Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Aiden is genuinely just trying to mind his own business and finish his shopping. He has a list of alchemical supplies for Lambert and assorted useful bits and bobs to get for Voltehre, and a handful of his own errands to run, and then he can get the hell out of town and go join his mates in camp and see what Voltehre has hunted and Lambert has brewed, and they can spend a peaceful evening swearing at their mending together.

And then he hears the yelling.

Yelling isn’t uncommon, in a town, and it’s generally speaking not a witcher’s business. He listens with half an ear as he finishes haggling for a roll of decent quality leather, just in case it’s something about witchers - or about monsters - and he’s just tucking the leather under his arm and figuring he’ll take another route out of town so as to avoid the commotion when the person who is yelling, an older man by the voice, bellows, “How dare you disobey me, omega? Down on your knees!”

Aiden sees red. How dare this bastard - this alpha, Aiden is guessing - use someone’s dynamic against them so viciously?

He’s moving before he realizes he’s going to, knife already in his hand as he stalks across the square. People glance over at him and then stumble out of his way, eyes wide with terror at whatever expression is on his face.

The source of the yelling is an old man gripping a young woman by the wrist. She is not on her knees, though Aiden can see the effort it’s taking her to stay upright. She’s wrenching at her trapped arm, heels dug into the packed earth of the square, face set in a rictus of fear, but she’s not on her knees, and she’s not giving in. The man is still yelling, something about omegas and his rights and her disobedience -

Aiden doesn’t much care to parse the actual words. He only barely has the self-control not to stab first and ask questions never. But that’s the sort of thing that gets witchers run out of town by howling mobs, and he can’t do that to his mates.

His free hand closes around the old man’s wrist and squeezes. “Unhand her,” he rasps, “or I will un-hand you.”

The man yelps in pain and lets go of the girl, who staggers back several paces, cradling her arm to her chest. “How dare you!” the man bellows. “She is mine, my property -”

He stops yelling abruptly, probably because Aiden’s dagger tip is pressed very delicately to the thin skin at the hollow of his throat. “Fuck. Off,” Aiden enunciates clearly.

The man takes a step back, flushing blotchy red and white with rage. “The wench is none of your concern,” he starts. Aiden can hear the alpha resonance in his voice, but it slides off his back like water from a duck. No alpha can put a witcher omega on their knees without the omega’s cooperation - that’s one thing about the mutagens that even Lambert can’t find any reason to despise.

“She’s my concern if I say she is,” Aiden snaps. “I said fuck off.” He’s got no alpha resonance to his voice, of course, but ‘angry witcher’ is usually a pretty good substitute, in Aiden’s experience.

To his surprise, the man suddenly sneers, disgust and rage warring in his scent. “Is that how it is? The little slut. Fine. I’ll not take a witcher’s leavings. She’s yours, and I wish you joy of her!” And he whirls and stalks away, furious indignation in every jerky stride.

What the absolute hell? Aiden wonders.

A soft voice from behind him says, “My endless thanks for your intervention, kind sir, but I think perhaps we had both better remove ourselves from these environs before there is further unpleasantness.”

It’s the woman, who hasn’t run away, somewhat to Aiden’s surprise. And she’s right, too: the townsfolk are all giving Aiden very unfriendly looks. Aiden glares around - oh, they’ll give him filthy looks, but where the hell was that anger when that bastard was trying to drag an omega off to who knows what awful fate? - and offers the woman his arm.

She tucks her uninjured hand into the crook of it without any hesitation, and Aiden leads the way out of town at a brisk pace, just barely slow enough that it doesn’t look like they’re fleeing. Humans, like many predators, are more likely to attack when it looks like their prey is running away.

Thank fuck, no one follows them or throws rocks at them. They make it out of town and around a bend in the road, and Aiden pulls her gently off the path and into the forest. She follows with only a little reluctance. Once they’re safely out of sight and earshot of the road, Aiden turns and looks down at her. She meets his eyes with frank curiosity and some understandable apprehension, but no actual fear.

“So,” Aiden says, keeping his voice light with an effort, “what the absolute fuck just happened there?”

“May I ask which part of that unpleasant scene has bewildered you?” the woman replies.

“The bit where it sure as hell sounded like that arrogant piece of shit was giving you to me.”

“Ah. Well, he was.” The woman shrugs, then winces slightly as she moves her arm. “Or at least, he was ceding his claim over me to you, as victor of that challenge. I believe that, as he was unfortunately my fiance, that means that legally we are now betrothed.” She lets go of his arm and dips a little curtsey, as if that statement weren’t completely insane. “My name is Milena,” she adds. “May I know yours?”

Aiden stares down at her, mind whirling in little circles as he tries to figure out how to reply. Unfortunately, his instincts, which have clearly been driving the cart for a while now, have gotten a snootful of her glorious sweet scent and are insisting that the right way to respond is absolutely to carry her off to his mates and lay claim to her. Their bite-marks would look marvelous on her pale throat, and her scent would go so well with his pack’s, and it would just be wonderful.

His instincts are occasionally a fucking hassle.

“Aiden of the Cats,” he says, because that’s at least an easy question to answer. “Also, that’s fucking barbaric.”

“Yes, but the laws are still on the books, even if they are not much used these days,” Milena says.

Aiden blinks at her, wondering why the fuck she’s not more distressed about this. She blinks back. She’s a little thing, maybe an inch or two above five feet and built small, and a little too skinny - feed her! Aiden’s instincts clamor - with big dark eyes and long dark hair and a sweet, lovely face and figure.

“There's…uh…three main problems I can see here,” he says slowly. “First off, I’m a witcher.”

“Yes,” Milena agrees. “But the law makes no exception for witchers. Dwarves, yes; witchers, no.”

Given that dwarves don’t have dynamics - or possibly have such complicated dynamics that no non-dwarves can parse them - that makes a certain amount of sense, insofar as anything about this ridiculous situation makes sense.

“Second problem: I already have two mates.”

Milena winces slightly, but nods. “Then I believe the law holds that I am betrothed to all three of you, though pack-bonds have become somewhat rare in modern days.”

Great. He gets to explain to Lambert and Voltehre that he’s somehow gotten all three of them accidentally betrothed to a pretty little omega human who, by the way she talks and her easy grasp of obscure laws, is probably of noble blood.

“Third problem,” he says, “I’m not an alpha.”

Milena doesn’t seem surprised. “Of course not. Witchers are null, as mages are.”

Aiden blinks. “Oh. Right.” That is what they tell everyone else. “Actually no. Witchers have dynamics, we just can control our scents so nobody else can tell, because it’s less hassle if everyone thinks we’re null.”

That surprises her; her eyes go wider, and her mouth opens a little as she stares up at him. “But you are not an alpha?”

“Nah. Omega, same as you.” Aiden lets his tight control over his scent lapse, just a little, and watches her eyes flutter shut as she breathes in deeply.

“Oh,” she whispers. And then a hand comes up to cover her mouth as her eyes fly open again. “Oh, I am so sorry! I did not realize that I was intruding upon your place in your pack -”

“What? No, that’s not - how are you so calm about this?” Aiden blurts.

Milena shrugs again. “No one has ever defended me before,” she says simply. “And most especially not from Velen. And then you arrived, a knight in shining armor, just as I had given up all hope of rescue. It seemed like a sign from the very gods.”

Aiden has never been called a knight in shining armor before. He’s not sure any Cat has ever been given such a title. ‘Sign from the gods’ is also extremely unusual, and usually it’s more along the lines of ‘bad omen’ than ‘blessing’.

“I see,” he says weakly. “Well. Um. I will of course have to speak to my mates regarding any possible betrothal, but, well, if you’re willing to travel with three witchers, we can at the very least see to it that you get safely somewhere far away from that nasty piece of work who was manhandling you.”

Milena curtsies again. “That would be very kind of you.”

Aiden blinks and offers her his arm again.

Their camp is a fair ways off the beaten path, for good and sensible reasons, but Milena is looking both lost and weary by the time they finally reach it. Lambert is tending a pot of something that smells like Enhanced Swallow, and Voltehre is contentedly plucking an entire heap of pheasants. They both look up as Aiden and Milena step into the clearing. Of course they’ve heard them coming - Milena is hardly as quiet as a witcher, after all - but they also know Aiden isn’t under duress, or he would have whistled a warning. And if he was actually afraid - or, for that matter, still as incandescently angry as he was in town - the bond between them all would have alerted them. Thankfully, only very strong emotions come through - at least for witchers - and when he calmed down again, they would have known not to come charging in to save him. Which means he can surprise them now.

Aiden did pick the downwind side of the clearing, because frankly he’s looking forward to seeing their expressions when they smell his companion. They ought to be very funny.

“What’ve you got there?” Lambert asks gruffly.

“That leather you wanted, everything else but the dwarven spirits, and a new book of poetry,” Aiden says cheerfully.

Lambert gives him a very dry look. “The girl.”

Milena is holding on to Aiden’s elbow rather tightly. She can smell them, of course, and they’re not bothering to keep their scents under control when they’re out in the middle of nowhere like this, which means the whole camp smells of Lambert’s glorious rich alpha musk and Voltehre’s lighter, honey-sweet and soothing beta pheromones.

Aiden hopes Milena finds them as pleasant as he does. “Oh right!” he says, as if he’s somehow managed to forget that he’s got a pretty little omega holding onto his arm. “I might, perhaps, have overheard a complete bastard of an alpha trying to drag this lass off by main force, and I might, maybe, have threatened him just a little bit. And now we might all be engaged to marry her.”

“What,” Voltehre blurts. He’s been nodding along up until then - he knows Aiden’s temper as well as any of them - but the last bit has apparently startled him out of his complacency.

Lambert is just staring, mouth hanging open. “Marry?” he croaks.

Aiden shrugs. “Turns out the laws in Redania are really fucking stupid. Who knew?”

Voltehre shakes himself like a dog shaking off water and rises to his feet. “Hello, miss,” he says. “Are you injured?”

“Ah - I have some bruises, I think,” Milena says, letting go of Aiden’s arm to pull up her sleeve. All of them hiss through their teeth at the sight of the darkening finger-marks wrapped around her wrist.

“Shit,” Lambert says, shooting to his feet and hurrying over to their packs. “C’mere, let me see that - I’ve got salve -”

Milena clearly takes her courage in both hands before she crosses the camp, but she doesn’t flinch as Lambert takes her arm in his hands. Aiden can see her shock at how gentle he is as he smooths the salve on, though. His sweetheart of an alpha, all prickles and soft underbelly.

And Aiden does see the moment Milena’s scent really hits Lambert. The way his nostrils flare and his pupils widen and he shivers and leans closer to her. Voltehre raises an eyebrow at Aiden. Aiden smirks. Voltehre huffs a tiny laugh and rolls his eyes, and goes back to plucking the pheasants.

“So. Um. What the fuck are we doing with you?” Lambert asks gruffly as he finishes smearing salve over Milena’s bruises. “And are you hurt anywhere else?”

“We’re taking her somewhere safer than Redania,” Aiden says, sauntering over to drape an arm over his alpha’s shoulders. Milena watches with startled interest. “And maybe courting her, if that seems good to everyone involved.”

Milena’s eyes widen, and she clearly decides not to touch that topic with a ten-foot pole. “I think I have wrenched my shoulder a bit,” she says instead. “But I do not think you have a salve for that.”

“No, I don’t, but let me take a look and make sure you didn’t tear anything,” Lambert says. Milena hesitates briefly, then nods and turns to let Lambert press careful fingers against her shoulder under her dress and guide her arm gently through a few slow movements.

“Nothing torn, I don’t think, but don’t go lifting anything heavy for a few days, and if moving it hurts, stop doing that,” Lambert concludes. “And - oh, hell. I don’t have any human-safe pain potions.”

“I’ll buy a few,” Voltehre offers. “When I go into town to pick up our new companion’s belongings. Which I should probably do now, before someone decides that having been carried off by a witcher means she won’t be needing them anymore.”

“Oh,” Milena says, eyes widening as Lambert steps away. “Ah. Yes. I took a room at the inn - I have very little, really, only a single bag and my writing supplies.”

“Writing supplies?” Aiden asks. That was not what he was expecting her to say.

Milena shrugs with her good shoulder. “I have been earning my way as a scribe. It is one of the few talents I have which is both portable and easily saleable. Though I suppose I will not be exercising that talent for at least a little while, until my shoulder heals.”

“Shit, that’s your dominant arm,” Lambert says unhappily. “Tell me the bastard who hurt her is dead, kitty.”

“Alas, no. I thought perhaps cutting his throat in the middle of the market square might end badly for me,” Aiden admits ruefully. “The temptation to go back to town with Voltehre and make sure the fucker falls down the stairs a few dozen times is very strong, though.”

Milena is staring at them both wide-eyed. “That would be a little unwise,” she says faintly.

“I could do it subtly!” Aiden protests.

Milena swallows hard. “Without meaning any offense to your skills, which are undoubtedly masterful, my previous fiance is, in fact, a duke. If he dies following your challenge, there will be an investigation, even if the cause of death seems purely accidental.”

There’s a pause while they all stare at her. It’s Lambert, of course, who says, “Why the absolute fuck is a duke’s fiancee wandering around in the middle of fuckoff nowhere as a scribe?”

Milena swallows and her shoulders hunch inward, making her look even smaller than she is. “Well,” she says very quietly, “I very much desired to not marry him.”

Voltehre says, “Did you run away?” He sounds thrilled, the sweetheart.

“Yes,” Milena admits. “I was hoping to reach Ellander, and the temple there. But I have been traveling much more slowly than I would have preferred, and -” she swallows again, staring down at her battered shoes. “I am sure there is still a reward for my return,” she whispers, sounding like she’s fighting back tears. “If you would prefer not to be burdened with my company.”

“Fucking hell,” Lambert spits, and to Aiden’s quiet delight, drops to one knee so he can look up into Milena’s downturned face. “I wouldn’t give a dog to the sort of asshole who left those marks on you,” Lambert snarls. “You want to go to Ellander, we will fucking well get you to Ellander.”

Milena blinks at him in obvious shock.

“Temeria’s nice this time of year,” Aiden says lightly. “And Ellander’s a pleasant city; not too inclined to throw rocks at witchers. And hey, if you do decide you want to marry us, we’ll be at a temple already!”

To his relief, the joke lands; Milena gives a watery little giggle and wipes her eyes. “How immensely practical of you, good sir.”

Aiden claps a hand to his chest and staggers backwards as if she’s struck him. “Practical! Alas! What have I done that you should insult me so?” He swoons dramatically onto Voltehre, who catches him with the ease of long practice, kisses him firmly, and pushes him upright again. Milena giggles harder.

“Right, I’ll go pick up your things and some pain potions, Aiden can get supper started, and Lambert can make sure that Swallow doesn’t boil over,” the beta says briskly. “And you, miss - I’m sorry, Aiden didn’t give us your name?”

“Milena. Milena de Roggeven.”

“You’re a fucking duke’s daughter,” Lambert says. “Holy shit.” Milena flinches. Lambert scrubs a hand over his face. “Is your Da as bad as your former fiance?”

“Not…really?” Milena says hesitantly. “He does not strike his family members.”

“Well, there’s damning with faint praise if I ever heard it.” Lambert huffs and stands. “Sit down and don’t jostle that arm too much, alright? I’ll brew up some more of that salve as soon as the Swallow’s done. We’re getting low.”

Milena sits down where he points her, looking slightly baffled by everything, really. Voltehre kisses Aiden and Lambert and goes trotting off towards town. Aiden shrugs and starts preparing the pheasants; he usually does the cooking, not because he’s the omega but because frankly Lambert is terrible at it and Voltehre can follow a recipe if given one but doesn’t do terribly well with improvisational creativity, in this realm at least.

“D’you cook?” he asks Milena as he works.

“No; I have never learned. It looks fascinating.”

Aiden grins. “I can teach you, if you like.”

“That would be very kind,” Milena says.

“Once your arm is healed a bit, then, we can talk about knife skills,” Aiden says. “In the meantime, c’mere and I’ll show you which spices I usually like to use for pheasant.”

Milena shifts closer and watches as Aiden seasons the birds and skewers them on spits. Across the fire, Lambert is fussing with his pot of Enhanced Swallow, which smells as foul as usual - thankfully it’s downwind of them. Milena leans close to Aiden and murmurs, “What is he making?” She clearly thinks Lambert can’t hear, which, to be fair, a human wouldn’t be able to.

“It’s called Enhanced Swallow. Don’t drink it,” Lambert says bluntly, making her startle. “If you’re very lucky you’d die quickly. It’s pretty much entirely poison.”

Milena swallows hard. “Why are you brewing poison, sir?” she asks hesitantly.

Lambert wrinkles his nose. “Ugh, I’m not a sir, what a fucking awful thought. It’s just Lambert. And Swallow’s a healing potion, for witchers.”

“That seems…counterproductive?” Milena ventures.

Lambert snorts and grins, and Aiden tries not to coo, because Lambert getting to talk potions is always fucking adorable. Also very educational.

“Witcher metabolism’s too damn fast,” Lambert explains. “Normal human-strength stuff doesn’t affect us at all, pretty much. There’s some types of booze that’ll fuck us up, but we have to work at it. So anything that we want to actually work has to be really fucking strong -”

Milena is nodding, somewhat to Aiden’s surprise. “And many medicines are made of things which are entirely maleficent in larger doses,” she agrees eagerly.

Lambert blinks. “Yeah. Exactly! So witchers need those large doses, but that means for anyone but a witcher, this shit’s pretty much fatal.”

“How did you know that?” Aiden asks, baffled.

“I am a duke’s daughter,” Milena says, as if that should explain everything. When they both blink at her in continued confusion, she shrugs lopsidedly and spreads her hands. “Noblewomen are expected to be skilled in the stillroom, in the making of both medicines and cosmetics. I am not a master of the art, but I would count myself a reasonably competent journeywoman.”

“Huh,” Lambert says. “I…did not know that about noblewomen.”

“Neither did I, actually,” Aiden says. “I thought it was all - uh - sewing and looking pretty.”

“There is a great deal of that,” Milena says, grimacing delicately. “But - let me see. I can keep a household’s accounts; I can speak three languages and read a further two; I can write all five; I can sew both a fine seam or embroidery; I can play the lap harp rather badly; I can dance all the common dances of the Redanian court as well as the Temerian and Kaedweni, and several of Nilfgaard; I can make polite conversation with nobles of any rank; and I can work in a stillroom. Oh, and ride a horse, and fly a hawk, though I cannot tend either.” She sighs. “Very few of which turn out to be helpful skills while attempting to flee across the country, I’m afraid.”

“Not great for fleeing, no, but a lot of those sound damn useful otherwise,” Aiden says thoughtfully. “Especially if you do end up staying with us long-term.”

Milena blinks. “They do?”

“Sure,” Lambert says. “Being able to talk to people is handy as hell, we tear our clothes a lot - also if you can stitch up a person that’d be useful - knowing something about alchemy is fucking great, neither of my mates is any good at it, and being able to handle money is real fucking important.” He shrugs. “Hell, if you end up staying in Ellander, I bet Nenneke will be fucking delighted to have you around. Probably make you her assistant or something.”

“Oh,” Milena says, sounding startled and pleased and a little bit hopeful. “That is good to know; thank you, s- Lambert.”

Lambert grins at her. “No thanks needed, ‘s just the truth,” he says, and swings the pot of Swallow off the fire to start bottling it.

Chapter Text

Milena is having what may actually be the strangest day of her life. She has experienced so many emotions, so quickly, that her head is still reeling; her arm hurts quite a lot; and she is definitely not betrothed to Velen anymore, thank the gods and Aiden of the Cats, but she isn’t quite sure how to feel about possibly now being betrothed to three witchers.

She’s leaning towards ‘pleased’, mostly because all three of them have thus far been so unthinkingly kind and solicitous that it seems like something out of a dream.

First, of course, Aiden rescued her from Velen, without thought of reward - that was a kindness so overwhelming she still has no words to encompass it. But then Lambert, Aiden’s alpha, instead of being angry that his omega had brought another person to their pack without permission, has made her welcome and cared for her injuries, and the third witcher, whose name she has not yet caught, has gone to retrieve her belongings so she is not entirely a burden upon them, and all of them have offered to bring her to safety instead of laying claim to her as they are fully entitled to do under the law -

And then they all smell so good, rich and sweet and warm, scents that she wants to wrap around herself like a blanket on a cold night -

She isn’t going to start weeping out of sheer intensity of emotion, because that would be deeply undignified, but it is only long practice at keeping her composure which allows her the choice.

She focuses instead on watching Aiden cook the pheasants; she has been trying to learn a little of cooking while she travels, but it has turned out to be much, much simpler to buy food from inns or market stalls than to attempt to prepare the raw ingredients herself and ruin them as like as not. Aiden clearly knows exactly what he is doing, though, and has offered to teach her, which means that perhaps by the time they reach Ellander, she will be slightly less out of her depth.

The pheasants are starting to smell entirely delectable - overpowering, thank the gods, the truly foul odor of the Enhanced Swallow which Lambert is carefully decanting into ever so many very small vials - when the third witcher comes trotting back into the clearing and sets down her packs next to her. “Innkeeper was just starting to think about going through them,” he says, circling the fire to kiss both Aiden and Lambert before sitting down about an arm’s length away from Milena.

Milena is not accustomed to seeing such open, unguarded affection; it is especially odd to see it from witchers, who every rumor paints as being entirely emotionless.

“Asshole,” Lambert grumbles. He seems to use a great deal of foul language without actually being in a foul mood, which is something Milena will have to grow accustomed to. He looks so ill-natured, with his sharply-trimmed beard and deep widow’s peak lending him a distinctly devilish air, but he has not acted with anything but kindness, so Milena is endeavoring to set his wicked looks entirely aside.

Aiden is very handsome, green-eyed and brown-skinned and lithe, with ringlets to his hair that Marta would have slain a man to gain for her own. And the third witcher is almost pretty, blond and snub-nosed and freckled, though he is actually taller than Lambert and possibly even broader across the shoulders. Milena has met a fair number of alphas who would not be pleased to have a beta who is larger than they are, but Lambert doesn’t seem to mind at all.

“My endless thanks for retrieving my belongings. I am afraid I did not catch your name earlier, sir,” she says to the beta hesitantly.

“Oh! I’m Voltehre of the Wolves.” He grins at her and offers a hand, and when she gives him one of hers, lifts it to his lips and kisses her fingers like a courtier. “Did Aiden actually explain anything, or was he just irresistibly charming at you?”

Milena covers her mouth to muffle a giggle. “He explained that you are a mated pack, and would offer me sanctuary.”

“Well, I suppose those are the important bits.” Voltehre grins and lounges back on his hands, the picture of relaxation. “Have you got any questions?”

Milena has more questions than she knows what to do with, but one of them seems simple enough. “You introduced yourself as ‘of the Wolves’,” she says, “but Aiden is ‘of the Cats’. May I ask what the difference is?”

Voltehre shrugs and lifts a hand to tap the medallion about his throat. Now that Milena looks more closely, it is engraved with a wolf’s head; Aiden’s, she sees when she turns to look, has a cat’s head instead, and Lambert grins at her across the fire. “Wolf,” he says shortly, before turning his attention back to his potion.

“There are six Schools of witchering,” Voltehre says. “Griffin, Bear, Cat, Viper, Wolf, and Manticore. The Manticores are pretty much all over in Zerrikania, though, so you won’t meet many of those.”

“Are the Schools like noble houses?” Milena ventures.

“Sure, if you mean ‘technically all on the same side but most of ‘em hate each other’,” Lambert snorts.

“It isn’t all the Schools,” Aiden says mildly. “Griffins and Bears despise each other cordially, and Bears and Vipers will stab each other if they meet. And most other Schools find Cats and Vipers untrustworthy, for various reasons. But as far as I know, no one has a grudge against the Wolves or the Manticores.”

“But you are of two Schools?” Milena says tentatively.

Voltehre smiles. “Well, Wolves tend to believe that we should form packs if our scents all match up, and Lam and I ran across Aiden - what, three decades back, something like?”

“Three and a half, just about,” Aiden says, starting to pull the pheasants off the spit. Milena tries not to gawp; Aiden only looks barely three decades old, so how could he have met the other two that long ago? And Voltehre looks even younger, and Lambert only barely as old as Aiden -

“Three and a half, and we killed an ogre together and all got a bit beat up, and then while we were camping we got a whiff of Aiden’s scent and Lam went all starry-eyed and here we are.”

“I did not go fucking starry-eyed,” Lambert grumbles.

“Do you prefer ‘cow-eyed’? Or ‘absolutely daft’?” Voltehre teases. Teases, as if his alpha won’t mind at all.

“I prefer ‘adorably besotted’, myself,” Aiden puts in, smirking.

Lambert glares at them. Milena bites her lip, tense with worry. How will he respond? Will he be angry at them for their irreverence? Will he be angry at her for starting this conversation?

“I’m not adorable,” Lambert huffs.

“You very much are, dearest,” Aiden says cheerfully.

Lambert finishes sealing the last little vial of Enhanced Swallow, takes off his gloves, and gets up to stalk around the fire. Milena twists her hands together in her lap, shaking with fearful indecision. Should she say something? If so, what? Would staying silent be wiser? But how can she not defend Aiden, when he defended her so unselfishly -

Lambert drops to one knee next to Aiden and grabs a handful of Aiden’s hair and Aiden puts his free hand, the one that isn’t holding the spit, on the back of Lambert’s neck and pulls him closer and then they’re kissing, all teeth and tongues and fierceness and no cruelty at all.

Voltehre chuckles. “Our Lam is very easy to rile up,” he tells Milena in a conspiratorial tone. “If you give him compliments he goes a wonderful shade of pink.”

Milena has genuinely never encountered anyone who wanted to ‘rile up’ an alpha before, but if more alphas responded, as Lambert has, by - well - by kissing their mates enthusiastically, then perhaps it would be a more common thing. Aiden is making little pleased crooning sounds into the kiss, and there’s a low rumble that it takes Milena a long moment to understand before she realizes that Lambert is purring.

She knows alphas can purr, the same as omegas can croon, and for many of the same reasons: happiness, comfort, a desire to soothe or placate their mates. But she’s never actually heard an alpha purring before. For that matter, she’s only ever heard crooning from her nurse, when she was very young; she certainly has never had reason or opportunity to produce the sound herself.

How odd, to find such comfort among witchers, when she has only today learned that they have dynamics, and every rumor and tale emphasizes their inhuman lack of emotion.

Clearly the tale-tellers and rumormongers are spectacularly in error.

Lambert leans back, looking remarkably pleased with himself when it takes Aiden several seconds to catch his breath and open his eyes. Aiden is flushed and a little dazed-looking, and leans his head into Lambert’s grip for a long moment before he shakes himself. “Go bother Voltehre, I need to finish getting these off the fire before they burn,” he says, obviously trying to sound brisk and put-together and failing rather notably.

“Yeah, Lam, come bother me,” Voltehre agrees, and Lambert gets up and sits in Voltehre’s lap and kisses the beta thoroughly, still rumbling that almost subterranean purr.

Aiden makes a soft, contented little crooning sound and finishes taking the birds off the fire, setting one down on a large leaf and holding it out to Milena. “I’m afraid we don’t carry plates,” he says apologetically. “Is one going to be enough, or do you need two?”

“I don’t know if I’ll even finish one,” Milena says.

Aiden frowns. “You’re too damn thin.”

Milena blushes. “I -” Should she apologize? She hasn’t been trying to starve herself, it’s just that food is expensive and she hasn’t dared argue when people short her on the pay they’ve promised for her scribing -

Aiden pats her hand gently. “Eat up,” he says kindly. “As much as you want. We’ll keep you fed.”

“Damn straight,” Lambert adds.

“Thank you,” Milena murmurs, and tries to figure out how to eat a pheasant tidily with only her belt knife. She settles on carving little strips of it off, and looks up after her first bite - it’s marvelous, rich and well-seasoned - to find that the witchers do not bother with specialized eating implements or tidiness, and also apparently don’t worry about bones.

Lambert is chewing contentedly on the top half of a drumstick, bone and all. Voltehre has the breast of his bird speared on a dagger as long as his hand, and is taking bites off of it. And Aiden is making his way with apparent happiness through a wing, nibbling around the bones and then biting the bones themselves into small pieces to crunch between his very white teeth.

Voltehre notices Milena’s appalled expression first. “What’s - oh, hell,” he sighs. “We forgot our town manners.”

“Town manners?” Milena says faintly.

Lambert wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and swallows. “When we’re in town, we don’t eat the fucking bones,” he says dryly. “On account of it making humans sorta twitchy.”

“Sorry,” Aiden adds. “We’re used to eating a little less…carefully when we’re camping.”

Milena takes a deep breath. When in Nilfgaard, do as the Nilfgaardians do. “Please do not allow my presence to inhibit your normal habits,” she says carefully. “But may I ask why you eat the bones?”

“Oh, that’s easy. We break bones a fucking lot,” Lambert says, shrugging. “Easiest way to get more of what we need to heal is to eat other bones. Or milk, for some reason, but we can’t exactly haul milch goats around with us. So we’ve all got the jaw strength to eat bones.”

“Oh. That does make sense,” Milena agrees. “Then please do not allow my surprise to prevent you from eating what you need to remain healthy.”

They’re all giving her rather odd looks. She swallows. “Have I misspoken?” she asks softly.

“No,” Aiden says hastily. “No, it’s just -”

“Usually people don’t give a flying fuck if we’re healthy,” Lambert finishes.

“So thanks,” Voltehre adds.

“You are very welcome,” Milena says blankly, and goes back to her pheasant, trying not to flinch at the occasional crunching sounds of bones between the witchers’ teeth. She adjusts to it surprisingly quickly, all things considered. It’s no worse than the way her father’s allies tend to belch over their meals.

She manages to finish almost three-quarters of her bird - she was very hungry - and looks up to find Aiden watching her thoughtfully. “Done?” he asks, and when she nods, hands her a little heap of dried fruit and takes the last quarter of the bird. “Waste not, want not,” he says, and finishes it off in a few quick bites as she nibbles on what turns out to be a dried apricot.

“Ah - do you - want the bones?” she asks, gesturing at the little heap of bones she has accumulated on her leaf-plate.

They all give her that odd look again, and then Voltehre says, “Sure, if you’re offering.” He parcels them out between himself and Lambert, and they devour them swiftly before taking their shares of the dried fruit from Aiden.

“Right, so,” Lambert says, once they’ve mostly finished their meals and the fire is starting to burn low in the late-summer evening. “I notice you don’t have a fuckin’ bedroll.”

Milena swallows. “No; I have been sleeping at inns. I did not feel quite sure of my ability to keep myself safe during the night outdoors.”

“Sensible,” Aiden agrees, nodding. “There’s plenty of things in the woods that would be delighted to find a morsel like you lying about. We don’t have a spare bedroll, unfortunately, but you’re welcome to borrow mine if you like, or -” he hesitates. “Nevermind.”

“Or?” Milena asks.

Aiden gives her a long, thoughtful look. “Well, if you want to sleep warm, you’re welcome to join us,” he says slowly. “But I didn’t think you’d be entirely comfortable with that, somehow.”

Join them. Sleep in the same bedroll with an unfamiliar alpha and a male beta and a male omega. Gods, Milena’s reputation will be ruined -

What is she thinking? Her reputation is already as ruined as it can possibly get, and she doesn’t care anyhow, because she has no intention of returning to the sort of society which will care about that. And everyone will assume that she has been utterly disgraced, even if she sleeps apart from the witchers every night, simply because she is keeping company with them in the wilderness. And, importantly, they are legally her betrotheds.

The only actual question here is whether she wants to join them or not.

She’s never slept within arm’s reach of - well, anyone but Marika and Marta, actually. And Marta, at least, was a very unpleasant bedmate; she kicks, and hogs the blankets. Marika and Milena were both quite grateful when she was deemed old enough to be granted her own bedchamber.

“Do you kick?” she asks, and then slaps a hand over her own mouth, because that was not what she meant to say.

Aiden bursts into laughter. “No, actually,” he says between chortles. “None of us do.”

“Lam used to, when we were young,” Voltehre puts in. “But he grew out of it.”

Milena takes a deep breath. Best to begin as she means to go on, and everyone will assume she has been entirely ruined anyway, and she doesn’t want to take Aiden’s bedroll when he’s been so kind already, and - if she is perfectly honest, which she tries to be with herself if no one else - she wants to fall asleep wrapped up in the glorious scents of the three witchers. She suspects she will sleep better thus than she has in months. Since the day she learned her father had betrothed her to Velen, in fact.

“If it will not be intruding,” she says quietly, “I would - I would like to sleep warm, I think.”

Aiden’s eyebrows go up nearly to his hairline, and Lambert makes a very strange sound like a strangled cough. Milena swallows and looks down at her hands knotted together in her lap. “I apologize; I am grateful for the offer of your bedroll -”

“No, no, you just surprised the hell out of us, is all,” Aiden says, and shuffles closer until he can touch the back of her hand gently. Milena looks up into startlingly soft green eyes. “You’ve a spine of steel, don’t you?”

Milena blinks at him. “No?” she says blankly. “I am not a brave woman.”

“Gonna have to disagree with you on that,” Voltehre says. “Because most humans who’d spent even half as long as you have with a trio of witchers would’ve run screaming.”

“What he said,” Lambert agrees.

“But - but I ran from Velen,” Milena says. She isn’t brave. She didn’t speak up in court, or wait and object at the altar, or even take up a weapon, as the heroes in the stories she loves are wont to do. She just took what little she could carry and ran, ran for Ellander and the hoped-for safety of the cloister.

“Yeah. Sheltered little noble omega, and you dared to try to make it across most of a damn country on foot,” Lambert says, rough voice oddly gentle. “Hell, you made it pretty fucking far, too. And from what I can tell from your injuries, you fought back pretty damn hard when that bastard tried to drag you off. And now here you are breaking bread with witchers - well, breaking pheasant, anyhow - and offering to sleep next to us, and not having a fit of the vapors about any of it. I’d call that pretty fucking brave.”

Milena is quite sure she’s blushing hard enough to glow. The praise - the praise from an alpha, no less - makes something deep in her chest ache like a healing wound.

She has no idea how to respond, but there’s - there’s an odd feeling in her throat, that turns into a soft sound she’s never heard herself make before -

A croon. Ye gods, she’s crooning, like Aiden was earlier.

She stops in shock pretty much at once, one hand flying to her throat, but not quickly enough that the witchers don’t hear. Lambert’s jaw drops. Voltehre gasps softly. And Aiden - Aiden presses closer to her, winding himself around her very like a cat, and starts crooning too, a low soothing sound that seems to sink into her bones and promise safety. She sags against him, burying her face against his shoulder.

“Gods, kitten,” he murmurs in her ear. “Steel-spined little Milena. It’s been a long damn day, hasn’t it? Come on, let’s get you settled.”

“Oh! Shit, I completely forgot,” Voltehre says. “Here, you’ll sleep better if you’re not in pain.”

Milena looks up to find that Voltehre is holding out a little vial of some sort of viscous liquid. She takes it and uncorks it, and it smells like the pain relievers she used to brew back in Roggeven; she drains it hastily. Aiden offers her a skin of water to wash the taste from her mouth. And then he helps her to her feet and across the clearing to the nest of bedrolls laid out in the shelter of a spreading oak.

“Here, you take the spot next to the tree - lie on your good side so you don’t fuck up your shoulder. And then I’ll be behind you, alright? I’ve got your back.”

Milena smiles at him. “Yes, you do,” she agrees, because what else can she call it, when he defended her so unexpectedly from Velen, and has made her welcome among his pack, and has been so kind?

For some reason, that makes him croon again, and rub his cheek against the top of her head, his beard rasping against her hair. “Sleep,” he says. “Nothing will harm you here.”

Milena…genuinely believes that, actually. What monster or natural beast would dare approach three witchers, after all? And the witchers themselves -

They are strange in their mannerisms, and rough in their speech, and so, so kind. She may still be wary of Lambert, alpha as he is, but she cannot find fear in her heart anywhere, not for them.

She settles to the nest of bedrolls, lying on her good arm facing the tree, and Aiden stretches out behind her, warm as banked coals, and puts an arm around her waist, and she falls asleep between one breath and the next, surrounded by the glorious mingled scents of the witchers and Aiden’s low, soothing croon.

Chapter Text

Lambert doesn’t sleep that night. He does meditate, because he’s not an idiot, but there are two omegas for him to guard, and one of them may well be skilled in any number of areas Lambert isn’t, but she’s also pretty much as harmless as the kitten Aiden called her, and Lambert doesn’t trust that the dipshit who was trying to drag her off has just up and surrendered his claim to her to a witcher.

Which, what the fuck. Why are those laws even still on the books? They’re older than fucking Vesemir! Challenging for an omega’s hand is fucking archaic, and Lambert is offended on behalf of everyone who isn’t a hidebound old fuckwit that it’s still apparently legal.

Admittedly those laws do mean that now they apparently have a legal right to defend Milena from all comers, but holy shit, they shouldn’t fucking have to. Fucking humans and their stupid fucking need to turn everything into a godsdamned knot-swinging contest.

Well, if this Velen asshole wants to make something of it, Lambert’s perfectly willing to put the bastard on the ground with a hole in his black heart. And he won’t need his fucking dynamic to do it.

Come to think of it, he should suggest that Milena learn to use a dagger. Though probably not from him, given how twitchy she is about - well, it probably isn’t that he’s a witcher, because she’s not nearly as twitchy with Voltehre and she’s downright comfortable with Aiden, so it probably is that he’s an alpha. If all the alphas she’s spent time around before were anything like this Velen fucker, no wonder she’s leery.

Though she did croon for him. That was…that was sure as hell something, gods damn. Pretty much nobody but other witchers ever croons around a witcher, and even then Lambert’s a bad tempered asshole and doesn’t exactly elicit warm and fuzzy feelings from most of his Schoolmates, especially not after he and Voltehre went and brought home a Cat, so pretty much the only omegas who ever do croon around him are, well, Aiden and sometimes Geralt, who is a cuddly fucker despite his stoic exterior.

Having a human omega croon, even only just briefly, after barely a few hours in the same place as him, because he told her the fucking truth about her being brave as hell -

Well, that’s quite a thing indeed.

He rouses from meditation sometime in the dark hours past midnight, when the only sounds in the forest are the rustles of small creatures going about their business and the occasional squeaks of them getting eaten by owls, and puts together another batch of bruise balm to simmer over the coals of their fire, moving quietly so as not to wake his mates.

He does not start a pot of porridge, because the last four times he did that, he managed to either burn the porridge or over-salt it, and he has now been banned from porridge making by unanimous vote.

He has the balm bottled by the time the birds start chirping their little hearts out to greet the oncoming dawn. Voltehre rises with the birdsong from where he’s been curled around Aiden, stretches luxuriously, and comes over to kiss Lambert thoroughly before he starts the porridge. He, at least, can be trusted not to somehow burn the porridge onto the pot so thoroughly that even witcher strength can’t scrub it off.

Aiden likes to sleep in when he can, the hedonistic kitty. And Lambert isn’t going to wake him, not when he’s sleeping so peacefully with Milena tucked against him, and she’s still deeply asleep as well.

“When’s the last time you saw a human sleep like that around a witcher?” he asks Voltehre quietly.

Voltehre shakes his head. “Somewhere around the twelfth of never,” he replies, just as quietly. “She smells so good, Lam.”

Lambert nods. She does - she smells like roses, almost, or like the way roses look like they ought to smell. He has to admit he’s more than a little envious of Aiden getting to tuck his nose into her hair and surround himself in her scent. But if Lambert tried to do that, he’d scare the poor girl shitless, he’s pretty sure.

He tugs Voltehre into his lap instead, nestling his nose into the curve of Voltehre’s neck and breathing in. Voltehre smells of honey and home, always has and always will. Voltehre strokes his hair and cuddles closer, and Lambert rumbles a quiet purr.

“The fuck are we gonna do with her?” he murmurs.

“Take her to Ellander,” Voltehre says promptly. “Keep her safe. Teach her how to survive on the road. Probably fuss over her like a bunch of broody hens. Past that? I have no idea.”

Lambert snorts. “School of the Broody Hen.”

“Hey, I remember trying to get eggs when we were on henhouse duty. Those things are dangerous. The School of the Broody Hen would be the terror of the Continent!”

Lambert snickers and lifts his head to pull Voltehre into a kiss, because he can’t not kiss his mate when Voltehre is being fucking adorable again. Voltehre kisses back, big hands cradling Lambert’s head, and moans softly when Lambert tugs at his hair, and if there wasn’t a near-stranger sleeping not ten feet away, Lambert would tumble his beta to the ground and give him a proper good morning, but as it is, it’s probably safer not to go beyond kissing if they don’t want to shock the poor girl catatonic when she wakes up.

Which turns out to be sensible on his part, because right about the time he would be getting Voltehre’s pants open under other circumstances, there’s a soft sound of pain from near the tree, and they break the kiss and turn to see that Milena is sitting up, cradling her injured arm close to herself, as Aiden blinks himself awake.

“Stiffen up overnight?” Voltehre asks ruefully.

“Yes,” Milena says.

“Fuck, hate it when that happens,” Lambert sighs. “Here, c’mere, I’ll put some more salve on it before we eat.” Voltehre climbs off his lap with another quick kiss and goes to stir the porridge. Aiden unwinds his arm from around Milena’s waist with a grumpy little noise and flops onto his back, yawning so wide that Lambert can see his molars.

Milena gets up carefully and approaches Lambert with much less hesitance than yesterday, sitting down beside him when he gestures. He looks over the bruises on her arm carefully - they’re nasty, deep blue-purple and probably viciously painful - and slips his fingers under the neckline of her dress to feel her shoulder as she moves her arm. The joint is a little swollen but still doesn’t feel like anything is torn, so that’s good. He grabs one of the jars of salve and starts smearing it onto the bruises as carefully as he can, not wanting to cause more pain if he can help it; she lets him cradle her slender little arm in his big hands, turning it so he can get to all the bruises easily.

Her skin is very soft. Like rose petals, he thinks, and snorts to himself at the comparison.

“Thank you,” she murmurs when he finishes and lets go of her arm. “That is very potent salve.”

“Yeah, well, gotta be, to work on witchers,” Lambert shrugs. “Glad it’s helping. And if I ever run into the bastard as gave you those, I’ll give him a set to match.”

“Pretty sure I already did that,” Aiden points out, getting up and shuffling across the clearing to drape himself over Lambert’s shoulders like a sort of inconvenient cape. “Pity I didn’t break his damn wrist, but it is what it is.”

Milena is giving Aiden a very strange look for some reason, but she smiles at that. “It was probably wiser to limit yourself to bruises, but I must admit I find the idea of him bearing similar marks is rather pleasant.”

Aiden chuckles. “Kitten has claws,” he says approvingly.

“Good,” Lambert says. “Should have some real ones, too. D’you know how to use a knife?”

Milena blinks at him. “I…suspect you do not mean using a belt knife to eat?” she says weakly.

“No, I mean stabbing someone,” Lambert says bluntly.

“Oh, good thought,” Aiden says.

Milena swallows. “Then no, I do not have that particular skill.”

“Then we’ll teach you,” Lambert says.

Milena is giving him that very strange look now. “Why?” she asks softly.

“Because we might not always be around. Or, hell, you don’t know us from fucking Velen, for all you know you might need to stab one of us one of these days,” Lambert points out.

To his surprise, that earns him a slow, brilliant smile. Aiden croons softly in delight.

“I do not think I need to fear that, but I would appreciate the lessons all the same,” Milena says, which gives Lambert a very strange feeling of astonished pride.

“Good,” Voltehre says briskly. “We can work on that whenever we take a break, then. For now, do you want honey or nuts or dried fruit or all three?”

Milena turns to answer him, which gives Aiden a chance to lean down and murmur in Lambert’s ear, “My wonderful alpha.” Lambert can’t quite help his answering purr.

They eat quickly, as is their habit, and then Lambert hauls the pot down to the nearby stream to scrub it out and comes back to find Milena and Voltehre in a very polite and slightly hilarious stare-off. It’s mostly funny because she’s a head and a half shorter than he is and probably weighs barely half what he does, and isn’t backing down even slightly, the adorable little kitten.

“I can carry my own baggage, sir,” Milena says firmly.

“Your shoulder is hurt,” Voltehre retorts. “You need to let it rest and heal.”

“I need to not become more of a burden on your pack than I have already proved!”

…Suddenly this scene is much less funny.

Voltehre takes a step back, blinking in surprise. “Who said you were a burden?”

“It hardly needs to be said to be evident!” Milena gestures at the campsite. “You have fed me, tended my injuries, let me sleep in your very bed, shown me every kindness; you are planning to go entirely out of your way to bring me to safety; I cannot ask you to bear my belongings in addition to all else!”

Lambert exchanges a very dismayed look with Aiden. One of them clearly needs to step in, but if Lambert does it will probably distress her further. He jerks his chin at Aiden, who nods and puts a careful hand on Milena’s uninjured shoulder.

“Kitten,” he says gently, “the last time I broke my leg, Voltehre carried me around until it healed. That didn’t make me a burden, except in the most literal possible sense, it just meant I was hurt and needed to heal without re-injuring myself.”

Milena gives him a baffled look, and then her shoulders hunch in a little and she looks down at her shoes. “Yes, but you - you are his pack,” she whispers. “I am a stranger to you, and you have already done so much.”

Voltehre gives Lambert an incredulous look and steps forward, reaching out to touch her chin so she’ll look up at him. “You’re our betrothed, aren’t you?” he asks. “Up til you tell us you want nothing to do with us, that makes you pack, I should think. Or as close as makes no nevermind.”

“I,” Milena says, and closes her mouth again, looking baffled. She glances over at Lambert, who nods as encouragingly as he can, and then up at Aiden, who gives her a hopeful smile. “I suppose it does,” she says at last, in a very small voice. “But when I am healed, you will allow me to carry my own things, I hope?”

“Of course,” Voltehre agrees. “I’m not trying to - to make you feel useless, or anything like that. Just trying to keep you from hurting yourself worse, is all.”

“Then I thank you,” Milena says softly. “But - why must you carry them?”

Voltehre snorts and grins. “Oh, that. Because I’m the strongest of the three of us, and it’ll bother me least, that’s all.”

“Oh,” Milena says, and for some reason gives Lambert another strange look before turning back to Voltehre. “Then I do thank you, and I am sorry to have delayed our packing with my…quibbles.”

“Perfectly understandable,” Aiden says smoothly. “We all get a little squirrely when we’re hurt. No harm done.” He draws her off to the side to show her how to douse and scatter the last coals of the fire, and Voltehre comes over to slump against Lambert for a moment.

“Gods, Lam, she’s as bad as you are,” he mutters.

“Hey,” Lambert says without any heat. “I learned to stop being stubborn about letting you look after me. Eventually.”

“Only took the better part of three decades,” Voltehre sighs. “Gods grant it doesn’t take that long with her.”

Lambert blinks. “You think we’re gonna get three decades with her?”

Voltehre hums. “Maybe,” he says thoughtfully. “She isn’t scared of us, and she smells like she’d suit us. That’s not nothing. Guess we’ll see how it goes on the way to Ellander.”

Lambert nods and kisses Voltehre’s cheek. “Guess we will,” he agrees, and heads for his packs to finish getting everything together.

Once the clearing shows very nearly no sign of their occupancy, except a little bare spot in the dirt and a few scuffs, the witchers all look at each other, and Lambert takes a deep breath and nods.

It takes a few moments of concentration, dampening their scents after an entire night without controlling them, but only a few - they do this pretty much every day, after all. And then the scents of Lambert’s pack begin to fade in the breeze, until anyone but another witcher would never be able to tell that they have dynamics at all.

Milena glances from one to another, eyes wide. “Oh, that is - that is quite disconcerting,” she says faintly.

Lambert grins. “Ain’t it just? Remember to treat us like we’re nulls while we’re anywhere around other humans, yeah?”

“I will remember,” Milena says solemnly. “It will be easier with your scents so muted.”

Lambert nods and leads off at what he hopes is a pace she can keep, about half as fast as he would go if it were just the three of them. Aiden and Milena fall in behind him, and Voltehre brings up the rear. Lambert heads south, planning to avoid the town entirely and pick up the road well past it, in case that fucker Velen is still around.

“So!” Aiden says cheerfully behind him. “What do you know about woodscraft?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Milena replies. “I can identify plants in gardens, but in the wild I am utterly adrift. I know barely enough to understand that many things look similar to those I know are edible, and that it would be unwise to eat them without being entirely sure of their identification.”

“Well, that’s a damn good start,” Aiden says. “Very good to know what you don’t know. Let’s start with the absolute basics: that’s an oak tree, and you can tell by the rough bark and the shape of the leaves.” Lambert hears a rustle as he plucks a leaf down.

Good on Aiden. Lambert listens with half an ear to the ongoing woodscraft lesson, and another half an ear to Milena’s breathing in case it gets too strained, and gives the rest of his attention to the forest around them. Most sensible creatures won’t approach a trio of witchers, but not all creatures are sensible, and monsters have their own fucking inscrutable motivations.

He’s rather impressed, actually, that Milena makes it until nearly noon before he can start to hear signs of distress in her breathing and the slight stumbling of her steps. He heads for the sound of running water, and stops on the bank of a small stream.

“Break for lunch,” he informs Milena, who sinks down to sit on the mossy bank with a soft sigh of relief. “You - uh - you’ve got good stamina,” he adds.

Milena smiles up at him. “It has improved substantially since I fled my father’s holdings,” she admits. “The first few weeks, I would have been entirely exhausted by midmorning, at the pace we have been traveling.”

Voltehre puts his packs down next to her, takes off his boots and socks, rolls up his trousers almost to the knee, and wades into the water. Aiden hunkers down on the bank and starts gathering watercress. Lambert puts his own packs down and collects a small armful of fallen branches.

“Here, lemme show you how to build a fire,” he says to Milena. “You can’t just pile stuff up higgledy-piggledy, it’ll all fall apart and it won’t burn hot enough to be any use. There’s a bunch of different ways to stack it, and this one’s good for a quick meal like this.”

Milena nods and watches with great interest as he stacks the wood to burn hot and fast, suitable for cooking the fish Voltehre is currently working on acquiring. Lambert gives her a sharp grin and unstacks it again, then gestures for her to try.

Milena swallows and shuffles forward until she can very carefully attempt to imitate his construction, working with her uninjured hand and glancing up at him nervously as she finishes.

Lambert grins at her. “Nicely done,” he says approvingly. “Looks good.”

Milena blushes, glancing away with a tiny smile. “Have you flint and steel?” she inquires.

“Steel I’ve got plenty of, and I’ve a fire-striker in my pouch, but I don’t need it,” Lambert says smugly. She looks up in surprise. Lambert grins and signs Igni, and the little pile of wood flares up neatly.

Milena’s jaw drops. “How?” she breathes.

Lambert smirks at her. “Witchers can do a little magic.”

“How wonderful,” Milena says, sounding awed. “What else can you do?”

“Half a dozen things.” Lambert gestures Quen, and chuckles when her eyes open wide. “We can cast a shield, make a sort of trap - works on physical shit and wraiths - shove things away, all that sort of useful shit.” He doesn’t mention Axii. Not yet.

“Marvelous,” Milena murmurs, and reaches out to touch the golden glow of the shield.

Lambert lets the Quen fall once she’s drawn her hand back. “Pretty damn useful when there’s a chort coming at you at speed,” he says wryly.

“I do not know what a chort is, but that sounds like a very good time for a shield, yes,” Milena agrees.

“Big nasty monster, looks a little like a goat,” Aiden explains, sitting down beside her and piling his watercress on the moss. “They’re very fast and very strong but not very smart. If you ever see one running at you, dodge sideways - they don’t corner well.”

“I see,” Milena says gravely.

“Don’t just punch them in the face,” Voltehre adds, splashing up out of the stream and plopping an armful of fish in front of Aiden, who draws a dagger and starts scaling them. “It doesn’t work very well.”

“I will bear that in mind,” Milena says, clearly hiding a smile. Voltehre grins at her.

“I didn’t figure it was going to be your first instinct or anything, but I learned years ago that it’s best to cover all the possible options, just in case someone happens to be really good at finding loopholes in the instructions.” He gives Lambert a smirk.

Lambert rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”

“He liked to find the most creative ways to get around the rules,” Voltehre tells Milena in a conspiratorial tone. “Things like ‘no eating in the dorms’, so he’d eat on the windowsill.” Milena giggles, covering her mouth to muffle it. “Drove our trainers batshit.”

“I can understand that, yes,” Milena says, sounding very amused.

“Were you a mischief-maker as a child?” Aiden asks her.

Milena swallows. “No,” she says. “It was - Father would have been very angry, and I learned quite young that his anger was to be avoided at any cost. The most daring thing I ever did before I fled was to sneak down to the stables regularly to befriend the cats and the hunting hounds.”

Which is both very sweet and incredibly fucking sad.

Aiden finishes scaling the fish, sprinkles salt over them, and spits them on some of the spare sticks Lambert has left aside, propping them over the fire. “Quick and simple,” he tells Milena. “Nothing but salt. Should be decent, though.”

Milena nods, watching with great interest as he turns the fish on their spits. Voltehre stretches his legs out and wiggles his bare toes, leaning back on his hands. “I remember petting cats when I was little,” he says thoughtfully. “Did you, Lam?”

“No - my Da would have kicked any cats that got close enough,” Lambert says, remembered misery making the words bitter in his mouth.

“You get to pet me now,” Aiden points out with deliberate lightness.

Lambert snorts and grins. “Guess I do, and you may not purr for me, but you sure do croon, kitty.”

Aiden smirks. “And I can make you purr.”

“Yeah you can,” Lambert chuckles. Aiden’s clever hands and mouth can absolutely reduce him to a purring heap.

“May I ask why you only petted cats when you were little?” Milena asks Voltehre hesitantly.

“Sure. Something about witchers makes cats not like us.” Voltehre shrugs. “Probably we smell wrong somehow. Like predators or something.”

“Oh.” Milena blinks. “How odd - I think you all smell very lovely.” And then she blushes crimson.

“Thank you, kitten,” Aiden croons, leaning over to nudge his cheek against the top of her head. “You smell lovely, too.”

Milena’s blush intensifies. Lambert takes pity on her before she spontaneously combusts or something like that. “Fish smells damn nice, too - is it done?”

“Shit, yes,” Aiden says, and pulls the spits off the fire, handing them around. Milena uses her belt knife to cut little flakes off tidily; the witchers of course don’t bother. The fish is good, salty and rich, and Lambert makes it through three of them in quick succession.

Bones and all, of course.

He licks his fingers clean; Milena is just finishing her single fish, setting the nearly cleaned bones aside where Voltehre and Aiden can reach them easily. Lambert has the very strong urge to purr at the sight. Humans don’t react well to witcher oddities - they’ve all learned that time and time again - and yet here she is being fucking sweet about it.

“So,” he says, because she probably wouldn’t be nearly as sanguine about him picking her up and cuddling her close and purring the way he wants to, “which of us d’you want to learn knife fighting from?”

Milena blinks. “I - I am sure you are all very skilled -”

“Of course we are,” Aiden says cheerfully. “But it’d better be me or Lambert.”

Voltehre nods. “We’ve all got slightly different styles, and mine’s all about reach and weight and strength, which, uh -”

“I do not have,” Milena says, covering a smile. “And thus would be ill-suited to your style.”

“Exactly,” Voltehre agrees, grinning at her. “Aiden’s style might suit you better - he’s all about speed and precision - but honestly Lam’s a better teacher.”

Lambert really can’t blame her for the incredulous look she can’t quite conceal. Voltehre laughs. “No, really!”

“It’s true,” Aiden agrees. “I know that things work; Lambert knows why. It means he can explain them better.”

Lambert’s ears feel hot.

Milena takes a deep breath and says, “I know so little about this that I cannot even guess at the scope of what I do not know, but if your style would suit me and Lambert is the finer teacher, could he then teach me to fight as you do?”

Aiden tilts his head at Lambert. “You do know my style nearly as well as your own,” he points out.

“I do,” Lambert agrees. “Sure. Makes sense. C’mon, then, if you’re rested enough; we’ll start with footwork, since you can’t hold a knife right now.”

Milena swallows hard and gets up, and he leads her a little ways away from the fire. Behind him, Aiden shifts over to lean against Voltehre’s shoulder, and Voltehre nuzzles his hair fondly. Lambert suppresses another purr. Gods, his pack is the best fucking pack in the world.

“Right,” he says to Milena. “Stance. You want to be light on your feet, and balanced, so you can move in any fucking direction you need to.” He demonstrates - not his own usual stance but the Cat one, which is rather less good for the times when you need to be an immovable object but much better for the times you need to be able to go sideways very quickly with no warning whatsoever.

Milena mimics him, but her balance is slightly off. Lambert shakes his head and reaches for her to adjust her, and she flinches. Just a little.

He steps back fast. Behind him, he can hear the startled, worried silence from his mates.

Milena takes a deep, shaky breath. “My apologies,” she whispers.

“For fucking what?” Lambert demands. “You don’t want me to touch you, I won’t touch you.”

To his surprise, she frowns and shakes her head. “No, that’s not -” Another shaky breath. “I wish to learn this, and you are the proper teacher; it would be entirely foolish of me to object to your methods.”

Lambert blinks down at her. “I think,” he says slowly, “we’re talking past each other. What the hell did you think was gonna happen there?”

“That you would…correct my error?” Milena says hesitantly.

“How did you think I was gonna do that?” Lambert prods.

Milena bites her lip, staring up at him apprehensively for a long moment, and then says slowly, “My dancing master tended to use a switch, as laying hands upon a noble daughter would have been unwise.”

Lambert puts a hand over his face in abject dismay. “You thought I was gonna hit you.”

Her silence speaks entire volumes.

“Melitele fucking wept,” Lambert sighs. “Even the fucking sadists they have as trainers in the Wolf School don’t hit beginners. And I’m not that kind of asshole.”

He lowers his hand to see Milena giving him another of those unreadable looks. After a long moment she says softly, “No, I see that. You are as kind as rumor would paint you cruel.”

Lambert blinks. “Uh.”

“He is,” Aiden agrees.

“How, then, ought I be standing?” Milena asks, and when Lambert reaches for her this time, she doesn’t flinch. He can see the trembling tension in her body, the effort it costs her, but she doesn’t flinch, and he guides her carefully into the proper balance and steps back again.

“Like that,” he says, as gently as he can. “Step out of that and back into it half a dozen times, to get used to it.”

Milena nods and obeys, and the next time he has to correct her posture - not much; she’s got very good control of her body - she does not tense up nearly as much at the touch of his hands.

Chapter Text

Voltehre has very consciously modeled himself as a beta after Gweld, who is widely considered to be the finest beta in the Wolf School: to be the glue that holds his pack together and the steadiness that keeps them on an even keel. He does his best to be prepared for anything he and his mates might encounter, from the usual monsters and unpleasant villagers, to bad weather, to heat and rut and the instinct-driven mood swings that even witchers are prone to. And honestly, he thinks he does pretty well. He is the foundation stone of his pack, and his alpha and his omega rely on him and trust his strength and sturdiness, and he is always ready for whatever might come their way.

He was not prepared for Aiden to come back from a perfectly normal trip into town with another omega. A gorgeous noble-born omega woman with enormous eyes and a scent like what roses dream of being. Voltehre may not have an alpha’s instincts, but that doesn’t mean omegas don’t smell good to him, and Aiden’s rescued lady smells as good as Aiden himself does. She smells like she ought to be pack, the same way Aiden did when they first met him, and Voltehre is not surprised at all that both Aiden and Lambert are pretty much immediately head-over-heels for her.

Which means that Voltehre needs to keep his head.

It isn’t easy. Betas may not have the same sort of overwhelming protective instincts as alphas do, or the visceral urge to accumulate a pack that omegas do, but they have tending instincts like nobody’s business, and Milena, with her rich scent and her horrid bruises and her astonishing steel spine, needs tending. Voltehre wants to wrap her up in a blanket and growl at anyone but his pack who dares approach her.

He contents himself by going and fetching her belongings, intimidating the absolute hell out of the innkeeper along the way, and then doing his best to seem…well, comfortingly harmless. Which isn’t easy for any witcher to do, but he’s got a couple of distinct advantages in his boyish face and natural cheerfulness.

And he watches, as best he can, to make sure she is what she seems. Because Aiden won’t spot it if she isn’t, not as instantly besotted as the Cat clearly is, and Lambert might not spot it either, because Milena has clearly roused all of the alpha’s protective instincts. So it will be up to Voltehre to find any inconsistencies in her story.

Thus far, he hasn’t seen any, though. As best he can tell, she’s just what she claims to be: a noble omega who decided she didn’t want the awful alpha her father chose for her, and ran like hell until Aiden found and rescued her, and is now painfully grateful for their pack’s protection. She’s startlingly polite and astonishingly fearless in the face of their clearly unhuman traits, and -

Oh, hell, she smells so good.

She’s keeping up surprisingly well as the afternoon wears on; Voltehre wouldn’t have guessed she could walk so long and steadily, even at the slower-than-usual pace Lambert is setting. But as the shadows start to lengthen, she begins to lag. Voltehre keeps a few paces behind her, ready to catch her if she falls, and Aiden is clearly only one bad stumble away from scooping her up into his arms.

Lambert doesn’t need to be warned that she’s flagging; it’s clear in the set of his shoulders and the tilt of his head that he’s on the lookout for a decent place to camp. It doesn’t take him long to turn off the road and into the woods again, to the bank of what may be the same stream as earlier; a few more minutes suffice to find them a clearing next to a magnificent fallen tree that will make a lovely windbreak.

“I’ll find dinner,” Lambert says, swinging his packs down next to the tree, and goes trotting off into the forest. Voltehre sets his own baggage down next to Lambert’s and starts gathering wood for a fire. Aiden sits down, pulling Milena gently down beside him, and starts quizzing her on all the various edible plants he’s gathered over the course of the day; she does surprisingly well, actually. Not quite as well as Voltehre did, given a similar test when he was a trainee, but then, she probably doesn’t have his eidetic memory, either.

He joins them once he’s found enough wood to last them the night. “Want me to show you another style of fire?” he asks. “We don’t want hot and fast tonight, not if it’s going to last til morning.”

“Yes, please,” Milena says, and watches closely as he stacks the branches, then does her best to imitate his work when he dismantles it and gestures for her to try. She does pretty damn well, too. Better than most trainees do, in Voltehre’s experience, the first time they try to build a fire out on a camping trip.

She’s also clearly trying not to show that her arm hurts like hell.

Gods, she’s as stubborn as Lambert is.

“You’re hurting,” he says gently.

“It is bearable,” she replies at once. Aiden makes a soft unhappy noise.

“You don’t have to bear it,” Voltehre says, feeling rather like he’s fallen through time and is arguing with Lambert their first year on the Path. “We have pain potions.”

Milena opens her mouth, closes it, sighs, and says, “I do not wish to cost you more than I already have.”

Aiden makes an even more unhappy sound and curls around her, giving Voltehre a big-eyed miserable look and clearly hoping Voltehre can fix this.

“I already bought them,” Voltehre points out. “And I expect Lambert will make more, which means all those will cost us is a little time gathering the materials. Hell, it shouldn’t be as hard as making our potions, since yours don’t need drowner brains or forktail venom. And you will heal faster if you’re not hurting.”

He isn’t sure what to make of her expression. It’s somewhere between shock and sorrow, perhaps.

“I would appreciate a pain reliever,” she says quietly.

Voltehre gets up to root around in Lambert’s packs and brings one over, and watches with satisfaction as she drains it and almost immediately relaxes slightly, tension ebbing from her muscles like water from a cracked jar.

“Tell us if you’re hurting,” Voltehre says, settling back down on the other side of the unlit fire. “We can’t fix it if we don’t know about it.”

“I will try to remember,” Milena says solemnly.

“Why ‘try’?” Aiden asks, sounding as confused as Voltehre feels. “I would assume a duke’s daughter would be used to asking for what she needs -”

Milena laughs, and it’s an awful sound, cracked and miserable, and then she buries her face in her hands and bursts into tears. Voltehre jerks back in shock; Aiden whines high in his throat and pats frantically at her back and uninjured shoulder, looking close to panic.

“What did we do? What’s the matter?” Aiden babbles.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I - it’s not you - I -” Milena loses coherency again, but she’s not pulling away from Aiden - on the contrary, she’s turning towards him, curling up small in his arms and hiding her face against his chest.

Voltehre knee-walks hastily around the stack of wood and settles himself on her other side, stroking her back gently. “We’ve got you,” he murmurs. “Cry it out, kitten.” He realizes what he’s said moments after it leaves his lips, and exchanges a rueful look with Aiden. Guess that’s going to be a thing.

It’s probably just as well Lambert is out hunting. He would not be calm about Milena’s tears. Voltehre is having a little trouble keeping himself calm enough not to alert their alpha that something is wrong back at camp; he can see Aiden taking measured breaths to keep his own emotions under control.

She goes from abject weeping to hiccuping sobs and sniffles after a few minutes, and Aiden fumbles in his belt pouches and presses a handkerchief into her hands. She wipes her face and blows her nose and then, in an awful emotionless tone that Voltehre never wants to hear again, she says, “A proper noble daughter of Redania is neither clumsy nor disobedient enough to become injured. If she does sustain some injury by her own folly, then it is proper for her to endure whatever pain ensues, as a lesson and a reminder to avoid such folly in future days.”

“Um,” Voltehre says blankly. “That’s bullshit.”

“Such was my father’s firm command,” Milena says, and sniffles again, hard. “It will take me some time, I think, to learn that my - my new pack holds otherwise.”

Aiden croons softly, probably at Milena calling them her pack.

Voltehre says, “I think I want to punch your father.”

Milena giggles wetly. “I do not think that would be wise, unfortunately.”

“Oh, I know I can’t. I just want to.” Voltehre smiles down at her, delighted when she looks up and gives him a tiny smile in return. “Something is very, very wrong when witchers are trained with more care than is given to noble girls.”

“I could kill him,” Aiden says thoughtfully. “It doesn’t count as taking a human contract if nobody’s paying me, right?”

“No murder,” Voltehre sighs.

“Just a little one?” Aiden asks, giving Voltehre a big-eyed hopeful look. Milena lets out a tiny, muffled giggle. “One tiny little murder? Well, two, I’d want to get Velen too, I suppose, but still.”

Voltehre taps him on the nose, grinning. “No murder, bloodthirsty kitty.”

Aiden pouts dramatically. “Just a little murder,” he grumbles, and Milena giggles harder.

“Please don’t kill either my father or Velen,” she says. “I would not wish you to be harmed or imprisoned for a duke’s murder.”

“How little trust you have in me, kitten,” Aiden chuckles, giving her a grin and a wink. “I’m far too sneaky to get caught.”

“But you would certainly need to go north into Redania, and then I would not have your protection on the way to Ellander,” Milena points out.

“...Damn. Well played,” Aiden says ruefully. Voltehre is also rather impressed; that was a beautifully done bit of manipulation. The fact that they all know it was deliberate doesn’t change the fact that it was both true and effective.

As long as she doesn’t use that against his pack, Voltehre can acknowledge the skill and cleverness inherent in that little exchange.

“Fine, I won’t go off and murder a pair of dukes,” Aiden sighs. “But I make no promises about what might happen if I meet either of them down a dark alley someday.”

Milena gives him a shaky smile. “That is truly as much as I could ask for.”

Aiden brushes his thumb against her cheek, wiping away a lingering teardrop. “You could probably ask for more, really, but sure, we’ll take it.” He takes a deep breath and looks up, catching the same soft sounds Voltehre just has. “Ah, Lambert’s on his way back - here, kitten, let’s splash some water on your face so he doesn’t lose his shit immediately.”

“Why would he be upset?” Milena asks.

Voltehre puts a hand over his eyes. “Gods, you’ve never been around any alphas who aren’t complete wastes of breath, have you?”

“I…suppose not?” Milena says, still sounding baffled.

“Decent alphas want to keep their mates happy,” Voltehre tells her gently. “He’ll want to punch whatever made you sad.”

“Oh,” Milena says, looking deeply taken aback.

Aiden stands and helps Milena to her feet, leading her over to the stream and soaking his handkerchief so he can wipe her face gently clean. Voltehre lights the fire with a quick Igni and picks up the pile of sticks he gathered to use as spits, drawing his knife to cut the twigs off them.

Lambert emerges from the trees as Aiden and Milena are settling down beside the fire; he’s got an entire deer over his shoulders, the ridiculous alpha. He sets it down with a hopeful look, and Aiden goes over to him immediately, nuzzling up under Lambert’s chin and crooning approval. Lambert lets out a long sigh of relief and rests his cheek against Aiden’s hair, starting to purr.

Milena croons, too, and then claps a hand to her throat with a very startled expression. Which - she looked pretty surprised yesterday, too.

“Is this another bullshit noble thing?” Voltehre asks her quietly as Lambert’s purring grows louder. “I mean, I know most people don’t purr or croon in public, but surely with your family -”

Milena shakes her head. “It is undignified to give in to one’s instincts in such a manner,” she says. “Which is, I am beginning to think, a very useful sort of belief to hold, when the truth is that no one in my father’s household was ever comfortable enough to purr or croon. Certainly I never was.”

“What the fuck,” Lambert rasps, raising his head to stare at her. “Never?”

Milena swallows. “Last night was the first time I have ever crooned in my life, that I can recall.”

“Holy shit,” Lambert whispers, and Aiden’s eyes are as large as bezants, and Voltehre -

Voltehre wants to wrap her up in a blanket and keep her, dear gods. Even witcher trainees are comfortable enough among their cohorts to purr or croon.

Fuck it, he really doesn’t think she’s anything but what she seems.

And what she seems to be is the sweetest little omega he’s ever encountered.

He reaches out a little tentatively and wraps an arm around her waist, tugging her closer. Milena gives him a startled look and then relaxes, resting her head against his shoulder. “You croon anytime you want to,” Voltehre tells her softly. “And if anyone gives you shit about it, I’ll punch them.”

Milena giggles and settles a little more comfortably against his side, and as Lambert and Aiden start turning the deer into more usable cuts of meat, she starts, softly and hesitantly, to croon again.

Voltehre only rarely regrets the fact that betas can’t make contentment-sounds the way alphas and omegas can, but this is definitely one of those times. Still, he’s gotten good at improvising over the years; he starts humming, very quietly, an old lullaby he can only barely remember from before he came to Kaer Morhen.

Milena’s eyes flutter shut, and the exertion of the day catches up to her; her croon turns to a soft sigh, and then she is asleep, a slight warm weight against Voltehre’s side.

“Oh damn,” Lambert whispers, and Voltehre looks up to find his alpha staring over with enormous eyes. “Oh, fuck, Aiden, look.”

“Well that’s the cutest damn thing I’ve ever seen,” is Aiden’s opinion.

Milena makes a very quiet sound and curls up a little more, and Voltehre wraps his arm more snugly around her so she won’t fall over. Quietly, he fills Lambert in on the minor crisis from earlier in the day. Lambert, as expected, growls under his breath, but Milena’s obvious contentment now keeps him from getting too worked up. Voltehre smiles ruefully as Aiden drapes himself over Lambert to help keep the alpha calm. “We all want to keep her, right?” he asks quietly.

“Gods, yes,” Aiden breathes.

“So fucking much,” Lambert says. “I haven’t felt like this since we found Aiden.”

Which was a mildly hilarious catastrophe, much funnier now than it was at the time. Lambert had a concussion and Aiden had broken ribs and Voltehre had a broken leg, so they were all holed up together drinking Swallow and taking turns meditating, and then Aiden got comfortable enough to let his scent control lapse. Upon which Lambert, concussed and still on edge from fighting an ogre and almost vibrating with protective worry over Voltehre’s injuries, just pounced on the Cat. Aiden had, very understandably, assumed he was being attacked, and almost stabbed Lambert before he realized Lambert was purring, and then Voltehre had had to peel them apart so Lambert wouldn’t put any weight on Aiden’s ribs, and Lambert had not wanted to be peeled. Eventually they’d ended up with Lambert plastered against Voltehre on one side, purring frantically, and Aiden leaning against him on his other side, crooning rather bewilderedly, and Voltehre himself trying desperately to stay awake long enough for one of them to come back to their senses.

This current mess is much less of a disaster, really. The only person hurt is Milena, which is terrible but she’s healing, and Lambert is not concussed into ridiculous alpha brooding, and no one has any broken bones.

“Alright,” Voltehre says, because he’s the beta, he’s the one who keeps them from doing really stupid shit because of their instincts. “Assuming we get to Ellander and she wants to let us keep her, how are we going to make that work?”

There’s a pause. Lambert and Aiden glance at each other. Aiden says slowly, “You weren’t here when she listed off her skills, but it sounds like she could be helpful on the Path. She can’t hunt, gods no -”

“Oh fuck no,” Lambert agrees, and Voltehre shakes his head vigorously. Milena should never be within a dozen furlongs of a monster, on that they are all in vehement accord.

“But she speaks three languages and knows how to talk to nobles,” Aiden continues. “She can sew, too, which will be damn helpful, specially if she learns to suture. She can maybe find work as a scribe even when there aren’t any contracts available. And she’s clearly interested in learning to cook and keep a camp.”

“Hell, how many times have we thought it would be damned useful to have someone back at camp to keep the fire burning and have food ready when we get back from a contract?” Lambert adds.

Voltehre hums and nods. There have been any number of times they’ve come limping back to a cold camp, injured and weary, and whoever is least beat up has taken point on lighting the fire and finding food and patching everyone up. It’s exhausting and miserable. Voltehre doesn’t even want to think about what it was like for Aiden back when he was lone.

So yes, if Milena is willing to be their camp-tender and spokesperson and seamstress, that would actually be damned useful.

“We could get a mule,” he says thoughtfully. Horses hate Aiden, for some reason - apparently it’s a common side effect of the Cat mutagens - but mules are less likely to panic when he approaches. They actually had a pack mule for a while, a decade or so maybe, and it was damned useful; they found a nice farm for it to live on when it got too old to keep up. Finding another has always been both expensive and enough of a hassle that they keep putting it off, but if they’ve got a good reason, like for instance a pretty little omega who can’t keep up with witchers all day, every day, they can probably find the time and coin. And then the mule could carry some of their packs, too, since Milena hardly weighs anything.

“Good thought,” Lambert says. “There’s a horse market just outside Ellander.”

Aiden grins. “Guess I get to go dodge mules for a while.”

“It’s good training,” Lambert teases. “Keeps you on your toes.”

“I’ll remind you that you said that the next time we spar,” Aiden says cheerfully. “Sometime after I stop running rings around you, maybe.”

“Oh, you’ll run rings around me, will you?” Lambert growls, and tackles Aiden to the ground; Aiden squirms out of his grip and pounces on him, and then they’re rolling around together. Aiden ends up on top at last, and manages to keep his position by the simple expedient of leaning down and kissing Lambert thoroughly; Lambert curls his hands around Aiden’s hips and purrs like thunder, utterly content to be pinned.

Voltehre settles himself a little more comfortably, stroking Milena’s side absentmindedly, and watches his mates kiss with a feeling of immense contentment filling his chest.

He’s feeling a lot less contented around noon the next day. It had been quite a pleasant day: up with the dawn, the whole clearing smelling like his mates and Milena, and a perfectly decent morning’s travel, with Milena successfully identifying almost every plant they passed and Aiden glowing with pride in his student. But they’d decided to stop at a town to sell the deerskin before it starts reeking - they don’t have the wherewithal to tan it on the road - and maybe buy some bread, since baking is also not something easily done over a campfire, and discovered that there’s a contract up.

And unfortunately it’s not something nice and easy like a nekker nest, that they would have felt comfortable drawing straws to see who stayed back to protect Milena while the other two dealt with it. No, it’s a fucking bloat of rotfiends, with what sure as hell sounds like a grave hag denning with them. None of Voltehre’s pack are going to be willing to let the other two go off to fight those without them.

And it’s not the sort of thing they can in good conscience leave behind for the next witchers to deal with, either. There might not be another witcher pack through here for months, maybe years; it’s been four months since the alderman put the contract up, and the town has lost eight people so far, and can’t use their graveyard or the best route to the river.

“Bloody buggering hell,” Lambert sighs, which really does sum it up pretty well.

“What is the trouble?” Milena asks, glancing between them worriedly.

“We have to take this contract,” Voltehre says. “All of us.”

He’s half expecting her to object - they’ve promised to protect her, after all - but she nods and says, “If it is that dangerous, then of course you must all go."

“But you -” Aiden objects.

“I will be fine. I will offer my services as a scribe - my arm is healed enough for that.”

Voltehre doesn’t like it. He wants to find someplace safe - a room at the inn that locks, or a cave well outside of town - and stick her in it, if they have to leave her behind. But she’s a grown woman and can make her own decisions, and she’d probably react just about as well as Aiden would to the suggestion that she should be coddled. She probably wouldn’t be quite as violent in her response, but that’s because she’s not a witcher.

“Alright,” Voltehre says, cutting off the objections his mates are opening their mouths to make. “But keep your back to a wall.”

“And stab anyone who dares bother you,” Lambert adds, plucking one of his smaller daggers off his belt and holding it out hilt-first.

Milena blinks at him for a moment, then takes the knife carefully. “I will do my best.”

Lambert nods jerkily, and they head first for the alderman - who is gratifyingly eager to hire them, and doesn’t quibble about the price they set - and then for the inn, where they get Milena set up in a corner with a line of customers already forming in front of her.

They can’t show any fondness for her in public - not when she’s not their mate. The best they can do is the gentle squeeze Aiden gives her uninjured shoulder, and the flat glare Lambert levels at the innkeeper as he murmurs, “We’ll be back for her later.”

And then they can’t worry about her, because a distracted witcher is a dead witcher, and a bloat of rotfiends is a nasty fight even for a pack as skilled as theirs.

But they are skilled, and importantly, they have Lambert, which means they have bombs.

Rotfiends and grave hags both lair underground; they like graveyards both because the ground is usually already loosened up and easy to dig in, and because there’s a ready supply of food. Old Barmin always said that a witcher who doesn’t scout when he can is a dead witcher, and that does seem to bear out in practice, so the first thing the three of them do is scout the graveyard, finding the lair’s entrance in an old grave and the exit in the treeline, where the rotfiends could escape if the pack wasn’t clever enough to block it off.

Lambert plants a bomb in the exit tunnel to collapse it and hopefully smoke the monsters out the front, and another at the front with a very short fuse that a well-aimed shot of Igni ought to be able to set off from a distance. They spread out carefully, identifying tripping hazards and bits of cover, and take up positions close enough to help guard each other and far enough apart not to interfere with each other, and Lambert flicks an Igni at the long end of the fuse that leads to the bomb in the escape tunnel, and they all down their chosen potions.

The seconds between lighting the fuse and feeling the explosion are as interminable as ever; Voltehre waits, vibrating with impatience, for what feels like hours, and then there’s a muffled thump and the ground shivers under his boots.

The grave hag screeches, an unmistakable unlovely sound, and the rotfiends come boiling out of their lair. Lambert flicks an Igni at the bomb in the entrance, timing it perfectly as usual - Voltehre knows all too well the hours upon hours upon hours of practice that go into ensuring that perfect timing - and the explosion kills one rotfiend and maims three others, and tangles them all up in their tunnel, slowing them and ruining their attempt at a full-out charge.

From there it’s - well, not easy, there are still five living rotfiends and a grave hag - but straightforward. Voltehre’s pack fights well together: Lambert’s skill and Voltehre’s strength and Aiden’s agility make them a nearly unstoppable team. It’s Aiden’s flashing knife that intercepts the grave hag’s tongue in mid-stroke, severing the awful thing in a spray of ichor; it’s Lambert’s blurring blade that guts two rotfiends in quick succession. And it’s Voltehre’s strength that keeps the grave hag at bay long enough for Aiden’s silver sword to sever its spine.

They’ve all got a few cuts and bruises, when the battle’s over, but the rotfiends and the grave hag are all exceedingly dead. Lambert tosses a third bomb into their lair to collapse it and destroy anything else that might be down there, and Voltehre and Aiden harvest the useful bits from their kills - and the heads, to bring back as trophies, because aldermen tend to not like it when witchers claim they’ve finished a contract without proof. They pile up the bodies and some deadwood and light a pyre, and by the time it’s burned down to ashes, they’ve patched each other up and their potions have worn off, so they don’t look quite so much like nightmares come to life.

Voltehre doesn’t mind his mates black-eyed and corpse-pale and terrible, but humans do, and he knows full well that they’re all thinking the same thing he is: it’s not just the alderman they don’t want to scare shitless.

It’s Milena, who has been adjusting quite well to the strangenesses of witchers, all things considered, but would probably not find them nearly as comforting when they look truly monstrous.

None of them says that. Voltehre doesn’t want to be the first - the one to point out that she’s going to see them under the influence of their potions sooner or later, either because they come back from a hunt before the potions have worn off, or because they need Kiss and Swallow and meditation to recover from a hunt gone badly. He wants to hold onto the dream that she’ll keep wanting to let them keep her for as long as possible.

And it looks like that dream is going to last at least a little longer, because when they come back into the inn, no longer black-eyed from potions but still streaked with ichor and graveyard mud, Milena looks up from her scribing and smiles, a soft sweet expression that makes Voltehre’s heart do something very odd in his chest.

Aiden nudges a little closer to him in the way that means he would be kissing Voltehre’s cheek and crooning, if they were in private, and Lambert jerks a nod and clearly - to Voltehre’s eyes at least - suppresses a very loud purr, and Voltehre takes a deep breath and goes to order them all some ale to get the taste of potions out of their mouths, and thinks that maybe, just maybe, this could really work.

Chapter Text

This is, to Aiden’s surprise and delight, actually working.

They don’t stay at the inn that night. According to the innkeeper, there’s no room. Aiden is reasonably sure the second, unspoken half of that sentence is for witchers, but he doesn’t make a fuss about it. If nothing else, he wants to be able to sleep curled around Milena, and if they’re staying in a town, they’ll probably need to get her her own room, for the appearance of propriety. She’s not wearing their marks, after all.

They’re going to have to talk about how the hell they’re going to be able to mark her, if she ever lets them, and preserve the illusion that they’re all nulls. Though even nulls can give marks, he supposes, it’ll just raise some eyebrows.

All of their marks are places that their armor covers. Aiden has his on the tops of his shoulders, Lambert on his right and Voltehre on his left. Voltehre picked thighs. Lambert’s marks are on his forearms, where they are usually covered by his sleeves but he can see them easily whenever he wants to, which Aiden knows matters a great deal to him.

But if they’re ever allowed to mark Milena, part of the point will be to make it clear that she is mated and claimed and protected, and so hiding her marks will sort of defeat the purpose. But nulls don’t tend to mate. Well, that’s not quite the right way around. With very few exceptions, nulls are made, not born: mages give up their dynamics for immortality, as Aiden understands it, and as far as the outside world knows, witchers are stripped of their dynamics by the mutations which make them faster and stronger and sturdier than mortal men. Mages don’t tend to mate, in Aiden’s opinion because no one would want to mate any of the amoral power-hungry assholes, and witchers don’t admit to having mates, so as far as everyone knows, nulls just don’t.

Maybe instead of visible marks, they could get her a medallion. People believe a lot of very stupid things about witcher medallions - Aiden’s favorite is the theory that touching them causes impotency - but they’re also a very recognizable symbol, and if Milena is wearing one, it will be very clear that she is attached to a witcher pack.

In any case, the whole question is rather moot unless she really does agree to become part of their pack, so Aiden puts it out of his mind in favor of finding a spot to camp and setting up for the night. They still have deer meat, so he shows Milena how to make a venison stew while Voltehre scrubs their armor clean and Lambert bottles the alchemical ingredients they got from the monsters, preserving them carefully for later use.

Once that’s done, Lambert beckons Milena. “Let me have a look at your bruises. And I want to see if you’ve aggravated that fucking wrenched shoulder, doing scribe work all afternoon.”

“I did my best not to move in ways that caused pain,” Milena says, but she goes over to Lambert without any hesitation, placing her slender arm in his hands trustingly. Aiden props his chin on a hand and grins foolishly at both of them.

Voltehre flops down beside him, their armor all draped over tree limbs to dry, and Aiden leans against his beta’s shoulder. “They’re so sweet,” he murmurs, knowing Lambert will hear. Lambert shoots him a brief glare before focusing on the painstaking care he’s taking to apply the bruise balm perfectly to Milena’s arm.

“They are,” Voltehre agrees. Aiden turns his head, hoping for a kiss, and is rewarded with exactly what he wants. Voltehre tastes mostly like ale, and a little like himself, honey-sweet and salty and perfect.

He also leans hard against Aiden, toppling Aiden to the ground, and stretches out atop him, deepening the kiss. Aiden croons and gets his hands into Voltehre’s lovely hair - thick and soft and long enough to muss adorably, unlike Lambert’s shorter-cropped locks - and doesn’t even think about Milena until he hears a soft gasp of surprise.

Then he and Voltehre both look over to see her staring at them, dark eyes enormous and cheeks flushed very red.

“My apologies,” she says weakly. “I did not mean to interrupt.”

Aiden thinks about stopping, but, well, if she is going to become part of their pack, she’s going to have to get used to the fact that they’re all extremely tactile and often extremely horny bastards, and while they probably shouldn’t fuck in front of her until they know if she wants to let them keep her, refraining from kissing until they reach Ellander would be straight-up miserable.

So he bats his eyelashes at Milena and says, “Aren’t we pretty?”

Milena’s blush darkens, but to his delight she nods. “Entirely lovely,” she agrees.

“The fucking loveliest,” Lambert murmurs, eyes hot as he gazes at them.

Voltehre hums smugly and goes back to kissing Aiden, and Aiden stretches out beneath him and croons quietly until the stew starts bubbling and Lambert says, “Did you want me an’ Milena to eat all of that?”

“Don’t you dare,” Aiden laughs, pushing at Voltehre’s shoulders until the beta rolls off with a grin.

The stew is good, and they finish off the whole pot, all of them ravenous from the exertion of the fight. And then Milena starts to yawn, so they lay out their bedrolls in a nest and Aiden gets to curl around her, cradling her close. She’s a soft, warm, rose-scented armful, and he firmly suppresses the urge to nuzzle at her hair or lip at the line of her throat. Too much, too soon.

He doesn’t bother repressing his croon, though, and to his utter delight, she answers with a soft, tentative, gorgeous little croon of her own.

The next few days, thank whichever gods look out for fools and witchers, or more likely for sweet little omegas who deserve all good things, go startlingly well. They travel at half-speed, or maybe a little less, because Milena of course cannot match the ground-eating lope of a witcher who wants to cover a lot of ground fast, but she does keep up at that speed without any evident distress. She absorbs every scrap of knowledge Aiden shares about edible plants and cooking spices; Lambert and Voltehre teach her to build various types of fires; and Lambert walks her through footwork after lunch each day, all of them watching with delight as she gains confidence in this new skill.

Time and regular applications of Lambert’s best salve mean that her bruises fade quickly from an awful purple-black to a faint yellow-green, and she stops suppressing a wince every time she moves her shoulder, which is a hell of a relief. The more she heals, the more camp chores she insists on helping with. The first one she takes over is the mending - not leatherwork, but the inevitable rips and gashes their clothing gains from various mishaps.

She has, as Aiden really should have expected, masterful sewing skills. The first few rips she deals with, she just sews shut, so tidily that it’s almost impossible to tell there was ever damage. But then she pauses, lap full of one of Aiden’s tunics that has a sleeve torn to ribbons, and says hesitantly, “Might I -” and then shuts her mouth again tightly.

Aiden looks over - he’s been lounging with his head in Voltehre’s lap while Voltehre plays with his hair and Lambert makes another batch of Swallow - and raises an eyebrow. “Might you what, kitten?”

Milena swallows. “This is too badly damaged for me to mend perfectly. But there are also - well - decorative mending techniques.”

“Decorative mending?” Voltehre asks, sounding as curious as Aiden feels.

“Covering the tear with embroidery,” Milena explains.

“That sounds really nice, actually,” Aiden says. He’s never had any embroidery on his clothes - it costs too much, and none of his pack have picked up that particular hobby. “What sort of embroidery?”

“Well, you have a little green thread, and I could buy more the next time we were near a town - I was thinking vines, perhaps, growing up the sleeve?”

“Thorny ones, since I’m a witcher - oh,” Aiden breathes, sitting up. “Could you make roses?”

“Certainly,” Milena says, looking slightly taken aback by his enthusiasm.

Roses, like her scent - Aiden would be wearing her mark, almost. Her handiwork and her scent together.

“Oh damn, that’s a good thought,” Voltehre says. “For me, too, if there’s anything of mine that could use a decorative mend.”

“And me,” Lambert says, not looking away from his careful, precise measuring of Swallow into vials. His ears are an interesting shade of red despite his casual tone.

Milena glances from Aiden to Voltehre and Lambert and back again, looking startled but tentatively pleased. “I would be glad to mend your clothing with embroidered roses.”

Lambert starts to purr, quietly, deep in his chest, and Aiden croons, and Voltehre grins at her and says, “That’ll be lovely.”

So really everything is going so smoothly that Aiden should have expected something to go catastrophically wrong.

It is not, thank fuck, that Velen catches up with them. That would end in Aiden having to go murder a duke, and despite his jesting, he knows perfectly well that that’s the sort of thing that can have nasty consequences not just for him, but for all witchers. Assuming he’s unsubtle enough to get caught, or have it look like a murder, but still.

No, what it is is a contract for what turns out to be not one but three alps working together - which is deeply unusual, and also absolutely the sort of thing they can’t just leave for the next witchers, because three alps can eat an entire village if they feel like it. Also the promised payment is very, very good.

Suspiciously good, in fact.

Which is explained, when they find their enemies, by the fact that it isn’t three alps. It’s five, and the alderman doubtless knew that, the lying bastard.

He was probably hoping alps and witchers would destroy each other, leaving his village safe and his coin in his pocket.

Aiden’s pack wins, but gods, it’s not an easy fight. Voltehre takes a claw to the arm that leaves a gash from shoulder to wrist; Aiden gains a messy but not terribly serious bite on one calf - one that kills the alp, since they were all smart enough to take Black Blood beforehand - and Lambert, the overprotective asshole, puts himself between Voltehre and a blow that would have caught him on his already injured side and gets a ragged set of clawmarks all the way down his hip and the outside of his thigh for the trouble.

They limp their way back to town with the alps’ heads, Voltehre half-carrying Lambert, and Aiden only realizes when Milena meets them at the inn’s door that they’re all still black-eyed and terrible from their potions.

There is a moment - just a split second - when he genuinely thinks she’s going to scream and flee. And then she takes a deep breath and says, “Dear gods, you’re hurt! Come in - oh gods, Lambert, lay him down -” and turns to the innkeeper to demand hot water and clean cloths, in a fine imperious tone Aiden has never heard her use before. It certainly gets the innkeeper’s attention; by the time Aiden and Voltehre have Lambert stretched out on the hearth, where the light is best, the inn’s cook is bustling out of the kitchen with a kettle of hot water and a serving maid is hastening down from the second floor with a stack of clean linen in her shaking hands.

Milena learns to suture right there on the inn’s hearth, stitching up Voltehre’s arm with painstaking care as Aiden works on Lambert. The claw-marks are ugly but not deep, and Lambert has bled enough to clean them out reasonably well; Aiden can feel himself relaxing as he realizes that Lambert isn’t truly in danger of anything but some new scars. Voltehre gets Aiden’s calf once his arm is finished; Aiden shifts to make Voltehre’s work easier without ever pausing his careful stitches.

And then, as the Black Blood finally wears off enough that they can pour a Swallow into Lambert, the alderman comes sauntering in and starts blustering about how they clearly went and found extra alps somewhere just to increase their fee and he’s not going to pay even as much as he’d promised for three because of their dishonesty.

Aiden sees red. Voltehre’s hand clamps down on his shoulder to keep him from going for the bastard knives-first.

And Milena, shy little Milena, rises to her full scant height, hands stained with Voltehre’s blood, and says coldly, noble accent on full display, “You, sir, are a disgrace to your position.”

“Wha- how dare you!” the alderman gasps, puffing himself up and looming at her. She doesn’t even flinch.

“I am astonished you hold your chain of office, sir, if you are regularly so foolish as you have just displayed yourself,” she says. “But so be it; I will bid my companions spread the word among their fellows that this village is inhospitable to witchers, and the next time you have trouble with monsters, you may deal with it yourself.”

“Now wait just a moment, you can’t do that,” the innkeeper blurts.

Milena turns to him, still cold as midwinter stone. “Of course I can. Why should any workman labor for those who will not pay him his due?”

Aiden wants very badly to kiss her, because holy shit. Lambert is staring up at her with enormous eyes, and Voltehre is stock-still in wonder.

It’s one thing for one witcher to defend another, after all. But a human - that’s so rare as to be almost incomprehensible. And that it’s Milena, their sweet little omega, standing there staring down the alderman like she doesn’t care that he’s an alpha half again her size - staring him down successfully, because he is wilting slowly beneath her glare and the glowers of the innkeeper and other customers who do not like the idea of having to kill their own monsters -

Aiden is in love.

“But there are more alps than we contracted for -” the alderman says weakly.

“Would you prefer they had left the two you did not inform them of alive?” Milena demands. “Or perhaps you think that it is common for anyone to sustain injuries like these in order to fool another? For I assure you these wounds are quite real - I have sewn one up myself.”

“Bled all over my damn hearth,” the innkeeper puts in, crossing his arms over his chest. “Pay the witchers, Albert, and have done.”

The alderman pays up with a sour face, and Milena, the wonder, counts the coin right there in the middle of the inn, and only when she has ensured that every copper of the promised price is there does she nod, curtly, and say, “Very well.” She glances over at the witchers then, raising one eyebrow.

“We’ll be going,” Lambert rasps, levering himself to his feet using Voltehre’s uninjured shoulder. Aiden rises, too, and they gather up their baggage and make their way out of the inn - slowly, so as not to aggravate any injuries - with Milena firmly in the middle of their pack, protected like the treasure she is.

She lets Voltehre find them a place to camp, far enough from the village that it’s unlikely anyone will try to follow them and reclaim the money the alderman so reluctantly paid out, and then she turns to them and says, “Sit down and meditate, please.”

“But - camp?” Voltehre says, baffled.

“You have shown me how to set up a camp, and you are all injured. Please.” Her voice is strangely shaky.

It’s Lambert who folds down to kneel first, hands on his knees in proper meditation position. “We’ll rest,” he says softly.

“Thank you,” Milena says, so fervently that Aiden finds himself sitting down beside Lambert without really meaning to. Voltehre takes his place on Lambert’s other side. And Aiden’s leg does hurt, and meditation would be good -

He wakes from meditation to find a fire burning merrily, with several large meat pies heating beside it, and their bedrolls laid out in the usual nest.

Milena is sitting beside the fire, watching the three of them with obvious worry. She’s scrubbed her hands clean, for which Aiden is grateful; the sight of blood on her skin was not a pleasant one.

“Where did you get the pies?” he asks, baffled.

“I bought them while you were fighting the monsters,” Milena replies quietly. “I thought perhaps you would not wish to hunt after a battle - and indeed I am glad I did so.”

Part of Aiden wants to object to her spending her hard-earned coin on them. Part of him wants to croon at the way she’s taking care of their pack. Part of him just wants to kiss her.

What he actually does is check on Lambert - breathing easily, his injuries already visibly less severe - and on Voltehre - also breathing easily, his arm scabbed over already thanks to Lambert’s good Swallow - and then get up and limp over to the stream to wash the blood and ichor off, spreading his armor out on the bank and adding his clothing to it as he strips down and soaks each piece in turn, until he’s down to his smallclothes and feeling much less filthy.

Milena blushes crimson when he returns to the firelight, but doesn’t say anything about his state of undress, just brings him half a pie and picks up a comb, moving around behind him as he settles to the mossy ground.

Aiden tilts his head back to look up at her. “Thank you, kitten,” he says quietly.

Milena smiles down at him. “Thank you; I could hardly have done any of this without your tutelage.”

Aiden croons at her; he can’t help it. And to his quiet, astonished delight, she croons back, and leans down to press a very soft kiss to his forehead before straightening up, cheeks a glorious pink. “Eat your supper,” she says, sounding rather flustered.

Aiden grins to himself and does as he’s told. The comb runs through his hair with incredible gentleness, coaxing out the knots and leaving him a crooning puddle of witcher, leaning back against Milena’s legs and basking in her scent.

“That smells amazing,” Voltehre says as Aiden is licking his fingers clean.

“Come and eat,” Milena invites.

Voltehre looks Lambert over, then stands and strides down to the stream to wash, bending to kiss Aiden’s forehead on the way. He comes back damp and gleaming in the firelight in nothing but his smallclothes, and Aiden takes a moment to admire his mate.

Voltehre takes his half a pie, flops down next to Aiden and bats his eyelashes at Milena. “Will you do my hair, too?”

Milena giggles. “If you like,” she says, and Aiden has the immense pleasure of watching Voltehre melt back against her legs, eyes half-lidded and expression one of utter bliss, as she combs his hair into tidiness again.

“Come on, pup, into the nest with us,” Aiden coaxes when it looks like Voltehre might actually fall asleep right there. Voltehre pouts, but he gets up long enough to shuffle over to the nest and collapse into it, holding out his arms for Aiden to join him.

“Coming, kitten?” Aiden asks.

“I will stay awake until Lambert rouses,” Milena says firmly.

“He might be out ‘til dawn,” Voltehre mumbles, pulling Aiden close as Aiden lies down and nuzzling at his hair.

“Then I will wait that long,” Milena replies, and the last thing Aiden sees before sleep pulls him under is Milena settling down at Lambert’s side with a little pile of mending, clearly prepared to wait the night through if she must.

He wakes to the sound of Lambert rousing with a groan, and blinks at the dim shapes in the glow of the coals. Milena rises at once and then goes to her knees in front of Lambert, catching his hands and murmuring his name.

“Hey, kitten,” Lambert replies softly. “I’m fine. Or, well, I will be.”

“Good,” Milena says, and gets up to bring him his half a pie. Lambert takes it and beckons her to sit beside him, curling an arm around her shoulders and nuzzling at her hair before he starts to eat. Milena leans against him with a soft croon, and Aiden dozes off again secure in the knowledge that his alpha is healing and their omega is looking after them all.

Their omega, who defended them so magnificently.

When he wakes again, Lambert has joined him in the nest and is deeply asleep, and Voltehre is up and wearing trousers, although not a shirt, and showing Milena how to make oatcakes. The long line of sutures down his arm are dark against his pale skin, but the injury is healing well.

Aiden gets up, kissing Lambert’s forehead and tucking the blankets around him, and wanders over to Voltehre, scooping up his injured arm and kissing the tidy sutures. Voltehre chuckles and kisses Aiden softly. “Good, aren’t they?”

“Tidy as on our tunics,” Aiden agrees.

Voltehre snorts. “Damn, we missed a chance. You could’ve made roses, kitten.”

Milena giggles. “I would prefer not to apply my decorative mending skills to people.”

Voltehre sighs dramatically. “I guess that’s fair. But the scars would have looked amazing.”

“I would prefer no scars at all,” Milena says softly, reaching out to brush her fingers over the half-healed gash.

“Unfortunately I’m a witcher,” Voltehre says, very dryly. “Scars come with the territory.”

“True,” Milena agrees. “And as they mean that you have survived all your encounters, they are beautiful indeed.”

“Aww,” Voltehre says, apparently involuntarily. Aiden croons.

“How are you so sweet?” he asks, reaching out to touch a loose lock of her hair.

Milena smiles up at him. “Well, I am allowed to be sweet to you, at least in private. It’s a very pleasant change from my former life.”

“Your family are complete dicks, just so’s you know,” Voltehre says, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“My sister Marika is a very lovely woman, and has always tried to protect me,” Milena protests.

“Your family, sister Marika excepted, are complete dicks,” Voltehre corrects himself. Milena blushes and giggles.

“Voltehre’s usually right about these things,” Aiden tells her.

Milena giggles again. “Oh, he is entirely correct in this as well,” she agrees. “But I have left them behind, and have gained in their place a pack of the finest men in the world, have I not?”

Aiden cannot help the croon that rises from his throat, or the way he crowds in closer as Voltehre leans down to nuzzle at her hair. It isn’t quite an agreement to be theirs, mated and claimed - not quite.

But it is very close indeed.

Chapter Text

Milena thinks she is adjusting quite well to being a witchers’ packmate, all things considered.

Yes, traveling all day is quite exhausting, but she is stronger than she was when she left Roggeven, and grows more so by the day. Already she can tell that she is walking farther, and with less weariness at the end of the day, than she did when she first joined the witchers, and she is growing more agile and comfortable with the footwork Lambert is teaching her, as well.

She is learning quite a lot, too. Not just footwork: woodscraft, and cooking, and how to care for the sorts of injuries she certainly never saw as a duke’s daughter; how to walk silently and build a fire and pluck a pheasant and skin a rabbit. How to be useful for more than just her fine features and demure manners and dynamic.

And more again: how to show affection openly, without fear. How to be shown affection, to accept the gentle touches and warm embraces the witchers offer so freely. How to croon, and how lovely it is to do so, wrapped up in Aiden’s arms and hearing him crooning and Lambert purring and Voltehre humming lullabies. How to dare to lean against Voltehre or even Lambert, trusting her weight and safety to them and being rewarded with warm embraces and near-tangible joy.

So yes, she thinks she’s doing quite well, all things considered, and when they get to Ellander - which won’t be too much longer now; they’re moving much faster than she was when she was alone - she is going to have to ask them if they mean it when they say they want to keep her, because she is growing ever more certain that she would like to be kept.

Naturally, as soon as she starts thinking she understands the way her…her pack works, she encounters something else new and startling.

They have made camp, and she and Aiden have gone into the woods to gather edible plants; Milena is feeling quite proud of having taken the lead on choosing everything they have gathered, and having not made any errors. She quite likes feeling competent; it was not a feeling she had often, except when working in the stillroom or embroidering, while in Roggeven, and she is definitely enjoying the way the witchers praise her for her improvements in knowledge and skill.

They come back quietly, because she is also practicing walking silently enough not to disturb the wildlife, and apparently she is doing quite well, because as they come into the little clearing, neither Voltehre nor Lambert notices their approach.

To be fair, they both seem extremely distracted.

Voltehre is standing with his back to a tree, and has both hands resting gently on the back of Lambert’s head. Lambert is on his knees in front of Voltehre, hands wrapped around the beta’s bare hips - Voltehre’s trousers and smallclothes are down around his ankles - and his head is moving back and forth in an oddly rhythmic fashion -

It takes Milena a long moment to realize what they are doing. Longer than it should, perhaps, because the one on his knees is Lambert, and he is an alpha, and alphas don’t kneel, don’t debase themselves -

Except that Lambert doesn’t seem to care about that sort of posturing and dominance display -

Voltehre moans, a low throaty noise, and it sends strange shivers down Milena’s spine. Her cheeks are hot, and there’s an odd warmth in the pit of her stomach, too. Something about the arch of Voltehre’s throat as he tilts his head back against the tree, about the paleness of his fingers curved through Lambert’s short dark hair, about the way his eyelashes lie dark against his flushed cheeks, makes it nearly impossible to look away, even though she knows she should.

“Oops,” Aiden murmurs. “Sorry, kitten, we’ve been trying not to scandalize you too badly.”

Milena should be scandalized. She should be appalled, as any well-bred noble daughter of Redania would be at seeing an alpha on his knees. Should be swooning, probably, at encountering evidence that her companions are not chaste as priests - though why should they be, when they are mated?

And somehow, she’s not so much scandalized as - well - intrigued. What is Lambert doing to wring such sounds from Voltehre’s throat?

“They are beautiful,” she whispers.

Aiden makes a quiet, startled sound. “Yeah, they are,” he agrees.

She takes a deep breath. “I am not scandalized,” she says firmly, willing it to be true. “But - ah - ought I give them privacy?”

“Only if you want to,” Aiden says, grinning. “They both like to show off.”

Milena thinks her cheeks might be hot enough to fry eggs on. “I do not think I am quite ready to be…shown off to,” she says carefully. Aiden chuckles softly and wraps an arm around her shoulders and steers her down to the stream to rinse off their various finds and clean the dirt from their hands; behind them, she hears Voltehre make a truly beautiful sound, a sort of warbling moan, and Lambert growl, a deep satisfied noise that sends shivers right through her.

She wants to hear it again. She wants to hear both of those sounds again.

She concentrates very hard on scrubbing the edible tubers she has found clean of dirt, and hopes her blush will subside by the time she returns to the camp.

Thankfully, no one says anything when she settles beside the fire. Voltehre grins at her, but that is quite normal; Lambert is looking smugly contented, but given that he has his head in Voltehre’s lap - his head resting on Voltehre’s thigh, and Milena tries hard not to blush again - and Voltehre is petting his hair, that isn’t unusual either.

It is, she tells herself firmly, merely an extension of the comfort and affection the witchers offer each other so freely, and they are mated, and also in private - save for her presence - and therefore nothing she has just seen is scandalous in the slightest.

Truly, though, the problem is not that she is scandalized. Shocked, perhaps, since nothing of what she has seen accords with anything she knows of how alphas and their mates interact, but since everything else about her witchers is equally unlike anything she expected either of witchers or of pack dynamics before she met them, she hardly ought to be surprised they approach bedsport differently, too.

The problem is that she would like to hear, and see, more of her beautiful witchers at their pleasure, and that is a desire entirely unbecoming of a noble daughter of Redania.

But is she still a noble daughter of Redania?

She fled her father’s house; she would be astonished if he has not disowned her, either when she first fled or at the very least when Velen informed him that he had ceded his claim to her to a witcher, of all people. She is certainly not betrothed to a duke any longer. She is betrothed, by Redanian law, to her pack of witchers, and if when they reach Ellander she decides to ask them to claim her as their mate, and they agree, then she will be a witchers’ omega, held to whatever standards their Schools may set, which will doubtless be very different from the ones with which she has been raised.

Which would be very good to know, before she makes a decision as to whether she wants to become truly part of their pack.

“May I ask,” she says as she helps Aiden spice the stew, “what the duties of an omega are, among witchers, when you are not walking your Path?” Because she has already seen that Aiden does no more nor less than his share of the camp chores, and as far as she can tell, those chores are doled out on the basis of skill, not dynamic. Aiden cooks because he is good at it and enjoys it; Lambert brews potions because that is his preferred task; and Voltehre seems to enjoy the opportunity for fussing that being responsible for tending their armor grants him. And she herself has taken on the mending of their clothing in part because it pleases her to do so.

They’re all wearing decorative mends in the shape of rose vines, these days, and she cannot help the strange possessive pleasure she feels whenever she sees the green and crimson winding around sleeves or trouser legs.

Lambert rolls his head to the side and opens his eyes to blink at her. “What d’you mean?”

Aiden snorts and leans over to rub his cheek against her hair affectionately. “She means d’you keep me barefoot and chained to the bed in Kaer Morhen,” he says, sounding very amused. Milena can feel her cheeks going hot again.

“Oh.” Lambert snorts. “Nah, nothing like that. Fuck, Aiden’d stab us all if we tried. Unless you’re into that, kitty,” he adds, wiggling his eyebrows at Aiden.

Aiden smirks. “You can try, if you really want me to use you as a pincushion. Although that could be fun for a night, maybe. But no, kitten, in the winter the only big difference is that nobody worries about keeping their scents under wraps.”

Voltehre nods. “Witchers don’t hold with that idiocy about omegas being weaker, or subservient, or anything like that. Sure, all the dynamics have different instincts, but instincts aren’t the whole story. And in any case there’s not enough witchers for us to treat our omegas like shit.”

“But I am not a witcher,” Milena points out.

Lambert frowns. “Alright, that’s true enough, but - hm.”

“There aren’t any other humans at Kaer Morhen,” Voltehre says thoughtfully. “But - well - I can’t imagine any of our brothers being awful to you because of your dynamic. Some of them might be awful because they’re dicks, mind you.”

“Clovis,” Lambert sighs.

“Clovis,” Aiden agrees ruefully. “But as far as I can tell he’s horrid to everyone, so we’ll just punch him if he starts being a problem for you. Or you could stab him.”

“I couldn’t just stab someone for being rude,” Milena protests.

“I mean, he’d absolutely deserve it, and it would be very funny,” Voltehre says, shrugging. “But to go back to your original question: the duties of an omega off the path are the same as on the Path. And if you do let us keep you, kitten, we won’t start treating you like a toy, or a prize, or a lackwit, any more than we do Aiden.”

“Never,” Lambert pledges, voice low and rough and solid as stone.

A toy, or a prize, or a lackwit - oh yes, Milena has experienced those. But never from her witchers.

She likes the way they treat her. They protect her, yes, because they are stronger, but they do not coddle her; if she is ignorant, they teach her, and seem to glory in her growing knowledge; if she knows better than they do, they gladly step aside to allow her to act. They touch her gently and call her ‘kitten’ with great fondness and, as far as she can tell, have never lied to her.

And they are so, so kind.

She never really thought she would get a choice in who she mated. Choices like that are not available to dukes’ youngest daughters, especially not omega daughters, valuable prizes that they are. And she was perfectly willing to do her duty, and wed some appropriate alpha that her father chose, before he chose Velen and she knew her marriage would also be her doom. But she used to dream, sometimes, that her eventual mate would be kind.

Like Lambert, whose rough-callused hands guide her through her footwork and smooth salve over her bruises with infinite care. Like Voltehre, whose prodigious strength has only ever been used to cradle her close. Like Aiden, whose warm embrace and lovely crooning have soothed her to sleep every night since he rescued her.

She doesn’t think anyone could pretend to be so kind, for so long, when it would have been so very, very easy to take whatever they desired of her. She is weaker, younger, untrained in any weapon; she has been in their power both legally and physically since Aiden brought her back to their camp that very first night. Were they any less honorable than they are, she would already wear their mating marks, whether she would or no. But she does not.

And she is beginning to think she very much wants to.

The only qualm she still has is, well, marital duties. And she has fewer qualms about that than she did earlier today, if only because seeing Voltehre and Lambert together filled her not with terror but with startling new desire.

“I trust you,” she tells Lambert - tells them all, really - and is rewarded by Lambert starting to purr again, a deep rumble that seems to fill the clearing and settle in her bones. Aiden curls around her with a low, happy croon, and Milena rests her head against his shoulder and croons back, safe among the pack that isn’t - quite - yet hers.

The next day, when she and Aiden are out in the forest again, gathering edible plants and working on her silent walking - harder in a skirt, admittedly, but not impossible, and she is already more graceful and agile than she was when she first met them - she screws up her courage and says quietly, “May I ask a very impertinent question?”

“Sure,” Aiden says, looking intrigued. “I wanna know what you think counts as impertinent, o politest of kittens.”

Milena grins up at him, and his teasing smile is enough to give her the courage to say, “I would like to know what bedsport is like for an omega with good partners, please.” Because she’s fairly sure by this point that her mother’s advice to lie back and think of heirs is not the full truth of it. Aiden would not jest so easily with his mates about such matters if it were.

Aiden’s eyes go wide and he lets out a delighted guffaw. “Oh, there’s your claws - that is an impertinent question, and a very sensible one too!” He wraps an arm around her shoulders and guides her over to a fallen tree, sitting down in front of her once she settles on it.

“So,” he starts, “you’ve had heats already, right?”

Milena nods. She has had four; they are not among her most pleasant memories, even though the actual heats themselves are quite hazy in recollection. Mostly she remembers being alone and desperate not to be; being empty and desperate to be filled; being far too hot and yet aching for the touch of another’s skin. “I did not enjoy them.”

“Heat’s fucking miserable to go through alone,” Aiden agrees. “And I’m guessing that a duke’s daughter doesn’t get to spend her heats with anyone but her mate, does she? Not even another omega?”

Milena shakes her head. “I was locked into the heat room, and there were beta guards to ensure no one dared approach.”

“I figured,” Aiden says. “Voltehre’s quite right; your family are dicks. Well. So y’know how in heat, all you really want is to be full?”

Milena nods warily.

“Sex - good sex - is having that urge fulfilled thoroughly.” Aiden grins at her expression, whatever it may be. Certainly her ears are hot enough that she knows she’s blushing. “Also it’s laughing, and getting to touch, and getting to make your partners make wonderful noises. And it shouldn’t hurt at all, not unless you like a little pain.” He shrugs. “I do, sometimes. Biting, or being held down hard enough to bruise. But not everyone does.”

Milena shivers. “I do not think I would like being held down,” she says thinly. Just the thought reminds her of Velen’s fingers locked around her wrist, dragging her to a fate she does not wish to imagine -

“Then you won’t be,” Aiden says firmly. “It’s not for everyone. Hell, I’ve met omegas who don’t like being fucked at all, and alphas who prefer it. Everyone’s different. You’ll figure out what you prefer.”

Milena blinks. Omegas who don’t like - alphas who do -

“Clearly I have much to learn,” she says a little faintly.

Aiden takes her hands gently. “Yeah, well, don’t we all? You are learning. You’re brave enough to travel with witchers and sweeter than a whole damned beehive of honey and so fucking clever. Just remember sex is supposed to be pleasant and you should stab anyone who dares tell you otherwise.”

Milena giggles. “Your solution to people being rude to me seems to always be stabbing,” she teases.

“Well, I am a Cat,” Aiden grins. “So - as to your original question - sex as an omega with good partners is really nice. And occasionally somewhat overwhelming. Did you have any more specific questions? Because I will absolutely describe what we get up to in as much detail as you desire.”

Milena is blushing much harder now. “It - ah - I don’t know that I am ready to hear details yet,” she says weakly. She’s certainly imagining them now, though. She’s seen all of her witchers in nothing but their smallclothes, now, and it’s far too easy to picture them pressed against each other, kissing and touching and - doing other things she isn’t entirely clear on but is definitely interested in learning about. But not quite yet.

“Aww,” Aiden says, pouting theatrically. Milena giggles and squeezes his hands.

“When I am ready, I will come to you directly,” she promises.

Aiden lights up, wriggling a little with glee. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” he promises.

Milena licks her lips. “I have one question that I - I might be ready to ask,” she says slowly. Aiden nods, eyes huge and hopeful. “What is kissing like?”

Because they all kiss each other so often, and so happily - little pecks in passing, soft presses of lips morning and evening, passionate clinches that make Milena blush and want to both stare in wonder and look away in blushing shyness.

“Delightful,” Aiden says at once. “Although it occurs to me that just describing it doesn’t make it sound all that pleasant.” He scrunches up his nose and grins. “‘Oh, yes, you smush your lips against someone else’s and then stick your tongue in their mouth,’ that sounds very exciting.”

Milena giggles and wrinkles her own nose. “It does seem to lose something in the explaining.”

Aiden takes a deep breath. “I suppose I could demonstrate,” he says softly. “If you wanted me to.”

Milena sucks in a sharp breath, feeling her cheeks grow hotter. Aiden says hastily, “You don’t have to! You don’t ever have to! I just thought I’d make it clear the offer was on the tab-”

“Yes,” Milena says, cutting off his babbling in mid-word.

Aiden’s mouth hangs open for a moment, and his pupils expand until they’re almost entirely round. “Yes?” he breathes.

“Yes,” Milena repeats, and then, feeling very daring, she slides down off the log into Aiden’s lap, her knees landing on either side of his hips and her skirts pooling around them both.

Aiden makes a soft, startled sound and lets go of her fingers to curl his hands around her waist and hold her steady. “Milena,” he whispers, as she rests her hands tentatively on his shoulders. “Sweet little kitten.” And then he bends his head and kisses her.

His beard is a little tickly and his lips are slightly chapped and Milena only has a moment to really notice those things because then she is sinking into it, sighing as she melts against him, tilting her head back as her eyes fall shut in pleasure. He is so, so gentle, and he smells so good, and oh, words truly don’t do justice to the pleasure of his mouth pressed to hers. Aiden is crooning, soft and sweet, and Milena realizes she is crooning, too, in joyful pleasure.

Aiden pulls back after a long, sweet, marvelous moment, and Milena draws in a shaky breath and opens her eyes. He’s looking at her like she’s…like she’s some sort of miracle. “Verdict?” he asks, barely a breath of sound.

“I like that,” Milena replies softly. Aiden sucks in a sharp breath, and his eyes open wider. “I like that a great deal.”

“I will kiss you anytime you like, kitten,” Aiden says hoarsely. “And so will my mates, if you ever want them to.”

Milena imagines it - handsome, sweet-tempered Voltehre leaning in close; wicked-looking, kind Lambert cradling her face in his rough hands - and shivers with what she is astonished to discover is desire. “Even if I - I don’t know if I want anything more than kissing?”

“Absolutely,” Aiden pledges. “And you don’t have to kiss them just because you kissed me, or anything like that.”

Milena smiles up at him. “But if I want to?”

“If you want to, I think they might actually faint with joy,” Aiden says wryly. Milena giggles. Aiden grins. “Maybe not faint,” he allows. “But they’d be very, very happy.”

“Properly I suppose I should be swooning,” Milena says thoughtfully. “Being kissed while unmated is very scandalous.”

Aiden snorts. “I mean, you can swoon if you want to,” he offers. “I could carry you off like a pirate with a damsel.”

Milena giggles harder. “Perhaps that would be entertaining,” she allows, tucking that thought away to consider later, because it sends odd shivers through her, “but for now -” She cups her hands very carefully around Aiden’s head, delighting in the softness of his hair against her palms, and pulls him gently down into another kiss. Aiden lets her guide him, and his lips are just as soft and lovely against her own as they were the first time, and his croon of pleasure makes her feel so happy she could almost cry.

She doesn’t. She just kisses Aiden, learning the shape of his mouth and the warmth of his hands around her waist and the way his hair curls around her fingers, and basks in this new and wonderful pleasure.

They get back to camp rather late in the evening. Lambert is brewing something; Voltehre is tending their weapons, frowning down at the sword in his lap as he runs a whetstone along its length. His honey-blond hair catches the last of the setting sunlight, and when Lambert looks up to greet them, so do his topaz-yellow eyes, gleaming like the gems they so resemble, and Milena catches her breath as her heart does something very strange in her chest.

Oh. She loves them. All of them.

She smiles up at Aiden when he makes a soft, questioning noise, and settles beside him to put together the night’s meal: skewered meat from the rabbits Voltehre caught along their Path, seasoned with the herbs she and Aiden have gathered and accompanied by the berries and nuts she has learned to find. She’s rather proud of how much of what they are eating is at least in part her contribution. Between her growing skill at woodscraft and her scribing, she is becoming a help to her witchers, rather than a burden. She slows their travel, yes, and cannot aid them against monsters, but she can light a fire and cook a meal, mend their clothing and suture their injuries, even face down aldermen in a way they cannot, lest their anger rouse violence in turn.

If she chooses to become truly a part of their pack, she will be a full partner in it, not merely a decorative hassle. She will still doubtless need to be protected, now and again, but - well, so do her witchers, from threats less physical than the ones from which they guard her.

And if she is a full partner, then it is far less likely that any resentment will grow between them - neither them of her, for burdening them when she has seen for herself how hard they must labor for grudgingly given coin, nor she of them, for treating her like a toy.

Lambert puts his current potion on the fire to simmer - covered, thank the gods, since most of his potions smell quite appallingly horrid - and goes to wash his hands in the nearby stream. He should, perhaps, be terrifying as he returns, eyes catching the firelight and dark clothing making him a shadow looming out of the twilight dimness. But Milena cannot find any fear of him anymore.

He sits down next to Aiden, looping an arm around Aiden’s waist and nuzzling at his shoulder, and Aiden kisses the top of his head and croons. Milena dusts her fingers off, takes a deep breath for courage, and gets up to kneel down in front of Lambert, who gives her a curious look.

“I -” Milena licks her lips and swallows. “Aiden said you would be willing to kiss me, if I asked.”

Lambert’s pupils expand just like Aiden’s did. It’s oddly charming. “Willing?” he rasps. “Try fucking eager, kitten, holy shit.”

Milena can feel herself blushing. “I would like that,” she says, in a voice that thank the gods does not shake.

“Yeah?” Lambert murmurs, and unwinds his arm from around Aiden’s waist to reach forward and cup her face very gently in his hands. “Well hell, I’m a lucky bastard.”

He leans forward slowly, and his hands are so gentle that she could pull away, easily, if she wanted to. She leans towards him instead. His lips are a little rougher than Aiden’s, his beard slightly scratchier, and the deep purr that starts in his chest as soon as their lips meet makes her want to climb into his lap and be surrounded by his warmth and the wonderful reverberation. She croons and presses closer.

“Fuck, that’s pretty,” Aiden whispers.

“Gorgeous,” Voltehre agrees, sounding awed.

Lambert ends the kiss gently after a long, wonderful moment, and smiles down at her, his pupils so enormous that only a very thin ring of yellow catches the light of the fire. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

“Thank you,” Milena says, feeling far warmer than the fire at her back can truly explain. And then she rises and circles the fire to Voltehre, who looks up at her with hope plain on his handsome, boyish face as he sets sword and whetstone aside.

“Me too?” he asks. “You don’t have to, you know - it’s fine -”

“I want to,” Milena says. “You are dear to me, too, you know.” She is not quite ready to say beloved, not yet, but dear is true enough.

“Well then,” Voltehre says, and then makes an absolutely adorable little squeaking sound when she sits down across his lap. His arms come around her reflexively, warm and strong and comforting, and she rests her head against his shoulder, crooning soft contentment.

After a moment of shock, he starts to grin, and bends his head to nuzzle at her cheek. “If you’re sure,” he whispers, and she turns her head to catch his lips with hers. He makes a low, pleased sound and cradles her close, and kisses her soft and sweet and easy until she has to end the kiss for lack of breath, and then he holds her on his lap, safe in the circle of his arms, as Aiden and Lambert both come around to press against his sides and the whole clearing fills with the sound of Lambert’s purr and Aiden and Milena’s crooning, like the finest music in the world.

Chapter Text

Lambert is, no questions asked, the luckiest damn alpha in the world. He has his wonderful beta, honey-sweet Voltehre who has been at his side since they were boys, tempering his rage and encouraging his experiments and balancing him perfectly. He has his perfect omega, quick clever Aiden with his mercurial temperament and marvelous joy, dancing with his knives around Lambert and Voltehre’s Wolf-trained steadiness and bringing them the bright humor Lambert didn’t even realize they were missing.

And now he has Milena, too - or almost, because he is very nearly sure she will choose to become part of their pack. Sweet, rose-scented Milena, with her gentle hands and steel spine and quicksilver mind.

So yes, Lambert is the luckiest fucking bastard in the whole damn world, and he’ll fight anyone who says otherwise.

He’s also very, very horny and hasn’t been able to do much about it since Milena joined their pack, because the last fucking thing he wants to do is scare the poor girl, and if she comes back from a foraging trip to find him knot-deep in one of his mates, that will probably scare her out of her dainty little boots. And the drawback to being an alpha is that unlike either of his mates, he can’t really just…peak and be done in a reasonable amount of time.

Both of his mates know this, of course, and they’re also both kind and clever, so he’s fairly sure they’ve discussed it when Voltehre announces brightly that he’ll be bringing Milena with him on a supply run into a decent-sized town and they’ll probably be gone most of the afternoon.

The two of them are barely out of earshot when Aiden pounces on him. Lambert yelps in surprise and rolls with the pounce, tumbling them over in an attempt to pin the Cat, and they tussle back and forth across the clearing until finally Lambert’s weight and strength win out and he manages to pin Aiden to the nest of bedrolls. It helps that Aiden isn’t actually fighting dirty, which he absolutely would be if it were anyone but Lambert or Voltehre atop him.

“Caught you,” Lambert pants, grinning down at Aiden. Aiden grins back, all teeth and cocky pride.

“Yeah? What’re you going to do with me?” Aiden replies, yanking at his wrists where Lambert has them pinned to the bedrolls.

Lambert kisses him ravenously, all teeth and tongue, and Aiden meets that hunger with his own, legs wrapping around Lambert’s hips to yank him closer. “Gonna make you yowl, kitty,” Lambert growls as he pulls away, and uses one hand to keep Aiden’s wrists pinned as he reaches down between them to unlace their trousers. Aiden wriggles helpfully to get his trousers down past his knees so he can spread his legs, and fuck, he’s soaking wet already, the smell like the nectar of the fucking gods -

Lambert fucks into him in one long, absolutely perfect thrust, eyes rolling back in his head at how good it is. Aiden makes a low sound and bucks up against him, trying to get Lambert deeper. “Come on, Wolf, you said you’d make me yowl -”

Lambert sets a punishingly fast pace, sheathing his prick as deep as he can go with every thrust, and Aiden meets him eagerly, thrashing beneath him and panting curses. Lambert isn’t going to last, not after weeks without this, not with his mate smelling like heaven and so fucking tight and wet and hot around his prick -

He lets go of Aiden’s wrists in favor of clawing at the Cat’s tunic neckline, yanking the fabric aside - it rips, which is going to be awkward to explain to Milena, but that is a problem for later - and leaning down to fit his teeth to the bite-mark that claims Aiden as his. Aiden goes rigid and then, true to Lambert’s promise, does yowl as he peaks, tightening around Lambert’s prick so hard it almost hurts. Lambert ruts in hard and follows his mate over that precipice, knot expanding to lock them together so fast his head spins. Fuck, it has been too long.

“Fuck,” Aiden sighs, shuddering and sagging back against the bedrolls. “Damn, you always fill me up so well.”

Lambert grins and wraps his arms around Aiden to roll them over, knowing it’s a little more comfortable for the omega to be perched on top of him while they’re waiting for his knot to go down, when they’ve knotted face-to-face. Aiden wriggles until his pants are down around his ankles and he can settle fully across Lambert’s lap; Lambert pants and groans at the tugging at his knot. Aiden smirks down at him, stroking his hands idly over Lambert’s chest and then shucking his tunic so Lambert can get his hands on Aiden’s skin. Aiden’s prick is still hard - a combination of witcher stamina and the omega ability to come several times in a row, for which Lambert is regularly grateful - and Lambert wraps a hand around it, stroking slowly to make Aiden writhe and gasp.

“Gods, your fucking hands,” Aiden moans. “Love your hands, alpha.”

Lambert grins. “Love using ‘em on you, kitty.”

“As well you should,” Aiden says, grinning, and then his smile goes wicked. “How much would you like having our little Milena sitting on top of you like this, hm?”

Lambert groans, and his knot throbs; Aiden can clearly feel that, because he chuckles smugly and wriggles a little in pleasure. “You’d have to be a lot gentler with her,” he teases, holding out a wrist so Lambert can see the already-fading bruises he left on Aiden’s skin. “Maybe we’d get Voltehre to hold you down while she learns to ride you just the way she likes.”

Lambert closes his eyes and whines, shuddering at the thought. “Wicked kitty.”

“She’s so little; she’d be so tight around your knot.” Aiden clenches down hard; Lambert gasps, clawing at the Cat’s hips. “And then I’d probably have to wrestle Voltehre for the chance to eat her out when you were done - do you think her cunny tastes as sweet as she smells?”

Lambert growls and rolls them back over, pinning Aiden down and rolling his hips to grind his knot against the sweet spot that makes Aiden’s eyes roll back and his teasing, wonderful words turn to helpless whimpers. Aiden thrashes, head tossing against the bedrolls, and Lambert ducks down to mouth and bite at the Cat’s throat, angling his hips just right; Aiden peaks again with a hoarse wail that is one of the sounds Lambert loves best in all the world.

Lambert doesn’t stop. “C’mon, kitty,” he growls in Aiden’s ear the way he knows Aiden loves, and nips at Aiden’s earlobe. “Gimme another.”

“Oh fu- fu- fuuuck,” Aiden gasps, writhing like he’s not sure whether he wants to push closer or try to get away. “Gods, fuck, your knot -”

“Fuckin’ you with my knot, yep,” Lambert agrees smugly. Rendering Aiden incoherent is always a delight. “Think I can make you come til you’re dry before my knot goes down?”

Aiden just whimpers, clawing at Lambert’s shoulders to haul him into a biting, desperate kiss, and Lambert does his damnedest to make sure Aiden is so completely fucked out he can’t even speak by the time Lambert’s knot finally goes down and he sags to the bedrolls beside his omega.

“Mmph,” Aiden says, and rolls over to fling an arm and a leg over Lambert, and passes out in an adorable limp heap. Lambert grins up at the clouds scudding across the sky and feels very smug about life indeed.

They do manage to get cleaned up before Voltehre and Milena make it back, though it’s a near thing. Voltehre wiggles his eyebrows and smirks at Lambert where Milena won’t see, and Lambert sticks out his tongue and grins, all the ill humor thoroughly fucked out of him for the next few hours at least.

Voltehre and Milena bought them stuffed bread rolls for supper, so they don’t have to cook - probably just as well, really, given that Aiden is still a bit dazed from being fucked incoherent - and they end the evening in a heap on the bedrolls, Lambert purring as Voltehre cuddles up behind him and Aiden tucks against his front with Milena snuggled against Aiden’s chest, and both omegas crooning contentedly.

It’s a damn good day.

It’s only another four days from there to Ellander, too, which is on the one hand good - they’ll get an answer in Ellander, whether Milena is staying in the safety of the temple or daring to join them on the Path - but on the other hand terrifying, because, well, she might choose the temple. If she’s sensible she’ll probably choose the temple. It’s a lot less dangerous, for one thing. Fewer monsters. Fewer asshole aldermen. Less traipsing around after witchers on their long and deadly Path.

If Lambert was a better man, he would want her to choose the temple.

But he’s a greedy bastard, so he really fucking wants her to pick them. To choose their pack, and take their marks, and be theirs. Be his. Every instinct he has wants to keep her, to pull her close and breathe in her lovely scent and claim her.

He knows Aiden wants her, too. Hell, Aiden’s wanted her since they met, it seems like; he’d hardly have brought her back to the pack if he didn’t find her scent as appealing as Lambert does. And even sensible Voltehre, who is capable of thinking past his instincts a lot better than either Aiden or Lambert, has told Lambert quietly that he thinks she suits them well, and he hopes she’ll choose to stay with their pack.

So he’s feeling a little conflicted as they tramp up the long main road to the Temple on a sunny early afternoon, Milena in the middle of the pack so they can protect her. She’s staring around wide-eyed and fascinated by everything, which is adorable.

“Not seen a city before?” he asks quietly.

Milena smiles up at him. “Well, I have been to Tretogor, of course. But never to walk around; I was always in a carriage, and never allowed to venture out on my own.”

“Huh.” Lambert considers that. “Well, if you stay in Ellander, I’d guess you’ll get to explore.”

“And if you don’t stay, we can still wander about and see the sights,” Voltehre adds cheerfully. “If nothing else, we’ll want to hit up the horse market.”

Milena’s smile broadens, but she doesn’t have time to reply before they reach the steps of the Temple. Voltehre leads the way up - Nenneke likes him best, which is very wise of her. They’re greeted at the top by a middle-aged beta woman in dedicate’s robes, who ushers them not into the main hall but into one of the side chambers Nenneke uses for meeting with travelers who bring petitions before her.

Like, for instance, ‘please let me stay here instead of being married off to a horrible vicious bastard of an alpha’. Just to pick an example purely at random.

Nenneke arrives before even Aiden can start to get jittery; she knows full well that witchers in her temple are never there just to pray. “Lambert; Voltehre; Aiden. I am glad to see none of you are bleeding this time.”

Voltehre gives the priestess his most charming smile. “We don’t only come visit when we’re bleeding.”

Nenneke raises a skeptical eyebrow at him. “And who is your companion?”

Milena gives the priestess a full court curtsey. “My name is Milena de Roggeven, though I have almost certainly been disowned, and I have the honor to be legally betrothed to Aiden of the Cats, and through him to his packmates as well.”

Nenneke is very nearly unflappable, in Lambert’s experience; certainly she doesn’t turn a hair at this. “Lady Milena; it’s a pleasure to welcome you to Ellander, especially given the rumors of your death which have come to us from Redania. May I ask what you desire of the Temple?”

Lambert holds his breath, and sees out of the corners of his eyes that Voltehre and Aiden are doing the same. Aiden is nearly vibrating; Voltehre is still as stone.

Milena says, clear and calm, “I would be honored, High Priestess, if you would officiate a marriage for us, for I wish to have the legality of my joining their pack to be absolutely unimpeachable.”

Lambert lets out his breath all at once, slumping against the wall and feeling almost light-headed with relief.

She wants to stay with them. She wants to be theirs.

Nenneke smiles. “I don’t believe I have ever officiated a marriage for witchers before, and pack-marriages are rare enough that I can count the ones I have performed on the fingers of one hand. Do you wish it to be a grand affair, Lady Milena?”

“No; let it be small, private, and soon, by my preference, please.” Milena smiles. “Though if it were perhaps after I have had a chance to bathe, I would be very grateful.”

Nenneke chuckles. “I think we can see our way clear to that. Come on; all of you could use a bath, and I will have one of the Temple’s guest rooms prepared for you to use tonight. I will request some of my daughters to stand as witness at - shall we say dusk?”

“Dusk will suit me well, High Priestess,” Milena says, and gives the three of them a hopeful look. “If it will suit you, too?”

“Might be just about soon enough,” Lambert manages to rasp. Milena blushes and smiles. Aiden visibly suppresses the urge to croon. Well, visibly to Lambert, at least.

Nenneke leads them through the Temple’s grounds to the bathhouse and ushers Milena into a private room before shooing the three witchers into another. “I realize you’ve doubtless debauched her on the road, but you can pretend to be polite for another few hours,” she scolds when Aiden tries to protest.

“We haven’t, actually,” Voltehre says lightly. “Not past some kissing, anyway.”

“Hm,” Nenneke says skeptically. “Go get clean, you all smell like road dust and blood.”

Lambert snorts. She’s not wrong. But -

“Have someone standing guard, would you?” he asks Nenneke before he lets her herd them away from the door to the private bathing room where he can just hear Milena already splashing quietly around. “The fucker Aiden won her from is a duke, and I don’t want to have to murder anyone on Temple grounds, but I will if I gotta.”

Nenneke’s lips thin as she presses them together. “There is a tale there, I think,” she says grimly, and whistles. A few moments later, a broad-shouldered beta woman with a quarterstaff comes jogging around a hedge. “Sister Zofia, will you guard the woman within this bathing room until her wedding this eve? Let no one remove her from the Temple’s grounds or do her harm.”

“Got it,” Sister Zofia says, and takes up a position in front of the door, grounding her quarterstaff and bracing her shoulders to look very like an immovable object. Lambert assesses her stance and the easy way she holds the staff, and nods in satisfaction. Ex-mercenary, he’s guessing. Good ex-mercenary. She’ll do.

“Thanks,” he says gruffly, and lets Nenneke shoo them in to bathe.

They do, in fact, smell of road dirt and dust, and a hot bath is a luxury when they’re not home in Kaer Morhen; they all plunge in eagerly and scrub down twice - three times in Aiden’s case, the vain Cat - and take advantage of the nice soap and the bronze mirror on the wall to touch up their facial hair or, in Voltehre’s case, remove the day’s stubble entirely. A baffled-looking acolyte knocks on the door and gives Voltehre, who answers it, three sets of plain linen tunics and trousers that are much cleaner than their own gear, and takes all of their laundry away in an enormous basket.

“We should probably make a thanks-offering for that,” Aiden says lightly. Lambert snorts.

“We should make one anyway,” Voltehre points out. “I think it’s traditional before a wedding.”

And Lambert does feel pretty damn grateful. “Alright,” he allows. “We’ve got coin, or - hm. I’ve got a hell of a lot of bruise balm just now.” And the Temple, he knows, provides healing to anyone who comes to their doors; they probably go through a lot of salve.

“Yeah, I like that,” Aiden says thoughtfully. “A little more personal than coin.”

So once an acolyte has led them to a small suite of rooms where they can put down their baggage - the same rooms they use every time they end up in the Temple, though usually when they do it’s because one of their pack is injured and needs more healing or rest than they can get out on the Path - they head up to the main nave and join the line for the altar, jars of salve in hand.

They don’t actually garner that many odd looks. Out of their armor, unarmed in this holy place (aside from the daggers Lambert and Aiden have hidden under their borrowed clothes), they look much like any other pilgrims, as long as no one looks too closely at their eyes. Since most of the other people in line are praying quietly, heads bowed before the great statue of the Goddess which presides over this space, Lambert’s pack can blend in easily. It’s a rather strange feeling, actually, being among humans without being noticed.

The priestess at the altar does notice their eyes, but Nenneke chooses her priestesses well: she murmurs a blessing over them, accepts the jars of bruise balm with what seems like genuine gratitude, and directs them over to the smallest and most unobtrusive of the side chapels. There’s a much smaller altar there, with a single candle surrounded by a flower wreath; the walls are carved with a rather good map of the Continent, and the witchers occupy themselves while they wait and try not to jitter out of their damn skins - in Lambert’s case at least, and his mates aren’t that much calmer than he is - by pointing out all the places they’ve been and all the ones they’d like to visit someday.

Aiden is extolling the virtues of the fresh fish down in Metinna when there’s a soft sound of footsteps, and they all turn to see Nenneke and Sister Zofia and a solemn-looking priestess coming in, and behind them -

Milena.

Milena is wearing the same sort of plain, simple linen clothing that they are - a dress rather than a tunic and trousers - and her hair is loose instead of braided tightly back, and falls in gorgeous dark waves all the way to her hips. Lambert instantly wants to comb his fingers through it, and suspects his mates feel the same. She looks - well, she looks fucking amazing, though that has less to do with the dress or the unbound hair than it does with the look on her face, the hopeful smile that turns to sheer unmitigated joy at the sight of them all waiting there.

The joy Lambert’s mates feel at seeing her there is like a bonfire deep in his soul, and he knows they can feel his burning delight just as strongly.

She comes to them immediately, tucking herself into the center of their pack without hesitation, which is right where she fucking well belongs. Sister Zofia, who had been looking rather skeptical, snorts and grins. She and the solemn priestess take up positions on either end of the altar, and Nenneke stands in front of it, beckoning them to kneel before her.

Lambert’s never actually been married before - witchers don’t bother with formalities like that, in part for lack of interest and in part because most holy folk won’t touch witchers with a ten foot pole - so he probably should be paying attention to the ceremony, but he isn’t. Not until Nenneke prompts him to vow to protect his pack from all harm, which Lambert does, meaning every word.

One by one, his packmates speak their own vows, with Milena last of all, and finally Nenneke nods and spreads her hands and blesses them all in the Goddess’s name, and Sister Zofia and the solemn priestess sign the attestation of witness, and it’s done.

It’s done. She’s theirs.

They all rise at Nenneke’s gesture, and it’s Aiden who kisses Milena first, whirling her about gleefully; Voltehre catches them as Milena begins to laugh, and steals a kiss of his own. Lambert watches for a single long, perfect moment - his packmates, all his packmates, glowing with joy - and then steps in to put a hand on Milena’s back and one on Aiden’s and bend his head for a kiss that she gives gladly.

Somehow, they make it through supper, sitting at the end of a long table in the refectory. Milena even makes conversation with Sister Zofia, and Voltehre charms the solemn priestess. Aiden and Lambert can’t quite manage to talk; Lambert meets his Cat’s eyes across the table and knows Aiden is just as overwhelmed as he is. She chose them. She’s staying. She’s theirs.

Somehow, they hold it together until they get back to the little plain suite of rooms they’ve been loaned, until they’re in a room with a bed big enough for four.

Voltehre throws the lock on the door as Aiden cups Milena’s face in his hands and kisses her softly and thoroughly and hungrily. Lambert palms himself through his trousers, starting to purr at the sight. Fuck, they’re beautiful together, his lovely omegas.

“How do you want this to go?” Aiden asks, scattering kisses across Milena’s face as she blushes. “Say the word and it’s yours, kitten.”

Milena blinks up at him. “I should, perhaps, have expected that you would not be traditional in this matter either.”

“Traditional?” Voltehre asks, stepping up beside them and winding his long arms around both of them. Aiden and Milena both lean against him with matching happy little sighs. Lambert’s purr gets louder.

“Pack marriages are not common anymore,” Milena says slowly, “but I was of course expected to learn the manner in which they were constructed, in case my eventual mating was arranged to an alpha who had a prior mate. Properly, in such an arrangement, I believe it is expected that the newly mated omega be…coupled with by each of the other members of the pack before the alpha takes their due.”

Aiden blinks. Lambert licks his lips. “Gotta admit that’d be fucking pretty,” he says slowly, because holy shit, Aiden and Voltehre taking turns with her before he finally gets to knot her would be fucking gorgeous. “But also that sounds kinda…really fucking overwhelming for you.”

Milena blushes. “It…does,” she admits. “Three couplings does seem…intense, perhaps? And I…ah…I am given to understand that alphas’ knots are quite large, and that is…a bit intimidating.”

“Yeah, I don’t blame you,” Voltehre murmurs, kissing the top of her head and then her lips when she tilts her head up hopefully. “You know we don’t have to fuck tonight, right? Like, at all? Or hell, you could just watch. Bet we’d all have fun showing off for you. Get you a better view than you had out in the woods.” He wiggles his eyebrows, and Milena giggles and hides her face briefly against his chest.

“I want to,” she says, raising her head and swallowing hard. “I do. It is merely intimidating, and that, surely, will diminish with experience.”

“Yeah, it will,” Aiden murmurs. “Tell you what. Let’s all get our kit off and get in bed, and then we’ll go from there, hm? You can get a good long look at what your options are.” He waggles his eyebrows, and Milena lets out a startled little laugh.

“Yes,” she says, and steps back - Aiden and Voltehre let go of her at once - and turns to offer Lambert her back. “Will you unlace me?”

Lambert’s mouth goes dry and he keeps his hands from shaking with an effort. “Sure,” he says hoarsely. The laces are, thank fuck, linen not silk - anything slippery would probably defeat him handily right now - and when he has unlaced her dress’s bodice, she does something quick and graceful and the whole damn dress just slides down to pool around her feet. She isn’t wearing stockings. She isn’t wearing smallclothes. She steps out of her shoes and the puddle of linen and turns to look up at him, and Lambert thinks the sound he makes is probably a whine.

She’s slim and dainty and pale, and he wants to run his hands and mouth over every inch of her. Her eyes are enormous dark pools, and to Lambert’s surprise she reaches up to touch his cheek and smiles, and very softly starts to croon.

He kisses her, because what else is he supposed to do? Kisses her as she croons and winds her slender arms around his neck, kisses her as he picks her up and carries her over to the bed and sets her down gently on the edge of it. Kisses her until she’s gasping for breath and everything smells like roses, and then he sinks to his knees in front of her and drapes her legs over his shoulders and licks her open ravenously, starving for the taste of her.

Milena makes a gorgeous startled sound and clutches at the back of his head. Dimly, Lambert is aware of Aiden and Voltehre climbing onto the bed on either side of her; he can hear the sounds of kissing, Milena’s crooning joined by Aiden’s, Voltehre’s soft murmurs. None of that matters nearly as much as the way her hips are starting to shift restlessly, tiny uncoordinated movements that are like to drive him fucking mad. She tastes like salt and slick and roses and she opens beneath his tongue like a flower in bloom and he is hard enough to rival steel and that doesn’t matter at all when she is pulling him closer, perfectly trimmed nails scratching through his hair as she shakes apart.

She cries out as she peaks, a lovely warbling sound that Lambert could listen to for the rest of his life, and he raises his head, beard and cheeks smeared with her slick, and grins at the dazed look on her face, the flush that has covered her down to her heaving breasts, the delicate shiver of her limbs as she recovers from the onslaught of pleasure.

“What next?” Lambert rasps.

Milena laughs, breathless and delighted. “Oh gods, I can barely think. Will you undress, alpha?”

Lambert shudders - that word, in that voice, shaky with pleasure, is a lot - and stands as his packmates draw their new omega further onto the bed. He’s very pleased when she keeps her eyes on him as he pulls off the simple clothes; her eyes catch on his prick, of course, and the dazed look on her face shifts to slight apprehension. “Oh,” she says faintly, and then, to Aiden, “It is - it is pleasant?”

“It’s so fucking good,” Aiden promises her. “But also our Lam is not a small alpha, so maybe you ought to work up to taking his knot.”

Milena swallows and licks her lips. “Is it - all or nothing?” she asks hesitantly.

“Nah,” Lambert says, grinning. Their clever kitten. “You can take as much as you want, or as little. Don’t gotta knot inside you.”

Milena nods. “Then - ah - I -” she blushes hotly and puts both hands over her face, rolling over to hide against Aiden’s chest. Aiden croons soothingly and pets her hair. “You first?” she whispers, so soft Lambert can barely hear it. “And then…see how it goes?”

“Sounds like a plan, kitten,” Aiden croons, and rolls her onto her back. Lambert climbs into the bed, winding himself around Voltehre and rutting gently against his beta’s ass; Voltehre clasps his hands around Lambert’s forearms and tangles their legs together, chuckling softly. He’s hard as steel, too; Lambert slides a hand down to wrap around his prick, and Voltehre’s chuckles turn to soft moans. Milena looks over, eyes widening, and to Lambert’s delight she licks her lips at the sight of them together.

“Aren’t they gorgeous?” Aiden asks softly.

“Yes,” Milena says, and turns to smile up at him. “And so are you.”

Aiden croons, and Voltehre turns his head to murmur, “She’s so damn sweet,” quiet enough that she might not hear. Lambert chuckles.

“Takes one to know one, honey,” he points out, and Voltehre laughs, a soft lovely sound that cuts off as they both see Aiden’s hips shift and Milena’s eyes widen.

Lambert is holding his breath, and so is Voltehre, and there’s an expression of fierce concentration on Aiden’s face as he eases forward -

And Milena lets out a long sigh and relaxes, and murmurs, “Oh, you’re right, this is very pleasant.”

Aiden chuckles and kisses her. “Let’s see if we can get that to ecstatic,” he murmurs, and starts to move. Milena clutches at his shoulders and makes the most delicious fucking noises Lambert has ever heard. In Lambert’s arms, Voltehre starts to shift, rocking forward into Lambert’s hand and back against his prick, hands tightening on Lambert’s forearms. Lambert nuzzles at the nape of his neck and twists his hand the way he knows drives Voltehre wild, and Voltehre whimpers beautifully. Milena looks over at him and smiles, then frees one hand from Aiden’s shoulder and holds it out to Voltehre. He lets go of Lambert’s arm and takes it, tangling their fingers together, and Milena squeezes hard and then Aiden must do something particularly good because her head falls back and her eyes squeeze shut and she peaks with a low, startled-sounding cry. Aiden clearly follows her over, gasping, and the sound and smell of it is enough to pull Voltehre over, too, shuddering in Lambert’s arms.

“I want,” Milena says softly, as they all catch their breaths.

“Want what, kitten?” Aiden asks eagerly.

“Lambert?” she whispers, blushing again. Lambert’s breath comes short and he squeezes Voltehre maybe a little harder than he meant to; Voltehre laughs.

“I think Lambert is interested, yeah,” he says, and Lambert bites his shoulder gently in retaliation before letting go. Rearranging is awkward - so many bodies always is - but after a few moments he’s on his back, Voltehre wound around him on one side and watching hungrily, as Milena and Aiden kneel above him, Aiden’s hands wrapped firmly around Milena’s hips to guide her.

Lambert makes a very undignified noise as she sinks down - not far, just barely past the crown of his prick. He’s much larger than Aiden, and she’s so fucking tight; it takes every ounce of control he has not to buck his hips upward. But he doesn’t, and is rewarded with her soft, wondering moan and the way she sags back against Aiden, letting him take all of her weight, and slides oh-so-fucking-slowly down a little further at a time. She comes to rest at last just above the swell of his half-blown knot, and her little gasping moan is beautiful. Lambert makes a much less beautiful sound of his own in reply, shuddering with the urge to move. Milena rolls her hips, graceful but unpracticed, and Lambert groans again, clinging to the sheets.

“May I?” Voltehre murmurs.

“Yes,” Milena gasps, without even asking what he means, and oh fuck, what he means is sliding clever fingers between them to tease at her pearl so she shudders and clenches even tighter around Lambert’s prick. Aiden holds her steady as she rocks her hips, chasing Voltehre’s fingers, and Lambert makes a whole series of really undignified noises at how fucking good it feels -

And then she’s peaking, and he frees a hand from the sheets and shoves it down between them to grab his knot and squeeze as his own peak hits him like a charging shaelmaar.

He comes back to himself some undetermined time later, to find that Milena is tucked up next to him, gasping softly, with one leg draped over Voltehre’s shoulder and three of Voltehre’s long, clever fingers sunk deep into her sweet cunt, and Aiden is tucked up on Lambert’s other side with his hand also tight around Lambert’s knot, squeezing in a rhythm that makes Lambert’s breath come short and aftershocks of pleasure rock through him.

Milena comes again, crying out sweetly, and Voltehre kisses her through it.

Lambert grins up at the ceiling. Everything smells like sweat and spend and his pack, claimed and married and his.

Chapter Text

Voltehre lets out a soft sigh of relief as Kaer Morhen’s battlements come into view at last.

The Killer is not easy for a human to climb, and for all that she is stronger than she was when they first found her, Milena is still only human. She’s spent much of the ascent clinging to the back of the mule, grim-faced behind the layers of furs and scarves they’ve wrapped around her to keep her from freezing to death in the bitter wind. She hasn’t complained, though, not their steel-spined rose.

Old Vesemir is waiting for them at the gate. He nods to Lambert, claps Voltehre on the shoulder, gives Aiden a performative scowl and a gentle squeeze on the arm, and then looks at Milena. She tugs down her scarves and offers a hopeful smile.

“Who’s this, then?”

“Our mate, Milena,” Lambert says gruffly.

Vesemir blinks, eyebrows rising. “You never do things the easy way, do you, lad?” he says ruefully. “Get her inside before she freezes.”

They aren’t the first back, though they’re far from the last, and their brothers all look with great interest as they come down to the hall from dropping off their baggage. Milena is wearing only a single coat, now, and she’s pulled her medallion out to rest atop it instead of hidden away against her skin. Nenneke got a silversmith to give them a decent price for the casting and the raw material, and there’s a sliver of each of their medallions in the mix. She won’t wear their bites until her heat - they won’t heal properly without the heat-hormones running through her blood - but the medallion marks her as theirs, and Voltehre gets a little surge of possessive pride every time he sees it.

Like most omegas, she has a winter heat; she’s said it’s usually in late winter, the deep cold just before the thaw. Given that Aiden’s usually hits shortly before midwinter, that’s all to the good; having them back to back would be a bit much. As it is, they’re all looking forward to her first heat with them. Though Voltehre is definitely of the opinion that it’s just as well that Aiden’s will hit first, giving her an opportunity to see what heat can be like when she’s not locked in a bare room with nothing but her own desperation, and also that it’s probably a good thing they found her after Lambert’s midsummer rut had passed. Rut is fun, and Voltehre and Aiden both enjoy the hell out of it, but it would probably have been more than slightly overwhelming for their gently-bred kitten.

As it is, given how much Milena has proven to enjoy what she still can’t call anything but ‘bedsport’, Voltehre suspects she’s going to like Lambert’s rut as much as the rest of them do.

Just now she’s more apprehensive than pleased, though, and Voltehre wraps an arm around her shoulders as they take their places at the end of one of the long tables. All of their brothers are giving Milena odd looks - aside from the ones who still glare at Aiden every chance they get, the idiots - but if Voltehre hadn’t spent the last several months learning to read her body language very well indeed, he wouldn’t know she had even noticed the stares. She’s very good at keeping a perfectly polite mask on her face even when she’s furious, or terrified, or half frantic with worry because one of them has gotten slightly trampled by a fiend.

Voltehre and Lambert sandwich their mates between them on the bench, and thank fuck, the brothers who settle across from them are the ones least likely to make a fuss about either Aiden or Milena: Geralt and Eskel and Gweld, all smiling warmly.

“Who’s your new mate?” Eskel asks, nodding politely to Milena.

“This is Milena,” Voltehre says proudly.

Geralt gives her a small nod of welcome, and Milena smiles back at him. “It is an honor to be made welcome here,” she says softly.

Gweld chuckles. “Oh no, you’re polite. How are you coping with Lambert?”

Milena’s smile grows just a hint of teeth. “Very well, thank you kindly.”

Gweld guffaws. “Oho!” Geralt snorts and gives Lambert a smirk.

“Kitten has claws,” Aiden says gleefully, and Eskel gives her a very profound seated bow. And the approval of the finest pack in the keep goes a long way towards making everyone else stop giving them funny looks, so they make it through supper without any trouble, and then head down for the hot springs, because a hot bath sounds awfully like heaven right now.

The thing about the hot springs - about being home in Kaer Morhen in general, really - is that Voltehre can relax. He doesn’t have to worry about monsters or villagers or where their next meal is coming from. Lambert is calmer, here in Kaer Morhen; Aiden is less twitchy. Voltehre can put down the responsibilities of the Path and just be.

And his packmates, who know how much he does out on the Path, how hard he works to keep them on even keels, tend to want to reciprocate while they’re in Kaer Morhen.

So he’s not surprised when they make it down to the hot springs and Lambert immediately starts undressing him, tsking when Voltehre attempts to help. Milena looks briefly confused, until Aiden bends down and murmurs, “He fusses over us, out there and when we’re in heat or rut. We fuss over him while we’re here.”

“Oh! But of course,” Milena says, beaming. “How can I help?”

Aiden grins. “Go pick us some soap, kitten.”

Milena nods and goes padding across the cavern to the shelf of soaps, and Aiden comes to help Lambert undress Voltehre. They get him naked and into the water with gentle efficiency, and strip down to join him, and to his surprise Milena slides into the water, too, and settles across his lap, and curls her slender hands around his cheeks to draw him down into a soft kiss.

Lambert starts to purr, and Aiden starts to croon. Voltehre closes his eyes and relaxes into the kiss and the gentle strokes of their hands as they begin to soap him down.

He doesn’t doze, precisely, but he drifts contentedly. He thinks it’s Milena scrubbing his hair, and definitely Lambert who lifts his feet up off the bottom of the pool to soap his lower legs, but other than that he’s not entirely sure who’s doing what and also doesn’t much care. Everything smells like home and his pack and he feels like all the year’s tension is draining out of him into the water, leaving him limp as cooked noodles.

It’s definitely Lambert who picks him up and lifts him out of the pool and then doesn’t put him down again as their omegas dry them off. Voltehre rests his head on Lambert’s shoulder and keeps drifting, full of a sort of quiet bubbling happiness, as a towel is draped over him for propriety’s sake and Lambert trots barefoot through the chilly halls of the keep, up a flight of stairs and into the big cozy room which has been theirs since they passed their Medallion Trial and won the right to claim a den of their own. It smells like them, like their pack, even after months away.

It smells even better with Aiden and Milena in it.

Lambert puts him down on the bed, and Voltehre stretches out with a long sigh and opens his eyes, blinking up at his pack. They’re all smiling down at him with immense fondness. “Sleep or fucking, honey?” Lambert asks softly.

“Sleep, then fucking,” Voltehre says. Lambert nods, and Voltehre shifts up the bed enough that the rest of his pack can pile in around him and heap the blankets over them. He ends up with Milena tucked up on one side of him, Aiden curled around her, and Lambert on his other side. Milena is crooning softly, and as his eyes start to drift shut again he feels her gentle fingers running through his hair, a gentle rhythmic touch that lulls him easily to sleep.

He wakes to a gentle rhythmic touch, too, but it’s not on his hair. Someone - not Milena, by the calluses - is stroking his prick lazily to hardness. Voltehre chuckles without opening his eyes. “Morning already?”

“We missed breakfast,” Lambert agrees.

“You missed breakfast. Milena and I brought up enough for everyone,” Aiden corrects him. “Good morning, honey.”

“G’morning,” Voltehre agrees, stretching luxuriously and incidentally pushing his hips into the teasing strokes of what is probably Lambert’s hand. “What’s the plan?” The plan that he doesn’t have to make, or even worry about, because he knows whatever it is, he’s going to enjoy the hell out of it.

“Couple options,” Lambert says thoughtfully. “How energetic are you feeling?”

“Not very,” Voltehre admits. He’s enjoying being a bit lazy and letting his packmates take care of him.

Lambert hums. “Well then, how’s this: Aiden can give Milena another lesson in sucking you off, and then I get to ride you while you just lie there and look pretty.”

Voltehre shivers with desire, and opens his eyes to grin up at his alpha. “I like that plan.”

“Good,” Lambert purrs, and moves away to find the oil they keep in their bedside table and start opening himself up. Milena looks briefly startled as she and Aiden settle into place on either side of Voltehre’s hips. Probably because she hasn’t seen Lambert get fucked before - it always takes a while for him to relax enough, so they don’t usually bother out on the Path.

She sets that aside fairly quickly, though, when Aiden leans in and wraps his clever mouth around the tip of Voltehre’s prick. This isn’t the first lesson she’s had in this particular skill; all of them have walked her through it a couple of times. At this point she probably doesn’t need any more lessons, but they all enjoy it when -

“Your turn, kitten,” Aiden croons, and Milena leans forward to put her pretty, dainty pink mouth to work. Voltehre crams a pillow behind his head so he can watch and reaches down to comb his hands through their omegas’ hair. Aiden’s curls wind around his fingers; Milena’s straighter hair slips through them like water.

There’s something absolutely sinful about the sight of their sweet little noble-born lass with her lips stretched wide around a witcher’s prick. Her eyes fall closed in concentration, eyelashes dark against her pale cheeks, and she blushes a beautiful shade of pink, and her tongue - so cleverly wielded against aldermen and innkeepers - is just as clever on the sensitive crown of Voltehre’s prick. She can’t take him in very far, but oh, what she can do is marvelous.

She opens her eyes when he moans, and smiles, not with her lips but with the crinkles around her eyes, and croons, and the vibration goes through him like a knife of pleasure. And then she pulls away, the wicked little kitten - Voltehre is blaming Aiden for teaching her to tease.

“Your turn,” she murmurs. Aiden laughs and leans forward and swallows Voltehre to the root, and Voltehre shouts, fingers tensing around his handfuls of their hair, just barely retaining the control not to pull.

Milena again, clever tongue flickering. Aiden again, throat tight around the head of Voltehre’s prick as he swallows and swallows again. Milena, crooning contentedly as she suckles. Aiden, his wicked smirk turning to a look of lazy pleasure as he sinks down a fraction of an inch at a time and pulls away again just as slowly.

Voltehre is whining in the back of his throat, shuddering beneath them, on the very edge of peaking but never quite tipping over.

“My turn,” Lambert says roughly, and Aiden and Milena both move away; Voltehre untangles his fingers from their hair with an effort and curls them instead around Lambert’s hips as Lambert settles astride him. Lambert smirks down at him as one of Aiden’s clever hands strokes oil over Voltehre’s prick and guides it into place.

“Honey,” Lambert purrs, and sinks down in a single long glide that leaves him sitting heavily across Voltehre’s hips, Voltehre’s prick twitching deep inside him. Voltehre tries to buck up against Lambert’s weight and can’t, and then Aiden and Milena have eeled up the bed on either side of him and Milena pulls him into a deep kiss, fingers carding through his hair, and when she lets him go Aiden claims his mouth, and Lambert is riding him slow and steady and so, so good, and all Voltehre needs to do is lie there and be doted on.

When he peaks, it’s almost gentle, a slow swell of pleasure that rises and rises until he doesn’t so much topple over as sink into it, drowning in an ocean of golden sparks. Faintly, he hears Lambert shout and feels hot stripes of spend land on his chest as the tight channel around his prick ripples and clenches. Good. Good, he should smell like Lambert. Should smell claimed.

When he finally surfaces from being surrounded in nothing but pleasure, it’s to find Lambert lying next to him, one hand tightly wrapped around his own knot, and Milena on his other side, her head tucked into the curve of his throat as she shivers and croons her way through Aiden fucking her very gently over what sure sounds like a second or third peak for both of them. Voltehre makes a dazed, contented sound, and Aiden chuckles.

“Back with us, honey? That looked like a damn good one.” He twists his hips and Milena gasps and moans. Everything smells like sated alpha and extremely contented omega and pack.

“It was,” Voltehre says, smiling. “You said there was breakfast?”

Aiden bursts into laughter, which throws off his rhythm, and he tumbles gracefully to the side as Milena shakes with giggles. Lambert snorts. “There is breakfast, but someone else is gonna have to get it, ‘cause I’m a little indisposed right now.”

“I got it, I got it,” Aiden laughs, and gets off the bed to bring over a covered tray from where it’s been staying warm by the hearth.

They’ve brought up his favorite jam to top the oatcakes, the sweethearts.

They wander down to the main hall for lunch eventually, and Lambert piles all of Voltehre’s favorites on his plate; Aiden scampers down into the cellars and brings up a pitcher of the extra-sweet mead Voltehre prefers. Milena just tucks herself under Voltehre’s arm and croons very quietly, her scent and slight warm weight incredibly soothing. She goes with him back up to the pack’s bedroom afterwards, too, more than happy to nap beside him as Lambert heads for the alchemy labs to see what sort of mess they’ve gotten into over the warmer months and Aiden goes out to run the obstacle course a few times and wear himself out. Voltehre slides blissfully into sleep with his little rose-scented omega tucked safe into the curve of his body, in the comforting warmth of their den.

The next day, Gweld slips into the hot springs next to Voltehre after morning training and slings an arm over his shoulders. “Little brother, can I kidnap you after lunch?”

“Gladly,” Voltehre says, beaming at his elder brother - the finest beta in Kaer Morhen, in Voltehre’s opinion, and the one he’s deliberately modeled himself after.

“Delightful,” Gweld says, and ruffles Voltehre’s hair vigorously. Voltehre laughs and squirms, not really trying to escape from the rough affection.

After lunch he trails Gweld up to a cozy little room in one of the towers, which has been the retreat of the keep’s betas for as long as there have been witchers in Kaer Morhen, and flops down onto one of the battered comfortable couches next to Gweld, who wraps an arm around his shoulders and nuzzles at his hair.

“So,” he says fondly. “A human omega, hm? How the hell did your boys talk you into that?”

Voltehre frowns. “Aiden brought her back to us,” he says slowly, “after he rescued her from an absolute monster of an alpha. And yeah, I was really dubious about her at first. But -” He takes a deep breath. “She’s not a burden, or something they’ve inflicted on me. She’s part of the pack, and she’s pulling her own weight.”

Gweld makes a very dubious noise.

“She is,” Voltehre insists. “She does all our mending; she’s learned to stitch us up, too. She does scribing in the towns we visit, and that means the pack takes in coin even when there’s no contracts around. She’s learned to cook, so we come back from hunts to a hot meal waiting. And she - she looks out for us. She’s faced down half a dozen assholes to defend us.” He squirms around so he can look Gweld in the eyes, wanting to make the older beta understand. “She’s pack, not a hanger-on.”

Gweld looks rather taken aback. “Huh. Wouldn’t have thought a human girl would be that useful to a pack. But then, I was fucking dubious when you brought that Cat back, and I’ve got to admit he’s worth his feed.”

Voltehre grins. “More than.”

Gweld nods. “As you say. Well, you’ve a good head on your shoulders; if you say she’s pack, and worthy of it, then I won’t doubt you any further.”

Voltehre nods and settles back down, head nestled against Gweld’s shoulder, glad of his brother’s approval - of the fact that Gweld trusts his judgment. Gweld is about the only person who can make him feel small and young and sheltered - he is the best elder brother Voltehre could ever want, really he is.

“Tell me about your year on the Path, then,” Gweld invites, and Voltehre gladly begins to recount some of their more interesting hunts. Gweld is a wonderful audience, laughing and wincing and making interested noises at all the appropriate points, and Voltehre sinks into the contentment of being home as other betas come trickling in and settle around the room to listen and share their own tales.

It’s a very pleasant afternoon and evening - several people duck out to bring trays of dinner up when they all start getting hungry - and he’s feeling warmly happy when he goes wandering back over to the pack’s bedroom in the dimness of the early winter evening. To his surprise, Aiden is the only one there, lounging on the bed with a book, wearing nothing but a pair of loose sleep pants.

“Lam took our Kitten up to look at the stars,” Aiden says, setting the book aside and stretching luxuriously. “Wrapped her up in so many blankets I’m not sure she can walk on her own and carried her off.”

Voltehre grins. “Wish I’d seen that.”

“It was very cute. But that means I get you all to myself for a while, honey.” Aiden gives Voltehre a hungry look and lounges back against the pillows mounded at the head of the bed. “What’s your pleasure?”

Voltehre licks his lips and starts undressing, enjoying the way Aiden’s pupils widen and he starts to croon softly, deep in his throat. “Anything I want?” Voltehre asks, already knowing the answer.

“Anything,” Aiden replies easily. “Name it, honey, and it’s yours.”

“Want to be sweet to you,” Voltehre decides. He knows Lambert and Aiden enjoy wrestling, play-fighting for dominance, and sometimes he likes that too, but he’s feeling calm and pleased with the world and doesn’t want to get too energetic.

Aiden’s croon grows stronger, and he kicks out of his pants and holds out his arms. “Yes,” he says softly. “Oh, honey, yes.”

Voltehre climbs onto the bed and right over Aiden, bending his head to kiss his Cat gently. Aiden melts against the pillows, crooning contentedly.

“Turn over,” Voltehre murmurs as he pulls away just a little, and Aiden grins up at him and squirms over onto his front. Voltehre lies down atop him, lacing his fingers through Aiden’s and pinning the omega’s hands to the pillows, and Aiden sighs as he takes Voltehre’s weight, and spreads his legs, hooking his feet over Voltehre’s calves.

They both moan quietly as Voltehre’s prick slides into Aiden where he’s already slick and open with anticipatory arousal. Voltehre lips at Aiden’s ear, and Aiden shivers and goes soft and yielding beneath him, croon shivering through both of their chests.

Voltehre moves slow and easy, long steady thrusts that draw him almost all the way out before he sinks back in again in a long gorgeous slide to the hilt. Aiden moans softly, squeezing Voltehre’s fingers with every thrust, and just takes it, yielding beautifully.

“Love you, kitty,” Voltehre murmurs in his omega’s ear after some uncounted blissful time, and Aiden turns his head for an awkward sideways kiss and tenses and peaks in a set of long convulsions that pull Voltehre into ecstasy right after him.

They lie there sharing breath for a while as they calm down, and then Voltehre very carefully eases away, flopping over onto his back, and Aiden rolls over and pillows his head on Voltehre’s shoulder, draping a leg over Voltehre’s hip and cuddling close.

“Love it when you’re sweet to me,” he mumbles against Voltehre’s throat.

“Love being sweet to you,” Voltehre says, kissing Aiden’s head and wrapping an arm around him to hold him close.

“You’re sweeter’n mead, honey,” Aiden sighs, and falls asleep. Voltehre stays awake until Lambert and Milena return, Milena mostly a heap of blankets in Lambert’s arms, and come piling into the the bed; Lambert tucks Milena between himself and Voltehre to keep her warm, and leans over her to kiss Voltehre thoroughly.

“Have fun watching the stars?” Voltehre asks.

“Yeah,” Lambert says. “She knows some stories I don’t. Smells like you had fun with our kitty.”

“Yep,” Voltehre says smugly. Lambert grins and wiggles his eyebrows and settles down, pinching out the candle and drawing the bedcurtains, and Voltehre sighs in contentment and falls asleep wrapped up in the scent and warmth of his pack.

In the morning, they all go trooping out into the cold morning light for training - Milena in a fur coat that weighs almost as much as she does - and Voltehre gets to watch with glee as Aiden runs the obstacle course Vesemir apparently spent much of the summer building especially for him. It involves a lot more acrobatics than the usual pendulum courses, and Voltehre’s pretty sure he couldn’t run it without falling off half a dozen times, but Aiden goes through it twice slowly to learn it and then goes tearing across the entire course in about the same time Voltehre could run the same distance, and bounces off the last platform with a whoop of sheer elation. Milena applauds gleefully.

“Shit, now I want to try,” Lambert says, which Voltehre really should have expected.

“Me first,” Geralt says, which Voltehre did not expect.

“Overachieving bastard,” Lambert grumbles. Voltehre laughs at both of them and leaves them to Aiden and Vesemir’s tender mercies while he takes Milena over to the easiest of the obstacle courses, the one that no one has used in years because it was for trainees and, well, they don’t have any of those anymore. (Voltehre doesn’t let himself think about that very often; it hurts too much.)

Milena makes it through the first trainee course with remarkable grace, actually, especially given that she’s wearing skirts and a heavy fur coat. Voltehre is giving her some pointers on the few mistakes she did make when Clovis comes sauntering over, smirking as nastily as he can. Voltehre sighs. Of course Clovis is going to make trouble about this. He makes trouble about everything. He’s gotten his nose broken at least three times for being a prick, and still hasn’t learned not to find every possible weak spot his brothers have and push.

“So this is your new little pet,” he snipes, peering down at Milena. “What, you finally realized your Cat’s not a very good omega, so you had to get a second one?”

Voltehre takes a deep breath to keep from breaking Clovis’s nose for him a fourth time, and Milena tilts her head back and looks Clovis squarely in the eye without a trace of fear. “If you say another unkind word about the man who saved me, I will unman you,” she informs Clovis coldly.

“Ah,” Clovis says, taking a startled step back.

“She can, you know,” Voltehre puts in. “Lambert’s been teaching her.”

Clovis sputters in shock and indignation. Voltehre grins. “Fuck off,” he suggests. “Leave our kitten alone; she’s got claws.”

“Course you two are daft enough to pick a human bitch and a fucking Cat,” Clovis mutters, but he also heads back over to his packmates instead of sticking around to make trouble, which is a relief.

“So that’s Clovis,” Voltehre sighs.

“Charming man,” Milena replies. “If he says anything rude about my pack in my hearing again I will be deeply tempted to tell him exactly what I think of him.”

Voltehre raises an eyebrow at her. “That was a threat, I think.”

“Oh, it was absolutely a threat.” Milena grins up at him. “I spent three years at court and grew up with an older sister whose greatest pleasure was verbally eviscerating her rivals. I don’t care to use such weapons often, but I will, in my pack’s defense.”

Voltehre kisses her, because what else is he supposed to do with that? Milena giggles and kisses back for a minute before she strokes a hand down his cheek and pulls away.

“I should practice the obstacle course again,” she says ruefully. “May I have another kiss afterwards, if I do well?”

“Yes,” Voltehre says, and watches her run it a second time both faster and more gracefully than the first, and gives her that kiss as reward, and then he goes and runs the pendulum course a couple of times while Vesemir tests her proficiency with a dagger, and then they both get to watch Lambert and Aiden and Geralt race across the new course. Geralt, the twice-Grassed fucker, beats Lambert handily, but Aiden beats Geralt by just as wide a margin, and watching Lambert try to pout with annoyance and purr with pride in his packmate is frankly hilarious.

They all go trooping down to the hot springs after that, and Voltehre’s packmates fuss over him, not letting him do anything for himself as they undress him and scrub him clean and snuggle up around him. That’ll get old in a few days, Voltehre knows, but for a little while it’s really quite nice to be pampered.

Lambert fills his plate for him at lunch, though nobody actually tries to feed him - that would be taking the pampering a little too far - and after lunch Aiden and Milena go off together, chattering about haircare, and Lambert tows Voltehre up to the library with him.

One of Voltehre’s habits, out on the Path, is to get a look at as many books as he possibly can - about anything, it doesn’t matter what. And then, when they’re home in Kaer Morhen, he takes full advantage of his ridiculous memory and recites them, and Lambert copies them down, and then Kaer Morhen has a copy of the book without having to shell out far too much coin to get it.

This year it was even easier, because Milena was able to charm various wealthy people into letting her look at their books, with her high-class accent and her pretty manners, so Voltehre got to see even more books than he usually does.

Because Voltehre’s not doing the writing, though, that means he can drape himself over Lambert’s back and hold his alpha close while Lambert makes an initial draft in lead pencil on much-scraped parchment, and bask in the scent of his first mate, his prickly beehive of an alpha, all stings and bristles until you realize that under his protective snarling he’s as sweet as honey fresh from the hive.

They start with the first book Voltehre got a look at, back in the spring when they got a contract from an alderman a few weeks’ travel west and north of Kaer Morhen and he offered them his guest room for the night, and happened to have a copy of a manual on horse training that they’d never seen before. It’s not the most interesting book they encountered this year - except maybe to Geralt - but Lambert is very firm about going in order so they don’t forget anything, and Voltehre isn’t going to argue - it makes sense, and also he adores his meticulous alpha so, so much.

They make it halfway through the book, Voltehre curled around Lambert with his arms wrapped loosely around Lambert’s waist and his eyes closed so he can concentrate on the memorized pages behind his eyelids, before Voltehre’s voice starts to go hoarse. Lambert stops immediately, setting aside the pencil and putting a smooth rock atop the stack of parchment. “Tea,” he says briskly, and chivvies Voltehre out of the chair and down to the kitchen, where he pushes Voltehre onto a bench next to the long preparation table and goes to dip some hot water out of the always-bubbling kettle beside the fire. He mixes the tisane with three heaping spoonfuls of honey before he presses the mug into Voltehre’s hands, and Voltehre grins up at his alpha helplessly.

He takes a long drink of the tisane and then tips his head up for a kiss. Lambert leans down to provide it at once. It’s as soothing as the honey-laden tisane.

Voltehre alternates sips of tisane and kisses from his alpha until the mug is empty and his throat feels entirely soothed, and then he kisses Lambert one more time and hands him the mug. Lambert gets up to rinse it out and set it aside to dry.

Voltehre grins to himself and eases off the bench, padding as quietly as he can towards the door. He’s actually touching the handle when he hears Lambert set the mug down on the counter.

Voltehre glances over his shoulder and grins. “Catch as catch can,” he sing-songs, and goes darting out of the kitchen and up the steps; behind him, he hears Lambert make a startled noise, and then a hungry one, and then his pounding footsteps as he gives chase.

Voltehre does make it back to their bedroom first, by about three paces, and isn’t surprised at all to be tackled onto the bed. He manages to turn the tumble into a roll, and there’s a brief tangle of limbs and growling that ends with him flat on his back on the bed with Lambert looming over him, eyes dark and teeth bared in a feral, hungry grin. “Caught you,” he growls.

“Yep,” Voltehre agrees cheerfully, and starts tugging Lambert’s trousers open. Lambert snorts and goes for Voltehre’s trousers, which is a little awkward - four hands knocking together in too little space - but they’ve got practice at this, and it doesn’t take too long until they’re both shoving their trousers down to their knees and Voltehre can wrap one hand around both of their pricks, glad as he always is that he has such big hands. Lambert moans and leans down to kiss Voltehre hard, hips rolling in a steady rhythm that’s setting off glorious lights behind Voltehre’s eyelids. He crams his other hand between them to wrap around Lambert’s quickly swelling knot, and Lambert makes a wonderful noise against his lips, and after that it isn’t long at all before Voltehre spills, spattering hot against his stomach, and then Lambert groans and follows him over his peak, adding quite a lot more spend to the mess smeared between them. Voltehre keeps one hand wrapped around Lambert’s knot and tugs the other one out from under Lambert’s weight to wrap his arm around his alpha, and Lambert slumps down atop him, kissing him like he never wants to stop. Since Voltehre doesn’t want to stop either, that’s not a problem at all.

Lambert’s knot goes down again after a while, and their frantic kissing turns by degrees to long, luxurious presses of lips against mouths and jaws and throats, Voltehre enjoying the rasp of Lambert’s beard, Lambert amusing himself by nibbling at Voltehre’s ears.

“Tomorrow night,” Voltehre decides thoughtfully, “I want one of Aiden’s really thorough massages and then I want you to fuck me, alpha.”

Lambert makes a faint whining noise. They don’t do that often, because Voltehre is a beta and getting him open enough to take Lambert’s knot takes a while, but it’s so fucking good when they do; it always leaves Lambert gasping with pleasure, and Voltehre feeling both sore and incredibly pleased with the whole damn world.

“Whatever you want, honey,” Lambert promises hoarsely.

Voltehre kisses him again. “This,” he says softly. “Just this.” His alpha in his arms, and their omegas nearby and safe, and a winter’s rest to look forward to -

He can’t imagine wanting anything more.

Chapter Text

“Hey, kitten,” Aiden says, a week or so before midwinter, “want to come help me set up the heat room?”

“I would be honored,” Milena says, because she’s still a ridiculously polite creature even after half a year with their pack. Aiden kisses her - how else is he supposed to respond? - and leads the way up to the corridor that holds the half-dozen heat rooms Kaer Morhen’s Wolves keep ready for use.

Alphas are not welcome in this corridor unless they’re in someone’s heat room, because omegas in heat tend to not like having the scents of non-pack alphas nearby, and each room has a double set of doors, so that food and other supplies can be put into the little antechamber and then retrieved by whoever’s currently awake and not heat-mad within the heat room, without having to let anyone into the actual heat room who the omega doesn’t want there.

There are few enough omegas in Kaer Morhen these days that each pack has pretty much chosen a heat room to be theirs, and no one else uses it. Aiden’s pack has laid claim to the fourth room on the right, and it certainly smells as if no one has been in there except Vesemir since last winter. Aiden opens both sets of doors to air the mustiness out a bit.

“So,” he says, “you’ve mentioned that your family stuck you in a really awful heat room.”

Milena is blinking in surprise at the thick mattress resting on a very low frame that holds it barely an inch off the floor, the two large chests which Vesemir keeps stocked with vials of oil and wooden toys and lots and lots of clean rags, the rugs on the floor and the thick wool hangings on the walls and the positively enormous basket filled with furs and blankets. “They did,” she says after a moment. “It was certainly not this…cozy.”

“Your family, sister Marika excepted, are assholes,” Aiden says - they’ve all gotten used to saying that, unfortunately, in the months she’s been with them. “This is what a proper heat room ought to look like. I like to make my nest well before I start getting pre-heat symptoms, and make sure I’ve got enough dried fruit and water on hand, things like that. I know some of the other omegas prefer nesting in pre-heat, though, so when it’s your turn you just tell us what your preference is and we’ll make it happen.”

Milena smiles up at him. “Thank you. May I help you build your nest?”

“I was hoping you would,” Aiden admits. It’ll smell better if she does. “I won’t be adding any of our mates’ dirty clothes until right before my heat hits, but we can at least get all the blankets into place.”

Milena takes a deep breath. “Direct me, then,” she says. “I have never built a nest before, but I would like to learn.”

“Gods, your parents are dicks,” Aiden says, shaking his head, and leads her into the room to show her how to arrange blankets and furs and pillows atop the mattress, making a nest that’s large enough for four and won’t fall apart when they get energetic.

One of the tricks of making a nest is that sometimes it actually does involve ropes, just to keep things from sliding around. Aiden realizes halfway through tucking a pillow into place that this corner is going to need to be tied down, and jerks his chin at one of the chests. “There should be some braided-cloth rope in there - get me a coil, please?”

Milena nods and hastens over to open the chest, and then freezes, staring into it wide-eyed. Aiden blinks in confusion. “Mice?” he ventures, though he would have heard or smelled them if there were particularly intrepid rodents in this part of the keep.

“Ah. No,” Milena says faintly, and picks up one of the coils of soft rope out of the chest, closing the lid very gently before bringing the rope over to Aiden. “There were. Ah. Implements.”

“Oh, the wooden pricks,” Aiden says, and Milena goes entirely crimson.

“I wouldn’t have thought you would need such implements?” she ventures hesitantly. “With - ah - with two mates?”

Aiden shrugs and starts tying the pillow into place. “Even a witcher alpha can’t knot an omega through an entire heat - Lambert’s got to sleep sometime. It’s damn useful to have a fake knot on hand to keep me calm when I can’t have the real thing. And - come to think of it,” he adds slowly, giving Milena a thoughtful look, “some of those are small enough that if you wanted, after my heat’s over, we could use ‘em to train you to take a knot, before you try Lambert’s.” Which they’re all a little wary of, though they know she’ll almost certainly want it during her heat. It’s just that she’s so little, and Lambert isn’t, and if he hurt her, none of the witchers would ever forgive themselves.

Milena is so deep a red it’s a little concerning, but she nods. “I think that might be wise,” she says faintly. “At the very least we will be able to learn if I am - ah - capable of taking Lambert’s knot, before it becomes a very urgent question.”

“Yeah,” Aiden agrees, and cups her face in her hands to kiss her gently. “We won’t ever hurt you,” he promises.

“I know,” Milena replies, smiling fearlessly up at him. “I am always safe in your hands.”

“And I in yours,” Aiden replies, grinning. “If you’d like to use any of those implements on me during my heat, Voltehre can show you how, and I’ll enjoy the hell out of it.”

Milena’s blush comes back full force, but she nods. “I will do my best to ease your fever,” she pledges.

“You sweetheart,” Aiden says, and kisses her again. It takes a fair little while before he manages to remember that he was building a nest.

A week later, Milena is right beside him as Lambert carries him into the heat room, Voltehre opening the doors for them and then closing them firmly and locking the inner door. Aiden is already naked - he likes to soak before a heat, to help with the cramps - and shivering a little from the cold air of the keep’s corridors, but he gives Milena a grin all the same as Lambert lays him down in the nest and starts stripping.

“Heat is supposed to be pleasant,” Aiden tells her, trying hard not to be distracted by the rising scent of his mates’ lust, or the way both Lambert and Voltehre are steadily shedding their clothing. “And mine are pleasant, with our mates to see me through. So don’t worry, alright, sweetheart? I know all of yours have been shit, because -”

“Your family, sister Marika excepted, are assholes,” his other two mates chorus, and Milena puts a hand over her mouth to muffle her giggles.

“That,” Aiden says dryly. “But this is going to be good, for everyone involved, most especially me.”

Milena nods. “I believe you,” she says. “Or, well, my head believes you -”

“And your gut’s having some trouble following suit,” Aiden says, nodding. “Fair enough.” He glances over at Lambert and Voltehre, who are very naked and waiting with remarkable patience at the side of the nest. “I’m only going to be lucid a few more minutes -” he can feel the heat rising in his blood, the slickness gathering between his thighs - “but I promise, I promise this is going to be nothing like any of your heats have been.” He gives her a bright, hopeful smile. “Will you join me in my nest, sweetheart?”

Milena takes a deep breath and pulls off her loose shift, then steps into the nest and folds down next to him. “You honor me with the invitation,” she murmurs.

Aiden rolls atop her and kisses her, as gently as he can given the rising fever beneath his skin, and then glances over his shoulder at his mates. “Come on, loves.”

They come scrambling eagerly into the nest, Voltehre stretching out beside Aiden and Milena and Lambert kneeling between Aiden’s calves, stroking his hands down Aiden’s back soothingly. Aiden croons happily and cranes his neck to kiss Voltehre, then kisses Milena again, croon deepening with every moment until at last he feels a flush of heat wash from the soles of his feet to the top of his head and suddenly nothing matters but being filled.

Thank fuck, he doesn’t even have to beg; as soon as he starts to whine into the kiss, his alpha is there, pressed up against his back, prick sliding into him so perfectly deep, filling him up just the way he needs it to. And his beta is right beside him, petting his hair and murmuring sweet filthy things in his ear, and his omega is cradling his face in her hands and peppering his cheeks with kisses, and everything smells like pack, like home-warmth-safety and roses, like his.

His alpha fucks him deep and fast and perfect and then his alpha knots him and Aiden wails through a bone-shaking peak and sags down, crooning and nuzzling at his omega, who keeps kissing him and petting him and crooning. His beta brings him water and helps him lie down on his side with his alpha spooned up behind him, knot so perfect inside him, and Aiden drifts until his alpha’s knot goes down, lost in pack-scent and heat-bliss.

He makes a little pleading noise when his alpha’s prick slips out of him, but his beta is there at once, and Aiden doesn’t need to do anything but lie there and croon and be fucked gloriously through another peak, and his beta doesn’t have a knot but he pulls his prick out and slides a wooden one into Aiden instead, and that’s good enough when everything smells like pack, at least for a while - for long enough for his alpha to recover his stamina, and then Aiden has his alpha again, and then his omega fucks him with a wooden prick for a while, his beta murmuring instructions that make Aiden’s blood run even hotter, and then his alpha claims him again, rumbling in the low tones he only ever uses in heat and rut, the ones that make Aiden feel so fucking treasured -

Aiden loses some time, as he always does, to the waves of heat and need.

It’s probably two days later - his heats usually last about two and a half days, unless something goes odd - and he’s mostly lucid when he’s on a knot, when he thinks of something. “Kitten,” he slurs, and she presses up against him and kisses him softly.

“What do you want? What can I do?” she asks. Aiden grins at her.

“Sweet thing,” he croons. “Gonna be our mate soon.”

“Yes,” she agrees.

“Can’t bite you til your heat,” Aiden says. “But you can bite me now. Can’t you?”

His omega hesitates. “Would that be - alright?” she asks - not him, but his packmates.

“If you and Aiden want it, it’s fine by us,” his alpha says firmly, stroking Aiden’s side and pressing his knot fractionally deeper. Aiden moans and shudders with pleasure. “You’re already ours. And he found you. Seems only fair he should get your mark first.”

“Go on,” his beta adds, stretching out behind his omega and nuzzling at her messy hair. “Stake your claim, kitten.”

“Where?” she asks Aiden, eyes wide.

It can’t be throat, for reasons - Aiden knows he knows the reasons when he’s not deep in heat. And he wants it someplace he can see it. He cudgels his heat-slow brain into working, and frees a hand from the tangle of fur and blankets to tap his right upper arm, between two scars. “Please?” he begs.

His omega kisses him, soft and sweet and thorough. “Yes,” she murmurs. “You honor me.” And then she kisses her way down his throat and across his shoulder, soft lips like rose petals against his skin, and his alpha purrs like thunder and his beta strokes his hair and her teeth sink in hard enough to draw blood and he peaks again just from that - just from taking his omega’s mark to wear forever.

The sight of it is apparently enough to give his alpha a second wind - or, well, a twelfth or thirteenth wind, probably - and his alpha doesn’t even wait for his knot to go all the way down before he starts thrusting, and knots Aiden again before Aiden has quite recovered from the last peak, and Aiden makes quite a lot of noise as he shakes apart with his omega’s bloody lips on his and his alpha’s knot locking them together and his beta’s hand wrapped firm and steady around Aiden’s prick.

That’s the last wave of his heat; the fever ebbs once Lambert’s knot goes down again, leaving Aiden limp and exhausted in the middle of the nest. He’s slightly sore and very sticky and extremely pleased with himself.

Lambert flops down next to him, pillows his head on a rucked-up bit of blanket, and passes out immediately. Aiden grins. Heat is hard on his alpha, mostly because Lambert is a stubborn, overachieving darling. Voltehre brings over water for everyone who’s still mostly awake, and some dried fruit and nut bars for Aiden, who hasn’t eaten anything substantial in almost three days now, and then stretches out on the other side of the nest. He won’t sleep yet, Aiden knows, in case anyone needs anything.

Milena cuddles closer to him, stroking his arm with gentle fingers. “It is not the custom, in Redania,” she murmurs, “for omegas to give marks, rather than take them.”

“Yes, well, we’ve already established that Redanian customs are stupid,” Aiden replies, nuzzling at her hair until she turns her face up for a kiss. “Soon enough we’ll all be wearing your marks.”

“Proudly,” Voltehre adds.

Milena blushes, the sweetheart, and tucks her face against Aiden’s throat as she whispers, “Even as I will wear yours with pride.”

Aiden grins at Voltehre over her head and falls asleep crooning contentedly.

The winter rolls on after that, gloriously peaceful as the Path never is. Aiden races Geralt across the wonderful new obstacle course - the White Wolf hasn’t won yet, though he’s gaining ground - and tackles his mates into bed at every opportunity, helps out in the kitchen and teaches Milena knife tricks and whittles new handles for all of his and Lambert’s knives, basks in the hot springs and tussles with the Wolves and learns a new delightfully bawdy song from Gweld. It’s good, as winters in Kaer Morhen tend to be. Oh, Clovis is an ass, and some of the older Wolves absolutely still give Aiden dubious looks whenever they see him, but no one actually tries to do him harm, and Vesemir is clear about Aiden being welcome in the keep. Aiden really couldn’t ask for more.

He certainly couldn’t ask for more than the big bed his pack shares, that smells of musk and roses and honey and home, and is so wonderfully warm when they’re all piled into it. He falls asleep crooning almost every night, and wakes crooning half the time, with Lambert’s deep purr reverberating through him and Milena’s soft, tentative croons joining his, and Voltehre smiling sleepy and sweet from the center of the pile.

It’s so very good he sometimes has to pinch himself to make sure he isn’t dreaming.

And somehow, before he knows it, it’s barely three weeks til the equinox, and Milena comes to him nervously one afternoon while he’s whittling by the fire and says, “I - my heat is going to start, soon. In less than a week, I think. Will you - will you help me build my nest?”

Aiden abandons his whittling without a second thought, rising to cradle her face in his hands and kiss her thoroughly. “Of course I will, kitten.”

Milena gives him a slightly shaky smile. “I know this heat isn’t going to be like any of the others I’ve had, but -”

“But it’s still a little terrifying?” Aiden supplies gently. Milena nods. Aiden can’t blame her. This heat is going to be the first partnered heat she’s ever had, and she’s going to end it mated, and also it’s going to be the first time she takes Lambert’s knot. They’ve been practicing with the wooden pricks, and she can take one the size of Lambert’s, though she often needs to work up to it; they’ve all agreed that in heat, when her body wants a knot so desperately, will be the easiest first time for her to experience the real thing, but it’s got to be nerve-wracking all the same.

“I know I am safe in my pack’s embrace,” Milena says firmly. “It is only the newness which is terrifying, and even then - you have all taught me so many new things, so kindly, that I cannot fear further lessons at your hands.”

“You are the sweetest thing, kitten,” Aiden says warmly, and kisses her again, and what with one thing and another it’s a good hour before they actually make it to the heat room to start putting the nest together. Milena is adorably focused once they get there, though, a tiny frown line between her brows as she arranges and rearranges the blankets and pillows until they’re just right. Aiden lets her pick what feels best to her, and follows along behind tying things into place and tucking Lambert and Voltehre’s dirty tunics into strategic crevices, so the whole room smells even more like their pack than it usually does.

At last Milena steps back and looks at the nest they’ve built and takes a deep, shaky breath. “It’s going to be alright,” she says, softly and firmly. “I am going to share my heat with my pack, and you are all going to mark me properly, and it’s going to be fine.”

“It will be better than fine,” Aiden assures her, stroking a strand of hair out of her face and smiling down at her. “It will be wonderful. We’ll make sure of it.”

Milena smiles up at him. “I know you will.”

She’s trembling with nerves again, though, four days later, when Lambert carries her into the heat-room and sets her down beside the nest. Lambert scoops her hands up and kisses her fingertips, and Voltehre strokes her back gently, and Aiden cradles her face in his hands and croons low and reassuring, smiling into her wide dark eyes.

“Last chance to tell us to fuck off and leave you to your nest and the wooden pricks,” he says softly.

Milena giggles, which is what he was hoping for. “No,” she replies. “No, I want you. All of you. Please.”

“No need to beg, darlin’,” Lambert rasps. “We’ve got you.”

“We’ll see you through,” Voltehre promises. “All you’ve gotta do is relax and do what feels right.”

Milena smiles up at the three of them. “What feels right?” she asks, with a bright spark of mischief that Aiden is delighted to see. And then she reaches up and pulls Voltehre down into a kiss, nipping at his lips to make him gasp. “This feels right. My pack, here with me,” she says when she lets Voltehre straighten up again, and then she unlaces her dress and lets it fall, and climbs bare and unhesitating into the nest, sprawling out against the blankets with a luxurious sigh. “Join me, please?”

“Fuck yes,” Lambert rumbles, and then they’re racing to get their clothing off, leaving it in a heap beside the nest as they pile in, surrounding her. Milena croons and relaxes further, and Aiden, watching closely, sees the moment her heat rises up to engulf her. Her face flushes and her pupils go so wide he suspects she can’t see anything at all, and her scent goes rich, like an entire field of roses in full bloom.

She makes a low, desperate whining sound, and it’s Aiden who moves to cover her, kissing her deeply as he settles between her legs and guides his prick into her where she’s wet and open and wanting. Aiden first, they’d agreed, and then Voltehre, and then a wooden prick if Voltehre thinks it’s necessary, and then Lambert and her very first real knot. And in the meantime, as many peaks as they can manage to give her, because their sweet kitten deserves a good heat after so many years of miserable endurance.

She’s hot and tight and sweet around his prick, and he goes slow and easy until he feels her relax, which doesn’t take long at all, and then he fucks her the way she wants to be fucked, fills her full and kisses her soft gasps from her lips and brings her to her peak twice before he takes his own pleasure.

She’s glassy-eyed and panting when he collapses beside her, and Lambert rolls him over and kisses him ravenously. “Did so good,” he pants against Aiden’s lips. “Fuck, so fucking beautiful together, my gorgeous omegas.”

Aiden clutches at Lambert’s shoulders and does his best to kiss back even as he keeps half his attention on Voltehre slowly and carefully fucking Milena through a third peak, murmuring compliments and reassurance as his hips roll gracefully against hers. She’s gone, entirely lost to heat, Aiden discovers when he and Lambert part just far enough to look at their mates. Her eyes are fixed on nothing, and her hands are tight on Voltehre’s shoulders, and he knows the sounds she’s making would embarrass her if she were properly aware of them. He thinks they’re beautiful, sweet little moans and whimpers, and from Lambert’s rumbling hungry growl, their alpha feels the same.

“Give me another,” Voltehre coaxes. “Come on, sweetheart, one more, want you to feel good…”

Milena makes a breathless desperate sound and peaks again, and Voltehre groans, soul-deep, and follows her over. She lies there panting, heat briefly sated, as he sits back on his heels and slides three fingers into her cunt, then grins over at Lambert.

“Yeah,” he says. “Give me just a moment -” and starts to move his hand, and Milena gives a half-voiced shriek and thrashes, trying to push her hips up into his touch. Aiden rolls over to catch her hands and kiss her, and fuck, the smell of her, roses and lust, and the way her mouth opens so willingly under his, and the way she shudders as Voltehre pulls yet another peak from her -

“Now she’s ready,” Voltehre says.

“Come on, kitten, up on your knees,” Aiden coaxes. “It’s easier for a first time.” He and Voltehre between them get her rolled over on top of Aiden so he can cradle her close and watch her face as Lambert settles into place behind her.

Her eyes go even wider as Lambert’s prick fills her in a single slow thrust, and then she croons and goes almost entirely limp, head nestled in the crook of Aiden’s shoulder.

“Fuck,” Lambert rasps. “Holy fucking gods.” He looks blissful. Aiden tries to memorize the expression: he’s always far too out of it during his own heat to really notice what Lambert looks like, hilt-deep in a heat-drunk omega and loving it, and gods but it’s a pretty sight. Aiden’s alpha is always lovely, but like this he is transfigured, and Aiden loves it.

“Go on, my love, give our sweet omega what she needs,” he croons, and Lambert growls ravenously and does, each heavy thrust hard enough to push Milena against Aiden and make her shudder and whimper and push back, desperate and eager.

The sound she makes when Lambert finally knots her will be imprinted on Aiden’s memory until the day he dies, a beautiful wordless crooning moan that he wants to hear every day forever.

“Fuck, that’s pretty,” Voltehre murmurs, which does sum the whole thing up very nicely.

Lambert tips himself and Milena gently down onto their sides, winding himself around her and grinding in deep, and Milena warbles a moan and clutches at Aiden’s arm and finds words somehow, Aiden can’t even imagine how. Not many, but gods, what words they are.

“My mates,” she gasps, and whimpers again as Lambert growls. “Mine. Bite. Please.”

“Fuck yes,” Lambert rumbles, voice rich with alpha-heavy approval, and Milena gasps her way through a tiny peak just from that.

They’ve discussed this already, thank fuck, so they don’t have to wonder where their pretty little omega is going to be wearing their marks, nor where Lambert and Voltehre will get hers. Lambert goes first, since he’s already wound around her: offers her his forearm, the one that already holds Aiden’s mark, even as he bends to sink witcher-sharp teeth into the curve of her shoulder where a dress will cover it. Milena cries out, soft and shocked, and then her teeth are sinking into Lambert’s arm, and the smell of blood should worry Aiden - it usually would, around their kitten - but instead it makes him moan.

Thank fuck for whatever it is about heat that makes bite-marks heal impossibly fast, even for humans.

It takes some rearranging for Voltehre to get at her other shoulder, but they manage it, Lambert sitting up on his knees with Milena in his lap, which elicits a gorgeous warbling moan as his knot sinks even deeper into her. Voltehre gives her his forearm, too, so he and Lambert will have mirrored marks. And then Aiden presses close and lifts her arm to his lips, because she was very clear about this:

She wants his mark on her wrist, where Velen’s fingers once left bruises. The mark of her savior, forever on her skin.

Aiden is as careful as he can be, biting down just hard enough that it will scar - that she’ll bear the silver marks of his teeth for all her days.

And then she’s theirs, and they’re hers, marked and claimed and bonded, and Aiden surges forward to kiss her, blood on his teeth and the scent of roses filling the air, as Lambert purrs approval and Voltehre whispers praise.

He can feel the bond settle into place, their pack of three becoming truly a pack of four, and it feels so good. So right.

Her joy mingles with theirs, bright and blazing, a hearthfire to warm all their souls.

Thank the gods he was in that little town so many months ago, to claim their little omega and make their pack complete.