Page 100 of Knot Your Baby

Freya bursts out laughing. “They’re not sore anymore. You don’t have to soothe them.”

“Sore? Convenient excuse,” Miller teases, reaching over to stroke Stone’s tiny head. “I want to wrap my mouth around those nipples again.”

“Maybe I’m ready,” she says as I place the platter of pancakes in the center of the table alongside the fresh berries and whipped cream I prepared earlier. “For all of you.”

“Including Thorne?” Miller asks.

She nods. “We had a good talk about everything. I told him I know I’m too much sometimes and I’ll try to rein it in.”

“The hell you are. You’re perfect. Just the right amount of everything,” Miller interrupts.

She smiles at him. “He said the same, and he admitted he’d been an asshole.” She laughs. “But then he told me how he talked to my dad about the time I worked at Le Petite Jardin, and he realized it was me he could smell all along. He thought the smell was from a customer.”

She muses for a moment before she puts a piece of pancake in her mouth. “Not the girl he momentarily locked eyes with. He admitted he smelled my perfume in the club years later.” She continues telling us about Thorne seeing a girl with blonde hair in the club. She wore a mask, like everyone else there, but he knew she was the blonde girl in the restaurant. He lost her again.

“He told me he knew his omega was out there, but one day he was convinced it was Maya,” I tell her as I glance over my shoulder. “Miller and I weren’t on board.”

Swallowing, she nods her head. “He admitted that, too. Apparently Maya came along, and she had the right perfume.”

“But she didn’t,” Miller adds.

“I’m just glad we finally have you. All of us,” I tell her as I place more pancakes on the plate in the middle of the table, along with crispy bacon and maple syrup. “Breakfast is served.”

“This looks amazing, Zane,” Freya says, her eyes wide.

Since she moved in, I’ve discovered her appreciation for food is truly remarkable. I love how she savors every bite with delight.

“It’s the least I could do since soon you’ll be baking again,” I reply, taking Stone from her arms so she can eat with ease. With his weight settled against my chest, my heart soars as he makes a contented sigh against me. He has this distinct baby scent, but the subtle sweetness of Freya’s omega essence clings to him.

“Thorne’s missing out,” Miller comments, pouring coffee for all of us.

“Early meetings wait for no alpha,” I say, repeating Thorne’s grumbled complaint from earlier when he’d kissed Freya goodbye and reluctantly headed to the office before dawn.

We fall into a comfortable silence as we eat, broken only by Stone’s occasional gurgle and Rosie’s hopeful whining from her spot by the door.

“Someone needs her morning walk,” I observe as our dog paws at the floor.

“Beach run?” Miller suggests, already calculating the timing in his head.

“After these pancakes, it’ll have to be a walk,” I grumble.

“You’re not working today?” Freya asks.

“Night shift.”

“No way,” she moans. “I thought—” Her face reddens.

Miller leans close to her. “What were you hoping for, omega?”

“I’m ready.”

I grin. “Oh, this is turning out to be the perfect day. First, we’ll take Rosie for a walk.” I glance out of the window at the cloudless blue sky. “Freya, you up for it?”

She hesitates, looking down at her pancakes, then at Stone. “I’d love to, but Stone needs a bath and a nap soon.”

“We can all bathe him and then he can sleep on the walk. Plus, Rosie will be thrilled for Stone to come too,” I say. “She’s beentrying to adopt Stone as her own personal puppy since you two moved in.”

Freya laughs, and as if she understands, Rosie’s tail thumps enthusiastically against the floor.

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