She heard the car doors opening and everyone wrestling out, talking to each other under their breaths. She crossed her arms over her chest and pouted.
“Easy now,” Kai teased. “Come here. Let me help you out.”
She huffed as Kai wrapped his arms around her waist and carried her out of the car. He carried her a few more steps; he and the others fixing her position until they finally unfastened her blindfold. And what Sonnet saw, she didn’t know what to make of it.
It was a house. A beautiful, beautiful house in the middle of nowhere with rolling green hills, cows far out in the fields, and a gravel road paved by an old wooden fence with flower bushes.
The property was big but cozy, with the house at the very center of it all and a healthy, overgrown garden. The garden itself was circular and had white picket fencing with flower beds, and shrubs rested in a curved pathway. A small greenhouse rested nearby, and from what she could tell, was already filled with life.
The house itself was huge, a prominent brick mansion with vines climbing the walls up to the steep-sloped roof. The front door was a welcoming yellow, and a pathway of flower blushes and two large trees led to it.
“Would you like a tour?” Zayden asked, extending his hand.
Sonnet gulped, almost too scared to ask. “Why?”
Zayden didn’t answer. He led her inside with the others trailing behind, and each room stole the air from her lungs.
The kitchen smelled like fresh paint, and the cabinets were brightened by colors. The stove was an old, retro green and had a white subway tile backsplash. The open shelving offered a sneak peek at some beautiful glassware, while copper pots hung above the stove.
An archway led into the dining room, which was just as cozy and colorful as the kitchen. There was a built-in bench, a long wooden table that looked handmade rather than bought from IKEA, and green-patterned chairs.
Behind the bench, the cream-colored wall was cozy with an art collection, each picture random and yet harmonious. It didn’t escape Sonnet that some of these pictures included her, her pack, her family, Felix’s grandparents, and all of Jude’s family members.
Before she could ask, Felix opened the sliding glass door adjacent to the gallery wall, revealing the back porch and a beautiful view with no skyline and no sounds of the highway.
“This place is beautiful, but I don’t understand. Why are we here?”
Kai shrugged his shoulders. All of them refused to say anything as they walked into the simple living space. A large, green couch that looked like a bunch of clouds sewn together sat in the center of the space with decorative pillows and blankets that looked oddly like the ones back home.
“There’s a second living room upstairs where the TV is,” Felix explains. “There are two guest bedrooms and two bathrooms downstairs. We can skip the tour of those spaces for now. Let’s go upstairs.”
“And what’s upstairs, hmm? Are there pictures of us all? And more things from our house? I want to know what you have planned. Whose house is this?”
“Come on, come on.”
“Kai!”
She couldn’t help but giggle as Kai slung her over his shoulders and carried her up the stairs. They passed by more pictures.
“Aha! See! On the one right, there is a picture of Goose. Stop ignoring me,” she demanded.
Kai dropped her at the entrance of the house’s built-in omega suite. It was smaller than the one back at their home, and yet this space felt so much better. The bed was just as huge, made to fit her and her alphas. It was decorated with a baby blue and white striped comforter, mix-patterned pillows giving soft pops of color, and a low bed frame easy enough for Goose to jump into bed.
The left side of the bedroom wall was covered in windows, with long, beautiful curtains, and the right side was an opencloset area with baskets, plants, and plenty of hangers and storage.
Sonnet saw two doors in the bedroom, one leading to an empty nest area that intrigued her omega, who wanted to decorate the space and set it up. The other door went to the bathroom, which had a large bathtub like the one at their coastal beach house, blue floral wallpaper, and yellow-and-white geometric floor tiles.
The tour didn’t stop there. The boys showed her four other spaces, none with beds, but obviously set up as individual areas each could own. There were desks, bookshelves, cozy chairs, and closets, and oddly personalized details that Sonnet couldn’t help but notice represented her alphas.
One space was filled with a huge bookcase full of black and white movies, classic novels, cookbooks, as well as antiques. It was easy enough to figure out the space belonged to Felix, just as it was to guess the room with different instruments and soundproof walls was for Kai. Jude’s space had the most windows, with fairy lights, random projects, and an entire gaming set up. Zayden’s space was simple, hardly personalized, but there were newly bought notebooks and business-like supplies.
None of them had admitted they had bought the house, but it was hard to deny after seeing what Sonnet could only assume was spaces dedicated to them. And the intention was clear. These spaces were theirs because they wanted to sleep with her each night if she’d let them.
“This place is so beautiful it makes me want to cry,” Sonnet admitted as they all stood outside the front of the house.
She didn’t want to tell her mates how their dark, modern mansion made her want to pull every strand of hair out of her head or how sad and depressing their aesthetic really was. However, after being in a space as warm and colorful as this,she couldn’t help but realize how much she wanted to live somewhere else.
“It’s a twenty-minute drive from the sub-burbs, and a bit longer to get to the city strip,” Felix said. “We’ve been looking for a good location since we came back home, and this place felt perfect, so we all chipped in to get it looking the way we wanted before showing it to you. It’ll only be a thirty-minute drive each morning for you to get to work, too, if you don’t mind the commute.”
