“We needed a place to sleep.”
“Oh. That makes sense. But for how long? You’re just on vacation, right? Passing through?”
That one stung. Maybe she didn’t get the scent match for some reason. Or she was already packed up?
“We are still deciding. Why don’t you want us around?”
She wiped a circle on the table with her cloth. “Why are you here? What do you want?”
My heart broke for this woman. Here we were trying to connect with her and care for her, and she was afraid we wanted something from her.
“We stopped here on a road trip.”
“Right. No one stops at Darkheart on a road trip.” She sat up straighter and leaned over the table. “Did Clinton send you here? Jeremy? One of the betas?”
“I don’t know anyone by those names. Who are they?”
“Never mind. I just can’t deal with this. Look, no one knows I’m an omega, and I don’t announce it or go around talking about it either. I keep to myself and work hard for…” She trailed off. “I don’t need any trouble or people sniffing after me.”
Romi was angry. Her scent was laced with it, along with anxiety and fear. All the feelings I never wanted to inflict on her. Not for a second.
“I’m sorry I upset you. I was just coming to see you. My mistake.” I didn’t even want to wait for the food anymore. I wanted to leave her be so she could calm down and not worry about our pack doing anything to her or being in her space.
Before she could answer, I got up from the booth and left. No food. It didn’t matter. My appetite was beyond spoiled anyway, seeing how I’d affected her. In the opposite way I wanted to.
I had no pipe dreams of her swooning and begging us to mate and mark her immediately, but she spoke as though we were a threat to her existence.
That was the last thing I wanted her perception of us to be.
We wanted to care for her. Court her. Love her. Show her how she should be proud to be an omega.
How we would live for her protection and adoration if she let us.
I walked back to the cabin and opened it.
Heath stood up from the chair he was sitting in. He had a documentary on TV. “Well? How did it go? Where’s the food?”
I shrugged and started up the stairs to my room. “Not good, brother. Not good. And I forgot the food.”
“Since when do you forget the food?” Seth asked. They always joked about how much I ate but I didn’t care. I was a hungry, growling shifter wolf boy, and I loved everything about food. Making it. Eating it. Shopping for it. Planning meals. All of it.
“Since Romi didn’t want me around.”
I went up the stairs without another comment from them. I would have to give them details later on but, for now, I wanted to collapse onto my bed and try like hell not to be heartbroken.
Chapter Five
Romi
“Where’d that guy go? The one with the food order,” Maeve asked, two huge bags in her hand.
“I-I don’t know.” I really didn’t. I did know he left because of me, but that was okay. He needed to… Being around him was stirring up feelings I did not need to have. Didn’t matter how hot he was or how kind he seemed. There was no room in my life for him or any other alpha.
“Just leave it on the table. He’s probably coming back. Maybe he went out to get a smoke.” That last part was a lie. If he was a smoker, I’d have smelled it on him, but I didn’t. He’d probably forgotten, and he’d be back to get the food. Either that, or he’d cut his losses and fled. We’d find out soon enough. “Is there a number on it?”
Maeve shook her head. “Nah, he ordered it here, so I figured we were good.”
She put it on the table and we went about our business. It wasn’t an overly busy night, but crowded enough I had people waiting for me. I brought beers to table five. Maeve put in her order for one of the larger tables that had come in. The local dart players came in for their weekly get together and before I knew it, ten minutes had passed then fifteen then twenty, and the food was still sitting there.
