I huffed as I walked past Beckett, ignoring the comforting hand he placed on my shoulder. The pheromones in the bedroom were like being hit in the face with a baseball bat, and my eyes went straight to the bed, to my Omega wrapped around this girl.
I couldn’t deny the way my Beast reacted to the sight though, his purr of approval bursting past my lips before I could clamp them shut. I looked over at Corvin; he hadn’t dragged his eyes away from what was happening on the bed.
“What’s the decision?” I already knew, of course. I wasn’t an idiot. But you bet your ass I was going to make them spell it out for me in the most painful, awkward way possible.
“Kitten, this is my Alpha, Cooper. He’s been my best friend since we were four and my mate since we were eighteen, and part of the Wiley-Fletcher-Reid Pack for six years. He’s a good man.” Darius’s voice was soft as he whispered in the woman’s ear.
She turned her head and smiled at me. It was a pained smile, and I knew she was probably feeling like every single hair on her body was being plucked out. At least, that’s what Darius said the yearning felt like. It was why we’d pursued Naja, the first female Omega, when she first appeared. Though I understood why she turned down our request that she donate her eggs.
All this flitted through my brain as my eyes locked with this Omega, this Kitten, and stayed there. Ensnared. She moaned as her body scrunched in on itself. I resisted the urge to go to her, to fuck her with my mouth to ease the pain. To make her come over and over until she was too blissed out to feel anything.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” It was like she lost the words, muttering something that sounded like a different language.
“Intrude, Kitten. But you aren’t intruding, is she Cooper? It isn’t her fault at all. None of this is,” Beckett said softly.
I looked over at Beck. “What language is she speaking?”
Corvin huffed. “Kittenish. It’s her own language. A little Latin, a little grumpy Old Manix grunting, a little animal. Beckett learned so we could teach her English. Guess you didn’t keep up with it, Kitten?”
She gave Corvin a narrow-eyed look, and there was something in the stubbornness of her chin that intrigued me. “Not much point,” she said peevishly, before groaning. “It hurts... Please,” she gasped, and I took a step toward her before I even realized.
“She wants us to help her through the heat. It might go for the normal full week, or hours, or days. Radic couldn’t tell me when I messaged him. Doc doesn’t know. There’s no manual on spontaneous acts of the Goddess,” Corvin muttered.
My Beast roared his approval, but the Beast and the man sometimes had different views of what the Pack needed. Helping an Omega through her heat? That kind of thing created a bond, whether we wanted it to or not.
I looked between my Pack members. Who was I kidding? They already had a bond with her; they just hadn’t mated her.
Though Corvin didn’t seem convinced. “Maybe we can get something to knock you back out? This shouldn’t be how your first time goes.”
The female Omega made a choking noise, which I quickly realized was laughter. “First time? I haven’t been sitting around my cabin waiting for you, Corvin. I went to town and had sex a long time ago.”
The wash of Alpha vibes that poured off Beckett and Corvin could have choked a dragon. The sudden tsunami of possessiveness was almost tangible. I had no doubt that if things had even gone slightly differently, the woman in front of us would be Pack.
Every writhe of pain, every whimper, grated against my very nature until I said, “Fine. Help her.” I turned to leave, but Corvin was there, his arm blocking the door.
“It’s going to take all of us, Coop.”
My whole body thrummed, but I kept my face impassive. “Corvin, I do not know this woman. It's been, what, five or six years? You don’t know her anymore either. I’m not about to take advantage of a situation where her consent is already a bit sketchy. Now move. I have to call my family and see if they’ll take over caring for the Sanctum while both Darius and Bonnie are otherwise indisposed.”
I stomped out of the room and down the hall, not taking a deep breath until I was around the corner in the living room. My dick felt so hard that I was convinced it was about to snap off.
I’d meant what I said to Corvin though; despite what the Pack—and my dick—wanted, I didn’t think that Kitten was in any head space to be agreeing to have sex with an Alpha she didn’t know. I could understand maybe Corvin and Beckett—she knew them, and had obviously loved them at one time in her life. I could even understand Darius, because her new nature would’ve meant she had an instant, undeniable attraction to my Omega.
Me, on the other hand? I was a stranger. An Alpha during not only her first heat, but during a frenzy. I had control of myself, and I was going to keep all these insane fucking feelings locked down tight.
I grabbed my cell phone from where I’d dumped it on the hall table. I pulled up my parents’ number, and they answered on the second ring.
“Cooper? Are you okay?” My mom sounded panicked.
“I’m fine, Mom. The whole Pack is fine. How about you guys?”
Mom snorted. “Your father had to bonk Freddie on the head because he was snarling and shifting and generally acting crazy, but everyone else is fine.”
Freddie was my youngest brother, who was nineteen. He was already filled with hormones and crap without the insanity of simultaneous Omega heats doing a number on him.
“That’s good. Do you think you could do me a favor, Mom? I hate to ask you, but it’s kind of important.”
“Of course, Cooper. Anything.”
