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CAT
I closed my eyes and focused on the scents of the plants around me and the sounds of the city. Far off sirens of an ambulance made me wonder what kind of call they’d be on; what kind of help the people would need. Curiosity temporarily drowned out the raging swell of embarrassment and pain that had begun to choke me when I’d seen the headlines about the tell-all interview. Fucking vultures.
It wasn’t enough to crush me so fully once—Pack Sutter had to drag me through it again. What did they stand to gain? Money, you idiot, and their fifteen minutes of fame.
I wasn’t a masochist, so I didn’t look at the article, but the image attached to the headline was a photo taken about a week after we’d met Heather. The Omega who’d seemed so sweet and caring at first but had slowly turned the Alphas against me. She’d lied about so many things, and I hadn’t even questioned any of it until Ethan had contradicted one of her claims months ago.
I’d clawed my way out of the despair their rejection had buried me beneath for years and had been living my life for myself: before everything went to shit again, at least. When they’d excised me five years ago, Shae was the only thing that kept me going at first, and kept the worst of my thoughts away. Then Miles joined them in caring for me, in his own way. Eventually the whole pack welcomed me in as an adopted sibling of sorts, knowing that Shae and I were as much of a package deal as we could be without any blood or romantic feelings tying us together.
Sighing, I shifted slightly, rocking side to side where I sat on the edge of the rooftop deck space as my muscles began to cramp from being so still for too long. The communal garden was on a raised portion of the roof and the ledge I sat on overlooked the pool about fifteen feet below. I wasn’t crazy enough to sit on the ledge of a building this size, but I liked dangling my feet here and enjoying the green space among all the concrete and buildings around me. Mari had begun insisting I help her in the garden a few weeks after I started living with them and I’d found a surprising amount of solace in working alongside her, planting and caring for what we grew. Ethan, Aubrey, and Nate had really hit the jackpot in the parent department. Well, at least with her. From what Aubrey had told me, and what Shae had said, their fathers were the kind of assholes I associated with parents, just with more money than my own.
I straightened, stretching my stiffening back muscles, and wobbled the smallest bit. My pulse skyrocketed and then strong hands gripped my waist. I’d have screamed if it wasn’t for the nearly whispered reprimand of a smoky voice in my ear.
“Careful, Cat.”
Bodhi. I couldn’t be sure if being so lost in my thoughts had kept me from noticing his spicy cinnamon scent, or if the breeze had just kept it from me, but there was no missing it now that I was aware. My newly emerged Omega neediness preened at the worry in his voice, loving that he wanted to protect me so much that he couldn’t let it stand for me to even sit on the roof by myself for too long.
We’d circled each other for years now, introduced at some dinner at Shae’s pack house when I was still healing from being excised. By the time we’d run into each other next, I finally felt like myself, but Bodhi had been on a date with a stunning brunette Beta. I couldn’t deny that I’d felt pulled to him from the start. He was so handsome, with skin the darkest golden brown, and thick black hair that was just long enough to make me want to run my fingers through it. It was more than that, though, his scent had pulled me from the mental gymnastics that had become my routine in public. Masking the depth of my depression with practiced smiles and forced, false cheerfulness. His cinnamon had registered even to my Beta senses and my brain had stalled, as my neck had craned this way and that as I’d tried to locate the source. The memory of how I’d been surprised at the strength of the pull to his scent was laughable now.
As an Omega, my senses had been heightened in ways I couldn’t have imagined before. Every time he was near me, I tasted spicy cinnamon candies on my tongue and had trouble focusing. I’m embarrassed to say that I couldn’t walk past a candy aisle for weeks after getting out of the hospital without buying different cinnamon ones until I’d found a particular brand of gummy bears that was so close to how my mind had imagined he would taste. After I found them, I always had a bag in my room to eat and casually smell, in a completely non-psychotic way, when he wasn’t around. Being an Omega was weird.
Bodhi moved a few feet away and lifted himself onto the ledge. I mourned that space between us but knew I wasn’t in a place to start anything anyway. And I knew that if he was interested, he would have made a move already.
“I don’t want to pry, and I haven’t looked anything up, but you know you can talk to me if you need to, right? I’m no Shae but, we’re friends, Cat. I want to help.”
I forced a smile to my face, hoping that it didn’t betray how much hearing him say we were friends made me want to crawl into my nest and sob. Friends were amazing. I loved my friends. But since I’d become an Omega, my hindbrain, or whatever it was that was all Omega now, screamed at me that he was supposed to be more. To be mine.
“I know. It caught me off-guard, but I’ll be okay. Thanks.”
Bodhi’s thick brows came together, and his full lips tightened like he was forcing them not to let anything past them. After a moment of staring at each other in silence, me with a smile plastered on my face and him looking as though he was on the edge of saying something, he turned back to the view and blew out a harsh breath before nodding slowly.
We stayed like that for a while longer before he cleared his throat and slid off the ledge and back onto the pavers behind us.
“I should go check on Aubrey, or Noah will have my head. Will you be up here much longer?”
I shook my head. He took another breath that I wanted to read something into, but was probably just a breath, and stuffed his fists into his pockets before turning back to the garden’s entrance. I should have gone in with him. Aubrey would probably be worried after I’d run out like that, and I didn’t want to upset her. One of these days I would have to stand on my own two feet again. Unbidden, his voice spoke to me out of my memories.
“Why would you need to stand on your own two feet when I could carry you?”
A tear slid down my cheek. That photo had woken ghosts I thought I’d finally laid to rest, and I worried that I wouldn’t have the strength to recover from pain like that again.
