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I growl, low and deep in my chest.
Riley sighs, squirming a bit in her seat. “His name was Tyler. I’d known him since I was a kid, really. He was one of those family friends that is just like an uncle, you know? He was always around for holiday and family events. He went to college with my two Alpha fathers. He never bothered me, not until I turned sixteen. Then, when I started to show Omega tendencies, he changed the way he was around me.
“If we were in a room together, he would crowd me and touch me in ways I didn’t like. Never completely inappropriate, but on my arm and my back. Rubbing against me shoulder to shoulder, and if his hand slipped, it always looked like an accident.
At first all his actions could have been explained away as accidents, really, or just a friendly gesture. Since I was just presenting as an Omega, I didn’t have a lot of my tendencies under control, and that made it worse. If we were too close in the room, I would start to produce slick, and it would make him even crazier.
It got to the point where I worried he would go too far. I told my fathers, and they laughed it away, and said I was being paranoid. The next time he came over, he did touch me inappropriately. And then it happened again. And again. He never… I mean, I was a virgin before I came here, but if I stayed any longer, I don’t think I would have stayed that way. I left a couple weeks later when it was clear my parents did not—or maybecouldnot—believe me. The day before I left, their Alpha friend told me he was going to bond me behind my parent’s backs. Claim me as his… forever. Whether I wanted him or not.”
All four of us let out a deep growl, and Riley bursts into laughter, the sound discordant with her dark story. “You sound like a chorus of wolves. I’m fine, honestly. It was so long ago. I just wish someone believed me, you know? I could have handled it all if someone had justlistened. Stopped making excuses for him. Stopped trying to lay blame on me. Made him stop.”
I notice the signs. Riley is not nearly as okay with what happened as she’s letting on. She’s been hurt badly. Scarred deeply. She’s afraid, but she’s found a way to survive. It makes sense why she should work so hard to erase the Omega part of herself. Why she would never want to go home, terrified this Alpha would make good on his promise to bond her against her will.
She’s been traumatized and likely feels acutely abandoned by her parents. I hate them on her behalf for what they did to her.
“We will always believe you,” says Miles fervently, reaching for her hand. She gives it a squeeze and pulls away. I glance over at Thane, and I’m surprised to see him as white as a ghost. He nods with Miles’s declaration.
“You are under our protection,” he grits out finally, and Riley looks up at him slack-jawed and blushing. “And you will never come to harm here. Do you understand me? You are ours until you are not. We will always believe what you say. And if someone comes near you…” He trails off. “Let’s just say I know my way around a scalpel.”
“Brutal, dude,” I say, my training telling me that violence is never the answer, my Alpha nature on the other hand… let’s just say it agreed with him a little too vehemently.
He smirks at me, and for a little bit, it’s just like old times, before he became so worried about Riley upturning our lives. “But speaking of scalpels…” I glance at Thane for permission, and he gives a sharp nod. “Thane’s parents have been pestering him about claiming an Omega. And if you knew Thane’s parents, you’d know that they are experts at pestering.”
“You have no idea,” grumbles Thane under his breath.
“You might be in a position to help us with that,” I continue. “While you’re here, since you’re already under our protection, would you mind pretending to be our Omega if they are around?”
She frowns as if this is the most absurd idea ever. “You wantmeto meet your parents?” She accents the word me like she can’t believe anyone would want to meet her. It breaks my heart. “Won’t they be able to tell the bond isn’t real?”
“Not really. The scent of a bonded Omega versus an unbonded one is such a subtle difference, completely undetectable if you didn’t know the Omega pre-bonded and post-bonding. With a cocktails of a few harmless over the counter drugs we can duplicate the shift in scent and you can wear something with a high neck to cover your collar area. It pays to be in endocrinology sometimes.”
“Sometimes, you frighten me,” says Fox, shaking his head at Thane, and Thane gives him an evil grin.
“All right, if you think we can honestly fake it,” Riley says, but her doubt is painted all over her expression. I wonder if she’s wondering what I am…
What will Thane—or any of us—do to explain our pack situation once she leaves us?Ifshe leaves us. The mating bond is for life. An Omegacanbe rejected from a pack and vice versa, but the original bonds can never befullysevered. And it’s a painful, long process of prolonged separation and active rejection.
We’d be judged, and harshly. It would sully our name. The only way to get away with it would be to say that Riley did something heinous to bring it on herself and we’d never do that.
If Thane goes through with this lie to his parents it can only mean one thing: he wants to keep her and he has absolutely no intention of letting her go. Whether he knows that himself yet or not.
I’d love to sit here and analyze it some more, but Riley pushes the floating bit of baguette around in her soup and there’s a sadness around her eyes that distracts me from my thoughts. I want to erase it from existence.
“I’ll do what I can. I owe you that much,” she says.
“You don’t owe us—” I begin, but she shakes her head.
“I owe you that much,” she repeats, and I understand what she’s saying. Riley wants our relationships to be fair and even, and this is just another instance where she can do her part. Her independence might not do well in the outside world, but I admire it all the same. “However, if meeting your parents is anything like meeting you, I’m going to need a stiff drink and a pep talk beforehand.”
Thane blinks at her, and I cup a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing. Riley just sassed Thane! I’m so proud of her, I could kiss her. Which needs to be fixed ASAP, because I’m the odd man out in that regard. Just because I have the highest level of control doesn’t mean that every waking minute around her without touching her isn’t a special kind of torture.
“I suppose I deserved that,” says Thane, and then he winks at her. He actually fucking winks at her. He’s a fucking goner.
“You’ll be just fine with my parents. They’re good people, but they are intense.”
“See, even Thane thinks you can do it, and he knows his parents better than anyone.”
“I should hope so,” Thane mutters again, taking a long sip from his beer.
