Page 100 of Mask and the Magnolia

He rolls his eyes but I can see the smile hiding in those stormy grays. “Am not.”

“Are to,” I say as I poke him in the pec. “You think I have a nest in here for when I get stressed out, and don’t think I’ve had you in it because what? It’s an omegas only club?” Then something else occurs to me. “Do you think Isaak and I share a nest here?”

He shrugs a shoulder as Calix comes to stand next to me. “You ever seen an alpha his size pout before?”

“Nope,” I snort as I lean into my beta. “He’s kinda cute like that, though.”

“Oh fuck off,” Korvin grunts as he drops my hand and pushes his fingers back through his hair before stomping toward the couch. “I was trying to be helpful and you turned it into something it never was.”

“Don’t be mad, Vin.” I kiss Calix’s shoulder then move forward, wrapping my arms around my alpha’s waist as I rest my chin on his chest and look up at him. “We don’t, if it makes you feel any better.”

He huffs in my face before hugging me back. “A little.”

Rubbing my face against him, I smile despite the impending doom sitting in my gut like a stone. “I’m not against it, though. Like, if things were a bit different and we were together all the time. Sharing a nest with Isaak wouldn’t stress me out, and it would be a way to feel closer to him.” Vin tenses but I don’t let him go. “But if that were the case, I’d also want you in there. You and Calix and Des. I might want my own space for when I’m pissed at one of you, but if we shared one, it wouldn’t be exclusive to me and Isaak.”

“It’s kind of like she loves us or something” Calix says, the smile in his voice obvious.

I giggle as Vin rolls his eyes again, tightening his hold as he looks at our beta over my head. “Or something.“ Then he sighs. “There’s only so much we can do for you from in here and it drives me fucking crazy over how restrictive that is. I just want to be able to take care of you, of my pack, and I can’t fucking do that from a lockdown unit.”

How wrong he is.

I know it’s not the same, our situation is definitely different from most, but I wish I could make Korvin see how he really does take care of us even if he thinks he doesn’t. He and Des both. Their instincts are so strong but the fact that they don’t see how well they care for not only me and Isaak but Calix, too, isn’t surprising. They want to be able to spoil us, to provide for us, to protect us at all times the way they probably saw others do before they were arrested. I love them even more for it but my alphas do all of those things in different ways, and I think they mean more to me because of it.

Sliding my hands up his body, I push up on my toes so I can wrap my arms around his neck then jut my chin out for a kiss. One Vin immediately gives me.

“You aren’t going to want to hear it but you being outside that door just now? You and Calix were looking for me, I don’t haveto ask to know that’s what you were doing, and being there when I launched myself into the hall on the verge of a panic attack was one of the many ways you take care of me.”

“It’s inconsistent,” he grunts against my lips. “I can’t do it all the time.”

“But the fact that you do it at all means more to me than you realize.”

Korvin rubs his nose on my cheek before he kisses me again. “It’s not enough.”

With a sigh, I grab the sides of his face and squish his cheeks. “You are so goddamn stubborn.” He arches a brow and I giggle. “Okay, fine, it’s a shared pack trait but you win first place in thewho’s more bullheadedcompetition.”

“I second that,” Calix says, smiling wide as I turn to look at him over my shoulder. “But I’d probably come in last so who am I to say?”

Twisting around so my back is to Korvin’s front, I crook a finger in my beta’s direction and grin when he comes to me immediately.

“One of my favorite things about you is how you don’t put up a fight unless you need to.” I grab the front of his jumpsuit and tug him toward us, pulling until he has no choice but to stand flush against me. “That’s why you’re my sweet, beautiful, good boy, isn’t it?”

He nods with a groan as his lips crash into mine, Calix melting from those words alone but when Korvin’s switch flips, it sets off a bomb.

“Such a good fucking boy, Calix,” he growls, his cock hardening between my asscheeks as he pulls us closer.

My beta’s cock is like stone against my belly, his kisses turning from needy to possessive in the blink of an eye.

Yes, this.

This is what I need right now. To be close to them, to be claimed by my alpha and beta while I wait for the chance to have my entire pack at once. I need to be reminded of how much love there is between us now, that way whenever the Dean decides to show up and rip me to shreds, I have that love as protection.

Facing my father alone is something I’ve never been good at, but it’s better than having an audience. Not that he lets many people see how he really treats the heir to his throne, but my mother has played the part of an accidental audience and on the rare occasion he lit into me before he got all the way in the house, she was more than enough. I’m definitely two for two in thehorrible parentsplayoffs.

Maybe that’s why the universe or whoever is in charge gave me four mates.

To make up for giving me shit in terms of people I share genetics with.

I’m sure the all seeing earth mother or universal vibe running the show doesn’t have the wherewithal to make up for their mistakes. If there is a supreme being pulling the strings, I doubt it has even the tiniest shred of guilt over the hands we mortals are dealt, but I won’t put too much thought into it. No questions from this girl. Not when I got as lucky as I did, despite the circumstances the luck was delivered into.

---