3. Killian
3
Killian
Lilah’s scent filled the car as I pulled away from the club, making it damn near impossible to think as we wove our way through the streets of the city. My cock throbbed in my pants, less than happy about the fact I’d gotten to taste Lilah’s orgasm without giving her mine in return.
All in good time. The pack needs to meet her first. They need to smell what you smell. Neither of them will believe it if you don’t come with proof.
The thought of taking this woman—this omega— to my pack and showing them what I had found almost made me feel like a puppy dragging home a bone it had dug up in the woods, something valued and treasured that they wanted to share with their family.
It was an almost painfully accurate analogy. My wolf was pacing inside me, whining and sniffing the air in excitement. He couldn’t wait to bring Lilah home and present her to our Prime Alpha so Oliver could initiate the pack bond.
Soon, we could make our pack whole .
My cock twitched again, and I cast a small smile towards Lilah, who was staring out the front window of the car, her hands twisting in her lap.
God, she was gorgeous. Her dark, glossy hair was long, brushing against her waist, and her eyes were wide, glowing light brown in the warmth of the street lamps we passed. They kept flashing between her natural, tawny color and omega silver, hinting at the turbulent emotions pushing at her shift, making her wolf desperate to come out to play.
I could relate. I hadn’t felt so out of control of my wolf in fucking years .
The tiny little black dress she wore was a tease, revealing every inch of her thighs from where it had hiked up when she sat in the passenger seat of my car. The thong I had torn off her was in my pocket, and the thought of her bare pussy under that scrap of a dress made me even more eager to get home.
She needed to meet the pack. She needed to realize what we were to her. She was young, and couldn’t have been designated as an omega for long. Did she understand what it meant that she was so drawn to me? That I was so drawn to her? That I would do anything for her?
The depth of my devotion for this woman I had just met should have scared me, but all it felt was right .
“Why is it so important that I come and meet the pack?” Lilah asked softly. “What...I mean. Do they...know about me?”
I hadn’t turned on music when we climbed into the car, so intent on peeling out of the club’s parking lot that it hadn’t even occurred to me, and I heard every trembling breath she took as she asked her question. She glanced over at me, and I reached out to take one of her hands in mine, winding my fingers through her thin, delicate ones and gently squeezing.
“No, they don’t know about you. But they will. It’s important,” I answered simply.
She furrowed her brow, the soft, discontented sounds she made telling me that she found my answer less than satisfactory. But I couldn’t tell her—not until she met Oliver and Emmett, until they had met her and realized that I had brought home our scent-matched mate .
My stomach twisted with excitement, and I turned a little too sharply into our neighborhood, accidentally jolting Lilah up against the door. She caught herself, thankfully, and I slowed down to a more reasonable speed as we left the main road. Admittedly, I’d been driving a little faster than I should have, flaunting the laws of the road with my middle finger raised high to any human cops who might have caught me. Oliver would have shaken his head at my actions if he had been in the car, and Emmett probably would have glared at me, telling me silently to slow down—the way my stoic packmate always did.
Lilah didn’t seem to mind, and I knew she could feel the energy buzzing between us. She could sense that I was about to show her something important, that what we were doing was important for us; she just didn’t understand why—not yet.
“Did you text your friend?” I asked, my mind clearing slightly as I pulled onto our street. The packhouse was a large, restored Colonial at the end of a cul-de-sac. We’d stumbled upon it when we had graduated from college and were first making our way into our respective industries. There was plenty of room for us to shift and run as a pack when we needed to bond, and it was small enough that we still felt like we were together even when we were in different rooms.
It seemed like the perfect place for the three of us to live and grow before we would have the opportunity to court an omega, and it was entirely too perfect that we had only just received the letter from the state confirming that we were eligible to court an omega that morning.
And now, I had found her.
Lilah glanced down at her phone, furrowing her brow for a moment as she opened her lock screen. “Yeah, she’s a little confused, but I told her I was having an early night to check on my mom. I told her that I was going to take an Uber.”
There was an undercurrent of tension in her voice when she mentioned her mother, which made my ears perk up, tingling with my repressed shift. I pulled into the driveway in front of the house before I could think of a tactful way to ask why . Tact usually wasn’t my strong suit, but I wasn’t trying to drive this woman away—not when it was so important that she come with me inside the house.
Everything after that could wait.
“Wait.” Lila’s hand darted out and wrapped around my wrist, squeezing tightly as she looked up at the house and then over at me. The almost painful arousal from the club had drained out of her face, leaving her a little pale, and her eyes were cold and very, very sober now. “How...” Her voice trembled a little, and her throat bobbed with a swallow before she tried again. “How large is your pack? Are you the Prime Alpha?” She eyed me a little suspiciously. “You don’t seem...”
I laughed, reaching over and running my hand through her hair, trying to calm her. “I’m not Prime Alpha,” I confirmed, chuckling again at the thought. “And there are three of us. Myself, Oliver, and Emmett.”
My voice choked a little as I explained the pack to her, and I shoved down the phantom sensation and offered another smile. “Oliver is Prime. You’re right; that’s not the position for me.” I winked and leaned a little closer, watching her nostrils flare as she got another hit of my scent. “The only woman I want to be bossing around is a pretty omega.”
Her lips parted as she inhaled sharply, and I sat up, satisfied that her mind was exactly where I wanted it to be—focused on me rather than the fear of what was beyond the front door. Of course, she had nothing to be afraid of, but she didn’t know that. I would be more concerned if she weren’t a little nervous about meeting three strange alphas she didn’t know.
I opened the car door for her and then led her to the front door, linking our fingers together. She came easily, the clicking of her heels next to me comforting despite the obvious trepidation and mingled arousal on her face. She clung tightly to my hand, her claws scratching at my skin for a moment before she retracted them, hinting at her nerves.
Again, perfectly understandable.
I turned to face her as we drew level with the front door, and I released her hand to cup her face. “Don’t worry,” I assured her. “Everything’s going to be fine. Better than fine. You’ll see.”
I leaned down and pressed our lips together in a soft, tender kiss, and she let out a tiny whimper as she kissed me back. Her taste—sweet vanilla and a hint of something tart, like grapefruit—burst over my sensitive tongue when I took her bottom lip between my teeth and tugged, and it took every ounce of self-control I possessed to pull away from her and unlock the front door.
The house’s foyer was dark and quiet, but I could hear the low voices of my packmates filtering down the hallway from the den. I shut the front door behind Lilah, then turned to face her, putting my hands on her shoulders and stopping her steps in their tracks.
“Stay right here,” I instructed. “I need to let them know that I brought you home.”
She cocked her head to the side but didn’t say anything. Instead, she just nodded, and I turned on my heel without further ado and walked toward my pack.
“Hey.” Emmett looked up at me when I entered the den, his copper hair mussed from how he lay on the couch. He wore a white T-shirt and a loose pair of pajama pants, his reading glasses askew on his nose as he set down the book he’d been holding. “You’re home.”
Oliver made a soft sound low in his throat, and I swallowed as I turned to face my Prime Alpha, feeling strangely like I was a teenager about to face the consequences of breaking the rules.
All three of us in the pack were alphas, of course, but there was a hierarchy that couldn’t be denied. Prime Alpha was largely a legal position, giving the holder the authority to make decisions for the pack as a whole, including the decision to offer a bonding bite to an omega. In our pack, though, Oliver took charge of big decisions that would affect our pack personally, not just legally. We trusted him to do what was best for us.
A tiny flicker of nerves fluttered through me as I took a deep breath, preparing myself to say what I needed to say.
“Why are you home early?” Oliver asked, narrowing his eyes. He still wore the button-down and slacks he had worn to the office earlier, though his feet were bare. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, his forearms flexing a little as he stood up, and he cocked his head to the side as he approached me. His blue eyes were narrowed, his blond hair as neatly styled as it always was. He cut an imposing figure, and the urge to bow my head and bare my neck for him was strong.
“Something happened,” I managed, my voice low and raspy. My cock, still desperately hard from fooling around with Lilah earlier, throbbed with arousal. Oliver’s nostrils flared, and I knew that he could smell it.
Immediately, both of them tensed, standing up and looking at me with concern. “Are you okay?” Oliver asked, all suspicion evaporating from his expression. He reached out and put his hands on my shoulders, pulling me a little closer as he looked me up and down, searching for any obvious signs of injury.
I saw the exact second that the remnants of Lilah’s scent hit him. His pupils blew in his eyes, and he bared his teeth as he pulled me even closer.
“What,” he growled, “Is that ?”
Before I could answer, he leaned in and pressed his nose against my neck, the exact place where Lilah had scent-marked me, though I was almost positive that she hadn’t known what she was doing. I tilted my head back so that he could scent me a little better, and Oliver let out a low growl that vibrated through my entire body.
“What is it?” Emmett’s voice was soft, and I felt him approaching from behind me. He leaned close, but not as close as Oliver, and took a deep breath.
The growl that ripped through the air from my packmate—who was usually silent and in the background more often than not—was enough to send a shiver of excitement down my spine. I swallowed hard before I took a tiny step to the side, neatly escaping the clutches of my pack.
“Keep an open mind,” I said huskily.
“Killian, what have you done?” Oliver asked, narrowing his eyes at me. His pupils were still blown wide, flickering gold and then blue and then back again, and he looked half a second away from tackling me to the ground and ripping my throat out.
Before I could answer, though, the distinctive sound of heels against the hardwood floor came from behind us, and all three of our heads snapped up, looking toward the source of the sound.
A smile tugged at my lips, and I nodded encouragingly as Lilah appeared in the doorway to the den, her hands twisting together in front of her as she looked from Oliver to Emmett and then to me.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly, her voice melodic even with the tremor of fear that made it tight. “I hope I’m not intruding. Killian...”
Oliver turned to face me, then lifted his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, letting out a heavy sigh. “Is it from her?” he asked, his voice pitched low enough that only Emmett and I could hear him.
I grinned even wider and nodded. “She’s our mate .”