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I cleared my throat and straightened. “I’m okay as I can be, I guess.”
“Let me clarify,” Elizabeth tried. “How was your heat? Were the boys good to you?”
“Mom,” Calla complained, cringing.
Even I hunched my shoulders a bit. “They were great,” I finally mumbled.
Elizabeth exhaled hard, her shoulders slumping in relief. “Thank heavens. I was afraid I’d have to lecture them all on how to care for an omega. It’s been ages since their designation classes, and ideally they’d have spoken with their fathers before having an omega move in?—”
“Mom!” Calla cried, throwing up her hands. “Can we not? I love my brother and I love Hazel, but for my very tenuous hold on sanity, I can’t picture that.” She shuddered violently with a gagging sound.
“Calla Elaine Dutton,” her mother snapped back, looking exasperated, “I need to make sure Hazel is all right. That she knows we care about her and will put her pack in place if need be. We aren’t asking for specifics, but I will ask if she’s all right the same way I checked in to make sure you were all right after your first heat.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Calla muttered, looking down with a sullen expression.
With a nod, Elizabeth turned to pull the hot water off the stove. She ripped open three packets of chocolate powder and dumped them into three mugs. “Okay, Hazel, shoot.”
Every question I wanted to ask flew out of my head. Vanished like vapor in the wind. Except one.
“Where are my parents?”
Elizabeth jostled the kettle, some of the water sloshing over the rim of the mug she was filling. She set the kettle aside. “They’re at home.” She squared her shoulders and looked across the island at me. “You know their wishes were to be cremated.”
I nodded. They’d been in the process of being cremated when Uncle Henry had dragged me away. He’d said the ashes would be shipped to our new house.
Spoiler alert: he lied.
“Their remains are sitting in the living room of your house,” Elizabeth finished. She passed me a mug. “Sorry, sweetie. Doesn’t look like the boys bothered with marshmallows.”
“Wait.” I frowned, not sure I’d heard her correctly. “My house?”
“Of course.” Elizabeth passed a mug to Calla before holding her own in her hands.
“But Uncle Henry sold it?—”
“And we bought it,” Elizabeth replied, her tone finite. “It was practically on our property, and we decided, as a pack, to keep it for you in case you wanted it later on in life.” Sighing, she leaned a hip against the counter. “Four years I’ve stared at that house and wondered if you’d ever be back inside of it.”
“I can’t believe you did that,” I whispered, amazed and touched. Emotions clogged my throat. “I’ll pay you back somehow.”
“Oh, honey.” Elizabeth set her cup down and watched me. “We have so much to talk about. Why don’t we go settle ourselves in the family room to really chat?”
I followed Calla and Elizabeth on wooden legs, setting aside my mug and reaching for a flannel throw blanket as I collapsed into the sectional. Once I was wrapped in the cozy warmth, I grabbed the mug and peered up at my best friend and her mother.
Elizabeth exchanged a look with Calla before starting again. “Calla mentioned that she told you that you’re not, in fact, penniless or homeless.”
“Yeah, she mentioned the money, but not the house,” I replied, grateful for the warm cup between my icy fingers.
“You have both.” Elizabeth hesitated. “Sort of.”
I lifted a brow.
“The house is in Grant’s name, and, unfortunately, unless you’re formally mated to a pack, it will have to stay that way,” Elizabeth said, regret and frustration lacing her words. “Two years ago, the government passed an omega housing act that restricted omegas from owning property.”
Calla snorted. “Because heaven forbid our poor little omega brains have to worry about things like property taxes and managing a budget. It’s such horseshit.”
Elizabeth nodded. “It absolutely is, but unfortunately, it’s now federal and state law. Even the money you have will have to be given to you as a sort of allowance by an alpha or pack proxy.”
My stomach sank like a rock. “So, I really am screwed. I have stuff, but it’s not actually my stuff. I have a house I can’t own and money I need permission to touch.”
