One week later,the world feels ordinary again.
Not dulled. Not fragile.
Ordinary in the way sunlight on familiar walls feels ordinary – steady, expected, safe.
I wake slowly in Sol’s bed, not tangled in heat, not trembling with aftershocks, but warm. Properly warm.
He seems to like it when I sleep in his bed. The others are giving him leeway due to being shot, but I think their patience is running out and soon he’ll be forced to share.
His arm is heavy around my waist, his hand resting low against my stomach like he fell asleep anchoring me there. The sheets are twisted around our legs, and the air smells faintly of sea salt drifting through the cracked window.
The bond hums faintly beneath my ribs.
It isn’t loud. It doesn’t pulse or drag at me. It feels like four steady lights glowing somewhere behind my sternum – Kai’s bright and restless, Finn’s cool and measured, Koa’s grounding and solid, Sol’s a low, steady heat pressed close.
I don’t have to reach for them.
They’re just…there. And now I’ll never be alone again. I belong. I’m cared for. And the start of something…more is beginning to bloom.
Sol is awake. I know before he speaks. His thread feels alert but calm, like he’s been awake long enough to start thinking about something practical.
“You’re up,” I murmur without opening my eyes.
“Five minutes ago.”
“And already planning something.”
A pause.
“Menu expansion,” he admits.
I turn my head enough to look at him. His gaze drops immediately to mine, and there it is again – that soft flicker that hasn’t disappeared since the heat ended. Not hunger. Not feral instinct.
Awe.
It’s quieter now. Smoother. But it’s still there every time he looks at me like he’s half-expecting me to vanish.
“I just emerged as an omega, bonded to a pack who bicker like children, and you’re thinking about marinades,” I tease.
He brushes his thumb slowly along my hip. “I can multitask.”
I love that in the time we’ve spent together he’s confided in me that his dream is to run the restaurant – from the kitchen, as the head chef – rather than the surf school. We’re working out a way to make that happen.
Downstairs, something thuds loudly enough to rattle the pipes.
“That was deliberate!” Kai’s voice carries upward.
“It was organisational improvement,” Koa replies calmly.
“You alphabetised my chaos!”
“It was not chaos. It was inefficient.”
I laugh, the sound muffled against Sol’s shoulder.
Finn’s presence hums faintly through the bond – already awake, already working, already steady. It’s domestic in the most ridiculous way. Arguments about shelving. Coffee brewing. The scrape of chair legs against kitchen tiles.
It isn’t frantic.