11. Oliver
11
Oliver
One Month Later
“I’m home!”
I kicked the front door closed behind me as I walked into the foyer of the house, shrugging off my suit jacket and hanging it on one of the hooks by the front door so I could unbutton my cuffs and roll my sleeves up. I tossed my car keys in the bowl that held all of our keys and a few other knickknacks and then started making my way down the hallway, listening for the rest of the pack.
The ground floor of the house was quiet, but that didn’t surprise me. Everything had changed in the week since Lilah had agreed to move into the house.
It had been almost a month since Lilah and the three of us had had the conversation where we had agreed to integrate her into the pack. Lilah had firmly stated afterward that she wouldn’t accept my bite quite yet. She wanted to go through the state and do things properly with her paperwork and registration to make sure none of us were found guilty of coercing her into the bite should there be an investigation.
I had been a little stunned at her foresight, and though it had pissed Killian off to know that she wasn’t going to be part of the pack right away, he had still agreed readily. Probably because he was still getting what he wanted—Lilah had agreed to move into the packhouse almost immediately. It had taken a few days for her to figure out a care situation with her mother, but apparently, when she had told Katrina about us and what we wanted from her, her mother had insisted that she accept our offer.
Even if she wasn’t formalized yet, adjusting to a new member of the pack in the household had been difficult for me in ways I hadn’t anticipated.
I felt Jack’s absence a little more heavily every single day, even as we all got to know Lilah a little better—and the more I got to know her, the more I couldn’t deny that her pull on my wolf was something I didn’t want to ignore.
She was funny and smart. She hadn’t gone to college because she had been too busy caring for her mother. When asked, though, she had admitted that she had dreamed of going into advertising or public relations before she’d accepted the reality of what her life was as long as her mother was sick.
Her ambition had been a delightful surprise, even if I hadn’t admitted as much to her. Most omegas wanted to be homemakers—to stay home, birth pups for the pack, and take care of the household until her alphas could come home and be with her. There was nothing wrong with that, of course, but having an omega who challenged us, who was more than willing to call us out when any of us treated her as if she were less than simply for her designation...it was refreshing and unexpected.
It made it hard for me to dislike her or distrust her. But despite that, I hadn’t given in to her fully—not yet.
The four of us hadn’t fallen into bed together again since that first night, though Lilah insisted that was mostly her choice. She and Killian had agreed that taking our knots would be the final act of trust between herself and the pack, and when Killian had informed me of that, I’d let out a sigh of relief.
Not because I wasn’t attracted to her or because I didn’t want to fuck her, but in the same way that she needed to be able to trust us, I needed to be able to trust her—and there was a tiny voice in the back of my mind telling me I couldn’t. Not yet.
Overhead, I heard gentle footsteps in the room at the end of the hallway, making my stomach twist. Killian and Lilah had decided that the bedroom closest to the packroom would be the one designated for her nest. She had immediately started working on it the next day, despite my silent misgivings.
For most packs, a packroom and a nest were one and the same, but Lilah had decided that she wanted them to be separate spaces. She wanted her nest to be the place where she could decompress and spend time alone if she wanted to. She’d explained when I asked that she needed it to be somewhere where she felt safe, where she could tell us to get out, and we wouldn’t take offense to it because it was her space and her space alone.
It was perfectly rational, of course, and if it had been any other omega, I would have been the first to suggest that she have a space of her own where she could invite us in or keep us out without any repercussions.
For Lilah, though...
I let out a low growl of frustration and ran one hand through my hair as I forced myself to come to a stop in front of the stairs. Even in my head, I couldn’t explain my mistrust towards Lilah, especially considering she was our scent-match. Over the weeks, it had become increasingly clear that she was biologically it for our pack and that Killian had been right that first night so many weeks ago.
And now it was the day that we had agreed to formalize the pack, the day that we had agreed that I would bite Lilah in. The day we would offer her our bond so we could move forward with our lives as a complete unit.
It was supposed to be a blissfully joyous occasion, and yet I couldn’t help feeling like the other shoe was getting ready to drop and that some sort of karmic debt was about to be repaid.
“Hey.” Emmett walked up to me, appearing in the doorway that led to the den, with his brow furrowed. He was wearing comfortable clothes, having taken the day off work to spend time with Lilah in the house while she finalized her preparations for the night. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong,” I replied automatically. “What makes you ask?”
Emmett looked at me strangely, shaking his head after a moment and pushing his hands into the pocket of his joggers. He didn’t say anything, and after a second, I let out a low sound of frustration and turned away from the stairs, walking resolutely into the kitchen. Emmett trailed after me.
The pile of mail in the kitchen provided a welcome distraction. ”Do you think she’s ready for tonight?” I asked absentmindedly, my stomach gnawing at me as I sorted through the mail—bills in one pile, mail for each of us in their own piles, trash in another.
“Are you ?” Emmett asked.
I looked up, my stomach swooping at the genuine concern that was written all over his face. I swallowed and lay off the mail, just for a second.
“It’s not that I don’t want her,” I whispered. The words stuck in my throat, though they were true—I did want her, no matter how ill-advised it felt, no matter how my mind and body were at odds, my wolf screaming for the omega who fit perfectly in our home while my mind continued to look for the catch.
There had to be a catch.
“I know that,” Emmett said softly. He reached out and gently touched the back of my hand, making my chest warm a little at the affection. Emmett had come out of his shell some since Lilah had moved into the house. He was speaking more and being more physically affectionate with all of us, along with our omega.
It was one of the things I loved to see, one of the many positive changes that had come about since Lilah had become a part of our lives.
“But if you’re still uncertain, we can take more time,” Emmett finished, his voice still gentle. “We all need to be on board, but especially you, Ollie.”
“I’m not uncertain,” I bit out, suddenly defensive. “I appreciate your concern, but...”
A thick envelope at the bottom of my stack of mail caught my attention, my words trailing off as I focused on it. It was different from the other pieces of mail we had received, not simply because the stationary felt like the fancy paper that wedding invitations were generally sent with. It was also different because there was no return address, no stamp, and no sign that the post office had ever handled it.
It was addressed to Lilah, and there were no other indications of who had sent it.
Alarm bells went off in my head, and I picked up the envelope, looking at Emmett. He was also looking at the envelope, his brow furrowed. I read the question in his eyes, and I shook my head.
“I don’t know who it’s from,” I said. “Or how they got our address, whoever sent it.”
My stomach churned uneasily, and I glanced up at the ceiling, where I could still hear the light footsteps of Lilah darting around her nest and getting everything ready for tonight. Killian wouldn’t be home for another hour or so, but we had agreed that the bonding ceremony would commence as soon as he was.
I looked back down at the envelope, and one glance at Emmett—who still looked uncertain and even a little scared—made my decision for me. Lilah could be upset about me opening her mail for her once I saw that there was nothing to be worried about.
The envelope flap gave easily, and I pulled out the piece of paper inside. I took a deep breath before unfolding it and reading the jagged, harsh script written on the paper.
I only made it two sentences before the blood drained out of my face, and the paper fluttered out of my hands as my vision suddenly tunneled. I was barely aware of Emmett calling my name over and over again, but I couldn’t hear him. I couldn’t breathe .
At the bottom of the letter, whatever else it said, was a damning symbol.
One I had seen before.
One that haunted my nightmares.
“What is...” Emmett picked up the paper, and I saw the moment he realized what was written in the letter, too. His entire body stiffened, and the paper crumpled in his grip as his fingers tightened on it.
“What the fuck is this?” Emmett asked, his voice low and violent. I could hear his wolf growling, begging for him to let it out, and when I glanced up, his fangs were extending down over his lip. His eyes were glowing gold, and my wolf responded in kind.
I snarled and snatched the paper back from him, scanning over the rest of the letter with violence boiling in my veins. The symbol at the bottom mocked me, and when I closed my eyes, the memory of that symbol—bloody and carved into Jack’s skin, waxy with death—burned behind my closed eyelids.
“The Slicer,” I managed, my voice tight and aggressive. “How the fuck does he have our address?”
I spit out the name of the serial killer who had killed our fourth packmate with as much venom as I could muster, and Emmett shook his head when I looked at him, anger turning to discomfort as my question registered.
“I don’t know,” he said hoarsely.
I swallowed, fear tingling along the edge of my consciousness to join the righteous anger, and I forced myself to finish reading the letter. As I continued, anger started boiling in my veins again, and by the time I’d finished, my hands shook with it.
And along with the anger, I could feel devastation looming at her fucking betrayal .
I knew it. I fucking knew it!
“We need to go upstairs and talk to Lilah. Right the fuck now .”