“Seven is right—we were considered rejects. Anyway, Seven was a hot head, and got into a bar fight. This other guy was badmouthing Omegas as being weak and spoiled, a waste of space on the mountain, and good enough only to fuck. Like a pretty ornament to sit on the Pack house mantlepiece. Anyway, Seven, being the passive fucking Beta he is, fights this guy, yelling the whole time about how Omegas were the heart of Manix culture, how they were the glue that held us all together, and so on. All the while, he’s throwing punches. And, I mean, it was a brawl. It took Finlo and Gatlin to pull them apart. Turns out the guy badmouthing Omegas was Raiden, an actual fucking Omega.”
Seven flushed. “The tequila burned out my nose. Never touched the stuff again.” I couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed at his fighting or his subpar sniffing skills.
Raiden threw back his head and laughed. “Apparently, one of those hits shook something loose inside my head, because I decided then and there that they were the Pack for me.”
I grinned, and when I looked around, the rest of the Pack was smiling too. One day we’d tell that story to our young.
Probably leave out the tequila and swearing though.
Speaking of young, Luisa was nodding off in her highchair. Naja stood, wiping her down, and then bundling the baby out of the seat. “I’ll sleep in Naja’s nursery. You guys can fight over the bed or sleep on the couch. There’s extra blankets and pillows in the closet.” She grabbed her plate, but Seven stopped her, stacking it up with his own.
“I’ve got it, Omega.”
She blinked down at him slowly, before shuffling tiredly toward the door. She paused just over the threshold, looking back over her shoulder.
“Give me tonight. I’ll have your answer in the morning, one way or another.”
All the air in my lungs whooshed out as she disappeared. It wasn’t a yes, but it also wasn’t a no. The waiting game was on, and I just hoped her scent didn’t send me crazy before then.
12
Naja
Inestled down in my blankets, pretending to still be asleep despite the fact that Luisa’s gurgling had woken me about fifteen minutes ago. I’d been awake all night, tossing and turning, going over everything in my head. I even made a pros and cons list, in between the hot sweats that wracked my body as my heat got more intense. Pro: they’d end this fucking torture in the best way possible, with orgasms. Con: they were huge and what if everything was in proportion? I’d seen what Finlo was packing in his skinny jeans and I honestly didn’t think that was going to fit. Pro: I would be making all their dreams come true. Con: what if they were some kind of cult of perverts and I was just handing over my biological children to them?
And that was the sticking point really. If it had just been sex, it would have been fine. But a little piece of me, or several little pieces if Raiden was to be believed, would be with them forever. These near-perfect strangers.
If I was honest with myself—and three in the morning, when your body felt like it was crawling with fire was a good time to be honest with yourself—I trusted them. It was insane, of course. But I saw that desperate longing in Raiden’s eyes when he talked about carrying cubs, and I got it. I could make him happy. I could make them all happy, as long as I didn’t overthink all this shit.
Luisa started to grump more. “Up!”
I sighed and stood from the small bed that was in Luisa’s room. One of Tamsin’s friends had given it to me for the time when Luisa outgrew her crib, but it worked well enough for me. For a night at least, because my feet hung over the end and I had to sleep curled up in a ball.
Pro: I’d get to sleep in my own bed, when we weren’t having mind-blowing sex.
I grabbed up Luisa, changed her diaper, and walked hesitantly out to the living room. Unsurprisingly, everyone was awake. I put Luisa on the floor with her toys, switching on some crazy kids show that was probably created by someone on acid. Raiden appeared with a bowl full of cut up fruits and a little pile of eggs and some chopped up sausage beside it. He handed it to me for my inspection. “I researched what two-year-old humans can eat. It said they should eat from the major food groups. I figured it would be the same for tiger infants.” He handed me a sippy cup of milk. Yep, that would do it. He’d hit all the food groups.
I gave him a relieved smile. Anyone who’s ever been a parent knows that life’s a constant juggle of making food. Breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack. To have someone take that responsibility away even once was amazing. Two meals in a row was basically a holiday.
I put Luisa in a high chair but kept it in front of the TV. Sometimes I needed to breathe, and if a talking pig could give me that for ten minutes a day, I’d take it. When I turned around though, Seven was sitting on the couch, his elbows on his knees, watching the infants show just as intently.
“Are they shifters?” he asked me, and I snorted. When he frowned, I schooled my features.
“Uh, no. They just talk.”
“And wear pants.”
I nodded.
“And live in social groups.”
I nodded again. Okay, I could see what he was getting at. “Okay, yes. They’re shifters. Do you feel better now?”
He nodded, his grin smug, and I shook my head. Looking back at Raiden, I saw the warmth in his eyes as he looked at the engrossed Beta. I walked toward the kitchen, but I paused on the threshold.
“Seven?” The Manix turned to look at me. “Could you, uh, watch Luisa? Make sure she doesn’t choke on her food?”
The silence in the room felt weighty, but he nodded. “Of course.” Then he turned to watch the baby chew with single-minded focus.
