Chapter 19
She’s Getting Suspicious
It takes a lot to make me angry, really truly angry, but overhearing Ren tell my omega she should use a scent matching service has had me stewing for fucking days. Literally.
Every time that spark of anger swells, I have to tell myself that it makes sense. Ren is just looking out for her best friend, wanting what’s best for her, and she thinks we aren’t what’s best. It’s not like I can blame her for that, either. We did drug, lie and manipulate Haven into giving us what we wanted.
No one would look at our past actions and think we’d be a good pack for an omega. Hell, if Haven went to the police, we could face criminal charges for what we’ve done. There’s certainly enough proof of it on Jude’s computer, in her medical records of the shit we pulled. Just her testimony might be enough.
But Haven wouldn’t do that.
She’s too good.
Too forgiving.
No, that’s not the right word. She’s too understanding . She knows why we did what we did, understands our motivations enough that she won’t turn us in to the cops, but she hasn’t forgiven us. Not yet.
Fuck. I hope this is a “not yet” situation and she’ll get there for us eventually.
I need her forgiveness, crave it like I crave air when I’m at the bottom of a pool.
That’s how it’s felt for the last few weeks. I’m a drowning man and Haven is air. I greedily suck down whatever small sips of relief she’s willing to give me and, goddamn, those are few and far between.
It’s becoming a problem. A big one.
When Creed came up from the basement smelling like Haven’s slick, her pineapple and smoked chili scent all over him, I’d almost gone feral on him, just to get a taste of his fingers.
Thankfully, he understood the need and shared, but he was a cocky motherfucker about it, smirking the entire time. Asshole.
We’d all sort of hoped that her allowing Creed to pleasure her was a turning point, that she’d start opening up more… but it seems to have done the opposite. She withdrew even further and started talking to Ren about finding a different pack.
Fucking Ren.
“Hey!” Jude calls to me. “Focus! We don’t want to fuck this up.”
I frown over to where he’s painting, taking in the wall in front of him. “I’m doing a better job than you.”
He scoffs and steps back, taking in the wall he’s in charge of. When he sees it, he stops scoffing and scowls instead. “Maybe we shouldn’t have done this ombre with the trees…. It’s not going to look right and she’ll hate it.”
“She’s not going to hate it,” Hale growls from the center of the room, where he and Creed are putting together all the furniture we picked out for our girl.
“She might,” I say, turning back to the dark green evergreens I’m painting on my side of the room, trying to give them a misty, foggy feeling. We’ve already painted the walls ombre like Jude said, from dark a dark blue gray on the ceiling to a lighter grey near the floor. We’re trying to make it look like a dark and misty forest, since our omega apparently enjoys the great outdoors. Haven is going to love it, despite what I said.
“We should have just hired someone to do this,” Creed grumbles, flipping through an instruction manual with only pictures and no written instructions.
“No,” Jude says, leaning over to blend his colors together better. “No, it’ll mean more that we did it ourselves, that we didn’t just hire someone to do it for us.”
I nod along with his statement, because it’s true. We agreed she would appreciate the effort we went to for her. Anyone can hire someone to design a room for their omega. But we’re doing the work, putting our blood, sweat and tears into the space for her.
It’s been slow since we struggle to let Haven out of our sight. Mostly we do the work when she’s tucked in bed, but we’ve only really managed a few hours here and there, until today. When Ren stated that Ginny and Moira were missing Haven and invited her over for an evening of binge watching all three Lord of the Rings movies and too much junk food.
Hale had been quick to offer our media room with its movie screen and plush couch. But Haven begged to be allowed to go. To have a bit of normalcy. But what she really meant was she wanted a bit of space from us.
It was on the tip of Hale’s tongue to deny her the request, but Jude had gotten there before he could, telling her of course she can go, and then reminding the rest of us that each of the Karlin girls has a bodyguard and Haven will be safe at their house.
After we’d shot down her request to go on a hike, after the way she’s retreated from us even farther since Creed and the basement, I’d backed him. We can’t expect her to just stay inside the four walls of our house for the rest of our lives. She needs to get out, breathe fresh air, be around other people.
Once she’d gone to grab her things, he’d gleefully told us all to take the rest of the day off and that we’re finishing her nest today. It’ll be a surprise when she comes back.
“This won’t be enough to get her to forgive us,” Hale mutters, scowling at the tiny Allen wrench in his hand. The only piece of furniture we didn’t decide to put together ourselves is the bed, because we need a sturdy frame to support the weight of four alphas fucking their omega. I wouldn’t trust anything we put together to hold up under that kind of pressure.
So we’d had one custom made. The guy who made it brought and assembled it the day Creed took Haven into the basement and she finally let him touch her. We didn’t want to risk her seeing it and ruining the surprise.
The bed is pushed up against the only dry wall, the mattress still covered in plastic. It’s giant. I have to keep myself from looking at it, because as soon as I do, I start thinking about the things we’re going to do in that bed, the heats we’re going to spend there, the nights spent wrapped around my omega. And yeah, that makes my dick hard.
Which makes it difficult to concentrate on finishing this nest for our girl.
So, no looking at the bed.
I might be imagining it, but I think the rest of the alphas in the room are also avoiding it.
“It might not be enough on its own,” I agree easily. Because why would I deny it? “But coupled with consistently being there for her, telling her the truth, helping her when she needs it, proving to her we aren’t going anywhere, that we want her. It’ll be enough.”
That’s what we’ve been doing for the last few weeks, being a constant in Haven’s life, giving her almost anything she asks for—this is the first time we’ve let her leave the house, much to her chagrin. Her favorite foods are always in the kitchen, her favorite show is always on the TV. Before these weeks, you wouldn’t have caught any of us dead watching Alpha Love Getaway , but we’ve watched so much of it in the last few weeks that I’ve found myself fully obsessed with the ridiculous show.
That anyone would find their pack or their omega that way is… well, absurd. And yet, I can’t take my eyes off the screen, can’t get enough of the drama.
Haven is positively gleeful about it.
Just about the only thing we haven’t done for her is get rid of Frederick Bell, make it so he can’t hurt anyone else. Not that we’re not still working on it, but progress has slowed down. A lot.
Hale wasn’t lying when he said once we’d taken care of Senator Bell, we’d let her go. He meant it when he said we’d just never get revenge if she was going to leave us right after. So until we know for certain that she’s ours, that she will not leave us, we’ve put almost everything on hold.
The problem is, she’s noticed.
“We need to pretend like we’re going after her father,” I say, standing back from the wall to take in my work. Fucking perfect.
I drop my paint brush onto the drop cloth and start wrapping everything up to be tossed.
“You want us to lie to her again?” Jude asks, sounding pissed off.
“No, I want us to put some of our smaller plans into action. So she can see that we’re still working toward that.”
Creed has a furrow in his brow as he looks up at me. “She’s getting suspicious.”
I nod. “Yeah. And I’m worried about what she’ll do about that.”
“If she thinks we’re not going after her dad,” Hale stands up a shelving unit and pushes it against the wet paint of the wall I just finished. I let out a sound of protest, even though I knew it was going to happen. “She might do something stupid, like go after him herself.”
“Exactly.” I help push a second shelf into place, and then Creed slides a storage bench between them, more like a bed than a bench, with drawers underneath for storing things like lube, spare pillows, blankets, bottles of water. Anything we might need during a heat. Or I guess just anything Haven wants to keep in there.
It will be her space, after all.
Behind us, Jude makes a satisfied sound and then I hear him gathering his drop cloth as well.
“How long until it’s dry?” Hale asks, stacking the broken down boxes in a neat pile and tossing them into the hall.
“Completely dry? Probably not until tomorrow. But in about an hour, we should be able to touch it without getting paint on ourselves.”
“Can we hang the lights on the ceiling?” Creed asks, tipping his head back to examine the space.
I nod. “Yeah, I think that should be fine.”
“What about the canopy over the bed?” Hale asks, sending out another pile of the boxes.
I give both of them an exasperated look. “The ceiling and the wall behind the bed are both dry. It should be fine.”
“I’ll start bringing up the cushions and bedding and stuff,” Jude offers, scooping up more trash and then leaving.
For the next few hours, we add the finishing touches on our girl’s space. The bed gets made in cream, blue and gray. The canopy gets hung and more twinkle lights line it. The little bench between the bookshelves gets its cushion and throw pillows. We carefully move all of Haven’s clothing, her journals, everything into the new space. Even when Creed mumbles it might be a little presumptuous to do it for her.
He’s not wrong. We don’t know how she’ll react to us moving her into our house nest. But it probably won’t be good. I’m hoping she’ll see the effort we went to, the care we took in picking each piece of furniture, each throw blanket, each pillow.
I’m pretty sure Jude will happily tell her about every one of our choices. In fact, I’m banking on it. I want her to know we’ve been working on this for weeks. Since the day we told her about Janie. Not one of us doubted for even a second that she’s ours, will always be ours. Even if she doesn’t believe it yet.
She will.
Fuck. I hope she will.
The scent of fresh paint is still thick in the air, but hopefully by the time Haven gets back from Ren’s, it’ll have faded. But just in case we spend some time scent marking the soft goods in the room, rubbing our faces and necks on them. Only feeling slightly ridiculous.
Creed mumbles again that it might be presumptuous to scent up Haven’s room, but he’s right there with the rest of us, rolling around on the bed.
“She had pieces of our clothes in her room,” Jude says casually, like this isn’t monumental news.
“ She what? ” Hale hisses. Not mad, just shocked.
Jude nods and saunters over to the little reading nook between the two bookshelves, plopping down onto the cushion. “Yep. She’s been doing it for weeks, though she’ll never admit it.”
Creed smirks like an asshole. “I thought I was missing some t-shirts.”
Hale’s face goes all soft in a way that he only gets when he’s thinking about Haven. “And my gym shorts.”
I nod. “Come to think of it, my cardigan went missing. I just assumed Jude tossed it in the dryer, shrunk it and tossed it in the trash in a panic.”
“One time. That happened one time.”
I grin at him. I can’t help it. If Haven’s been stealing our clothes, stealing our scents , that’s a fantastic sign. It means she feels safe here, with us, that we make her feel calm and secure. If she’s falling asleep with our scents around her, it means she feels like we’re pack. No matter what kinds of conversations she’s having with Ren about joining a scent clinic.
Giddiness swells in my stomach, my chest, and I can’t help but let out a little chuckle. Finally. Fucking finally, we have a positive sign that she’s on the verge of… not forgiving us, but maybe trusting us a little more?
Yeah, trusting that we aren’t going anywhere, that we want her, will always want her. Trusting that we’ll keep her safe. That we can provide for her. All things her omega needs to feel secure.
If we can get her omega on board, I’m sure we can get Haven on board too. It’ll take longer, but we’re all willing to put in the work.
“Are we gonna form a pack again?” Jude asks, lounging in the little reading nook, dripping with pillows and blankets and soft white star-shaped lights.
The rest of us go quiet. Hale, Jude, and I stare at Creed, waiting for his reply. He’s the one that broke us, after all. I totally understand why he did. We were assholes, and we didn’t keep Haven safe like we should have, didn’t treat her like we should have.
We deserve him rending our pack bonds. But If I’m honest, they were pretty weak to begin with. The strain of years of grief, or heartache, or hatred and revenge made it brittle over the years. The situation with Haven only made it worse. It didn’t take much for them to shatter.
What we’re building now, the tentative peace, trust, and determination to win Haven back at all costs, feels healthier, stronger. Better than what we had before.
The inkling of a bond is there, but not one of us has fully accepted it, not yet.
I’m waiting for Creed to give the go ahead. To say that he wants a bond with me again. I don’t want to force one on him.
Creed sighs and shakes his head. My heart sinks.
He’s not ready.
All this time, the three of us should have been working to earn his trust back, too.
I suppose we’d thought we could do that by earning Haven’s trust, her forgiveness. After all, if she can forgive us for all the shit we did, surely he could too?
Creed frowns, opens his mouth. Shuts it. Opens it again. But right at that moment, my phone rings. Normally, I wouldn’t answer, but with Haven out of the house, only protected by three guards and not one of us, I can’t let it go.
I battle back the wave of anger at seeing Florence’s name flash across my screen, but then, she’s with Haven at the moment, so I bite back the snarl when I answer. “Florence.”
“A-dick-us,” she growls back at me, meeting my aggression with her own, before she sighs. “Look, I don’t have a lot of time.” That has my skin prickling with unease. We don’t have a pack bond anymore, but the other alphas in the room must feel it because they all stop what they’re doing and look at me. “And you know I’d avoid ever speaking to you again, but I think Haven’s about to do something really stupid.”
“What?” There is no stopping the snarl in my voice, on my face. “What the fuck do you mean?”
I don’t know if she can sense the absolute alpha rage coming on or what, but Ren doesn’t hesitate to tell me exactly what my omega is up to. “I tried to talk her out of it, tried to just take her to my place like we agreed, to keep her there,” she rushes to explain.
“Florence, just tell me,” I grit out.
She blows out a breath. “Haven found the name of a club in Hale’s office. She thinks you guys are keeping things from her about her father, so she decided to check it out. On her own.”
“What club?” I ask, sounding as breathless as I feel. Feeling sick to my stomach. I already know. I know, and the idea of Haven being there, of her setting a single foot inside that place, is enough to make my lungs seize. “What club, Ren?”
“Shock and Awe.”