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A decent sized kitchen with navy lower cabinets and white uppers. Butcher’s block counter tops on the island and white stone on the rest of the kitchen. All the furnishings and appliances are high end. The sofa and chairs are plush and soft, over stuffed so when she sits on them she sinks into them. Perfect for an omega.
Her scent lingers in the air, stronger here than I’ve ever smelled it, more concentrated. Honeyed nectarines and something green I can’t quite pinpoint. There’s also the underlying taste of chemicals, the suppressants that she’s been taking for years.
It’s not as lavish as we would have liked. There isn’t a nest, which is something she’ll need, but that’s okay. We have one at our pack house, sitting unused behind a closed door.
We designed it with her in mind… though it was for the girl we knew and not the woman she is now.
Still, I hope she likes it.
If she doesn’t, we’ll tear everything out and start over, make it exactly what she wants. Whatever she wants. That’s going to be the theme for the rest of our lives. What Vee wants, Vee gets.
She pulls open the fridge as the rest of us trail into the living room, watching her. Hunters stalking prey. Only when we catch her, it’ll be to keep her forever.
Vee turns with a beer in her hands, just one. Obviously, she’s not going to offer us any refreshments. I’m sure it’s intentional. That’s okay. We just need to talk to her, to listen to what she has to say, though I think we all have a fairly good idea of what she has been feeling for the last few months thanks to the text messages she sent.
There’s the pop of the cap on her bottle being twisted off. She takes a long sip and then says, “so you all got the texts then?”
I can tell she hates asking, hates that she sent all of them to us, being that vulnerable.
“Yeah,” Jackson rasps, taking one step forward before he stops. “Yeah, baby girl, we did.”
Her cheeks flare bright pink and she takes another long pull from the bottle, looking away from us. “Excellent.”
Asher leans his hip against the back of the couch he picked out for her. “You read the article?”
She slides the bottle onto the counter and nods. “I did.” Her hands brace on the island. “I’d like to… I think we should talk about what happened back then. I should hear your side of the story.”
The stabbing pain I’d had in my chest, a thousand tiny cuts of every text she’d sent us, every message she typed out and didn’t send, eases. I’m nodding as Davis moves forward, rounding the island like he’s going to wrap her up in his arms, but she shakes her head, holding up a hand to keep him from touching her.
“I said talk, Davis. You don’t have to touch me for that.”
He smirks at her, but tucks his hands in his pockets. “I know I don’t have to, beautiful, but I want to.”
Her mouth twitches, almost pulling into a smile, and my heart lurches, so fucking eager to see it, but she smothers it. Sighing, she shakes her head. “I’m not ready for that.”
A furrow appears between his brows as she runs his blue-gray eyes over her, assessing her physical appearance, her health. “How are you feeling?”
The rest of us lean forward, needing to hear her response and she side eyes us, before she answers Davis. “I’m fine. No worse for wear than I have been in the past.”
“That’s not a genuine answer, pip,” Ford growls, folding his arms across his chest, making his biceps bulge. “Tell us the truth.”
Our girl scowls and shakes her head again. “I really am fine. Better, actually, than I’ve felt in a long time. I hate to admit it, but I think being closer to you, knowing where you are, has helped with a lot of my symptoms.”
I nod. “Good. Good. We’ll keep up with that. Keep spending time with you whenever you’ll let us. We want you to get better, baby.”
Her fingers tap on the counter as she turns to face us, considering my offer. “Let’s see how this conversation goes, shall we?” She points a finger at Davis. “You go over there.” Her finger glides toward the living room. “I’m going to stay here, with this big island between us.”
Davis shuffles his feet as he moves to where she directed him, but he doesn’t join the rest of us in the living room. Instead, he stays leaning against the island, eyes focused on her. When she doesn’t tell him to keep moving, the rest of us follow his lead, shifting closer to our girl. Our omega. Ours.
She eyes all of us, straight white teeth sunk into her bottom lip, before she nods. “Okay. Tell me.”
Internally, I curse. We haven’t talked about who would take the lead on this. But Jackson shifts just the slightest bit on his feet, drawing her hazel gaze to his. “We should have told you all this back then, Vee,” he says, making her frown. “I’m sorry that we didn’t. It would have saved all of us a lot of heartache. A lot of years…” He stops himself. “It’s my fault. I made the call to not tell you right away.”
Vee tilts her head. “Tell me now.”
He scrubs a hand over his five o’clock shower and I resist the urge to go to him, to take some of this burden from him. But he brought this on himself. He made the call seven years ago. The rest of us are guilty of going along with it, yes. But that’s what you do when you’re pack. The prime alpha has the final say.
“Our families were threatening to cut us off.”
