push it open.
The room is tiny. Two twin beds, two desks, one microscopic window looking out over the quad. It smells like industrial cleaner and old dust. But it’s yours.
Your roommate hasn’t arrived yet. The bed on the left is bare. You claim the one by the window, dropping your suitcase onto the mattress with a heavy thud.
You sit down next to it, resting your head against the cool drywall. You can hear the sounds of campus outside — shouting, laughter, the rolling wheels of luggage. You close your eyes, taking a deep breath.
There’s no scent of vanilla. No scent of pine. No pack.
For the first time in your life, you are completely, totally alone.
You smile.
“Okay,” you whisper to the empty room. “Let’s do this.”
You open your suitcase and start unpacking your sweaters. You hang them up one by one in the tiny closet, organizing them by color. You set your books on the desk. You make the bed with the plain grey sheets you bought at Target.
You don’t put up any photos of your family. Not yet. It hurts too much to look at them — to see your parents holding hands, the bond mark on your mother’s neck clearly visible. To see Mae and her mate. To see what you can’t have.
Someone knocks on the open door.
You turn around. A girl with chunky highlights and a nose ring is standing there, holding a massive cardboard box. She smells faintly of cinnamon. An omega.
“Hey,” she says, blowing a bubble with her gum. “You’re Y/N, right? I’m Brooke. Your roommate.”
“Hi,” you say, standing up. “Need help with that?”
“God, yes. This box weighs more than my will to live.”
You walk over and grab the other end of the box, helping her haul it onto the bare bed.
“Thanks,” Brooke pants, wiping her forehead. She looks at you, her eyes narrowing slightly as she tilts her head. She takes a subtle breath in. You stiffen, bracing yourself for the inevitable question. The confusion.
“You’re a beta?” Brooke asks, her tone completely casual.
“Yeah,” you say, your voice tight. “I am.”
Brooke just shrugs, digging into the box. “Cool. Means I don’t have to worry about you going into a rut and destroying our room. My last roommate was an alpha, and she punched a hole in the door over a bad grade. So. Big win for me.”
You blink. “That’s … it? You don’t care?”
Brooke pauses, looking back at you with an amused expression. “Should I? Are you going to steal my clothes?”
“No.”
“Then we’re good.” She pulls out a stack of posters. “Hey, there’s a huge party off-campus tonight. Some guys on the hockey team are hosting, or showing up, I don’t know. You want to go? I hate walking into these things alone.”
A party. Loud music. Sweaty bodies. Alphas and omegas pairing off. Everything you came here to escape.
But you look at Brooke, who isn’t looking at you with pity. She’s just looking at you like you’re a normal eighteen-year-old girl.
“Yeah,” you say, a genuine smile breaking across your face. “Yeah, I’d love to go.”
***
The party is exactly what you expected, and somehow ten times worse.
The Delta house is a massive, sprawling colonial packed wall-to-wall with sweating, dancing, drinking college students. The bass from the speakers rattles your teeth in your skull. Brooke disappeared into the crowd roughly five minutes after you walked through the front door, leaving you standing awkwardly near a sticky kitchen counter.
You grip your red Solo cup like a lifeline. You haven’t actually taken a sip yet. You’re just using it as a prop so you don’t look like a total loser.
“First time?”
You blink, turning to your right. A guy is leaning against the fridge. He’s tall, wearing a backward baseball cap, and he smells like cheap beer and an overwhelming wave of alpha musk. It’s cloying, too sweet and too aggressive all at once.
“Is it that obvious?” You ask, shifting your weight.
“A little.” He flashes a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He steps closer, invading your personal space. “I’m Brad. I haven’t seen you around before.”
“I’m a freshman. I just moved in today.”
“Ah. Fresh meat.” He chuckles at his own joke. You don’t laugh. “Look, you look a little stiff. Here. Let me top that off for you. It’s jungle juice. Best on campus.”
Before you can protest, he takes your cup, dips it into a massive orange cooler on the island, and hands it back.
“Drink up,” Brad says. “It’ll help you loosen up.”
You take a small sip, mostly just to get him to stop staring at your mouth. It tastes like Hawaiian Punch and rubbing alcohol.
“Thanks,” you mutter. “I’m going to go find my roommate.”
You turn your back on him, slipping into the throng of bodies in the living room. You take another sip of the drink as you navigate the crowd, trying to scan the sea of faces for Brooke’s bright pink hair.
Five minutes pass. Then ten.
And then, the floor drops out from under you.
It starts as a bizarre lightness in your head, a dizzying spin that makes the room tilt sideways. You stumble, your shoulder slamming into a girl dancing next to you.
“Hey, watch it!” She snaps.
You try to apologize, but your tongue feels thick. Heavy. You look down at your hand. You’ve dropped your cup. It’s rolling across the floor, splashing red liquid on the scuffed hardwood.
Something is wrong. Very, very wrong.
A cold sweat breaks out across your forehead. Your legs feel like lead, and your vision is tunneling, the edges blurring into a fuzzy grey. The noise of the party suddenly sounds like it’s underwater.
I need to get out of here. I need to sit down. You push past a group of guys, ignoring their annoyed grunts. You need a bathroom. A quiet place. You stumble down a hallway, dragging your hand along the wall to keep yourself upright.
You find a door at the end of the hall, twist the knob, and fall inside. You kick the door shut and lock it, collapsing onto the cold tile floor.
The moment your knees hit the ground, the cold numbness in your limbs vanishes, replaced by an agonizing, explosive heat.
A scream tears from your throat, but it sounds weak, mangled. It feels like someone struck a match inside your veins. Your chest tightens, a violent, crushing pressure seizing your lungs.
This isn’t just whatever was in that drink. This is something else.
You clutch your stomach, curling into a tight ball on the floor. Your skin is on fire. Your bones feel like they are melting, restructuring, breaking apart from the inside.
I’m dying, you think, terror clawing at your fading consciousness. The drug. It’s killing me.
But beneath the terrifying, paralyzing lethargy of the roofie, there is a frantic, biological desperate push. Your body is fighting the sedative. Your biology, dormant for years, is violently ripping itself awake to purge the poison.
You’re presenting.
You’re presenting right now, pumped full of a predatory drug, your body tearing itself apart to force the transition. You sob, but your muscles are too weak from the drug to even thrash. You just lie there, trapped in a paralyzed, burning hell.
***
Two rooms over, Dean is holding court.
He’s currently charming three omegas by the fireplace, flashing his trademark dimples and expertly dodging their subtle attempts to scent him.
Garrett is leaning against the wall beside him, nursing a beer he hasn’t drank from in twenty minutes. His jaw is tight. He hates these parties. The mingled scents of desperate alphas and eager omegas give him a headache.
“So, Dean,” one of the omegas purrs, stepping closer. “Are you guys sticking around for the after-party?”
“Depends,” Dean says smoothly. “Are you going to be-”
Dean stops.
He freezes mid-sentence. His posture completely shifts, the casual, relaxed slouch vanishing, replaced by something rigid and terrifyingly still.
Garrett feels it a split second later.
It hits them like a physical blow to the chest. A scent cuts through the stale beer, the sweat, the cheap perfume. It’s the most intoxicating thing Garrett has ever breathed in. It smells like rain on hot asphalt. Like crushed vanilla beans and something dark, sweet, and entirely consuming.
It’s the scent of an omega.
But not just an omega.
Mate. The word echoes in Garrett’s skull, primal and undeniable. His alpha roars to the surface, violent and possessive. He drops his beer bottle. It shatters on the floor.
He looks at Dean. Dean’s eyes are blown wide, his pupils dilated until almost the entire iris is black.
“Garrett,” Dean chokes out, his voice a ragged whisper.
“I know,” Garrett growls.
But the euphoria of the bond is instantly obliterated by what’s laced underneath the scent.
Terror. Pain. Sickening, chemical distress.
Their mate is in agony.
“Move!” Garrett roars, shoving past the omegas.
He and Dean tear through the living room. They aren’t humans anymore; they are predators tracking a wounded center. People scream and dive out of the way as the two massive hockey players barrel through the crowd, completely feral.
“Where?” Dean snarls, his head snapping back and forth.
“Hallway,” Garrett barks. “End of the hall.”
They hit the hallway at a sprint. The scent is overpowering here, thick and suffocating with distress. Garrett grabs the handle of the locked bathroom door. He doesn’t bother asking who is inside. He doesn’t bother knocking.
He takes one step back, raises his boot, and kicks the door right off its hinges.
Wood splinters. The door crashes inward.
Garrett and Dean freeze in the doorway.
You are curled on the floor, trembling violently. Your skin is flushed a feverish red, covered in a sheen of sweat. You’re making a weak, whimpering sound, your eyes rolling back in your head.
“No,” Dean breathes out, dropping to his knees instantly.
Garrett is right beside him. He reaches out, his large hands hovering over you for a fraction of a second before he gently, carefully rolls you onto your back.
The moment his skin touches yours, a jolt of electricity violently shocks through both of you. You gasp, your eyes snapping open for a second. They are hazy, unfocused, but you stare right up at him.
“Hurts,” you manage to slur, your voice barely a rasp. “Burning.”
“I know, baby, I know. I’ve got you,” Garrett says, his voice thick with an emotion he’s never felt before.
He pulls you into his lap, ignoring the way you flinch. He wraps his arms around you, burying his face in your neck. He releases a heavy, concentrated wave of soothing alpha pheromones, trying to blanket your pain.
Dean grabs your hand, his thumb desperately rubbing circles into your palm. “Garrett. G. Her scent. It’s … it’s mine. She’s my mate.”
Garrett looks up, his eyes flashing a dangerous, possessive. “She’s mine, Dean.”
Dean’s jaw clenches. The two alphas stare at each other over your trembling body, the air between them turning volatile, lethal. A fight over a mate is a bloodbath.
But then Dean takes a sharp breath, his eyes widening. He looks from Garrett to you, and back to Garrett.
“You feel it too,” Dean whispers. “The pull. It’s … it’s anchoring to both of us.”
Garrett swallows hard, the aggressive spike in his chest leveling out into something infinitely more complex. He looks down at you. You belong to him. He knows that down to his marrow. But the bond isn’t fighting Dean’s presence. It’s welcoming it.
They share her.
“We’ll figure that out later,” Garrett says harshly, forcing his focus back to the immediate crisis. He presses two fingers to the pulse point on your neck. It’s erratic, fluttering dangerously fast. “Something is wrong with her, Dean. This isn’t just a bad presentation.”
Dean leans closer, sniffing your hair, your mouth. His face twists into a snarl of pure, unfiltered rage.
“Chemicals,” Dean spits out. “Sedative. Somebody roofied her, G. She’s been drugged.”
Garrett’s blood runs entirely cold. “A late presentation triggered by a roofie? The drug is telling her nervous system to shut down, and the presentation is trying to jumpstart it. Her body is tearing itself apart.”
“We need to get her to a hospital.”
“No,” Garrett says immediately. “You take an unbonded omega in the middle of a traumatic presentation into a crowded ER full of strange alphas, she’ll go into shock and her heart will give out. We need to get her to the house. It’s safe. We can scent her, ground her.”
“She needs a doctor, Garrett!”
“Tucker’s mom is an ER nurse, he knows exactly what to do,” Garrett barks. “And we are not leaving her alone with strangers right now. Call Logan. Tell him to bring the truck to the back door. Now!”
Dean doesn’t argue. The feral edge in Garrett’s voice leaves no room for debate. Dean rips his phone out of his pocket, his hands shaking so badly he almost drops it. He hits Logan’s speed dial.
It rings twice.
“What?” Logan answers, sounding half-asleep.
“Logan, get the truck. Back alley of the Delta house on 4th. Now.”
“Dean? What the hell is going on? You sound-”
“Our mate,” Dean chokes out, tears of sheer panic pricking the corners of his eyes as he watches you seize slightly in Garrett’s arms. “We found our mate. And she’s dying. Get Tucker. Get here now.”
The line goes dead.
Dean drops the phone. He crowds in closer, wrapping his arms around your legs, needing to touch you, needing to flood your system with as much comfort as he can.
“Keep breathing, sweetheart,” Dean begs, pressing a kiss to your sweaty forehead. “Just keep breathing for me. We’re getting you out of here.”
You can barely hear him. The roaring in your ears is deafening. But through the agonizing fire burning in your veins, through the heavy, suffocating fog of the drug, you feel them.
Pine and cedar. Mint and leather.
The scents are wrapping around you, anchoring you to the floor, fighting the darkness trying to pull you under. You lean your head against Garrett’s chest, completely helpless.
***
Logan breaks every single traffic law in the state of Massachusetts getting to the frat row.
He slams on the brakes, the truck fishtailing into the dark, trash-strewn alley behind the omega house. Tucker is in the passenger seat, already unbuckling his seatbelt before the truck even comes to a complete stop.
“Grab the blankets from the back,” Tucker orders, his voice eerily calm, though his jaw is locked so tight a muscle ticks furiously in his cheek.
Logan throws the truck into park and leaps out. They don’t even have to go inside.
The back door of the house bursts open. Garrett stalks down the stairs, carrying a small, limp figure in his arms. Dean is right on his heels, flanking him, his eyes scanning the alley like a predator looking for a threat.
Logan freezes.
The scent hits him from ten yards away.
Rain on hot asphalt. Vanilla.
Logan’s knees actually buckle for a fraction of a second. A raw, guttural sound rips from his throat. Mine. The instinct is absolute. It wipes away every rational thought in his head, replacing it with a singular, violent need to possess and protect.
He looks at Tucker. Tucker has stopped dead in his tracks, dropping the blankets onto the asphalt. Tucker, the calmest, most rational alpha in the pack, looks like he’s about to tear someone’s throat out with his teeth.
“Tucker?” Logan breathes.
“She’s ours,” Tucker says, his voice a dark, lethal rumble. “All of ours.”
There’s no time to process the impossibility of a four-alpha mate bond. Garrett reaches the truck, his face pale and terrifyingly desperate.
“Open the damn door, Logan!” Garrett roars.
Logan snaps out of his shock. He rips the backseat door open. Garrett carefully slides into the back, keeping you cradled in his lap. Dean shoves in right next to him, pressing his body along your side.
Tucker grabs the blankets from the ground, shakes off the dirt, and climbs into the front passenger seat. Logan jumps behind the wheel.
“Drive,” Garrett commands. “Fast.”
Logan hits the gas. The truck peels out of the alley, tires screaming against the pavement.
“What happened?” Tucker asks, twisting around in his seat to look into the back.
The moment Tucker’s eyes land on you, his breath hitches. You look incredibly small. Your face is ashen, save for the unnatural, feverish flush high on your cheeks. You’re barely conscious, your chest rising and falling in shallow, jagged gasps.
“Someone slipped something in her drink,” Dean says, his voice thick with rage. “A roofie. And it forced her to present.”
Logan grips the steering wheel so hard the leather groans. A low, vibrating growl fills the cab of the truck. “Who?”
“I don’t know,” Dean says. “But when I find out, I’m going to kill him. I’m going to actually kill him.”
“We’ll find him later,” Tucker says sharply, forcing his own murderous rage down. He needs to be the medic right now. “G, how hot is she?”
“She’s burning up, Tuck. Her pulse is everywhere,” Garrett says, running a trembling hand through your sweat-soaked hair.
“The drug is a depressant. It’s fighting her adrenaline and presentation hormones. If her fever gets too high, she’ll start seizing,” Tucker explains rapidly. “We need to get her in an ice bath the second we get home to regulate her temperature, and we need to flush her system.”
“Water?” Dean asks.
“Yes. And our scents. She needs all four of us. The bond is the only thing that’s going to guide her biology through the transition right now. We have to overpower the panic.”
Logan runs a red light, swerving around a slow-moving sedan. “Five minutes out.”
In the backseat, you let out a choked, wet sob.
The pain is shifting. The burning is spreading from your veins into your nerve endings. It feels like your skin is being peeled back. You don’t know these men. You don’t know whose truck you are in. But the scents surrounding you are the only things keeping you from completely shattering.
“Please,” you whimper, blindly grabbing a fistful of Garrett’s shirt. “Make it stop. Please.”
“Shh, I know, baby. I’m so sorry,” Garrett murmurs, pressing his lips to the crown of your head. “We’ve got you. We’re right here. Just hold on for us.”
“We’re here,” Logan announces, pulling the truck violently into the driveway of their off-campus house.
Before Logan even turns the engine off, Garrett is opening the door. He carries you out of the truck, moving with terrifying speed. Tucker has the front door unlocked and thrown open in seconds.
They bypass the living room, heading straight for the massive master bathroom on the first floor.
“Turn the shower on. Cold. All the way,” Tucker orders Dean.
Dean practically rips the shower knob off the wall, turning the water to freezing.
“Garrett, get her in there,” Tucker says. “Don’t bother taking her clothes off, it’ll take too much time.”
Garrett steps right into the massive walk-in shower with you, his sneakers and clothes immediately soaking through. He sits down on the tiled floor, pulling you into his chest as the freezing water rains down on both of you.
The shock of the cold water makes you gasp, your back arching violently.
“Hold her down, G!” Tucker says, dropping to his knees outside the shower stall.
Garrett wraps his arms tightly around you, holding you flush against his chest. “I’ve got you. I’m not letting go.”
Dean sits on the floor right outside the shower, reaching in to grip your ankle, desperately needing to maintain contact. Logan paces the bathroom like a caged tiger, the space filling with the overwhelming, frantic scents of four terrified alphas.
“Tuck, she’s shivering!” Garrett says, panic bleeding into his voice.
“She has to. It brings the fever down,” Tucker says, grabbing a towel and soaking it in the cold water. He reaches in and presses the wet towel to
the back of your neck. “Talk to her. All of you. Let her know her pack is here.”
You are thrashing now, the drug losing ground to the sheer, overwhelming force of the omega presentation. You are terrified, confused, and drowning in pain.
“Sweetheart,” Dean says loudly, his voice shaking. “Look at me. Can you open your eyes for me?”
You force your heavy eyelids open. You see Dean’s face, pale and streaked with water.
“That’s it,” Dean praises softly. “I’m Dean. This is Garrett holding you. That’s Tucker and Logan. You’re safe. We brought you home.”
“Don’t know you,” you slur, your teeth chattering violently.
“You do,” Logan says, kneeling down next to Dean. His voice is a deep, resonant rumble that vibrates right into your chest. “You just don’t realize it yet. You’re ours.”
“My pack,” you whisper, the word slipping out of you entirely on instinct.
“Yeah, baby,” Garrett breathes, tightening his hold on you. “Your pack.”
The presentation finally hits its peak. A massive, suffocating wave of heat surges out of your body, radiating outward, hitting the four men like a physical wall. Your scent — pure, sweet, unbridled omega — floods the bathroom, drowning out the sour notes of distress and the sharp tang of the chemicals.
It is the most beautiful thing any of them have ever experienced.
And then, just as quickly as it peaked, the energy leaves you. The drug’s last remnants are burned away by the biological shift, and your exhausted body finally gives out.
Your eyes roll back, and you go completely limp in Garrett’s arms.
“Y/N!” Dean shouts.
“She’s okay,” Tucker says quickly, reaching in to check your pulse. He lets out a massive, shaky breath, slumping back on his heels. “She’s okay. Her pulse is stabilizing. The fever broke. She passed out from exhaustion.”
Garrett rests his forehead against your wet hair, closing his eyes. His massive chest heaves as he tries to rein in his feral alpha instincts.
Logan slowly sinks to the floor, leaning back against the sink cabinet, burying his face in his hands.
For a long moment, the only sound in the bathroom is the rush of the freezing shower water and the ragged breathing of four men who just had their entire world permanently altered.
Garrett looks up, his eyes locking onto Dean, then Logan, then Tucker. The pack dynamic has irrevocably shifted. There is no jealousy. There is no competition.
There is only the pack, and the center they must now protect with their lives.
“Tomorrow,” Garrett says, his voice cold and terrifyingly calm over the noise of the water. “We find the guy who gave her that drink.”
Dean looks at your sleeping face, his jaw setting into a brutal line. “And we break every single bone in his hands.”
Logan lowers his hands from his face. “No. We break him entirely.”
***
You wake up to the sensation of being completely, entirely safe.
It’s a foreign feeling. For the past two years, your underlying state of being has been a low-grade, buzzing anxiety. But right now, as you slowly drag yourself out of a deep, dreamless sleep, your muscles are loose. The mattress beneath you is ridiculously soft, and the heavy duvet draped over your body feels like a weighted shield against the world.
You keep your eyes closed for another minute, just breathing.
That’s when you notice the smell.
Your childhood home smelled like vanilla, baking spices, and a chaotic, overwhelming mix of your parents and siblings. It always felt a little suffocating. But the scent wrapped around you right now — soaked into the pillows, the sheets, the very air in the room — is different.
It’s pine needles and crisp winter air. It’s warm cedar wood. It’s fresh mint, and dark, worn leather.
The combination shouldn’t work, but it does. It weaves together into a flawless, intoxicating tapestry that makes a low, rumbling purr start in the back of your throat.
Wait. A purr?
Your eyes snap open.
The panic hits you like a bucket of ice water. You sit up so fast your head spins. This isn’t your tiny dorm room. This is a massive bedroom with dark grey walls, a huge flat-screen TV mounted on the wall, and hockey gear piled in the corner.
You look down at yourself. You aren’t wearing the jeans and t-shirt you wore to the party. You’re drowning in a black Briar University Hockey t-shirt that falls mid-thigh, and a pair of grey sweatpants with the drawstrings pulled as tight as they can go, the waist rolled down three times just to keep them on your hips.
The clothes swallow you whole, and they smell intensely of the four scents blanketing the room.
The memories hit you in broken, terrifying shards. The party. The red Solo cup. The sudden, agonizing heat tearing through your veins. The locked bathroom door crashing inward. Freezing water. The desperate voices.
I’m Dean. This is Garrett holding you. That’s Tucker and Logan.
My pack, you had whispered.
You press your hands to your face, your breathing hitching. You presented. The roofie forced your body into an aggressive, violent presentation. You’re an omega.
You drop your hands and look at your wrists, taking a deep, experimental breath. Beneath the heavy musk of the four alphas, you can smell it. Vanilla, rain, and hot asphalt. It’s yours. You have a scent. You have a dynamic.
And apparently, you have mates. Four of them.
“Okay. Okay, don’t freak out,” you whisper to the empty room. You swing your legs over the edge of the bed. Your body feels slightly bruised, a lingering ache in your joints from the brutal biological shift, but your mind is strangely clear. Sharper, even.
You stand up. The sweatpants pool around your bare feet. You roll the cuffs up a few times so you don’t trip, take a deep breath, and open the bedroom door.
The hallway is quiet, lined with three other closed doors. You pad softly down the hardwood stairs, gripping the banister. You can hear low voices coming from the first floor, the clinking of silverware against ceramic.
You reach the bottom of the stairs and peek around the corner into a massive, open-concept kitchen and living room.
They are all there.
One of them — tall, blond, with a jawline that looks carved out of marble — is sitting on a barstool, nursing a mug of coffee. Another, with a mess of dark curls, is leaning against the fridge, scrolling through his phone. A third guy, built like a brick wall with soft, observant eyes, is at the stove flipping pancakes. And the last one, the one who had held you in the freezing shower, is wiping down the island counter, his broad shoulders shifting under a tight grey t-shirt.
You take a step forward, the floorboard creaking beneath your foot.
Every single one of them stops moving.
It’s instantaneous. The guy at the stove freezes with the spatula in mid-air. The blond guy lowers his mug. The curly guy’s head snaps up. The guy wiping the counter drops the rag.
Four sets of eyes lock onto you.
The silence in the kitchen is deafening. You stand near the edge of the living room, nervously twisting the hem of the massive hockey shirt. By all logical accounts, this should be the most awkward, terrifying moment of your life. You are in a strange house with four massive alphas you barely know, and you were completely incapacitated the last time you saw them. You should be running for the front door.
But your biology is singing.
The moment their eyes meet yours, a heavy, settling warmth floods your chest. The lingering anxiety from waking up vanishes entirely. Your inner omega doesn’t see strangers; she sees safety. She sees pack.
“You’re awake,” the one with the grey shirt says. His voice is a deep, gravelly baritone that sends a shiver straight down your spine. Garrett. You remember his name.
“I’m awake,” you confirm, your voice a little raspy.
Garrett takes a slow step toward you, as if approaching a wild animal that might bolt. His eyes are sweeping over you, taking in the oversized clothes, the messy hair, the way you’re shifting on your feet.
“How do you feel?” He asks, his voice softening into a protective rumble. “The fever broke around 3 AM, but the transition … it was rough. Are you in pain?”
“A little achy,” you admit. “But … I’m okay. Mostly just confused.”
The blond guy practically vaults off his barstool. “I’m Dean. By the way. We sort of introduced ourselves last night while you were seizing, which wasn’t exactly ideal.”
“Dean,” you repeat. You look at the curly-haired guy. “And you’re Logan.”
Logan offers a small, tight smile, his dark eyes never leaving your face. “Yeah. That’s me.”
“And Tucker,” you say, looking at the guy with the spatula.
“Breakfast is almost ready,” Tucker says gently. “You must be starving. The presentation burns a massive amount of calories, and your body was fighting off a sedative at the same time. Come sit.”
They are trying so hard to give you space. You can see the rigid tension in their shoulders, the way they are forcing themselves to stay in their spots, fighting every single alpha instinct in their DNA that is screaming at them to rush forward, close the distance, and touch their newly presented mate.
The restraint is admirable. It lasts exactly thirty seconds.
You take three steps into the kitchen toward the island. That’s all it takes.
The invisible thread snaps.
Garrett is the first one to move. He crosses the kitchen in two massive strides, stopping right in front of you. Up close, he is a giant. He towers over you, his presence entirely consuming. He doesn’t ask. He just reaches out, his large, calloused hands gently cupping your face.
You gasp quietly, but you don’t pull away. You lean into his palms.
Garrett’s eyes darken, a raw, possessive sound vibrating in his chest. He tilts your head slightly, his thumbs tracing the line of your jaw. “You’re perfect,” he breathes, his scent — pine and winter air — flaring with pride and relief. “You scared the absolute hell out of us, sweetheart. But you’re perfect.”
“Hey, don’t hog her, G,” Dean says, his voice entirely lacking its usual confident swagger. It sounds almost desperate.
Dean steps up right beside Garrett. He reaches out and wraps a hand around your waist, pulling you gently but firmly against his side. The contact is electric. You let out a soft sigh, your body naturally molding against his side. Dean buries his face in your hair, taking a massive, deep inhale of your scent.
“God, you smell so good,” Dean mutters against your temple. “Vanilla and rain. It’s making me crazy.”
Logan is there a second later, standing close enough to your back that you can feel the heat radiating off his chest. His hand settles heavily, warmly, on the back of your neck. It’s a purely dominant gesture, laying claim, offering protection.
You should be telling them to back off. You are an independent, rational college student who wanted to play intramural sports and get a history degree without a pack.
But your rational brain has been utterly, entirely hijacked.
You let your eyes flutter shut, a soft, involuntary purr starting up in your chest again. You are surrounded by them. Surrounded by a wall of muscle, heat, and devotion. It feels so right it actually aches. You don’t want them to step back. You want them closer.
“You’re wearing my shirt,” Logan murmurs, his thumb stroking the sensitive skin right at your hairline.
“And my sweats,” Dean adds smugly.
“I slept in Garrett’s bed, though,” you point out, opening your eyes to look up at Garrett’s smug smirk.
Tucker sets a massive plate of chocolate chip pancakes on the island counter, wiping his hands on a dishtowel. He walks over, completing the circle. He reaches out, brushing a stray lock of hair behind your ear. His touch is softer than the others, but his eyes are just as intense.
“Sit, sweetheart,” Tucker says. “You need to eat.”
They practically escort you to a stool, boxing you in. Logan stands leaning against the counter to your left, Dean takes the stool to your right, Garrett stands directly in front of you, and Tucker places the plate down along with a massive glass of water and a cup of tea.
You pick up the fork, suddenly realizing you are ravenous. You cut a massive bite of the pancakes and shove it into your mouth.
“So,” you say after swallowing, looking around at the four men watching your every move like you’re the most fascinating thing on earth. “Four mates. Is that … normal?”
“It’s rare,” Tucker says, leaning his forearms on the counter. “Extremely rare. Usually, a pack forms around an omega naturally over time, or an omega bonds with a pre-existing pack. But a fated bond tying one omega to four alphas simultaneously? It happens maybe once in a generation.”
“Lucky us,” Dean grins, stealing a piece of bacon off a side plate. “We hit the biological jackpot.”
“I was a beta,” you say, staring down at your plate. “For two years, everyone thought I was a beta. My family, the doctors. I didn’t present when I was sixteen. I came to Briar to get away from the pity.”
Garrett’s jaw tightens. He reaches out, covering your hand with his. “You were never a beta, baby. Your biology was just waiting. Sometimes, an omega needs a massive shock to the system to jumpstart a delayed presentation. The bond snapping into place when we smelled you … and the drug.”
Logan shifts, the easygoing cedar scent suddenly spiking with dark, violent aggression. “The drug.”
The atmosphere in the kitchen shifts violently. The warm, domestic bubble pops, replaced by a suffocating, lethal tension.
“Who gave you the drink?” Logan asks. His voice is dangerously quiet.
You swallow hard, putting your fork down. “Some guy by the kitchen. He said his name was Brad. Tall, wore a backward baseball cap. He handed me a cup of jungle juice. I only took two sips before I started feeling … weird.”
Dean’s hands curl into fists on the countertop. “Brad. I know him. He’s a junior, plays lacrosse.”
“Not anymore he doesn’t,” Garrett says coldly. “Not with broken kneecaps.”
“Guys,” you say softly, a little alarmed by the casual murder in Garrett’s eyes.
“We’re not going to kill him,” Tucker says, though his expression is just as grim as the others. “But we are going to make sure he is permanently expelled, arrested, and incapable of ever looking at an omega again.”
“Logan and I will handle it today,” Garrett says, looking at Logan. Logan nods, a dark promise in his eyes.
“What about me?” You ask, picking up your water glass. “I need to get back to my dorm. Brooke, my roommate, she probably noticed I never came back to the room. I don’t even have my phone, it must have fallen out of my pocket at the party. And I have orientation events tomorrow.”
Silence falls over the kitchen again.
Garrett and Dean exchange a look. Tucker crosses his arms over his chest. Logan picks up a butter knife, spinning it slowly on the granite counter.
“What?” You ask, looking between them.
“You’re not going back to the dorm,” Garrett says. It’s not a suggestion. It’s a statement of absolute fact.
You blink. “Excuse me? Yes, I am. All my stuff is there. My laptop, my clothes-”
“We’ll go get your stuff,” Dean interrupts, his tone soothing but firm. “We can pack up your room this afternoon and move it into the guest room here. Or my room. Or G’s room. Wherever you want.”
“I can’t just move in with you!” You protest, your rational brain finally trying to put up a fight. “I met you twelve hours ago! I have a roommate. I have a life I literally just started building yesterday.”
“You’re an unbonded, newly presented omega who was just targeted at a frat party,” Logan says bluntly, his dark eyes pinning you to your seat. “You have no control over your scent yet. You don’t have a bite mark to signal you’re taken. If you walk onto campus right now, every alpha within a two-mile radius is going to swarm you.”
“I can handle myself,” you say stubbornly, though even as you say it, a small part of you shrinks at the thought of leaving the safety of this kitchen.
Garrett steps closer, invading your space until you have to tilt your head back to look at him. He places both hands on the counter on either side of your hips, effectively caging you in.
“No, you can’t,” Garrett says, his voice dropping an octave into that terrifying, authoritative alpha command. “You are our mate. You belong to this pack. And my instincts are screaming at me to lock the front door and throw away the key just from the thought of you being out of my sight. You are staying here.”
You open your mouth to argue. You want to tell him he’s being ridiculous. You want to tell him he can’t order you around.
But you look up into Garrett’s eyes. You feel the heat of his body, the absolute, unshakable certainty in his voice. He wants to protect you. He wants to keep you safe from a world that literally just tried to poison you.
Your omega completely and utterly folds.
Yes, your inner voice purrs. Keep me.
“I … I have classes on Monday,” you say, your voice much weaker than you intended. It sounds more like a plea for compromise than a demand.
Tucker smiles, a slow, incredibly satisfied smile. He reaches out and gently strokes the back of your hair again. “We’ll figure classes out. The university has protocols for sudden presentations. We’ll get you a medical exemption for the first few weeks if we have to.”
“First few weeks?” Your eyes widen. “How long am I supposed to stay here?”
“Until your first heat hits,” Logan says smoothly. He leans forward, his face inches from yours. His gaze drops to your neck, his eyes darkening. “Until we can officially claim you. Until we can mark you. Once you’re wearing our bites, once your scent is permanently mixed with ours … then you can go back to campus. Because everyone will know you’re ours.”
A shiver wrecks through your entire body. The thought of their teeth sinking into your skin, laying a permanent claim, sends a jolt of heat straight to your core.
You look at Dean. He’s watching you with a hungry, predatory intensity that makes your breath catch. You look at Garrett, who is still caging you in, waiting for your absolute submission to the plan. You look at Tucker, the steady, grounding force, and Logan, the intense, silent protector.
You are entirely trapped.
And you have never felt happier in your entire life.
“Okay,” you whisper, the fight draining out of you entirely. You slump slightly against the counter. “Okay. I’ll stay.”
Garrett lets out a massive breath, his rigid posture relaxing. He leans down and presses a hard, lingering kiss to your forehead. “Good girl.”
The praise makes your toes curl.
“Great,” Dean claps his hands together, the charming, easy-going grin returning to his face. “Now that that’s settled, Tucker, make the girl some more bacon. She needs her strength. Logan and Garrett have a lacrosse player to ruin, and I have to go to a dorm and pack up an obscene amount of sweaters.”
“How do you know I have an obscene amount of sweaters?” You ask, taking another bite of your pancakes.
“Sweetheart,” Dean winks. “You’re from New York, you moved to Massachusetts, and you’re an omega. It’s practically a biological requirement.”
You roll your eyes, but a genuine smile breaks across your face. You take a sip of the tea Tucker placed in front of you. It’s perfectly sweetened, warm, and soothing.
You sit in the kitchen, surrounded by the towering, dominant presence of four fated mates who have completely hijacked your life in less than twenty-four hours. You have no dorm. You have no independence. You are essentially on lockdown until you go into heat.
Your mother’s pamphlet flashes through your mind.
You realize you left it on the bedside table back in New York.
Good. You definitely aren’t going to need it.
***
The lacrosse locker room is empty on a Saturday afternoon, save for one player trying to find his lost practice jersey.
Brad is digging through his duffel bag, nursing a massive hangover, when the heavy metal door of the locker room slams shut. The sound echoes sharply against the tile.
He turns around, annoyance flashing across his face. “Hey, man, watch the-”
The words die in his throat.
Garrett and Logan are blocking the only exit. Neither of them is wearing their usual easygoing campus smiles. They are dressed in dark hoodies, their expressions carved out of absolute, predatory ice.
The air in the room instantly drops ten degrees. The alpha pheromones rolling off the two hockey players are suffocating, heavy with dark, violent aggression.
Brad takes a step back, his instincts screaming at him. “Graham? Logan? What are you guys doing here?”
Garrett doesn’t say a word. He just starts walking forward, his strides slow and measured. Logan falls into step right beside him, pulling a roll of athletic tape out of his pocket and casually tossing it from hand to hand.
“Look, if this is about the ice time dispute between our teams-” Brad starts, holding his hands up defensively.
Garrett closes the distance in a blur of motion. He grabs Brad by the throat, hoisting the taller lacrosse player entirely off the ground, and slams him brutally into the metal lockers.
The metal caves inward with a deafening crash.
Brad chokes, his hands flying up to claw desperately at Garrett’s massive forearm. His feet kick uselessly at the air.
“You were at the frat house last night,” Garrett says. His voice isn’t a yell. It’s a low, terrifying rumble that vibrates through the locker room. “You poured a cup of jungle juice for a freshman. A beta.”
Brad’s eyes widen in sheer terror, his face already turning a splotchy purple. “I—I didn’t-”
Garrett squeezes harder. “Don’t lie to me. If you lie to me, I’ll crush your windpipe right now and tell the cops it was a weightlifting accident.”
“Okay! Okay!” Brad gasps out as Garrett slightly loosens his grip. “Yeah, I talked to her! She was hot. I just gave her a drink to loosen her up!”
Logan steps forward, his dark eyes dead and cold. He stops inches from Brad’s face. “What was in it, Brad?”
“Nothing! Just booze! I swear!”
Logan sighs, shaking his head. He looks at Garrett. “He’s lying.”
“I know,” Garrett says.
Garrett drops Brad. The lacrosse player hits the floor, hacking and gasping for air. Before Brad can even get to his hands and knees, Logan drives his boot directly into Brad’s ribs.
There’s a sickening crack.
Brad screams, curling into a tight ball on the floor.
Logan crouches down next to him, resting his elbows on his knees. “Here’s the thing, Brad. That girl wasn’t a beta. She was a delayed omega. And whatever garbage you put in that cup forced her to present. She almost died in our bathroom last night. Her heart almost gave out.”
Brad whimpers, clutching his side. “I didn’t know! I didn’t know she was an omega!”
“That doesn’t make it better, you piece of shit,” Garrett snarls, grabbing Brad by the collar of his shirt and hauling him halfway up. “And it gets worse for you. Because she isn’t just any omega. She’s our mate.”
All the blood drains from Brad’s face. To drug a girl is a crime. To drug an unbonded omega is a felony. But to drug an alpha’s fated mate? It’s a death sentence.
“Please,” Brad begs, tears spilling down his cheeks. The overwhelming scent of his fear fills the room. “Please, I’m sorry. I didn’t touch her. I just gave her the drink and she walked away. I swear on my life.”
“Your life isn’t worth a dime to me,” Garrett whispers, pulling Brad closer until they are nose to nose. “But you play lacrosse, right? You need your hands for that.”
Garrett shifts his grip, grabbing Brad’s right hand.
“No! Wait, please, God, no-”
Garrett doesn’t blink. He twists, hard and violently.
The snap of breaking fingers echoes through the empty locker room. Brad unleashes a bloodcurdling scream, collapsing onto the tile.
Logan stands up, looking down at the sobbing, broken mess on the floor with absolute disgust. “You’re going to the registrar’s office on Monday morning. You’re going to withdraw from Briar University. You’re going to pack your bags, and you’re going to go back to whatever miserable town you came from.”
Garrett wipes his hands on his jeans, his expression impassive. “If I ever see your face on this campus again, if I ever hear your name, or if you ever breathe a word of this to anyone … breaking your fingers will look like a warm-up. Do you understand me?”
Brad nods frantically, cradling his mangled hand to his chest, sobbing uncontrollably. “Yes. Yes. I’m leaving. I’m gone.”
“Good,” Garrett says.
He and Logan turn their backs on the lacrosse player, walking out of the locker room without a backward glance. The protective, violent rage inside their alphas finally begins to settle.
Their mate is safe. And the threat is gone.
***
Across campus, Dean is using his legendary charm on a very confused college freshman.
“So, let me get this straight,” Brooke says, leaning against her desk, blowing a massive bubble with her pink gum. The bubble pops. “You’re Dean Di Laurentis. Hockey player. Trust fund baby. Campus legend.”
Dean flashes a blinding, dimpled smile, currently folding a stack of your jeans. “Don’t forget incredibly handsome. It’s an important part of the brand.”
“Right. And my roommate, who arrived exactly twenty-four hours ago and explicitly told me she was a beta, is actually an omega.”
“A very late bloomer, yes.”
“And she is fated to you.”
“Yup.” Dean places the folded jeans neatly into a cardboard box.
“And Garrett Graham. And John Logan. And John Tucker.”
“We are a package deal.”
Brooke stares at him for a long, quiet moment. She looks from Dean, to the empty bed, and back to Dean.
“That is the wildest shit I have ever heard in my entire life,” Brooke declares, shaking her head. “I thought this year was going to be boring. Good for her, honestly. Four hot hockey players? She won the lottery.”
Dean chuckles, walking over to your tiny closet. “We’re the lucky ones, Brooke. Trust me.”
He reaches into the closet and pulls out one of your oversized knit sweaters. The moment the fabric gets close to his face, Dean completely freezes.
The sweater is saturated in your scent. Vanilla and rain. It hits Dean’s senses so hard his eyes flutter shut. His alpha purrs violently in his chest, a deep, possessive rumble that he doesn’t even try to suppress. Without thinking, Dean buries his face in the soft wool, taking a massive, deep inhale.
It smells like safety. It smells like home. It smells like you.
Brooke raises an eyebrow. “Are you going to make out with her laundry, or are you going to pack it?”
Dean snaps his eyes open, clearing his throat, though he doesn’t look the least bit embarrassed. He carefully, almost reverently, folds the sweater. “I’m packing it. I just … the bond is new. Her scent is pretty overwhelming.”
“Clearly,” Brooke snorts. “Do you guys need any help carrying this stuff down? The elevator is still broken.”
“I’ve got it,” Dean says, taping the first box shut. “But do me a favor? Don’t mention the mate thing to anyone yet. The university doesn’t know she presented, and we want to keep her under the radar until her heat hits and we can claim her properly.”
Brooke taps her nose. “My lips are sealed. Just tell her she owes me a coffee when she eventually re-enters society.”
“I’ll buy you a whole Starbucks franchise,” Dean winks, lifting two massive boxes as if they weigh nothing at all. “See you around, Brooke.”
Dean carries the boxes down the three flights of stairs, his mind entirely focused on getting back to the house. The protective urge to guard you is a constant, low-level thrum in his veins. He loads your belongings into the back of his Range Rover, slams the trunk shut, and gets into the driver’s seat.
He takes one last look at the freshman dorms. You are never stepping foot in that building again. You are theirs now.
***
“Do you like spicy food?”
You blink, pulling your gaze away from the massive window looking out into the backyard. Tucker is sitting across from you at the kitchen island, a yellow legal pad and a pen in front of him.
“Um. Yeah. A little bit,” you say.
“Noted,” Tucker murmurs, his neat handwriting flowing across the page. “What about allergies? Any aversions? Anything you absolutely hate?”
You rest your chin on your hand, watching him. For the past hour, while Garrett and Logan were out doing God-knows-what, and Dean was packing your room, Tucker had sat you down and started a full-blown interrogation about your dietary preferences.
“I hate mushrooms,” you say. “And I’m not a big fan of seafood. Unless it’s fried.”
“A girl after my own heart,” Tucker smiles softly. “No mushrooms. No baked fish. Got it. Do you like pasta?”
“Tucker, you don’t have to cook every meal for me,” you say gently. “I know how to make a sandwich. I don’t want to be a burden.”
Tucker stops writing. He sets the pen down and looks up at you. His dark eyes are serious, stripping away the casual, domestic banter.
“You are our mate,” Tucker says, his voice slow and deliberate, making sure you hear every single word. “You are the center of our pack. Feeding you, providing for you, taking care of you … that isn’t a burden, sweetheart. It’s literally what we were biologically designed to do. My alpha wants to build a fortress around you and spend the rest of my life making sure you never lift a finger.”
A blush crawls up your neck, heating your cheeks. You look down at your hands, twisting your fingers together. “I’m just not used to it. My family … when I didn’t present, they sort of just stopped treating me like I needed anything. Because betas are independent. They stopped fussing over me.”
Tucker stands up, walking around the island. He pulls the stool out next to yours and sits down, invading your personal space in the best possible way. He smells like fresh mint and warmth.
He reaches out, his large hands gently covering yours, stopping your nervous fidgeting.
“Your family made a mistake,” Tucker says softly. “They looked at you and saw a biology textbook instead of a person. We see you. Beta, omega, it wouldn’t have mattered. If we had met you yesterday before you presented, the bond still would have snapped. We still would have kept you.”
You look up at him, your eyes a little glossy. “Really?”
“Really,” Tucker promises, bringing your hands up to his mouth and pressing a lingering kiss to your knuckles. “Now. Back to pasta. Carbonara or marinara?”
You let out a wet, genuine laugh. “Carbonara.”
The front door suddenly unlocks, swinging open with a heavy thud. The scent of pine and cedar instantly floods the house, but it’s sharp. Bitter. Spiked with aggression and a metallic tang.
You stiffen slightly on the stool.
Garrett and Logan walk into the kitchen. They look entirely unbothered, but Garrett’s knuckles are bruised and slightly split, and Logan is rubbing a dark smudge of dirt off his jaw.
Tucker takes one breath of the air, his eyes narrowing. “You handle it?”
“Handled,” Garrett says flatly, his eyes immediately locking onto you. The cold, violent edge in his gaze vanishes the second he looks at your face. His shoulders drop. He walks straight toward you.
“Are you okay?” You ask, looking at his bruised hand.
“I’m perfect,” Garrett rumbles. He stops right in front of you, bracketing your knees with his thighs. He leans down and presses his face directly into the crook of your neck, taking a massive breath.
His body shudders against yours. The grounding effect of your vanilla scent works instantly, smoothing out the jagged edges of his feral alpha.
Logan walks over a second later, wrapping his arm around your shoulders from behind and kissing the top of your head. “Missed you,” he mumbles into your hair.
“You were gone for an hour,” you point out, though you lean back against Logan’s chest, your omega practically purring at the physical contact.
“An hour too long,” Logan corrects.
The front door opens again, and Dean strolls in, looking like he just stepped off a GQ magazine cover. “The prodigal son returns! And I brought sweaters! So many sweaters!”
You laugh, the sound bright and clear in the kitchen.
Dean dumps the boxes in the living room and immediately jogs into the kitchen, inserting himself into the cuddle pile. He grabs your face in both hands and squishes your cheeks together. “Did you miss me the most? Be honest.”
“I was too distracted by Tucker to miss you,” you tease, your voice muffled by his hands. “He’s making me carbonara.”
“Betrayal,” Dean gasps, pressing a quick, messy kiss to your forehead before letting you go. “Absolute betrayal in my own home.”
Garrett pulls back from your neck, his eyes warm and golden. “Alright, you animals, go shower. You smell like a locker room. I’m calling a pack meeting in the living room in twenty minutes.”
“Ooh, a pack meeting,” Dean wiggles his eyebrows. “Are we organizing a chore chart? Because I’m not cleaning the bathrooms.”
“We’re watching a movie,” Garrett says. He looks down at you, his thumb tracing your cheekbone. “It’s time for the girl’s education to begin.”
***
An hour later, you are entirely trapped.
The massive, U-shaped sectional in the living room is designed to fit a half-dozen massive hockey players, but currently, it is holding exactly five people, and they are all piled into one corner.
You are sitting in the middle. Garrett is sitting to your left, his arm securely wrapped around your waist, pulling you flush against his side. Logan is on your right, his long legs stretched out over the coffee table, one of his large hands resting possessively on your thigh. Dean is sprawled out across the chaise part of the couch, his head quite literally resting in your lap. And Tucker is sitting on the floor directly in front of you, leaning his back against the couch between your knees.
The lights are off. The TV is playing the opening credits to Miracle.
“I’m just saying,” you argue softly, running your fingers through Dean’s soft blonde hair, entirely on instinct. Dean lets out a soft, pleased sigh, pressing his face closer to your stomach. “I don’t even like hockey.”
Four gasps echo in the dark room.
“Blasphemy,” Logan says, lightly squeezing your thigh. “Absolute blasphemy.”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Garrett mutters, pulling you tighter against him until you are practically sitting in his lap. “You are mated to four hockey players. You are going to learn to love the game, sweetheart.”
“Or at least pretend to love it when we score,” Dean mumbles from your lap.
“Pay attention,” Tucker says, pointing at the screen. “Herb Brooks is about to speak.”
You try to pay attention. You really do. Kurt Russell is on the screen, giving a dramatic speech about the Soviet Union. It seems intense.
But you are incredibly distracted.
The physical affection is relentless. It isn’t sexual; it’s purely instinctual. It’s the grounding, tactile reassurance of a pack claiming their center.
Garrett’s thumb is rubbing slow, methodical circles into your hip bone through the fabric of the oversized sweatpants. His chin is resting on your shoulder, his nose occasionally brushing against your scent gland, taking deep, steadying breaths of your vanilla scent.
Logan hasn’t moved his hand from your thigh, his fingers absently tracing patterns on your skin. Every few minutes, he shifts closer, pressing his shoulder against yours, ensuring there isn’t a millimeter of space between you.
Dean is practically asleep in your lap, his entire body relaxed, completely trusting. Every time you stop playing with his hair, he makes a soft, pathetic whining sound until you start again.
And Tucker, sitting on the floor, has one hand resting casually on your ankle, his thumb stroking the bone.
You are drowning in a sea of alphas. The mingled scents of pine, cedar, mint, and leather are so thick in the air it feels like a heavy, warm blanket.
Your omega is in absolute, euphoric heaven. The stabbing pain in your chest that you had carried for two years — the agonizing belief that you were broken, destined to be alone — is completely gone. It has been erased, rewritten by the four men currently treating you like you are the most precious thing in the universe.
On the screen, the hockey players are doing some grueling drill. “Again!” The coach yells.
“Man, Jensen is going to run us like that on Monday,” Logan groans quietly.
“Let him,” Garrett says, his voice a low rumble against your ear. “We’re going to win the frozen four this year.”
“Cocky,” you whisper, tilting your head back slightly to look at him.
Garrett smirks, his eyes catching the light from the TV. “It’s not cocky if it’s true, baby.”
He leans in and catches your lips in a soft, devastatingly gentle kiss. It’s the first time any of them have kissed you on the mouth. It isn’t demanding or rushed. It’s a slow, sweet promise.
Your breath hitches, your eyes fluttering shut as you melt into his mouth. The kiss tastes like mint toothpaste and intense, unfiltered devotion.
“Hey,” Dean complains softly from your lap, cracking one eye open. “No fair. Share.”
Garrett breaks the kiss, resting his forehead against yours with a soft chuckle. “Patience, Di Laurentis.”
Logan leans over and presses a kiss to your temple, while Tucker squeezes your ankle.
You look at the TV screen. You have absolutely no idea what the plot of this movie is. You couldn’t name a single character.
And you genuinely do not care.
You settle deeper into the couch, surrounded by the crushing, beautiful weight of your pack, and for the first time in your life, you are exactly where you belong.
***
It starts as a persistent, maddening itch beneath your skin.
By Wednesday afternoon, the low-grade ache in your joints from your presentation has faded, replaced by an entirely new, entirely terrifying sensation. Your skin feels too tight. The ambient temperature of the house feels like a sauna, yet you are shivering. Every time the fabric of Logan’s oversized hoodie brushes against your chest, a sharp jolt of electricity shoots straight down to your core.
You are sitting on the edge of the kitchen island, swinging your legs, trying very hard to act normal.
It isn’t working.
“You’re flushed,” Tucker says. He doesn’t look up from the stove, where he is currently searing two massive ribeye steaks, but you know he’s hyper-aware of your every movement. “Drink your water, sweetheart.”
You pick up the glass of ice water and press the condensation against your cheek before taking a sip. “I’m fine. Just a little warm.”
“You smell different,” Logan points out. He’s leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his broad chest. His dark eyes track the way you shift uncomfortably on the stool. “The vanilla … it’s getting sweeter. Heavier.”
“Like sugar glaze,” Dean chimes in, walking into the kitchen. He drops a duffel bag on the floor and instantly closes the distance between you two. He steps between your swinging legs, planting his hands on your thighs. “You smell absolutely edible, baby.”
You let out a soft, involuntary whine as Dean’s large, cool hands squeeze your bare thighs. The friction of his callouses against your skin sends a spike of wet heat directly between your legs. You clamp your thighs together, trapping Dean’s hands, your breath hitching.
“Dean,” you gasp, your voice trembling.
Dean’s eyes darken instantly. His pupils blow wide, swallowing the blue of his irises until they are entirely black. He leans in, burying his face in the crook of your neck. He inhales so deeply his chest expands against yours.
“Pre-heat,” Dean groans, his voice vibrating against your collarbone. “It’s starting.”
Garrett walks down the stairs, catching the tail end of the conversation. The easygoing, relaxed captain from five minutes ago vanishes. His posture goes rigid, his broad shoulders tensing as the heavy, overripe scent of your changing hormones hits his nose.
“Tucker,” Garrett barks, his voice dropping into that terrifying alpha command. “Food. Now. She needs every calorie she can get before the fever actually breaks.”
“Plating it up, G,” Tucker says smoothly, though his own scent of fresh mint is spiking with sharp, protective arousal.
Tucker sets a plate in front of you. It’s a massive portion of sliced steak, roasted potatoes, and a thick slice of buttered bread.
“I’m not hungry,” you protest, your stomach doing nervous flips. You squirm on the stool again. The core of your body feels hollow, empty, and aching in a way that food is absolutely not going to fix.
“You’re eating it anyway,” Garrett says, stepping up right beside Dean. He reaches out and grips the back of your neck. The sheer dominance in his touch makes your spine melt. “Your body is about to run a marathon, baby. You need the energy. Open up.”
Tucker actually holds a piece of steak on a fork to your lips.
You whine, a pathetic, high-pitched sound that makes all four alphas practically vibrate out of their skin, but you open your mouth. The moment the rich, salty meat hits your tongue, your body’s biological need takes over. You chew and swallow, leaning forward for the next bite.
“Good girl,” Logan praises, his voice a dark, rough rumble. He walks over and presses his hand flat against your lower back, his thumb tracing the curve of your spine. “Eat for us.”
They spend the next ten minutes treating you like a delicate, highly combustible bomb. Tucker feeds you every single bite. Dean refuses to move from between your legs, his hands constantly stroking your thighs, mapping the soft skin. Garrett keeps his heavy hand anchored to your neck, his thumb rhythmically pressing against your pulse point. Logan guards your back, a solid wall of heat.
By the time the plate is empty, your internal temperature has skyrocketed. A slick, heavy dampness is pooling in your underwear, completely unbidden. You squeeze your thighs tighter against Dean’s waist, desperate for friction.
“Okay,” Garrett says, his breathing a little ragged. He steps back, physically tearing himself away from you. “Dean, Logan, let her breathe. We need to go chop wood or run drills or something before I lose my mind and take her right here on this kitchen island.”
“She’s not in full heat yet,” Tucker reminds them, his voice tight. “If we seal the bond before her biology is ready, it’ll hurt her. We wait.”
“I know the damn rules, Tuck,” Garrett growls, running a hand through his hair. He looks at you, his chest heaving. “We’re going to the backyard. Ten minutes. Just to cool off. Tucker, get her settled in the living room.”
Garrett, Dean, and Logan practically flee the kitchen, the sliding glass door slamming shut behind them.
You let out a shaky breath, your body slumping forward. Without their hands on you, the hollow ache inside you amplifies tenfold.
“Come on, sweetheart,” Tucker says softly. He hooks his arms under your knees and back, lifting you off the stool effortlessly. He carries you into the living room and gently deposits you onto the massive sectional couch. “I’ll be right back with some Gatorade. Just rest.”
Tucker disappears into the kitchen.
You are alone in the living room. The TV is off. The house is quiet.
Your skin is on fire.
You twist on the couch, pulling your knees to your chest. The throw pillows beneath you feel rough. The blanket draped over the back of the couch smells like detergent. It’s wrong. Everything is wrong.
A primal, overwhelming instinct violently hijacks your brain.
You scramble off the couch, your legs a little wobbly. You stumble into the downstairs hallway, pulling open the door to the laundry room. A massive pile of clean, folded clothes sits on the dryer, but you ignore it. You dive for the woven hamper on the floor.
It’s full of their workout gear. Sweaty, unwashed, intensely scented clothes.
You let out a low, rumbling purr, dropping to your knees. You grab Dean’s grey sweatpants, Logan’s worn-in flannel shirt, Garrett’s heavy practice jersey, and Tucker’s thermal henley. You bundle them into your arms, pressing your face into the fabric. The overwhelming hit of pine, cedar, mint, and leather makes your eyes roll back in your head.
You carry the pile into the living room and dump it onto the sectional.
But it isn’t enough.
You run up the stairs, practically panting. You go into Garrett’s room and strip his massive, heavy duvet right off his bed. You drag it down the stairs, adding it to the pile. You go back up for Dean’s incredibly soft cashmere throw. You take Logan’s favorite heavily-weighted blanket. You grab Tucker’s pillows.
For twenty minutes, you are a woman possessed. You arrange the blankets in a massive, circular crater on the corner of the sectional. You line the edges with the pillows. You weave their unwashed clothing into the center, creating a soft, overwhelmingly scented dip.
When it is finally perfect, you crawl into the very center. You curl into a tight ball, pulling Garrett’s jersey over your head, burying your nose in the collar. The scents wrap around you, suffocating and perfect.
You let out a long, shuddering sigh, your body finally relaxing as a heavy, continuous purr vibrates in your chest. The slickness between your legs intensifies, soaking the crotch of your sweatpants, but you don’t care. You are in your nest. You are safe.
***
The sliding glass door opens.
“I’m just saying, I could definitely take a bear in a fight,” Dean’s voice rings out, followed by the sound of heavy boots on the hardwood.
“You cry when you get a papercut, Di Laurentis,” Logan snorts.
“That’s different, papercuts are an unnatural evil-”
Dean stops walking.
Garrett bumps into his back, letting out a grunt of annoyance. “Keep moving, idiot.”
“Garrett,” Dean whispers, his voice entirely stripped of humor.
Garrett steps around Dean, looking into the living room. Logan comes up behind them. Tucker walks out of the kitchen, holding two blue sports drinks.
All four men freeze.
The living room looks like a tornado hit a bedding store. But right in the center of the massive, meticulously constructed pile of blankets and clothes, you are curled up, wearing Garrett’s practice jersey.
The scent in the room is blinding. The heavy, intoxicating smell of overripe vanilla, petrichor, and a sharp, musky sweetness that screams omega in pre-heat. It is the most beautiful, devastating thing any of them have ever seen.
“She nested,” Logan breathes, the words barely making it past his lips.
Tucker sets the Gatorade bottles on the coffee table. His hands are shaking. “She took our dirty laundry. She specifically sought out our scents.”
Garrett’s jaw is locked so tight a muscle ticks violently in his cheek. The sight of you, buried in his jersey, purring softly in a nest built of their belongings, utterly shatters the last remaining threads of his civilized restraint.
He stalks forward.
You crack an eye open as he approaches. Your inner omega recognizes the alpha instantly. You don’t shrink back. Instead, you stretch out like a cat, your spine arching, exposing your neck.
“Garrett,” you whine, a desperate, needy sound. “Come here. Please.”
Garrett groans, a harsh, guttural sound that tears from his throat. He drops to his knees right at the edge of the nest. He doesn’t cross the boundary. He knows the rules of the instinct.
“Can I come in, baby?” Garrett asks, his voice raw, pleading. “Let me in.”
You reach out, grabbing the collar of his shirt, and tug him forward. “Yes. Pack. Need you.”
Garrett doesn’t hesitate. He crawls over the barrier of blankets and settles right into the center of the nest with you. He hauls you into his lap, crushing you against his chest.
“God, you smell so good,” Garrett mutters, burying his face in your neck. His teeth scrape lightly against your scent gland, not breaking the skin, but mimicking the claiming bite. The sensation sends a violent shiver through your entire body.
Dean, Logan, and Tucker are right behind him.
They pile into the nest, careful not to disturb the structure, entirely surrounding you.
“My turn,” Dean demands softly, sliding up right behind you. He wraps his arms around your waist, pulling your back flush against his chest. He immediately slots one of his thick, muscular thighs directly between your legs.
You gasp out loud as the hard ridge of his quad presses directly against your aching, sensitive core through your sweatpants. You instinctively grind down against him.
“Fuck,” Dean hisses, his hips jerking forward. “You’re so wet, sweetheart. I can feel it through your pants.”
“Dean,” you sob, throwing your head back against his shoulder.
Logan is at your side, pulling your legs across his lap. He doesn’t bother with sweet talk. His hands slide directly under the hem of Garrett’s jersey, his large, rough palms skimming up your bare stomach. Your skin is searing hot to the touch.
Logan’s hands find your breasts, covered only by a thin bralette. He squeezes them with a firm, dominant pressure.
“Logan!” You cry out, your hands flying up to grip his forearms.
“I’ve got you,” Logan rumbles, his thumbs expertly flicking over your peaking nipples through the fabric. “You’re doing so good, baby. Just let it burn.”
You are thrashing in their grip, a tangled mess of limbs, blankets, and pure, unfiltered need. The friction is driving you absolutely insane. You grind harder against Dean’s thigh, chasing an elusive release that your body refuses to grant until the full heat hits.
Tucker appears in your line of sight. He is kneeling over you, his beautiful, calm face flushed with deep red desire. He holds an uncapped bottle of Gatorade.
“Drink,” Tucker orders, his voice entirely stripping away its usual softness. It is a pure, dominant command.
He presses the rim of the bottle to your lips. You part your lips obediently, taking frantic gulps of the cool, sweet liquid. Some of it spills, running down your chin and onto your neck.
Tucker sets the bottle down. He leans in and licks the spilled liquid right off your skin, his tongue dragging a hot, wet path up your throat.
“So sweet,” Tucker murmurs, his lips hovering over yours. “You are being so good for us, Y/N. Such a good omega.”
The praise breaks you.
“Please,” you sob, your hips rolling frantically against Dean. You are begging, though you don’t even know what you’re asking for. “Make it stop. Make it ache less. Please.”
Garrett grabs your chin, forcing you to look at him. His eyes are glowing in the dim light of the living room, completely feral.
“We can’t, baby,” Garrett says, his thumb stroking your lower lip. “If we take you now, we can’t knot you. We can’t mark you. Your body isn’t ready. You have to ride out the fever.”
“I can’t!” You cry, tears of frustration spilling down your cheeks. “It burns!”
“Let me help,” Dean whispers in your ear.
Dean’s hand slides around to the front of your sweatpants. He doesn’t pull them down. He just presses his palm flat over the soaked fabric covering your core, applying a heavy, agonizingly perfect pressure.
You let out a loud, keening scream into Garrett’s chest.
Dean begins to move his hand, rubbing the heel of his palm in slow, agonizing circles over your clit through the heavy cotton.
“That’s it,” Dean praises, his voice a filthy, decadent purr. “Grind into my hand, sweetheart. Take what you need.”
You completely lose your mind. You buck your hips up into his palm, chasing the pressure, sobbing openly.
Logan abandons your breasts, moving his hands to grip your hips, holding you perfectly steady so Dean can find maximum leverage. Logan’s grip is bruising, possessive, keeping you anchored in the storm of your own hormones.
Garrett kisses you, a bruising, open-mouthed invasion that swallows your moans. His tongue sweeps into your mouth, tasting like mint and aggressive alpha perfection. You kiss him back with desperate fervor, your hands tangling in his dark hair, pulling him closer.
The sensory overload is absolute. The scent of the nest, the heavy heat of four massive bodies pinning you down, the agonizing friction from Dean’s hand, Logan’s bruising grip, Garrett’s dominating kiss.
Tucker watches the entire thing, his eyes dark, his breathing ragged. He reaches out and gently strokes your hair, a grounding touch amidst the chaos.
“Almost there,” Tucker whispers, checking the flush of your skin, tracking the biological markers of the approaching heat. “Your temperature is peaking, baby. Just hold on a little longer.”
“Dean,” you gasp against Garrett’s lips. “Faster. Please. Please.”
“Needy little thing,” Dean chuckles darkly, his hand speeding up, the friction turning slick and hot. “You’re going to take all four of us so well. We’re going to absolutely ruin you for anyone else.”
“Ours,” Logan growls, his face buried in your stomach, biting lightly at the soft skin there. “You’re ours.”
The pressure building between your legs reaches a screaming crescendo. It feels like a rubber band pulling tighter and tighter, ready to snap. Your vision whites out. Every muscle in your body locks rigid.
You scream, a pure, wordless sound of absolute surrender, as a violent, full-body orgasm rips through you.
You convulse against them, sobbing, your hips bucking helplessly against Dean’s hand as wave after wave of agonizing pleasure floods your system. Garrett holds you tight against his chest, absorbing the tremors, whispering absolute filth and praise into your ear while you fall apart.
It takes a full two minutes for the spasms to subside.
You go completely boneless, slumping back against Dean’s chest, gasping for air. Your skin is covered in a sheen of sweat. You feel thoroughly wrecked, exhausted, and utterly sated.
But as you lie there, blinking up at the ceiling, you realize something terrifying.
The hollow ache inside your core didn’t go away.
In fact, the orgasm only seemed to clear away the fog of the pre-heat, leaving the true, biological imperative bare and raw.
A sudden, aggressive spike of heat flares from your center, radiating outward like a shockwave. It hits the alphas instantly.
Garrett’s head snaps up. Dean’s breathing stops. Logan’s hands freeze on your hips. Tucker’s eyes go completely black.
The sweet, sugary scent of your pre-heat vanishes.
It is replaced by something darker. Heavier. A scent so potent, so violently intoxicating, it demands absolute, feral submission from any alpha in the vicinity.
Your true heat has dropped.
Garrett looks down at you, his eyes completely gone, replaced by the pure, unadulterated instinct of a dominant alpha whose mate is finally ready to be claimed.
“The fever broke,” Garrett rumbles, a sound that vibrates through the floorboards.
He grabs the hem of the practice jersey you are wearing.
from what we've seen in the show, you can't convince me that jack doesn't live for a good gossip session. and he's so messy with it too. like he does not care who's around, whether they're the victim or just an innocent bystander, he's talking about the latest gossip with you.
you were sitting at your desk, typing up one of your charts, when jack comes rolling in on a chair beside you. "did you hear about the latest girl of robby's?" he asks you, not even bothering to whisper. that catches your attention almost immediately. far more interesting than the information on screen in front of you.
"no, who?"
"do you remember shannon? she's one of the on call psychiatrists here." you nod. "well, apparently, she and robby hooked up last night and he left in the middle of the night. didn't even bother to leave a note. just up and left."
"how do you know all this?"
"because he's my best friend, sweetheart," he says it in that 'duh' like tone. "he told it to me himself. oh and the tension between them when they ran into each other earlier? it was uncomfortable as hell. you should've been there."
you snort, looking back at your charts. "god, i wish. no offense to your best friend, jack, but he's got a terrible track record with women. and she's so nice too! i can't believe he would ever do that to her."
"trust me, i've tried telling him that. but he just won't listen. no matter how many times-" jack's voice gets cut off with a sharp clear of someone's throat. it's almost comical the way you both simultaneously turn around, only to come face to face with gloria.
"are you two working or gossiping?" she asks with a stern look, crossing her arms.
nothing but a squeak comes out of you. jack might be an attending, meaning he's practically invincible to gloria and her punishment. but you were just starting your residency here at ptmc. she could easily write you off and send you away. but the man comes to your rescue without a second thought.
"don't get mad at her, gloria. she was working and i interrupted her. that's on me," jack says smoothly, shooting her his charming smile. it works well enough for her, since she accepts his answer with a soft hum before walking away.
"we'll finish our discussion later, sweetheart," he whispers to you, shooting you a wink.
flash forward a couple months to a year, and you're both dating. over time you had learned that jack was partially deaf due to his time in the army, so he occasionally relied on sign language to communicate. which he obviously taught you. your movements were a little more rusty and slow compared to his, but he was patient whenever you tried to talk to him using your hands. having this silent way of talking made it so much easier to gossip when at work. because now you didn't have to worry about others hearing you.
ellis and shen stand by the charge nurse's station, watching as you two talk by signing accordingly. "are they gossping in... sign language?" shen asks, taking a sip from his seemingly never empty dunkin cup.
"yeah, abbot started teaching it to her shortly after she got here," ellis answers.
"he never taught us sign language after we started working here."
"true, but we didn't start dating or move in with him either."
shen shrugs, taking another sip. "that's fair."
a loud laugh escapes you at something that jack signs, to which a huff of laughter comes from him in return. there's a small smile of admiration on his face, as well.
"i'm kinda jealous," shen speaks up after seeing that display.
"...yeah, me too. maybe she'll teach us so we can all gossip together."
he’s such a nickname abuser. ‘pretty girl’ and ‘sweetheart’ are his go-to, but sometimes he switches to more cheesier terms of endearment to call you in front of other people just to embarrass you—pookie, munchkin, shnookums? yes! and hes loud about it too! this is my official statement that in another universe dean would pair extremely well with a shy, quiet reader. he’d love pulling her out of her comfort zone with his silly antics.
as his girlfriend, you’re entitled to receive random pecks and kisses all the time. i’m talking all the time. if you’re watching a movie together and he’s feeling a little neglected, he’ll grab your arm and kiss the entire length of it, not missing an inch, until you cuddle him. if you’re standing in line for something, he’ll be reading instructions while leaving kisses on your temple and in your hair. if you’re hanging out with friends and you’re on the couch while he’s sitting between your legs, he’ll be kissing your thighs the whole time until you gently kick him to stop.
he finds a random mic and sings you cheesy love songs when you’re having bad days, and him being so bad at it makes you laugh. dean makes it his mission not to stop until you’re laughing your ribs off and feeling better. sometimes it ends with him pulling you in to dance, or just holding you in his arms. those cuddles are your favorite because there’s so much love and safety in them. he’s genuinely the only person who can lighten your mood immediately with his stupid jokes, stupid kisses, and stupid big arms.
he’s a sniffer, and he would die and come back for the scent of your body. he perks up immediately, gorgeous green eyes finding yours the second he smells that coconut and vanilla scent in a packed room. he has a dramatic habit of randomly sniffing all over you and pretending like he’s high off it. it doesn’t matter if you’re alone or with other people. if you’re laying down together or hugging, his nose is immediately buried in your hair.
he cherishes your routines together. morning routines where he lets you shower first while he stays in bed for a couple extra minutes, then he goes after, and you brush your teeth together while he gets dressed and fixes his hair, and you do the same in front of the counter you’ve definitely used for more than just getting ready. eating breakfast together. post-dinner walks where he tangles your hands together. cooking dinner on friday nights—well, you do most of the cooking while he cleans and does basic prep, because if he’s in charge, you’re definitely eating burnt food. and the nightly gossip sessions, both of you with face masks on, leaning on your elbows facing each other. he makes you smile so much with all the locker room gossip your cheeks hurt, and you tell him campus rumors while he lets out theatric gasps.
besides physical touch and quality time, his love language is definitely gift giving. mention one thing one time, and boom—you have it next day or for a special occasion. he never runs out of gift ideas. it ranges from material things to more meaningful ones, like love letters he gets embarrassed about giving you.
to conclude, dean would be an amazing boyfriend. he’d be loyal and fully devoted to you. in his eyes, you would be the girl for him.
I have some very good news. This was written and it's called Fire and Blood by George R.R. Martin. The character that loves, feeds, pampers and cherishes Sheepstealer is a young homeless girl called Nettles.
OH that makes me feel so much better that the canon cherishes sheepstealer. i need to lock in and reads the books. thank you for this info! and yeah they keep deviating from the source material & my heart hurts whenever dragons get hurt😭i won't be able to handle the big fight
SUMMARY A series of one-shots about your time in the Love Island Villa with Garrett.
CONTENT love island au, fem reader, love island relationship dynamics, smut/suggestive content will be marked with a *, one-shot specific, one-shots are loosely in chronological order...
Now I got that feeling...
A New Bombshell Has Entered the Villa
Garrett’s first day in the Villa shakes up the current dynamics, leaving you confused, a little guilty, and marginally better at ping pong
Chatterbox
A Movie Night preview ends in tears, betrayal, and the start of something better
The First Recoupling
It’s finally time for the first recoupling. Except this time, it’s in the hands of the fans
America, Do You Hate Me?
Your and Garrett’s confessionals about each other
Breakfast Smoothies
You’re really bad at multi-tasking and Garrett's love language is acts of service and forced radical acceptance
Nosiest Couple in the Villa
You and Garrett love to gossip about the other Islanders (Garrett doesn’t actually care that much, but don’t save him, he’s exactly where he wants to be)
Nobody but You
Coming soon!
Challenge Mishap
A freak accident during a challenge may not be the worst thing in the world if it means you get all of Garrett’s attention
Sweet Boy
Coming soon!
She’s Just Not That Into You
All it takes is a kissing challenge, a new bombshell, and a white lingerie set, and suddenly Garrett’s an artist
And I Once Saw It Clearly, but It’s Bloodshot
You and Garrett have your first fight
You’re Too Nice to Me When I Tell You Things
In the morning after your fight, Garrett finally opens up to you
Universal Passport
Coming soon!
Casa Blues
The guys get sent to Casa Amor and now have to juggle getting to know the new girls with stopping Garrett from hurling himself into the ocean. Back at the Main Villa, you get into journaling
Casa Blues Part Two: Electric Boogaloo
Production finally releases Garrett from his Casa Amor shackles. The boys return from Casa Amor, but will the girls be standing alone when they return?
Movie Night
Amidst the drama of Movie Night, Garrett makes you cry for an entirely different reason
...you without me will break my heart
EXTRAS
love island!garrett asks
fan tweets ii
MOODBOARDS: garrett
please don't copy, repost, or feed my work into ai, thanks!
below is a list of fics for the found family au series;
✩.* you've corrupted her } garrett graham x fem!reader
in which dean misunderstands a conversation between sabrina and tucker, leading to an entirely unsolicited birds and the bees talk, before later discovering that y/n is far less innocent than he originally believed - much to garrett’s amusement.
✩.* sunset skies } garrett graham x fem!reader
in which allie, y/n, sabrina and grace chase a sunset from the hockey house roof, only to end up stranded while the boys swing wildly between panic, frustration, and overwhelming relief trying to get them down safely.
✩.* to take away the pain
in which nobody realises how much of the group's heart y/n holds until she's the one lying in a hospital bed instead of taking care of everyone else.
✩.* fill in the gaps } dean di laurentis x fem!reader
in which dean is always the one quietly stepping in whenever garrett can’t, filling the gaps with a kind of friendship that feels safe without ever asking for recognition.
✩.* to heal a heart
in which garrett spends a fundraiser being congratulated for everything he's achieved, only to be reminded of the father who missed it all, and the family who never did.
✩.* injury prone
in which a weekend without garrett goes from quiet to chaotic after one badly timed misstep.
✩.* scarred
in which dean learns two very important things. always knock, and some things cannot be unseen.
✩.* chaos at the carnival!
in which everyone brings chaos to the carnival, but garrett stays exactly what he always is for you; steady, soft, and impossible not to love.
✩.* distance between us } garrett graham x fem!reader
in which garrett struggles with the quiet ache of feeling shut out by the person he loves most, as y/n seemingly leans on everyone but him.
✩.* drunk on you } garrett graham x fem!reader
in which y/n is rarely clingy, but tonight she can’t seem to let go of garrett, and he finds himself loving every second of it.
✩.* before he knew } garrett graham x fem!reader
in which the boys unknowingly praise y/n's ex-boyfriend, before garrett reveals he'll soon be spending a day filming ncaa media content with him.
✩.* the night before} garrett graham x fem!reader
in which y/n pulls away from garrett, unable to be intimate with him as the weight of tomorrow becomes impossible to ignore.
✩.* lights, camera, ex?} garrett graham x fem!reader
in which an ncaa promotional shoot pairs two rival captains, your boyfriend and your ex, and the internet reveals the past you never wanted garrett to learn from anyone but you.
✩.* the silence between us} garrett graham x fem!reader
in which the truth finally surfaces, and love isn't enough to stop it from hurting.
✩.* unwelcome visitor} garrett graham x fem!reader
in which the guys come face-to-face with tom at a party, only for your ex to show up drunk outside your dorm hours later.
✩.* stay} garrett graham x fem!reader
in which twenty-four hours of silence finally gives way to honesty.
✩.* final showdown} garrett graham x fem!reader
in which tom finally pushes garrett too far, an old betrayal comes to light, and victory suddenly becomes the least important thing on the ice.
author's note: i was halfway through writing my steve harrington fic that i realized i didn't even finish this request a poor soul sent me weeks ago. i'm so sorry to that pour soul and hope that this satiates your needs!
words: 3.9k+
summary: four times that you and beau are "just friends" and one time you aren't.
warnings: kissing, pining (maybe), oblivious idiots, the whole gang is here, reader wears a nightgown lol, made up people, probably some grammar mistakes, very rushed ending as i needed to get this done lol, if i missed any please let me know.
1. First semester of freshman year
You and Beau first met at freshmen orientation. Put into the same group for some boring activity that you were sure was a waste of time, but Beau made it worthwhile. Cracking jokes, poking fun at the orientation leader for the jokes he was making, and making comments on some of the answers other people would give for the icebreakers. Someone said their favorite was only online, and Beau gave you a knowing look that caused you to laugh out loud, successfully interrupting the person sharing. Your face darkened, and you hid behind your hands. Beau snickered the whole time, a huge smirk on his face.
When you broke for lunch that day, Beau invited you and your friend/upcoming roommate, Maya, to sit with him and his friend, Dean. You agreed, and you met Dean. He immediately tried to charm you, but you just laughed him off. Which he liked, so he decided he liked you. Then he tried to do the same to Maya, who did the same as you. He then decided that he would like to keep both of you. Unfortunately, he did word it that way.
“I don’t think that’s the way you should word it.” Maya teased and the blonde rolled his eyes.
“Oh, please.” Dean starts. “For me to be saying that to the two of you, is an honor.” You looked to Beau for confirmation, who just shook his head no and you snickered quietly behind your water bottle.
After that day, you didn’t expect to see Beau and Dean at all. You figured that freshman year would start, they wouldn’t remember you, or you wouldn’t see them, and all would be alright. Everybody makes friends with people at freshman orientation and never talks to them again. Beau and Dean were that to you and Maya. wrong.
Two weeks into the school year, you and Maya were invited to an after party of one of the football games. Neither of you thought anything of it, and decided to attend. Ten minutes in, while you were talking to a girl who lived on your hall, you had the feeling of eyes being on you. When you turned your head, you noticed that the curly haired brunette standing in the corner with a drink in his hand was Beau. As soon as you turn, his face lights up and he puts a pause on the conversation he’s in. You match his smile, waving at him.
Beau makes it to you in quick fashion, wrapping you up in a hug. “Dude! I was wondering if I would run into you!!” He says as you hug and when you separate you can’t help but giggle up at him.
“I didn’t think we would.” You admitted, shrugging your shoulders.
“Well I’m glad we did! How are you?” The two of you catch up, he pointed out Dean across the room, making out with a girl with bright blue hair and piercings galore. “He told me he hopes there’s some secret piercings.” Beau wiggled his eyebrows in a suggestive manner and you laughed loudly, hitting his shoulder.
“That’s disgusting!” Beau chuckled, taking a sip of his drink. One of the players from the football team came up, patting Beau on the back. You recognized him from one of the Instagram posts, and assumed that he’s older.
“Maxwell! I see you’ve already got yourself a lady friend.” The player, who introduced himself as Kipner, teased the both of you.
“Oh no, she’s just a friend.” You nodded your head, a small smile on your face. Just friends. You liked it that way.
2. Late night diner
Over the course of freshman and the first semester of sophomore year, you and Beau got extremely close. You considered him one of your best friends. Beau considered you his best friend right next to Dean, who was already salty that you were almost as close to Beau as he was.
One night during your second semester of sophomore year, you were studying at the library. It was late, your eyes were starting to mix the words of your textbook together, and the ache forming in your head was something that you were pretty sure even ibuprofen couldn’t fix. Right as you were going to lay your head down and ‘rest’ your eyes, someone's hands landed on the table in front of you. You jumped, ready to tell the person off until you noticed that it was Beau. “Oh, it’s you.” Said man looked down at all of your textbooks and notebooks, worry laced on his face.
“How long have you been here?”
“Long enough that I’m pretty sure I’m seeing two of you right now.” Beau shook his head, starting to tidy all of your things together. “Hey, hey, what are you doing?”
“I’m packing your things. We’re going somewhere.”
“Oh yeah, that doesn’t sound threatening at all.” Beau rolled his eyes, with no ill intent behind it before handing you your bookbag.
“Let’s go.” You looked up at your best friend, who is in a sweatshirt and sweatpants, not gaining much attention from anyone on campus. He must’ve looked at your location. “Come on, I don’t have all night.” It was your turn to roll your eyes as you got up from the table, following Beau as he slung the bookbag over his shoulder. “Wow, it’s like getting a dog to obey.” He knew the shove was coming before it did, and he laughed so hard he almost fell over.
“I swear, Maxwell, I will ruin that precious arm. It will be depleted by the time I’m done with it. And so will your career.”
“Is that a threat or a promise?”
“Both.” Beau laughs again, and you can’t help the smile on your face. The two of you have learned how to take each other's jokes. You’ve always been someone who can poke fun at others and then take it when they poke fun back. So when you met Beau, you were glad to have someone to do that back and forth with.
He leads you to his car, the blue shining underneath the street light. Like a gentleman, he opens the passenger door for you and you shake your head as you get in. He walked around the front, getting in the driver’s seat and taking off, towards wherever he wanted to take you. “Is this the part where you tell me that you’ve been articulating this since we met and you’re gonna dump me on the side of the road?” You ask halfway through, and his nose scrunches in amusement.
“Something like that.” The rest of the ride is filled with comfortable silence, nothing but the breathing patterns of the two of you, and the faint lyrics of a song being played from the radio. Before you knew it, Beau was pulling into a grand old 50s inspired diner, and you shook your head.
“Beau, I do not have any money on me.” You admit as you open his door. Beau smirks, coming around to you and wrapping his arm around your shoulders.
“Good thing I’m paying then, huh?” You shook your head, letting him walk you into the diner. The two of you took up a booth in the back corner, and an older lady with the diner’s themed costume came up to the table. You notice that her nametag reads Ethel.
“Good evening, youngins. What can I get for the two of you?” You glance over the menu, but you already decided what you wanted the second you walked in.
“Could I please get a chocolate milkshake? And do you guys have malt?”
“We sure do, sweetheart.”
“Awesome! Could I add that to it?”
“Of course you can, and for the gentleman?”
“I’ll have the same thing.” You narrow your eyes at him and he does the same to you before turning back to Ethel. “Oh, and can we get a basket of fries as well?” Ethel nods her head before taking the menus and whisking herself away to behind the counter. You lean over the table, keeping your eyes on Beau.
“What’s your move, Maxwell?”
“No move, that sounded good.” He leans in as well, staring into your eyes. It takes a few moments before you lean back into the booth. Conversation starts to flow easily, just like it always does when it’s just the two of you. Beau tells you all about his practice today, and how his coach told him he’s in the running for starting quarterback next season.
“Beau! That’s amazing!!” The exclamation causes you to put your hands out. Beau sheepishly shakes it off.
“Yeah, it’s cool or whatever.”
“Beau, do not do that right now. Stop downplaying it. That’s amazing, I’m so proud of you.” Your words are followed with a bout of silence. Beau doesn’t really know what to say. The two of you have expressed emotions such as that before, but never really out loud. Beau opens his mouth to say something, but it’s interrupted by Ethel putting your milkshakes and the basket of fries on the table.
“Here you go, sweethearts.” There’s a huge smile on her face. “I’m sorry if I’m overstepping, but you two remind me of my husband and myself when we were your age. Such a beautiful young couple.”
“Oh- we’re not-”
“He’s not-” Ethel just gives the two of you a knowing look, letting out a hum and not letting either of you finish your sentences and walking away. You and Beau both share a look with each other before both of you start laughing, shaking your heads.
3. Hockey House Hangout
The third time it happened, it was the beginning of Junior year. Beau was invited to the hockey house for a hangout, and you were having a movie night with friends in your dorm. Technically, the two of you weren’t together at all that night. But it doesn’t mean that the two of you weren’t together through your phones.
Beau sat on the couch of the hockey house, absentmindedly looking down at his phone every ten seconds to see if you replied to his text. NHL was playing through the screen, Logan and Tucker currently facing off at each other in a seemingly really important game. Well, important in that Beau was pretty sure there was some money on the line. While he’s listening to Dean talk his most recent hook up, Beau feels his phone buzz against his thigh. Immediately, he picks it up to see your message.
you: i’m pretty sure that was the worst class i have ever sat in.
Beau lets out a snicker. You were talking about a lecture that the two of you shared earlier in the day. It’s your weekly Friday lecture, and it’s around an hour and a half, but today, the professor only talked about his wife leaving him the whole time. He picked on students and asked them why they thought she left him. You got picked on. You didn’t know what to say so you said, ‘maybe she’s just not in love anymore’. Fortunately, the person before you suggested that your professor cheated, so he didn’t really care about what you said and moved on to the next person.
As Beau is thinking about it, his phone buzzes again from another message.
you: how in the world am i supposed to know why his wife left him, beau?!?!
you: i mean, if my husband interrogated me like how he did our whole class today i would probably leave him too.
Beau’s laugh is louder now, and it causes Dean to look over from his previous focused attention on the tv screen. “What are you laughing at?”
“Nothing.” Beau answers, shaking his head and replying to your text.
Beau: i thought you were gonna pass out.
Beau: you should’ve seen your face, it was hilarious.
“You’re texting her aren’t you?” Beau looks up at that, confused by what Dean is saying.
“Texting who?”
“You know who.” Dean says accusingly. “y/n. It’s all you do all day. You text her, hang out with her, or talk about her. You’re obsessed with her, dude.”
“That’s not even remotely true, Dean. We’re just friends.”
“‘Just friends’ my asshole, Maxwell. Just wait, man. You’ll see what I’m talking about.”
Meanwhile, on campus in your dorm, you’re currently watching Clueless with some of your friends when you read Beau’s texts. You roll your eyes with a smile on your face as you heart one of the messages and text him back.
you: i really wish he would’ve called on you. i can only imagine what you would’ve said.
beau: i would’ve told him that his voice probably put her to sleep during their intimate time.
Unfortunately, you let out a loud laugh at the text, apologizing when your friends look at you.
you: that’s such a horrible way to put that, maxwell. Please don’t ever say that again.
Before you can see how he responds, Maya snatches your phone from you. “Hey!” You reach out towards your phone before Maya sneaks it behind her back. “Give it back!”
“No! It’s girl’s night and you’re texting your boyfriend!” The scoff that leaves your lips is out of your control.
“He’s not my boyfriend and you know that, Maya. We’re-”
“Just friends, yeah, yeah, I know. When are the two of you gonna quit the charades and get together already? It’s really annoying watching the two of you pine after each other.” A chorus of agreements are heard throughout your room and you let another scoff leave your lips.
“You guys don’t know what you’re talking about.” You cross your arms, focus going back onto the movie.
4. Hurricanes Fundraiser
By the first semester of senior year, the two of you could barely leave without being accused as a couple. At first, you guys thought it was hilarious. But after the first couple of times, it got annoying. It unfortunately forces you to think about a life where Beau is your boyfriend, where you kiss and he holds you close, and shows you off around campus, and all of the things boyfriends and girlfriends are supposed to do together.
You couldn’t get the thought out of your head.
Beau was the same. He sits in the booth at Malone’s watching as you dance around with Maya near where the band is playing. The two of you arrived together, but you immediately left him to scout out Maya and your friends, all of whom you are surrounded by on the dance floor, hands in the air, hips bumping with others, and your hair all over the place. Beau can’t help it, he admires you from afar. Another person asked if you two were dating the other day, and both of you hesitated. Eventually, Beau was the one to correct them, but he could see the longing look in your eye. Except, he didn’t know how to say anything. Your friendship with Beau has been an anchor in his life since you guys first met, and he doesn’t know what he’ll do if you don’t feel the same and the friendship is ruined.
A familiar tune plays throughout the diner, and Beau watches as your face lights up, searching around the room. Before he knows it, you’re running towards him with a huge smile on your face. “Beau! It’s our song!!” You exclaim, reaching for his hands. Beau lets you take him to the dance floor, the lyrics of Let’s Hear it For the Boy by Deniece Williams.
“Jealousy, turning saints into the sea, swimming through sick lullabies, choking on your alibis, but it’s just the price I pay, destiny is calling me, open up my eager eyesssssss, ‘cause I’m Mr. Brightside.” You and Beau sing along, jumping around and dancing together. He spins you around, and you place your hands around his neck, swinging back and forth. Beau follows your lead, swaying the both of you around the dance floor.
“I didn’t know this would turn into my senior prom.” You laugh, throwing your head back.
“Please, this is much better.” You assure him, still dancing along to the song. For the rest of the song, and the one afterwards, Beau stays and dances with you. Twirling you around, letting you put your arms around his neck, setting your hands on his shoulders, his hands on your hips, moving up to the middle of your back to balance you every once in a while. He could get lost in this feeling.
“I think I’m gonna go get a drink, do you want anything?” you ask over the music. Beau shakes his head, letting you leave to go to the bar while he finds his way back to the booth.
One of the freshmen on the football team come up to him, also looking in your direction. “Are you dating her?” the kid, Mark, asks. Beau shakes his head.
“No. We’re just friends.”
“Nice, I might go make a move then.” The words don’t even process in Beau’s head before Mark is making his way over the bar where you’re standing. You notice he’s there after a few seconds, and Beau watches as the two of you make conversation. Mark says something that makes you laugh and shake your head, but your eyes glance over to Beau, who quickly turns his head away from you, hoping that he didn’t get caught.
It doesn’t take long for you to appear at the booth, squeezing in next to beau. “Did you tell that kid I was single?”
“He asked if we were dating.” Beau answers, truthfully.
“Oh my gosh, that was so embarrassing. He totally thought I was someone else. Started asking me about our class we had together, and I had to tell him I had no clue who he was.” You answer, putting your head in your hands. “I feel so bad.” Beau chuckles, wrapping his arm around your shoulders.
“It’s okay, he needs the ego check. He’s been pretty cocky at practice lately.” You smile, taking a sip of your drink, not noticing the breath of relief Beau had just let out.
+0 the confession
It was late at night. You were in your dorm watching a movie by yourself. Maya had decided to visit home for the weekend, and most of your friends wanted to go out and do things while you wanted to stay home and do nothing.
You weren’t expecting anyone to come around, let alone, knock on your door. Everyone you know who would show up around this time would just waltz themselves in. You silently hope that it’s not an intruder wanting to kidnap you or something like that. Slowly, you make your way to the door, looking through the peephole to see a nervous Beau Maxwell, in a Briar Football t-shirt and grey sweatpants. You look down at yourself, your flowy nightgown a contrast to his everyday clothes. Opening the door a crack, you poke only your head out. “Hey, what are you doing here?” Beau looks up at your voice, a small smile on his face.
“Hey, can we- uh, I need to talk to you.” It looks serious, so you open the door fully and let him in, shutting the door behind you as he starts to pace in your sitting room area.
“Beau-”
“I need to talk, and this is nothing against you, but I can’t be interrupted or I’ll forget everything and I’m already nervous as it is.” You furrow your brows, but nod, encouraging him to go on. “I’ve been in love with you for the past year, y/n. And not like, ‘oh, she’s kinda cute’ type of way but in ‘oh my gosh I’m desperately in love with her and everything she does’ type of way.” The words shock you, your face now softening. “And I needed to tell you because lately it’s been getting too much and I couldn’t go one more second without telling you. I was laying in my bed and before I knew it, I was driving here to tell you and I was at your door, and I just wanted to be truthful with you because I’m sick of telling people that we’re just friends when that’s not what I want.” You let out a small gasp at his words. “I want to be more than that. I want to be your boyfriend.” A bashful smile makes its way to your face. “If you want that, of course.” Walking up to Beau, you wrap your arms around his neck.
“I want that.” Beau smiles before leaning down and capturing your lips in his, savoring this moment that he’s been thinking about for over a year. His hands make their way to your waist, pulling you closer to him and your hands thread into his curls, absentmindedly twirling the curls in between your fingers. He held you close, you held him close and you couldn’t help but think that this is all you want.
When you separate, the two of you are both out of breath, and you place your forehead against his. “For the record,” You start, causing his eyes to flit up to yours. “I’m in love with you too.” The smile on his face could light up a whole room, and he leans back down to capture your lips into another kiss.
This time when you break apart, it’s his turn to talk. “I like this nightgown.” You hit his shoulder, causing him to laugh.
+ 1
It was a party, or rather, a simple hangout. The hockey house was known for their parties, but it was also known for its inner circle hangouts, only girlfriends and close friends invited. Beau was invited by Dean, and you were invited by Beau, so you rightfully earned your spot on the corner of the couch next to Hannah as she shares about her Christmas break. You’re half listening to what she’s saying and half watching Beau from across the room. He’s currently in the kitchen with some of the guys, all of them drinking beers.
Right as you’re about to look away, Beau looks towards you and you make eye contact. Both of you smile, and he waves at you. You wave back, before going back to your conversation with Hannah. She didn’t notice that you weren’t actually paying attention. You were thinking about Beau, and how the two of you were dating. And how you were treated so well. And how you were probably in love with him. But he didn’t need to know that yet.
It’s a few minutes of Hannah talking with barely an audience before she notices that you are in fact not paying attention. And are in fact stealing glances and longing looks towards Beau in the kitchen. A smirk plays on his face. “Just friends my ass.” She teases and you roll your eyes, but don’t defend yourself. Usually, you would jump to assure Hannah that you two were in fact just friends and she was jumping to conclusions. Her gasp is heard all throughout the room and your eyes widen in panic. “You’re not defending yourself!” Her finger points accusingly towards you, before then pointing to Beau. “You!” His hands shoot up in an innocent look. “You two are dating!!” You and Beau look at each other with small smiles on your faces.
Beau is the first to break the silence. “Yeah, I’m her boyfriend.” Your smile widens.
“I’m his girlfriend.” You shrug, playing it cool, but all of your friends are anything but cool, hooping and hollering at the idea of the two of you dating each other. Dean is hyping Beau up while Hannah is shaking your shoulders. Meanwhile, you and Beau keep your eyes on each other.
thank you @pixopix for these lovely dividers, they are SO cute!!
husband!dean with the same high sex drive he’s had since college but having to tone it down because he has kids running around everywhere
DANGEROUSLY IN LOVE
fluff / smutty | not proof read lol | i'm so sorry this short & shit, written this at 3am 😭 | I NEED THIS WITH HIM, I NEED THIS WITH HIM, I NEED THIS WITH HIM, I NEED THIS WITH HIM | camellinia's pin
i can imagine… dean has been even more unbelievable after having kids with a sex drive like his. he does attempt to feel you up at given moment when he can.
majority of nights and days consist of, lazily humping each other in the middle of the night, dean feeling you up from behind when you're cooking in the kitchen, locking the bedroom doors at night to dean frantically dropping off the kids at hannah's and garrett's door with a note because they're free all week to babysit so you guys can...
you do have an inside joke with how much hornier he's been since the kids, you genuinely thought he was ovulating as some point...
but it became hell, whenever it was date night or you simply got ready for the day. slipping on the dress? he's slooooowly slipping it off, eating dinner with him? his mind is in the gutter, walking in front of him? he wants to bend you over so badly.
there's definitely been multiple times where he's told the kids off to not come into the room or leave you guys alone, but you're always swatting him with, "dean, pull yourself together!" while you laughed at him!
Jack Abbott x Reader: Jack forgets his keys and asks you to drop them off during a busy shift. Dana breaks several hospital rules in order for you to cover for a very special patient….
(OR Jack forgets his keys, and when you go to deliver them, Dana asks you to babysit Baby Jane Doe)
Romance, Husband and Wife Abbott, broody Jack and Reader, mentions of being unable to have kids, flirty, sarcasm, fluff
You cleared away the dishes from dinner despite Jack’s insistence on doing it. You quickly shut down his argument with the fact that if he kept pestering you over cleaning up instead of him doing it, then he was going to make himself late for his night shift (and would subsequently have to deal with a pissed off Robby and Dana).
Jack gave in, grabbed his coat, rucksack, lunch bag which you had packed with snacks and leftovers for his break, gave you a long lingering kiss, and went out the front door.
The man had only been gone about half an hour before his name showed up on your phone.
Forgot my keys, work is chaos, don’t have time to come back home, can you drop them off please baby - J
Sure enough, you turned around from your seat on the couch and saw up on the dining table Jack’s keys. Sighing and shaking your head, you got up, retrieved the keys and replied back.
You’re making breakfast tomorrow morning to apologize x
--
You parked up a block or so away from the hospital and made your way over to the entrance to the emergency room. Before even stepping foot inside the building, you could hear the noise and busy commotion coming from within.
The waiting room was jam-packed with people, and you did your best to not step on any toes as you sheepishly made your way over to the reception, trying to avoid scathing glares from waiting patients who -to them- you were seemingly cutting ahead.
“Hey hon, looking for Jack?” Lupe said from her chair beyond the plate of glass as you got close and waved a ‘hey Lupe’ at her.
“Yeah, idiot forgot his keys.” You answered, rolling your eyes at the ordeal. “Would you give them to him?”
“Oh sure thing hon, just-“
“Lupe, in here, I need you! Chart system has gone wacko and I need someone to watch over our little guest in the visitor’s room.” Dana suddenly exclaimed as she swung around the doorway behind Lupe, waving for her to follow.
“Dana I can’t, we’re swamped out here tonight!” Lupe protested, gesturing to the masses sitting, standing and hunched, all complaining in the waiting room beyond the reception desk.
“Just ten minutes, please, I got Robby on a knife edge, hand over to night shift has been stalled because of the charting fuck up, McKay is baby-sitting Santos and Mohan, and I can’t find Ellis or Diaz anywhere.” Dana huffed as she finally came back up for air.
“I can’t, I’m still waiting for cover so I can go on my break that should have happened thirty minutes ago.” Lupe said as she motioned as politely as she could for you to move to the side to get at the patient waiting behind you.
“Oh, sorry” You meekly smiled at the old man glowering at you for standing in his way.
“Jesus Christ I’m gonna pass out and it’s only eight thirty.” Dana remarked as she rolled her eyes and looked around behind her for a free body.
“Jack wasn’t kidding when he said it was chaos in here.” You nodded as you took in the bustling atmosphere of the waiting room. “Listen, I know you guys are swamped here, but can someone just take Jack’s keys and I’ll get outta your hair?”
Dana looked at you, then did a double take, eyeing Jack’s keys, then you.
“Actually…that’s perfect.” Dana said, looking right at you, as if a lightbulb had just switched on in her head.
“What?” You asked, looking from Dana to an equally confused Lupe who was juggling the old man’s paperwork.
“You’re perfect hon. Oh dear god you are perfect! Hot damn! Wait there!” Dana suddenly exclaimed with a loud singular clap before she sprinted back out of the reception office.
You and Lupe exchanged looks, but before either of you could question what had just happened, Dana practically burst through the double doors to the waiting room and made a b-line for you.
“Come on come on, I need you my little angel.” Dana quickly said as she grabbed your hand and practically hauled you through the double doors.
“D-Dana what are you doing?” You frowned as Dana continued to lead you through the busy ER.
Immediately you were hit with the familiar smell that came off Jack after shifts; the sterile, clean hospital smell that he always insisted on showering off before getting close to you, and one that you recognised when doing his laundry. There was also the slightly not so pleasant, yet faint, coppery smell of blood and body in the air, attributed to several patients laying out on beds with particularly grizzly injuries.
Don’t look
Don’t look
Don’t look
“D-Dana I…Dana I can’t be in here.” You said, averting your eyes to look down at Dana’s trainers as she continued to lead you through the chaos of patients being moved around, doctors shouting and using language that was lost on you, machines beeping and patients groaning and crying out in discomfort.
Don’t look you’ll puke
Don’t look you’ll puke
Don’t look you’ll puke
“For the next ten minutes you are.” Dana corrected over her shoulder to you as she marched you through the ER.
Christ Jack how the hell do you do this? You thought as you attempted to keep up with Dana, eagerly pulling at you to follow her.
“I need you to do something important for me.” Dana said, ignoring your paling demeanour. “I’ll cut to the chase; we got an unattended baby in the visitor’s room that needs just ten minutes of supervision. Just ten, then one of the junior doctors will take over once I get the charting system straightened out.”
“A baby?” You winced. “Dana no, no – I’ve already broken maybe ten rules just by coming in here! I’m not a doctor or staff! I can’t be left alone with a baby! I just stopped by to give Jack his keys!” You exclaimed frantically.
“And you can give them to him! I’ll go tell him you’re here, and whilst you wait, you can keep an eye on Baby Jane Doe.” Dana reasoned as she pushed you towards the visitor’s room.
“Baby Jane who?” You frowned in confusion.
“Baby Jane Doe; got no parents or guardians, left unattended – Jane Doe.” Dana briefly clarified. “Look, we’re jammed in here, Robby is on the war path, I got staff trying to figure out a charting system that’s crappin it’s pants right now. I got day staff who are chomping at my hand to be relieved so night shift can take over.” Dana halted and rubbed her forehead in exhaustion.
“I need all hands-on deck, and whilst I’m usually not in the habit of trusting non-medical staff, particularly with this sort of thing - I know you and I know you will be fine for ten little minutes whilst I quickly iron out this god forsaken chart system.”
You and Dana exchanged looks, and immediately you felt your resolve give way to her stressed demeanour. With a heavy sigh, you shook your head. “Fine. Ten minutes.” You gave in and allowed Dana to smile thankfully at you. “But if you get fired for this, you only have yourself to blame.” You muttered, earning you a tired chuckle from Dana.
“Thank you honey, I’ll buy you a round next time we all go out.” Dana exhaled deeply in relief before she reached for the door handle to the visitor’s room.
It was dim inside, not entirely dark, but just enough to not disturb the little bundle in the corner of the room. As Dana went over to look into the little cot, you shrugged off your jacket and draped it over one of the vacant chairs.
“Sound asleep.” Dana whispered, trying to reassure you.
“Let’s hope she stays that way.” You mumbled pessimistically, but smiled at Dana nonetheless. This wasn’t her fault, not really, and to be honest if Dana truly needed help, you would be more than happy to give it.
“M’sorry for asking this of you, but my hands are tied.” Dana apologized. “When I see Jack, I’ll tell him to swing in.” Dana said as she walked back over to you.
“And tell him he’s lucky to have me.” You grumbled quietly.
“We’re all lucky to have you.” Dana said with a smirk. “Ten minutes. There’s formula on the countertop.” She gestured beside the cot with a wink before ducking out of the room, a brief influx of noise from the busy outside ER filled the room before it went back into silence.
You turned your attention back to the little cot, and slowly approached, curious to peer inside and take a look at all the fuss.
A tiny, sleepy, pink face peered out from the blankets, swaddled up tight inside, the baby’s small rosy lips parted as she snoozed soundly. Your features softened at the sight of her, a complete polar opposite of calm serenity compared to the manic chaos that lay only a few feet outside the visitor’s room.
Several moments passed by, relatively undisturbed as you paced slowly around the room, mindful to keep your steps light and slow. Eventually you settled into the vacant armchair adjacent to the cot, and rested for a moment or two.
That was until you heard a small grumble of discomfort coming from the cot. You got up from your chair and saw the baby’s face beginning to turn and screw up with unease. At the sound of her first whine, you instinctively reached down into the cot to retrieve the baby.
“Hey…hey little lady.” You whispered as you carefully scooped up the unhappy little one. “It’s alright, it’s all okay.” You hummed as you adjusted the baby in your arms to properly cradle her.
You didn’t have much in the way of experience with children, other than the odd cousin, nieces and nephews, but you knew what would work best to bring some sort of relief to the upset bundle in your arms. The baby squeaked out her crocodile tears, and you continued to coo and rub at her little back, patting at her.
“Shhh…shhh…it’s okay…I’m here.” You whispered, bouncing a little at the knees to lull the baby back down into a sense of comfort from her disturbed sleep. “Just ten minutes…and you’ll be in good hands again.” You muttered as you looked over the little human curling up into you.
Ten minutes
Just ten minutes
--
(thirty minutes later)
“That should be fixed.” Mel said with a chipper tone with Jack looming over her shoulder.
“Thank christ for that.” Jack grumbled with relief. “Alright everybody listen up, charting system is back online and ironed out! Make sure you have all your patients and keep em organised. Day shift can finally hand over, thank you for your patience. If I have to do this again, I will quit on the spot.” he threatened and sighed as his focus turned to the computer in front of him.
“Hey, did Dana get someone to watch over the baby in the visitor’s room?” Mohan asked curiously as she retrieved her charts from the desk. “There’s still nothing up on the board…surely Dana wouldn’t have left a baby unattended?”
Jack frowned and turned to look up at the charting board which was now back in order, where sure enough there was the room number and patient name, but no attending. A small wick of panic began inside of Jack, and he exchanged a brief look between Mohan to where Dana was now helping Robby and Ellis with another patient.
“Dana!” Jack shouted over. “Any attending for Baby Jane Doe?” he asked with his hands out to the sides in a questioning manner.
Immediately, he saw a look of realisation dawning on Dana, as if she had forgotten something and was now figuring it out. Jack didn’t wait for Dana to explain what from across the room, instead he quickly left the desk area and marched over to the visitor’s room, whereupon entering he took two steps before he froze. His eyes widened, head turned a fraction as he saw you, sitting with the baby.
“Close the door.” You quietly hissed, frowning at the sudden intrusion.
Jack did as told, and carefully closed over the door to the room before slowly approaching you. The baby was on the cusp of sleeping, her tiny eyes lulling closed every once in a while.
“I didn’t know you worked here.” Jack whispered as he lifted a seat over to sit down in front of you. “You take up a part time shift in the maternity ward without tellin me?” He smirked wryly.
“I expect my wage by the end of the day.” You replied with a quirked brow. “Dana roped me into this. She also promised it would only be ten minutes…that was over half an hour ago.”
“Oh baby…oh sweetheart, I am so sorry.” Jack shook his head, planting his hands on either-side of your knees and bowing his head a little in shame “I didn’t mean for you to get tossed into all this. Next time I’ll duct tape my stupid keys to my chin” Jack added, earning him a bitter chuckle from you which made him smile through the embarrassment.
“S’not so bad. Rather be in here with this one than out there.” You said, nodding towards the door and the chaos out-with it. “I dunno how you manage it, I nearly puked and passed out when Dana hauled me in.” You shook your head in disbelief.
“You get used to it” Jack shrugged. He couldn’t help but feel his heart squeeze at the way your kept your eyes trained on the baby, how delicately you fixed her blankets and little sleep cap.
“Seems you’ve made a friend.” Jack mused as he looked down at the baby, his rough index finger softly ghosting across the little girl’s chin.
That was when you caught it. That particular expression Jack only used for puppies and nieces and nephews. You knew it all too well, and how dangerous it was.
“Don’t.” You quietly yet firmly stated.
“What?” Jack said, looking up at you innocently.
“You’re getting broody.” You warned.
“No I’m not.” Jack argued. “I do not get broody.”
“Yes you do, and yes you are. I know you are, because I can already feel myself getting broody and it’s only been half an hour with her in my arms.” You reasoned. “I dread to think how you feel, you’re a softy when it comes to kids. New borns especially.” You remarked with a quirked brow.
“Am not.” Jack said, his husky voice rousing the baby a little, freezing both yourself and Jack as you waited for her to settle again. “I am not.” Jack said, light and practically wordless as not to upset the baby in your arms.
You sighed and kept a watchful gaze over the little one, your thumb briefly brushing against her tiny forehead and sparse hairs. Jack hated to admit it, but you were right; it was hard for him to not love the idea of you and him with a baby, and the current scenario was only fuelling the matter further. How gentle and tenderly you looked, how his imagination ran away with the image of you loving a baby together and raising it together.
“Where will she go?” You asked, breaking Jack’s train of thought.
“Well, usually after she gets a few urine and blood tests done, and everything comes back in the clear, she’ll be taken in by a foster care program organized by the hospital .” Jack explained, reaching to tuck the baby up a little more into her pink blanket.
“And then what?” You asked. “You guys…just let her go?” You sighed, poorly trying to hide your sad tone.
“Pretty much. Once all the tests are done, we’re no longer required.” Jack nodded, his tender hazel eyes moving from the baby up to you.
“Oh.” You simply said, though Jack could already tell it was weighing heavy on your heart.
“Hey, she’ll be fine.” Jack reassured, his hands reaching out to the sides of your legs and patting you gently. “She’s young, cute, she’ll be snapped up and looked after.”
“Yeah…yeah she will.” You nodded, fending off the stinging feeling of tears as they threatened to gather.
Jack bit his lower lip, contemplating the thought in his head and sighing deeply.
“She is…also available for kinship adoption. Doctors and nurses are eligible.” Jack threw out, his heart picking up a little as he looked from the baby and at you. “We could-“
“No.” You said softly, shaking your head. “I appreciate what you’re doing Jack, but no. M’just…just emotional. Babys do that…puppies too.” You added, much to Jack’s amusement. “Besides…at our age…taking on a newborn?.” You chuckled bitterly. “Unwise.”
“You make us sound wrinkly and senile.” Jack huffed a smile at you.
“You know what I mean” You shook your head and looked back down at the baby. “She needs a young couple, solid and ready, not two fortysomethings taking her in on a whim just because they got misty eyed.”
Jack looked at you and the way your face remained soft with a hint of a smile, all the while watching over the little girl. He looked past your features and to your temple where only a few months ago you had announced the first few gray hairs beginning to crop up at the roots of your scalp. It was a hard truth, but it stood regardless that you and Jack had found one another at an age where certain things just weren’t viable anymore, children namely. That ship had sailed, and both of you were simply content in being aunt and uncle to your family members.
“For what it’s worth, I think you’d be a kick ass Mom.” Jack shrugged.
“You’d be a nightmare as a Dad.” You quirked a brow.
“I beg your pardon?” Jack said with mock offence.
“And as a girl Dad? Forget it, you’d have her locked away until she was forty.” You pressed with a smirk.
“More like fifty.” Jack shrugged, unable to hide his grin as you lightly chuckled at his antics.
Jack continued to look you over. “Hey, look at me.” He said.
You did so, admiring Jack as he angled himself to lean forward over the baby and kiss you, his hand cupping your cheek and brushing his thumb from side to side against your skin.
“I love you.” You said, peppering your mouth with little kisses. “I’d be lost without you. Besides, we wouldn’t have time to look after a baby with how much you spend saving my ass.”
“At the very least you’d be without your keys.” You playfully whispered, kissing Jack once more, as you managed to fish out his keys from your jean pocket and hand them over to him.
“Completely and utterly lost.” Jack agreed with a smirk as he took the keys. “Lemme find someone to take over so you can finally get out of this place.” He said as he turned around and walked to the door.
“Take your time. I’m in no rush over here.” You said as you looked back down at the baby.
Quite the picture…Jack took in the scene before him one last time.
"Now who's super broody." Jack muttered playfully as he opened the door.
"Remember you're making breakfast." You said snidely, trying to maintain a quiet enough tone to not disturb the baby.
"I'll see you in the morning." Jack nodded, kissed at you and closed over the door to not let any further noise in as he set out to look for someone to take over babysitting duties for you.
*HUSBAND MATERIAL: a harry castillo x reader story.
Three times Harry tried to propose, and the one time he finally did it.
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warnings: mdni, established relationship, reader is afab and goes by she/her, vomiting, allergic reactions, unspecified age gap (harry is late 40s, reader's age is not mentioned apart from being younger), eating/descriptions of food, 3 + 1 trope, wealth gap, alcohol consumption, harry's family being kinda shitty, hospital visits, matching tattoos, no use of y/n, hopefully this makes yall giggle, pure fluff.
word count: 4.4k.
fox says: hi friends, thank you for reading! no smut on this one, sorry! i've never written for harry before so i'm sorry if this feels a little ooc. the picture above is just for aesthetics (i'm so in love with this dress its no joke) and there is no physical description of reader. as always, please let me know how we feel!
also available on archiveofourown.
one: the oysters.
Harry knew he wanted to marry you the day the two of you met. He didn’t know he was falling in love back then, all he knew was that he wanted you more than he’d ever wanted Lucy or any other woman. With her, it had been a pragmatic decision: He needed a wife, she wanted the money— Lucy was beautiful, poised, and would blend in well with his lifestyle. You are the opposite. You’re loud, and you snort when you laugh, and you don’t smile in that vacant, demure way most socialites do. You have a job in which you make no money, but you stay there because you love it so much; you live your life to the fullest, always pushing uptight Harry to his limits, always testing and challenging him. Harry wants to marry you because he wants you. Not because of his image, not because he’s afraid to die alone or because his mother keeps nagging him about heirs but because he simply cannot imagine a single day in which he doesn’t wake up to your messy hair and frowny face.
He decides on a different approach than the one he had with Lucy; he doesn’t take you on a grand vacation but rather a lavish afternoon on a yacht he borrowed from a friend — he mentioned buying one once, and you made so much fun of him that he gave up on it —, with a seventeen course tasting menu that is a trip through your relationship: Bite sized meals from every big step of your relationship, from the first night you’ve slept together, from your first date, from a memorable night in Greece with a kleftiko so good it brought tears to your eyes.
Things go south on the fifth course, when you’re sharing a tray of oysters and caviar canapés that are a memento from a trip to Australia— The two of you had spent just the weekend there, because Harry’s company had a crisis that meant flying back home before the trip was over, but Harry had spent so much time between your legs as an apology that you’d squirted all over his face.
He’d gotten a lung infection from breathing it in that landed him in the hospital for three weeks, but it was still one of the best nights of his entire life.
“God, I love oysters.” You say, a little giggly from the champagne, leaning into his side. “Reminds me of that night in Almonta.”
Harry hums, pretending that night isn’t the sole reason for the platter of oysters in front of you.
“I remember that. Best meal of my life.” He gives you a small, toothy grin when you tilt your head back to look at him. “The oysters were alright, too.”
You cackle, shoulder bumping against his as you stab the shellfish with your fork, carefully unsticking it from its casing before slurping into your mouth; butter drips down your fingers and Harry can’t look away, picturing what they would look like with the diamond ring he has in his pocket.
“Yeah, the tingling isn’t all that fun, though.” You say, casually, wiping your hands clean.
Harry blinks.
“The what?”
“The tingling?” Your statement sounds more like a question, and you frown at him. Something must show on his face because you chuckle, uncomfortable. “You know, the way oysters make your mouth a little numb?”
“Honey, no—” Harry shook his head, pushing the platter away. “That’s— That’s an allergic reaction. How many of those did you eat? Are you breathing okay?”
You frown, looking at the nearly empty platter before shrugging sheepishly. “Uh— More than in Almonta. By a lot. I feel fine, just the tingly mouth and uh— Maybe a little nauseous?”
Harry jumps from his seat, telling you to stay still before he rushes towards the wheelhouse. They don’t have any epipens on board, which seems like a terrible oversight, but the captain immediately starts barking orders, getting the small crew onto some sort of emergency protocol and promising they’ll get the yacht back to shore as quickly as possible.
You’re violently retching in the suite’s bathroom by the time Harry finds you; your skin clammy and cold. He kneels by your side, holding your hair out of the way, breathing through his mouth to keep himself from puking as well. He stays there no matter how many times you try to usher him away, thinking of the vows he’ll make as he wipes sweat away from your forehead— In sickness and in health, even if it makes him want to puke too.
There’s an ambulance waiting for the two of you at the harbor, fully equipped and prepared to handle the allergic reaction that, thankfully, doesn’t seem to affect your breathing or your throat. Harry climbs into the ambulance with you, even as you try to wiggle out of you, telling everyone that you’re fine and that you don’t need a hospital and it takes the paramedic reassuring you that the hospital has a good financial aid for him to realize that you’re concerned about money and not the hospital itself.
It makes him feel like a failure. Here he is, a man with more money and power than anyone deserves, and the most precious thing in his life is worrying about her financial future. He squeezes your calf, heart constricting in his chest. For richer or for poorer.
“Don’t worry about that.” Harry says, low enough that you’re the only one that hears it. “Don’t ever worry about that. I got you, always.”
two: the wonder wheel.
The second time Harry tries to propose, he steers away from seafood. He takes you to Coney Island instead for an afternoon of childish glee at the amusement park: Harry hasn’t been there since Peter’s seventh birthday, and he tells you the story of how his mother’s company was just starting, and how the boys had shared a Nathan’s hot dog because it was the most she could afford— He omits the fact that they both fought over it and that Peter cried all the way home because Harry told him their mother only made his birthday special because it was the day she plucked him out of a dumpster and decided to raise him as her own.
He can’t remember the last time you looked this happy. You’re giggling the entire day, dragging him around the park, outright cackling at him when he drips ice cream on his 800 dollars sweater but your eyes are kind as you try to help him wash it off — it’s cashmere, the whole thing ruined and stretched out where the ice cream had been — and cussing so much as you ring toss that, for a moment, he’s genuinely afraid you might get kicked out of the park before he can propose.
Harry slips the guy manning the ferris wheel twenty dollars so that he stops the ride when the two of you are at the very top, just as the sun starts to set. It’s romantic, even if a little cliché, but Harry thinks you’ll like it. He’s been taught, from a very early age, that the right way to love is through grand shows of romance. The roses and the private dinners and the lavish vacations— Expensive gifts, big and small acts of chivalry that are meant to show someone that you love them; it’s what women want, his brother told him once, even if Harry couldn’t quite grasp the concept of why. He’d done it all with Lucy because he felt like he had to. It was a transaction, and Harry constantly felt the need to prove that he was well-suited for her.
With you, it’s different. He does it because he loves the way your face lights up, how you giggle and bat your lashes at him; how you say it’s silly and that he didn’t have to go out of his way for you but there is still a prep to your step for the rest of the day.
Harry does it to make you happy, and that is an unfamiliar feeling for a man so used to putting himself first.
He’s shaking all over by the time the ferris wheel finally stops. You turn your head this and that way, sitting on the very top of the wheel; it has a beautiful view, he’ll give you that— The sun is just starting to set, falling behind the skyscrapers in the distance, the entire sky taken over by shades of orange and pink.
“I think I can see your apartment from here.” You giggle, pointing to the opposite direction of Tribeca but Harry pays it no mind, because it’s the first time you’ve had your back to him all day, and it’s fucking perfect.
He reaches into his pocket with trembling fingers, grasping the dainty diamond ring he’s been hiding for over a month now; he has a speech prepared, a little story about a boy who never thought he would be worthy of love and the girl that showed up just at the right time but, as he tries to position the ring in the right way, it slips from his sweaty fingers.
Harry curses so loud it makes you jump.
“God— Fucking damn it.” He dives forward, trying to catch it before it hits the ground but instead the ring bumps against his fingers, arching through the air and falling directly through the grates on the cart’s windows.
“What was that?” You scoot forward in your seat, trying to peak through the metal squares. “What did you drop?”
“Nothing.” He says, and it sounds so fake he follows up with: “A penny.”
“A penny?” You raise an eyebrow. “Does the big Mr. Castillo even know what that looks like?”
Harry huffs, rolling his eyes just for good measure— It only lasts for a second, though, before he discreetly starts to peer down below; the view from above isn’t great, but he knows there’s no way he’ll ever get that ring back.
“Harry?” You call out, your voice so sweet when he finally pulls his eyes away from the ground. “Are you okay? You look like you’re going to be sick.”
“I’m okay.” He says, bringing a hand to smooth the little crease between your brows. “It’s alright, just a penny.”
A ‘penny’, worth two hundred and seventy thousand dollars, lost somewhere between colorful carts and wonder wheel fuselage.
By the time the two of you go home, your eyelids are drooping, your head on Harry’s shoulder as his driver brings the two of you back to Tribeca; you’re clutching tightly to the walrus plushie Harry won for you, and he can’t stop thinking about how bright you smiled when he did it. The streetlights reflect on your face, and Harry thinks you might be the most gorgeous thing he’s ever seen.
“Today was very special.” You mumble, voice clouded by sleepiness. “Thank you.”
Harry turns his head, ignoring the insistent vibration of his work phone, and presses a kiss to the top of your head, heart aching with the knowledge of just how more special it could’ve been.
three: the waterfall.
Harry is nothing if not an obstinate man. Where others (his brother included, during one late night phone call) might see the two failed proposals as a sign of the universe that, perhaps, he’s making a mistake, Harry sees it as a challenge. He’s a man that is used to high stakes, that thrives off of the thrill of a risky business deal, a shark in the water that smells blood miles away and goes for it. He’s also the sort of man that gets nervous enough to drop an engagement ring down a ferris wheel (which he really never recovered, just as he presumed), but that’s part of why he loves you so much. You make him human. With you, he’s not Harry Castillo, the business mogul that is known for hostile acquisitions and getting exactly what he wants, when he wants it. With you, he’s just Harry.
After the wonder wheel disaster, Harry takes a different approach. He goes in hard, not with his heart but with his mind, tackling the proposal like he would a difficult client: He starts with the ring, going back to his usual jeweler and designed a custom piece— Not the same as the one he’d lost, because someone would eventually find that ring and he didn’t want a copy of your ring walking around but a brand new one, inspired by several celebrity engagement rings he’d noticed you zoom in on while scrolling through your phone. A gold band, because he knows you always go for the yellow gold when picking out jewelry, twisted and molded in a way that would, eventually, stack perfectly above the wedding band.
The main difference between the two rings, however, is the diamond. They’re both six carats and pear shaped, but this one is lab grown— His mother would go into cardiac arrest if she ever knew, and even his jeweler had raised both eyebrows when he requested it but, two days after the Coney Island fiasco, you’d gotten into a pretty heated argument on an Instagram post’s comment section about the ethics of natural jewels and the consequences that mining them has on the people who are enslaved and exploited for it.
Harry had never thought about that. He had never thought about a lot of things before you— The consequences of his wealth, what that meant for other people around him. It shone a terrible light on all the things he took for granted, forgetting his not-so-fortunate past as the years of more money than he could ever need stacked up on top of each other. And he’s both embarrassed for it and thankful that you came into his life, no matter how much his mother scoffs at your antics.
He had also told himself he wouldn’t do it overseas. He’d planned the trip for Lucy’s proposal, and it felt like a cheap second try but, all things considered, Harry thinks proposing abroad might be the thing that makes it so special. So, after seeing the way you keep swooning at Tiktoks of Phi Phi Island, he takes you to Thailand.
Truth be told, Harry didn’t expect to like the country as much as he does— He’s never been a beach kind of guy, always preferring the bustling of a big city, but there is something about sitting on the silky white sand of Railay Beach watching you dive into the crystal blue waters that almost has him proposing right then and there.
In retrospect, he probably should have; even if he left the ring back at the hotel, maybe he should’ve dropped to his knees when you finally come out of the ocean in your pink bikini, salt water dripping down your chest. At least, like that, he would’ve proposed at all.
You plop down on the beach towel next to him and Harry hands you his half-drunk dragon fruit kiwi smoothie; you lean against him, sticky shoulder bumping against his sunburnt one.
“Don’t think I’d ever get tired of this view.” You say, softly, watching as the blood red sun starts to set.
“I wish we could live here.” He admits in a small voice, tensing as he waits for your reaction— It’s childish but he’s embarrassed of the admission, afraid of what you’d think of his moment of vulnerability even if, logically, he knows you’d never judge him for anything; not like his parents did, at least, who’d mock him relentlessly whenever he was a kid and cried on the way home after a vacation.
“We?”
Harry shrugs, feeling his already reddened face burning even brighter as you shift to stare at him. He keeps his eyes on the ocean, doing his best to pretend he hasn’t just opened his heart to you with a single, small sentence. You press a kiss to his shoulder.
“Me too.”
He waits until almost the end of your trip, when you finally make it all the way up to Tak. For all of Harry’s new-found love for the beach, he’s not a big fan of the forest. Still, he hikes with you all the way to Pha Charoen because he knows that proposing to you in the scenic staircase-shaped waterfall is going to be a thousand times more memorable than the wonder wheel or a borrowed yacht. The private tour guide he hired giggles as Harry wades into the water, cellphone in hand and fully prepared to serve as a photographer during the big moment; you’re in a pretty dress that is short enough so it doesn’t get wet but Harry, for all of his planning, trudges with water soaking into his khakis— He thinks it’ll look bad in the pictures but maybe you won’t care, not with the way you’re smiling so wide, taking in the views of the water that cascades just a few feet away.
The tour guide, Pranee, gives Harry a discreet thumbs up when the two of you are perfectly in frame and then points to the left. “Look, guys! A monkey!”
You immediately turn your back to Harry, searching for the animal that doesn’t exist. He breathes deeply, takes a small step back and kneels.
Harry doesn’t even see it happen. One moment he’s lowering himself on one knee, the other he has both feet in the air, his back scratching against the rock formation as he slides down several steps. He hears you screech and then nothing else other than the roaring of the water as he unwillingly somersaults down the current.
He ends up with seven stitches on his bicep after getting caught in a particularly sharp rock, a twisted ankle and enough muscle pain to show that he is, indeed, nearing fifty years old. The ring somehow stayed in his pocket, thankfully, and you’re now using one of Pranee’s pictures of Harry being ass up face down in the water as your phone’s lockscreen, so he figures it wasn’t all bad.
four: the proposal.
Harry doesn’t give up. He is not the sort of man to give up on anything, especially not something this important. He just… Takes a step back. His recovery from the Thailand trip is slow, slower than it would’ve been a couple of years back, and it brings forth a whole plethora of realizations he has been trying to avoid. His age is the main concern— He feels like his body is starting to break down, his stamina dwindling, injuries taking longer to recover from; his mother starts casually mentioning botox every time they have lunch together, the grays in his hair more prominent every time he looks in the mirror.
Despite that, Harry doesn’t feel old (well, maybe only when it takes him five weeks to stop groaning whenever he stands because of a silly tumble down a waterfall). But then he looks at you, so much younger, still so full of energy and life and he wonders if he’s not selfishly taking away your youth.
So, yes, Harry doesn’t give up. But he does reconsider. He hides the ring in his office and leaves it there for a couple of weeks, choosing instead to spend his time with you without the worry of the perfect proposal— He still wants to marry you, wants to have the pride of knowing you carry his last name, the safety that comes with his money and his status. He wants you on his bed and his house and his car, wants your name next to his at every event. But it dawns on him that he’s not certain if you want that too: He’s been so focused on making sure to keep the proposal a surprise, he doesn’t even consider the possibility of your answer being no.
He decides to just ask you. Not in an actual proposal but more of a conversation, testing the waters to figure out if he can pull out the ring or if he should keep it hidden for another year, but there never seems to be a right time for that— Or maybe he’s scared of the answer, even though Harry would never admit to it.
The question slips out on a Saturday evening while the two of you are having a movie night in the shoebox that you call an apartment, sitting on the couch you stole from a garbage pile on the curb. You’d made Harry carry the damn thing for three blocks even though he promised he’d give you all of the couches in the entire world if it kept you from bringing garbage into your home.
The garbage couch is, perhaps, the most comfortable couch he has ever sat on.
“Would you ever want to get married?” He asks, watching the way your hand full of Skittles freezes halfway to your lips.
“What?” You ask. Despite how good Harry is at reading people, he cannot make sense of the emotion that fleets across your face.
“With me. Would you ever want to get married to me?”
You twist on your side of the couch, your knees drawn to your chest; you’re wearing a pair of sweatpants that you got either from Walmart or Target or whatever other big store Harry hasn’t set foot inside since he was a child, an old t-shirt from his days at Brown University that is ratty and stretched out from age, and a pair of Chanel eye patches.
This is another little thing that Harry loves about you. Here you are, in a stolen couch in sweatpants that might well be from the Dollar Tree, wearing an eye mask that costs over a hundred dollars. Any other person might’ve seen it as hypocrisy, but Harry knows better than that— He understands that you don’t care about boasting luxury, about flaunting his money or spending it on things that you might consider futile. You’re ambivalent but strong-willed, sticking to your morals and what you think is the right thing. Headstrong.
“Are you proposing to me, Harry Castillo?”
“No. Yes.” He pauses, trying to figure out the look on your face when you quirk an eyebrow at him. “Maybe. I mean— I tried three times already, so I figured I might as well just say it, but if you want it to be more romantic I can try again. Fifth time’s the charm or something.”
You throw your legs over his, swinging on the couch until you plop down on his lap, your chest pressed against his, shins bracketing his thighs. Harry’s hands find your waist all on their own, the weight of you a familiar and welcoming feeling.
“I would marry the shit out of you.” You say, fingers running through his hair. “So yes, if this is a proposal, I’m saying yes.”
He kisses you, your teeth clacking against each other as you both smile through the kiss. Harry’s heart thunders inside his chest, so fast he thinks he might go into cardiac arrest— And he’d die a happy man, because the way you press against him and giggle into his mouth brings forth an emotion that he never thought he’d ever truly feel.
Love.
It was true when he told Lucy he’d never been in love before, and at some point he truly thought that would never be in the cards for him, but all along he’d simply been waiting for you. The woman that challenges him, that disrupts his world and pulls him away from the trap of his own mind.
“I love you.” Harry says when he finally pulls back, and he thinks you’ll never understand how much he means it. He kisses your cheek once, twice, thrice. You giggle, folding in on yourself when his mustache brushes against that soft part of your neck where you’re extra ticklish.
“I love you too.” You say, grinning ear to ear. “Wait, what do you mean you tried to propose before?”
Harry groans, head tilting against the back of the garbage couch.
“You don’t even wanna know.”
bonus: the wedding.
The two of you get married in New York City, seven months after Harry finally manages to propose. It was a rocky road, with Harry’s mother trying to take control of the festivities and you slamming your foot down on having the party exactly the way you and Harry wanted it, and he’s never been so attracted to you as he’d been then.
Well, maybe only when you made your way down the aisle. You wore a shiny satin dress that was more champagne than white, figure accentuated by the corset that tied to your back— Harry had missed his portion of the vows, only snapping out of his trance when the officiant called his name twice; you’d laughed, and he’d blushed, and all Harry could think and say was about how lucky he was to have such a powerful, incredible woman by his side. He worships at your altar that night, trying to convey with his body what his words could not: How much he’d kiss the ground you walk on, how he’d never be able — or willing — to find someone that came even close to make him feel the way he does for you.
Your honeymoon is in Thailand. You make the same island hopping you’d done the last time — sans Tak, because Harry wasn’t ready to face that humiliation again — and you end the trip on Railay Beach, in a small seaside bungalow that Harry buys for the two of you. You get matching bamboo tattoos one evening after too many boozy smoothies: Your initials on his left collarbone, his initials on your left ribcage. If anyone asked, getting a matching tattoo with his wife at fifty years old while honeymooning in paradise had never been in the realm of possibility for one Harry Castillo, but he wouldn’t change a thing.
Going back to New York City after a month of good food, beautiful beaches and lovemaking is a sad affair and, once again, Harry is reminded of the ten year old little boy he once was, sitting in his parents private jet or the back of a car, holding back tears because he did not want to go back home. This time it’s just bittersweet, your hand in his as you sit next to each other on the private plane.
“Is it weird that I already want to go back?” You giggle, and Harry smiles, pressing a kiss to the bridge of your nose.
“No, Mrs. Castillo.” He says, savoring the words. “Not weird at all.”
Dean being the kind of bf who gets way into playing with your LPS with you
CONTENT talks of infidelity and family/marriage drama
A/N idek what this is, it came to me in a vision
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”
The air in the room is thick with tension.
“I mean, really?” You scoff. “My sister?”
Dean looks down shamefully. “It wasn’t like that,” he murmurs.
“Bullshit. That’s exactly what it was and you know it! While I was at home, taking care of our children, you were out fucking my sister!” You seethe. “What am I supposed to tell them, huh? That Daddy’s not coming home anymore because he’s too busy playing happy family with Auntie Carol?!”
Dean looks up at you finally, his eyes filled with anger. “Maybe you should tell them that Daddy couldn’t take being in a loveless marriage anymore! You wanna know why I slept with Carol? At least, she was there for me.”
“That’s not—!”
“Admit it. You’ve resented me ever since I got laid off. You don’t even look at me like I’m a man anymore!” Dean shouts.
From the kitchen, Tucker glances at Logan, his voice a low whisper. “...What is going on right now?”
You and Dean are sitting on the floor of the living room, pinned between the couch and coffee table—where a handful of Littlest Pet Shops are sitting in a pile. The head of a grey cat is pinched between your fingers as you twist it wildly to match the words you’re saying to the brown and tan border collie in Dean’s fingers.
Logan lets out a tired sigh, rubbing his eyes. “They’re playing house.”
“—If you want me to treat you like a man then act like one, Lewis!”
“Don’t act like I’m the only one making mistakes here.” Dean wiggles his dog at you accusingly. “You think I don’t know what’s been going on? Why you always have to ‘stay late at the office’?”
You let your cat take a dramatic step forward. “We have a giant proposal coming up, I told you—,”
“I didn’t realize that involved having sex with your coworker! I smell his cologne on you when you come home, don’t even try to deny it. I mean, God, is there even a proposal at all or was that just a lie too?”
The two of you fall into silence, before Dean shakes his dog’s head sadly. “I think I should stay at Carol’s tonight.”
“Oh yeah, you do that.” You laugh bitterly. “Just run away from your problems. Classic Lewis.”
“That’s not fair—,”
“Just say goodbye to the kids and go, I can’t even look at you right now.” You turn your cat around dramatically and lift it up and down on the table to walk away.
Your other hand moves to the pile of LPS and you pick through the different toys. “Hey, Tuck?” You call out without looking up.
“Yeah?”
“You wanna be the kid or the divorce attorney?”
“...Divorce attorney, please.”
“Okay, you can be mine and Logan can be Dean’s.” You nod in agreement.
Dean lets out an indignant squawk. “Wait, that’s not fair! Why do I get stuck with Logan?”
“Fuck you, asshole.” Logan swats him on the back of the head as the two other guys move to sit down next to you on the living room floor. “It’s not my fault you didn’t sign a prenup.”
