Imagine that Zoey starts noticing that Mira and Rumi keep looking at her like she’s the sun. It’s not in a horny way, but in a “please let me wrap you in a blanket and feed you fruit” way.

They hover. They offer water. They touch her shoulders like they have to check that she’s real and here. Zoey gets suspicious and assumes she’s done something wrong, or if they’re planning a surprise.

Meanwhile, Mira is quietly losing it because Zoey’s scent has gone soft and sweet, and Rumi’s inner omega instincts keeps purring like a satisfied cat and wants to bundle Zoey into her nest and never let her out.

Zoey can’t smell any difference, so she’s just like, “Why are you acting like I’m made of glass?” She’s a more ‘evolved’ beta, so she can scent changes, but most people are 'scent-blind’ to their own pheromones.

Eventually they do discover the pregnancy, as Mira and Rumi concern Zoey with their behavior, and she’s fearful that something’s going on. She investigates, and after trial and error, the pregnancy is discovered.

Imagine the scene I’m setting here…

Zoey is a like a prime beta, the kind that can adapt to her mates in ways most people don’t expect. That’s the extent of how her unique dynamic works. She can read Mira’s alpha pheromones and Rumi’s omega undercurrents just fine. She can smell when they’re stressed, when they’re protective, when they’re trying to hide it. She can even clock other people’s pheromones in a room and adjust without thinking, the way a dancer adjusts to a partner’s weight. As a prime beta, her sense of smell is among the best of the dynamics.

The problem is, she can’t smell herself.

So when she gets pregnant and her pheromones quietly change into something soft and sweet, she has no way of knowing. To Zoey, nothing is different. But to Mira and Rumi, it’s immediate. Subtle at first, like vanilla on warm air. Then deeper- burnt sugar, warm milk, something that makes their instincts do a sharp, private flip.

And it makes Rumi emotional in a way she can’t fully control.

At home, it starts small. Rumi catches herself hovering in doorways, staring too long, blinking hard like she’s trying to clear tears she doesn’t understand. She gets clingier, then embarrassed about it. She starts touching Zoey more, not sexually, just constantly. A hand at her back when she walks past, a palm over her belly like it’s a reassurance. Mira notices Rumi’s softness and gets quietly protective in response, but she tries to act normal because Zoey doesn’t do well when she feels babied.

Zoey notices, of course. She’s not oblivious. She just interprets it wrong.

She thinks Rumi is stressed. She thinks Mira is being weird because the public scrutiny is ramping up. By this point they know about the incoming baby, so she thinks maybe her pregnancy is making them anxious and they’re trying to hide it. She tries to keep the mood light. She jokes. She teases them. She keeps telling them she’s fine, because her body is changing and she refuses to let it change their plans.

Then they have a public event.

A big fan sign followed by a performance. There’s a red carpet due to the immense amount of Western fans attending. It’s so polished and bright and everyone is close enough that Zoey can smell perfumes, cologne, the tang of lighting heat, and the faint pheromone signatures of other alphas and omegas in the crowd.

Zoey is fine until she isn’t.

The moment the flashbulbs start popping and the questions get too invasive, Zoey’s stress spikes. She doesn’t realize it, but her pheromones spike too. The sweetness intensifies. The warm milk note turns richer. The burnt sugar deepens like caramel starting to darken.

Mira feels it like a switch being thrown.

Rumi feels it like a tide pulling her under.

They immediate snap all their attention towards Zoey.

Mira’s posture changes instantly. She goes still, scanning the room like she’s mapping exits. She shifts closer to Zoey, not touching her yet, but hovering near enough that everyone watching can feel the claim in the air. Rumi, usually composed in public, starts blinking too fast. Her eyes shine. She smiles at fans a little too tightly, like she’s holding herself together with thread. Her gaze keeps drifting towards Zoey without realizing she’s doing it, like her body has chosen a gravitational center.

Zoey clocks both reactions and gets thrown off. She can smell the room. She can smell other people. She can smell the subtle stress coming off Mira and the overwhelmed softness and worry coming off Rumi.

Zoey tries to keep them steady. She reaches back and squeezes Mira’s hand. She leans toward Rumi like, “You okay?” without saying it out loud. She keeps smiling for the cameras, but she’s starting to feel boxed in. Not by the crowd, but by the way her mates are reacting to something she can’t perceive.

The crowd notices.

Fans start whispering about how intense Mira looks. Reporters start noticing how Rumi keeps touching Zoey’s arm, her shoulder, her waist like she’s anchoring herself. Someone asks a pointed question about “protectiveness” or “territorial vibes” or whatever nonsense they want to package for a headline.

Zoey laughs it off, but her chest tightens. She feels like she’s missing a piece of her own life.

Then it happens. The event gets chaotic. A surge in the crowd. A guard yelling. A flash too close. Someone steps into Zoey’s space too fast. Zoey’s stress spikes again, hard, and her pheromones spike with it.

Mira finally breaks composure. She puts herself between Zoey and the movement, shoulder turned, hand firm at Zoey’s back. Rumi goes pale, but there’s evident protectiveness splashed across the way she’s posturing.

Zoey’s eyes snap to her. “Hey,” she says under her breath, panic flickering. “What’s wrong?”

Rumi tries to shake her head, but she can’t. She looks wrecked and furious with herself for it, like she’s being exposed. Her instincts are screaming at her to protect Zoey, but there’s too many threats around them.

Mira’s voice is low and controlled, the kind that makes people step back without knowing why, “We’re leaving.”

Zoey doesn’t argue, but she’s confused. She lets them move her offstage, out of the cameras, into a quiet hallway where the noise dulls and the air feels cooler. She hears Bobby somewhere calming the crowd; they made it through most of the assigned time, so most of their fans should be accounted for.

Yet, the second the door shuts behind them, Zoey turns.

“Okay,” she says, trying to laugh, but her voice cracks. “What is going on with you two? You’re acting like we’re going to be attacked.“

Mira is still tense, scanning, like she’s making sure they weren’t followed.

Rumi wipes at her face, and Zoey realizes with some shock that Rumi had cried, “I don’t know. I just- It felt like you were in trouble.”

Zoey frowns, "It’s just a fan-sign? We’ve done hundreds of these, guys.”

Rumi’s breath shakes. “Zoey, I swear I’m not trying to make it a thing. I think it’s the pregnancy. My inner omega is freaking out.“

Zoey’s eyes went wide, “Is that why you’re crying, Ruru?”

Mira finally looks at Zoey fully, expression torn between guilt and devotion, "Your scent spiked a lot. During the fan-sign, my inner alpha panicked, Zo. It felt like you were in trouble.”

Zoey goes still, “Well, I got a little overwhelmed, but I wasn’t in trouble.”

Mira hesitates, then says it anyway, blunt like she always is, “That’s not what your pheromones told us.“

Rumi continues for her, words spilling now that it’s out there. “Since the pregnancy started, your scent changed. It’s… sweet. It’s warm. It’s like vanilla and burnt sugar and milk. And when you get stressed, it spikes, and it’s like our bodies hear it before our brains do. It smells like someone’s screaming at my inner omega to get you the fuck out of there. It’s like an alarm I can’t ignore.”

Zoey’s throat works nervously, “I didn’t know it was that bad.”

Mira’s mouth twitches into a smile, “Because you smell like… our future, Zoey. You’re literally carrying our first pup.”

Zoey’s eyes burn. She laughs briefly, then swallows hard, “That’s not fair.”

Rumi reaches for her hand, “Sounds fair to me.”

Zoey squeezes back, grip tight, “I didn’t know. I can’t even tell, I’m scent-blind to my own smell.”

Mira steps closer too, careful, because Zoey hates feeling handled or herded, “Trust us when we say it’s the sweetest scent we’ve ever smelled.”

Zoey looks between them, a little overwhelmed, “So every time you two look at me like that, your drooling over my pregnant scent?”

Rumi nods, tears still clinging to her lashes. “I’m not trying to be dramatic- I swear. I- I just- my body keeps reacting before I can stop it. I feel like I gotta wait on your every want and need.”

Mira’s voice goes low, “And I keep wanting to pull us into the nest- with you right in the middle.”

Zoey huffs a laugh, "Sounds pretty nice right about now.”

Mira doesn’t deny it.

Zoey drags a hand over her face, then exhales slowly like she’s trying to ground herself, “Okay. New rule.”

Mira tilts her head, “What?”

Zoey points between them. “You tell me when it happens. If I spike and you’re reacting to it. I don’t want to be the last person to know.”

Rumi nods fast, “Okay.”

Mira rolls her eyes, but the alpha still agrees.

Zoey’s shoulders drop a fraction. Her eyes soften, “And you,” she says to Rumi, gentler now, “you’re allowed to feel it too. But don’t suffer alone. Tell me when you’re feeling like that.”

Rumi’s mouth trembled, “I’ll try.”

Zoey’s gaze flicks to Mira, then back, and she steps into them both, letting them close around her. Not smothering. Not trapping. Just there, a quiet three-person huddle inside while the world keeps moving outside.

Zoey’s voice is small when she speaks again, “Next time, we should leave earlier.”

Mira murmurs, “How about next time, we just don’t go?“

Rumi sniffles a laugh, “Next time, we bring snacks to distract us.”

Zoey exhales, half laughing, half crying at this point, “Apparently, I’m the snack.”

And even though she can’t smell it, she can feel it in the way they hold her, in the way Mira’s tension eases when Zoey is safe, in the way Rumi’s anxious fidgeting stops when she’s close enough.

Her body is speaking through the most instinctual of languages.

Her mates are listening- their instincts are responding.

Zoey thinks it’s kind of making her cry a bit.

Glad to be of service.