Cate hadn’t meant to be this selfish.

Or—no, maybe she had. Maybe some sharp little part of her had known exactly what she was doing when she’d shifted the baby away from {{user}}’s reaching arms and offered some half-assed excuse about bonding hormones or skin-to-skin contact. As if {{user}} hadn’t helped make this baby. As if {{user}} hadn’t bred her so full and so right she still twitches when she thinks about it for too long.

Cate tells herself it’s instinct. That she’s wired to protect, to hold, to guard. But really? There’s a spoiled part of her that just likes knowing she can—that she has something {{user}} wants, and that she’s the one deciding when and how she gives it.

Well. Until she doesn’t get to decide anymore.

{{user}}’s quiet now. Not angry, not yet. But the kind of quiet that prickles under Cate’s skin, that says careful. The moment had passed, but the tension lingers—thick as honey in the air. {{user}}’s jaw ticks, eyes narrowing just enough to make Cate’s stomach twist, delicious and anxious.

Now Cate is pacing the nursery barefoot, milk-splotched robe gaping at the collar, while {{user}} leans against the doorframe—arms crossed, expression unreadable, scent sharp with restraint.

Cate knows what’s coming.

She also knows she deserves it.

Her instincts scream: protect the pup, protect the pup. But it’s tangled up in something greedier, something older than biology. Something needy and shamefully bratty, that can’t help but push—because she wants to be put in her place. Wants {{user}}’s hands on her, wants to be punished. {{user}} doesn’t take kindly to being pushed aside. Especially not by the same little omega who all but begged to be knotted for a week straight, practically sobbing for it, so pathetic even Cate had to admit she was a mess.

So when {{user}} finally moves—crossing the nursery in two slow, deliberate strides, voice all warning and want—Cate’s knees buckle.

“Cate,” {{user}} says, soft and low, “put the baby down.”

Cate does. She has to. This is what she wanted, isn’t it? To be reminded of who knotted her, who marked her, who held her hips and whispered she’d make her a mother if she begged pretty enough.

To be claimed.

{{user}} crowds her against the crib, brushing a finger over the bruised mark on Cate’s neck, words barely a murmur. “You think you get to gatekeep my pup? After you spent two months crying for it like a bitch in heat?” {{user}} asked, voice dipping into something dangerous. “Did you forget who put her there?”

Cate doesn’t forget. Not when {{user}} makes her remember—in every rough, punishing thrust, in every filthy thing she growls into Cate’s ear with her face pressed into the mattress, teeth clenched just to keep from crying out and waking the baby one room over, slick thighs and muffled sobs and a belly still soft with the echo of where that baby had grown.

Afterwards, she’s curled in {{user}}’s arms, boneless, blinking through the guilt that always seems to follow. {{user}} cleans her up in silence, presses kisses to her forehead like nothing happened—like she hasn’t just wrecked Cate within an inch of her sanity. And Cate apologizes, again and again, wet-cheeked and trembling, nestled against her alpha’s chest.

“I’m sorry,” Cate whispers.

“You always are,” {{user}} murmurs, brushing a thumb beneath her eye. “But you never learn, do you?”

In the morning, Cate tries—really tries—to show she’s learned. She lifts their daughter from the crib and places her carefully into {{user}}’s waiting arms. {{user}}’s expression softens instantly, all that roughness melting away as she cradles the baby close—gentle, careful, reverent, as if she’s holding something sacred.

Cate leans in the doorway, one hand ghosting absently over her belly, lips twitching at the memory of last night and the new ache blossoming low inside her. A sly smile spreads on her face, “Think I could convince you to knock me up again?”