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Rule 1: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is
Seven years ago…
Morning light streams through a window and kisses my face, nudging me awake. Though, if I’m honest, I’ve been dozing for a while now, in and out of sleep as the bed jostles. Each of my pack mates climbing out to start their days.
Technically, they aren’t my pack mates yet. They haven’t formed a full pack yet, but everyone knows it’s inevitable. They’re waiting, though. Waiting for me to turn eighteen, waiting to see if I reveal as an omega or if I stay a beta.
I haven’t told them yet, but I know I’m close to presenting. And I know I’m going to be an omega when I do. I can feel it on the edges of my consciousness, this secondary force inside me. I’m already feeling the effects of my omega instincts, too.
They didn’t notice last night when we came to our little cottage, our private place, that I arranged all the blankets and pillows into the semblance of a nest. I couldn’t help myself.
“Vee, baby girl.” Jackson’s deep voice rumbles through me from where he’s pressed against my back. I grumble and press my face into the pillow under my cheek. He chuckles and runs his fingers under the hem of the oversized shirt I’m wearing. I think it belongs to Ash, but all of their scents are blending together into one delicious medley that it’s hard to tell. “Come on, Sylvie. I know you’re awake.”
I sigh and crack open an eye, peering over my shoulder.
My heart stutters in my chest, like it always does when I look at him. Tan skin, dark hair cut high and tight, a perpetual five o’clock shadow on his cheeks and jaw, like now that he can grow a beard, he doesn’t want to shave it all the way. His gray eyes are warm and soft on my face as he looks down at me from where he’s propped up on one muscled arm.
“Being awake and wanting to interact with people are two different things, Jacks.” His full lips curl into a smile before he bends to kiss me, his wide palm settling over my lower belly. His tongue sweeps into my eagerly parted lips, languidly stroking. He tastes like mint toothpaste and Irish coffee. And I feel a flicker of disappointment at the realization that he’s close to leaving. But it melts when his fingers slide down, just brushing the elastic band of my lace boy-short panties. When he pulls back, I blink up at him, breathing heavy. “Though if you’re going to kiss me like that, I suppose it’s worth it.”
He grins, his hand leaving my stomach and rising to brush the hair back from my face. “I’ll kiss you like that every morning for the rest of our lives, Vee. I promise.”
I beam up at him. “Deal.” My smile fades as I realize the room is suspiciously quiet, just the sound of the shower and fan in the adjoining bathroom reaching me. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Ford’s in the shower.” He kisses my neck, right over my pulse point. He’s done this more and more recently, like he’s imagining that same spot with his mating bite on it. “The others ran out for a bit. They’ll be back,” he murmurs against my skin before he scrapes his teeth lightly over the spot.
My toes curl into the sheets as my back arches, pleasure coursing through me from just that contact. My body feels too hot, flushed and feverish and I know if he keeps going like this, it’ll happen. I’ll present and my perfume will flood the space.
I’ll be their omega.
We can bond.
And they’ll form a pack around me. Finally.
I’ve been keeping my suspicions about my designation pretty quiet. I don’t want them to get their hopes up if it never happens, if I stay a beta. But I swear I can feel her inside me, feel all those normal omega instincts kicking in, especially when it comes to my guys.
But a low buzzing reaches my ears and Jackson hesitates before he places one last soft kiss to his favorite spot and pulls away, rolling out of the bed and striding across the room in nothing but a pair of tight navy boxer briefs.
Jackson is the oldest of all of us at nearly twenty-one, and looking at him now, I realize just how much he looks like an adult. He’s gotten bigger, bulkier since I met him five years ago. A lot of that is because of his alpha nature. Most alphas are well over six feet, bordering on seven. But it’s more than just his size.
He’s been spending more time with his father, learning his business when he isn’t in his college classes. It’s made him… more serious, less carefree. More adult than the rest of us. I mean, I’m still in high school, along with Davis, Jackson’s younger brother, though Davis is at least eighteen. So technically an adult.
I watch as a wrinkle forms between his brows and he types something on the screen before he finds his jeans and yanks them on. His gray eyes flick to me momentarily and I see a flash of an emotion in his eyes I’ve never seen before, something that makes my hairs stand on end and unease creep over me, before his phone vibrates again.
Jackson frowns down at his cell, obviously displeased by whatever he sees there, before tucking it away. I sit up, holding the soft gray sheet against my chest. Ridiculous, really, considering they all saw everything last night. My cheeks go pink at the memories of hands and mouths all over my flesh.
We didn’t go all the way. The six of us decided we want to have the first time be special, to wait until they’ve officially asked me to be in the pack. It’s not a matter of if they will, but when. The assurance that it’s going to happen settles in my chest. Right along with the fact that every single one of them marked me last night with cum and love bites. No, we didn’t have sex, and they certainly didn’t claim me. But we did a lot of other stuff. My toes curl as my mouth hitches into a pleased half smile, even as I reach out to Jackson, wanting him back in bed with me, wanting to ease whatever has upset him. “Everything okay?”
He glances up at me, gray eyes heating as they linger on my skin, on the love bites on my neck. One for each of them. They didn’t break the skin. Even if they did, it wouldn’t have created a bond, not until I present my designation… which should be soon. I can feel it waking up, eager to be a part of my pack.
“It’s fine, baby girl.” He smiles at me as the door to the bathroom opens and Ford wanders out, shaggy sun-kissed blond hair damp from the shower, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans, unbuttoned and mostly unzipped, letting me see he’s going commando. Ford has all of an inch on Jackson, just slightly taller, slightly broader. He’s perpetually unshaven, and not how Jackson is, who manicures his five o’clock shadow. No, the best way to describe Ford is unkempt, wild. And I love it, normally. But now…
An unexpected whimper pulls from my chest. He washed off my scent. Washed it right down the drain. I really don’t like that. Ford pauses in the middle of scrubbing a towel over his hair, a grin spreading over his full mouth. His emerald eyes twinkle at me. “Don’t worry, pipsqueak. I’ll let you rub all over me before I leave, I promise.”
The thing in my chest settles, even as I roll my eyes at his nickname for me. Pipsqueak. Sure, I’m small, but it makes me sound like a timid mouse and that I certainly am not. Not with these guys, with my pack. They make me feel safe enough to voice my opinion, to argue with them if I need to. I know they’ll never do anything to hurt me.
In fact, they go out of their way to make sure I have what I need, that I’m comfortable. Like just now, Ford’s alpha instincts recognized my distress, immediately knew what was wrong, and sought to soothe me. Even if it’s a ridiculous need to have him smell like me.
Especially, I don’t have a scent. Not yet. But I wear perfume and I know they love having me on their skin, catching whiffs of it throughout the day.
