At my core, I do feel complete.
I have five mates who love me unconditionally. Alphas and omegas, a beta who all want me in their space, who need me the same way I need them. We have a home, we’re building a life together.
Never in almost forty years did I expect for things to turn out this way.
I didn’t believe I deserved it, that I was worthy of a bright future full of the things I’d always longed for but knew I’d never have.
My mates have shown me otherwise, and that’s why I finally feel like I’m whole.
The other feelings that contradict all of that? Those are from Olive.
I don’t need to understand that part of biting and bonding with someone to know it’s true. The edginess, the worry and anxiety, the bone-deep sadness that comes in waves, the guilt and anger that stab like tiny needles, it’s all from my omega. She feels alone because she’s carrying around those other emotions. She’s isolating because she doesn’t think she should feel that way, she doesn’t think she can explain why she’s anything other than happy now that we’ve all bonded.
Olive isn’t allowing herself to be all of those things at once, as if they can’t exist together, as if she can’t be happy and sad or mad at the same time, not when the conflicting emotions are about two different packs.
So, she’s pulling away.
It’s only been about two days since she and Niko’s heat cycles ended, and the moment they did, Olive put up a wall and started using it to separate herself from the rest of us.
We’ve all felt it through the bond, each of us have heard bits and pieces through the link, but our girl won’t actually talk to any of us about it.
Which is why I must be naive to how this all works.
Clearly mating and bonding doesn’t fix everything, it doesn’t make problems and concerns disappear, and I’m afraid Olive thinks it’s only going to complicate matters further than she perceives them to be already.
If she’d just talk to us, I know we could help her understand things more clearly.
“She’s stubborn,” Styx says as he slides onto the picnic table next to me. “And that means we’re going to have to force her to talk to us about it.”
I nod, slowly pulling my gaze from Olive to meet his gun metal grey eyes and I wipe the sweat from my brow. “I know, and I don’t like it.”
He gives me a sympathetic smile then leans in and kisses me before resting his head on my shoulder. “I don’t either, but Liv’s past is the problem, not the present and future she shares with us. It’s like she doesn’t think they can all coexist.”
Exactly.
That’s exactly what she thinks, and it’s because she believes she needs to rectify the past to achieve closure, all so shecanlive in the present and plan for the future without being torn or having guilt.
“It’s all understandable, really, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating for the rest of usenlightened ones.”
I smile a little and go back to watching our omega. “How do we make her talk?”
Styx chuckles as he links his arm through mine. “You make it sound like we’re one more minute of silence away from waterboarding her.”
“If you think it would work…”
“Look at you having a sense of humor,” he says with a laugh. “It’s sexy on you, big guy, but I think our girl is tougher than almost all the interrogation methods out there.”
I nod and reach for the tennis ball at my feet. “Intervention?”
“Intervention,” he says firmly as he pulls his phone from his pocket. “I’ll call in the troops. Leon wanted to see how much lye he had left, and he took D and Niko to show off how well his cleanup method works, so they're still in the woods.”
Of course he did.
I might be the largest alpha in our pack, but Leon is easily the biggest.
Big dick energyis what Styx calls it.
His dick is definitely not small, neither are any of the other males’ in the pack, but I’m not really sure about the energy coming off of it. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure ifanyof us have energy that comes from our dicks.
