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Chapter Sixteen
August
Not sure exactly what the hell to do right now.
I started this day out with a girlfriend that I sort of tolerated because she was the only girl that can really tolerate me, and now I’m strung out on an omega that is apparently my stepsister.
When I smelled the spicy bourbon-soaked peaches wafting through my woods, I thought maybe I was hallucinating. My mouth watered and the world tilted. Then I saw her, throwing some sort of tantrum, clearly stomping around, and making some sort of clatter because I saw a few squirrels fleeing, and I thought my eyes had tricked me.
When she spoke to me in my own language? My heart was sold. Obliterated.
All at once, my new life’s mission seemed to be to find a way to taste her, to get her to give me her lips, her affection, and anything else I could coax out of her.
Never mind that I went about it wrong, since meeting this woman, Calai, seems to have blinded me. I forgot I had a girlfriend. I know, I know. I’m a really shitty person. What we have isn’t love, but Sara deserves better than to walk in on me about to kiss another woman. Whom I apparently scared off.
Her scent hit me anew before I made it all the way to the big house, aiming to go talk to my brother to get filled in on how the hell they found her and what’s going on. He texted me earlier telling me we needed to speak asap, which is why I was in the woods in the first place- I was going to talk to him.
I pass a stormy-eyed, buffed out Alpha and I could smell traces of my omega clinging to him, so I’m assuming that he’s one of hers. I’ve been around Parker’s alphas enough that I no longer feel like I need to be incredibly submissive all the time when I’m around them, but this guy had what I wanted, and I would have done anything to pledge myself to his pack.
I’m not a part of Parker’s because there’s no connection between me and any of them. And I’m not into men, so I just date betas. Sara is pretty easy to get along with and she deals with a lot of my weird shit, but communication is always spotty at best between us. It’s sex more than anything else, though I know she wants a more intimate relationship with me. I just haven’t felt like we were going anywhere, though.
She’s fuming as she lays into me, even though she knows I can’t understand almost anything she’s saying since she’s speaking so quickly and using hardly any sign. She’s never taken the time to become fluent in the year we’ve been together, but that never bothered me. She made a little bit of an effort, and that was good enough for me.
There’s another alpha on the couch, looking like he got beat the hell up, and I eye him up, even more confused now. What on earth did I miss today?
Parker steps in and steels himself with a big breath that inflates his whole chest, tells Sara that we’re having a family emergency and that he needed to speak to me. He’s kindly trying to get her to leave, but it’s not until one of his alphas barks something out at her that she scrambles out the door with her head hanging low.
I should go apologize, and I’m about to when she pauses on the front porch and turns to meet my eyes, but Parker pushes me through to the office and shuts the door behind us.
“You met her, I take it? She’s here. My Darcy is home!”
“Yes, I did…she told me her name is Calai. She’s…”
“Beautiful, right? August, I feel like I’m dreaming. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve woken up and told myself today would be the day she’d walk back into my life?”
“Does she remember anything? Did she know you? How did you find her?”
“I don’t think she does remember me…”he trails off sadly, lost in thought. I tap him on the shoulder, then leave it there for support. Ever since our parents married when we were younger, we’ve been pretty close. It was nice having a brother that stood by me when no one else would bother to learn how to communicate with me, since it was so much easier to just ignore me.
I still remember the day my mom brought me to live with him and his dad, the way his smile just lit up at having a new sibling. He was so sad, talked about his twin constantly, so much so that my own heart began to hurt as well. We’d make up scenarios about what she was doing- she was almost always a fashion designer or a movie star that was really famous. We pretended like she didn’t write or call because she was so busy with all her fans.
I know how broken his heart has been, and he’s never given up hope that he’d find her one day. Parker always swore he felt like she was out there somewhere, that he could feel her in his heart still. She had her own spot in our tree house his dad built us, and whenever we played with any toys at all we’d have a doll or stuffed animal with her name so she could play, too.
She wasn’t just Parker’s best friend. I’m shocked that it’s finally happened though, because it doesn’t seem like it’s real at all.
“She’s been with some cult up in the woods about eight hours away. I’ve been talking to one of her alphas, getting filled in, since she’s a bit…overwhelmed with everything she just found out. She had no memory of being kidnapped, only found us because they were driving through to do some shopping. Apparently she hopped out of the car at the stoplight in town because she recognized a shop or something, and then wandered to the library. She’s barely spoken to me yet, but…”
“Hey, we’ll get there. You need to be patient, okay?”
I wait until he meets my eyes and then I hug him, because while his mates love him and support him, they don’t understand the way he feels about his twin like I do. I’ve lived through it all with him.
“What did she say to you? Could you understand anything?”
I nod. And then smile, remembering how crazy she looked with her dark hair flying about her face and her brown skin gleaming in the dappled sunlight from the force she was using to try and rid herself of her frustrations. “Amazingly, she knows sign.”
Parker stares at me open-mouthed. “What? How?”
I shrug.“She didn’t say. She just naturally started using it with me after I did. She’s…incredible.”
