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“My mom’s necklace was in there. I never wear it to work,” Sienna said quietly.
“My pictures are too.” Eliza’s words cut off into a sob, and Bane and Loki surrounded her. Hazel watched them with pain on her face. She knew she couldn’t fix this, and it didn’t make me feel any better to know that we all shared that sentiment.
“I leave tomorrow,” Teagan said. “I won’t be here to see if my stuff survived. I’ll grab a hotel by the airport tonight and order some things. But you guys need to find somewhere to stay. I doubt you guys want to stay with me just for one night.”
“Eliza’s with us,” Loki said firmly. She opened her mouth, but it snapped closed when he raised an eyebrow. “There’s room at the compound for anyone else who needs it.”
“I’ll stay with River and Yuri,” Sienna said, glancing at them nervously, but that didn’t get my hackles up. It was more of an anticipatory feeling, the edges of her nerves frayed by what she’d gone through tonight. I didn’t get the sense that it wasthemtruly making her nervous, though it would have been nice if I’d had her scent to back up my assumption.
“King, you’re welcome too,” Yuri said. “You’ll need a backup.”
“You better add another room on then,” Nash said. “I won’t be the only pack member not there.”
Yuri nodded and gestured at the cars. “Let’s go. There’s nothing we can do here.”
I took Sienna’s hand and led her to Nash’s SUV, wedging her between me and River while Yuri climbed into the passenger’s seat.
The ride was quiet, all of us unsure where this new twist would take us, but I was certain about one thing. As long as our omega was safe, we’d figure out the rest.
Because there was no way in hell we’d let her go back to an apartment like that.
Not now.
ChapterEleven
Sienna
It went from one of the best nights I’d had in a long time to the worst. I couldn’t shake the images of the flames from my head. The knowledge that they were destroying everything I owned was bad enough; adding in the sentimental value of some of those items was almost too much.
“This is your house?” King’s gasp had me glancing up at the modern mansion in front of us. It was just barely out of town, so it was surrounded by trees on all sides, and the giant structure was gorgeous, like something out of a magazine. Windows lined most of the surface, with black and white brick showing through on the framework outside of all the glass. The driveway led to a large garage door, and Nash navigated the SUV inside the garage with a familiarity I expected.
“I’ll be moving into the main house now,” River told Yuri as he helped me out of the car. My first impression of the house, and its clear meaning that they were out of my league, was only made worse by the news that there was aguest housetoo. Seriously, what kind of money did they have to make a guest house a totally normal thing?
They’d seen my apartment building. How were they not second guessing this relationship from that alone?
My thoughts were a tumultuous jumble, but thankfully not one of the guys said anything. River led me inside and sat me at the kitchen island, and a distant part of my awareness cataloged what it saw as we walked there. The entire place looked more like a series of showrooms than a home. Nothing was out of place, not as far as I could tell, anyway, nor did anything look remotely used. Everything was shining and cleaned to absolute perfection. Did anyone actually live here? The black and white theme had continued inside the home, with pops of red here and there to break it up.
Everyone was talking in hushed tones, and the more whispers I heard, the more I wanted to scream. With the worst timing ever, something only my sister could perfect, my phone buzzed again, and the sight of her name, in combination with everything else that had happened in the last hour, tipped me over the edge. I was done.
“Stop!” They all froze, staring at me with wide eyes as I stood up and fisted my hands at my sides. “I’m not fragile or going to fall apart. I’ve dealt with worse, alright? I’ll still be working like normal. I’ll get some new clothes and eventually find a new place to live. It’s all under control.”
Yuri was less than amused when he came over and helped me sit back down. “I’m going to get you some hot tea, and you’re going to take a breath, omega. No one is here to kick you out or make you do anything you don’t want to. You’ll have your own room, and I put you in a suite so you’ll have room for a nest as well. Omegas need that space, so it’s yours. I have no intention of rushing you out of my house, Sienna, nor do I expect you to be chipper right now.”
“No one would expect that,” Nash said as he went to Yuri’s fridge, poking around and pulling out a few things. “She needs to eat before shock sets in.”
“Maybe she would like you to stop talking around her as if she weren’t here,” River mused as they sat down next to me. “It’s like you alphas have never had a woman in the house.”
“I’ve been a bachelor, so I haven’t, actually,” Nash shot back with a rough laugh. “Hell, outside of my grandma, who was a real spitfire, Sienna’s the first I’ll have lived with.”
“I didn’t realize your grandma raised you,” I said, grasping onto anything that would change the subject.
“She’s great. The only family that was there for Bane and me,” Nash said. There was clearly more to his story, and I realized that I wanted to know more of it. They were all still a bit of a mystery to me, even River. They might seem like an open book, but everything I knew about them was surface level. I needed more than that if I was going to really consider tying myself to them in a pack situation.
Maybe living with them, even if it wasn’t thanks to the best of circumstances, would be a blessing in disguise. Even if I hated admitting it, being with them felt so easy. Having them surrounding me, caring for me, made this whole nightmare a bit easier to swallow.
The hardest part was having all of them so close that their scents were everywhere. River and Yuri were the strongest. but that would quickly change with everyone staying here. It definitely made it harder to resist them, experience be damned.
“So, where are the rest of us sleeping?” King asked. “You sure about this, Yuri?”
