Which is all the more disheartening when I don’t feel any real spark towards them. Their scents are amazing, they’re all attractive, but like beautiful greenhouse roses, they don’t feel quite real. None of them excites any real passion in either of us. Our father grows ever more agitated at what he considers our refusal to find an omega and settle down.
This pattern continues. Steve no longer feels like the twin I once knew. I know he’s still in there, but the easy laughter is years gone. The friend I grew up with now a stranger in our shared home. He rarely eats, he doesn’t sleep more than a few hours a night. He goes to school because he still believes if he just follows orders, eventually our father will relent. I don’t have the heart to tell him that’s never going to happen.
I graduate with my degree that I don’t really want anymore. But maybe helping other people will, in some way, redeem me for not being able to help my brother. I start my residency and life goes on. Steve should be finishing his own college this spring. Getting the damned degree that Father demanded, it’s going to be a hell of a shock to the old man that no one wants to hire his son who’s now a canvas of tattoos and piercings.
There are only so many things you can hide in a three-piece suit. I don’t care how expensive the cut is. The bleached hair and nose ring don’t exactly blend in at the business college either. But what do I know? I’m just a different kind of ghost.
Chapter 47
Garret stops speaking, his deep shuddering breath the only outward sign that what he just said had any real effect on him. Hearing his retelling of our father’s abuse in an emotionless, almost offhand sort of way is jarring. Like listening to someone talk about the weather. Nothing of note, just the facts.
Has he always been that way? Disinterested. Was there ever a time we tried to fight back? For the life of me, I can’t remember one. It’s just how things were. Not that anyone outside our family knew or saw. Can’t have the world know about Pack Carson’s dirty little secrets.
The father who never wanted children but "did his duty" and had them, anyway. The disappointment he’s always shown towards said children. The dutiful son that follows wherever he’s led but takes no initiative, or the other son who loves another man and refuses to carry on the "family legacy". What a sight we must make.
Just two more months. two months till I graduate and get away from this fucking school. Away from all the pretenders and the bullshit and suits. No…if I have to keep up this facade for Dad to let me have Teddy, that’s ok. I can play professional, at least for a while. He’ll have to see my dedication then. If he wants an heir so bad then we can look for a surrogate. Shit, we can get three or four as long as it doesn’t involve my dick being inserted into anyone except Bear.
Fuck, I miss him so fucking much. I wish I could see him. Garret’s kept us away from any omega centers that he may be staying in, but I know he doesn’t have a pack yet. Ok, I don’tknowknow, but he just can’t. He has to be waiting. He has to know I’ll come back for him as soon as I can. I just have to get through this.
Mom calls on Saturday night. My voice is hoarse from disuse, but she still talks to Teddy’s mom, so I at least want to stay on her good side, even if the rest of them can fuck off. She asks if I’m sick, because my voice is so scratchy. I tell her it’s just allergies, there’s a lot of pollen around campus. Not that we live on campus, but I still have to go every day. She talks about how work's going with Dad and Grandpa. I wish they would both drop dead, but once again, I don’t tell her that.
Then she drops the bomb. Teddy’s mother called. She’s on vacation, but she had to share the news. They just talked to Teddy, and she was so excited that her baby finally found hispack. My world implodes…empty, nothing. I miss everything else she says and eventually Garret takes the phone from my lifeless fingers. Mom must not have noticed that I died, because she’s still chattering away, asking when we’ll settle down and make her a grandma.
I want to take the phone from Garret and fling it across the room, deny the conversation. If I didn’t hear it, it didn’t happen. Instead, I force my voice out. “Mom, yeah. No, I wanna send him some flowers to congratulate him. Do you know where he’s at?”
I’m not sure how she could believe that I would be happy that he was gone, that he found someone else, but she does. “Oh…hold on, Jessica told me. It’s this little town…in Nebraska…or something…maybe it’s New Mexico or…North Carolina. I think it starts with an N. Hold on, maybe I wrote it down.” My fingers squeeze the phone so hard I expect the screen to break. Garret peels it out of my hand and takes over as she rambles on, papers shuffling in the background. I can barely make out her voice as she tells about how he was visiting his cousin at a bonding ceremony in this tiny little town, and there was his alpha. Doesn’t it sound romantic…blah blah fucking blah.
His cousin already had a bonding ceremony a long damned time ago. Does he have another cousin? Is it the same one? Maybe there was some sort of recommitment ceremony or something. Shit! That one lived in…fuck…what was the name of that place? It was basically a wide spot in the road…Flat Planes? Pine Springs? Timber Falls?
Fuck me, brain, why don’t you work!
“Oak Flats, Mississippi, I think she said. Yes, that sounds right. I knew I wrote it down. I swear, I would lose my head if it wasn’t attached.” Mom giggles into the phone like she’s said something hilarious and rattles off an address to go with the town. My teeth grind with the need to leave now that I havea destination. Leaving my phone with Garret, I turn and head to my room, quickly throwing together a suitcase and a bag of toiletries. I don’t know how long it’ll take to find him, but I can’t let this go.
Garret isn’t quiet when he follows me into my room. He’s still talking to Mom, but trying to be polite when he tells her he’s busy. He thinks he’s about to be busy keeping me at home, but that’s not going to happen. I brush past him right as he manages to hang up the phone. My bag hangs over one shoulder, and I grab the keys to my SUV from the wall by the garage. Plucking the phone out of his grip, I pull up the map app and see I’m looking forward to at least a twenty-seven hour drive.
He stares over my shoulder before jumping between me and the garage door. “Fucking hell man, seriously? This is what it takes to breathe life back into your crusty ass? Fine. whatever. Gimme five minutes to pack.” I try to push past him. I don’t have five minutes to spare. My omega's out there with someone else.
He grabs his own keys off the hook and then plucks mine from my fingers. Fuckwad. “Five fucking minutes, asshole. You can wait that long before you turn our whole goddamned life upside down. Besides, I don’t want you driving goddamned twenty plus hours alone. You’ll fall asleep and die. I see enough of that shit at work.” He doesn’t. He hasn’t taken a stint in the ER yet for his residency, but I get his reasoning, even if I don’t like it.
It’s a full ten minutes later before we’re actually on the road, and he insists that we stop for coffee before we leave Los Angeles.
Hang on Bear, I’m coming.
Chapter 48
What a fucking clusterfuck.
Seriously, how does this shit find me?
Not that I would trade Teddy or Kelly to avoid it…but shit.
There’s a couple of rich boys sitting in my basement looking at my pack with near obsession levels of need. Also, at least one of their daddies is an asshole and that dickhead better stay the fuck away from Oak Flats, ’cause if I ever see him, shit’s gonna get ugly.
I don’t want to deal with this.
Fuck…welcome to being pack lead.
Kelly’s huddled in Teddy’s lap. Our omega’s not crying, but he doesn’t look far from it either. He holds her close, her head tucked against his chest as he looks at the brothers. “You…I…I'm so confused right now. Vee, how could you ever believe your dad was actually going to let us be together after that shit? He was an asshole when we were growing up, and he’s still an asshole now. He was never going to let us…but you. You didn’t say anything. You could have found me at the omega center, you could have told me what was going on instead of just letting me believe youdidn’t want me anymore!” Kelly burrows harder against him, her arms sliding between him and the back of the chair as she tries to hold him tighter.
