Omega Lost

2. Finding Her

Chapter two

Finding Her

I n the blink of an eye, I was replaced.

Amy moved into our house just a week after the chance meeting. That horrible night, we'd come home late and all the guys could talk about was her and how she made them feel. They didn't even notice when I crept off to bed, my heart aching. Now that they'd found their scentmatch, what would happen to me?

It wasn't until two days later that they finally sat down with me to talk.

"We still love you and want you as part of the pack," Jack assured me. "That hasn't changed. We're not kicking you out, Mel."

"But things have to change," I said slowly, swallowing down the panic. "She's your fated mate, I understand that."

Callum patted my shoulder. "We do need to make some adjustments and she'll be the number one omega of course, but you're still part of us."

"She'll need the big room to nest in and we don't want either of you to feel territorial, so we're thinking you could turn the office down here into your room?" Jack said. "You'll be away from the smells of another omega that way."

I nodded. "Okay." Honestly, I hated that I'd have to give up my room to her, but what else could I do? I didn't want to make waves and have them decide I wasn't worth keeping around. "What about when I have my heat?"

They eyed each other. "We'll have to talk to Amy about it, but I'm sure we can still help you through it," Lee said soothingly. "We'll have a family meeting when she moves in."

I was out of my room the next day, because, as Jack explained, it wouldn't do to have their new omega moving into a space where another omega's scent filled the room. I moved into the office and they aired out and scrubbed the nest with descenters until it was as neutral as possible.

My new room was barren and smelled of fresh paint since I'd barely had time to paint it before they hauled my stuff downstairs. The alpha scents that usually filled my space were faint and it made me anxious.

"Can I have some shirts?" I asked Callum and Dan when I was serving their breakfast on moving day. "It feels empty in my room without your scents."

"Of course, babe." Dan kissed my forehead. "I'll bring you a shirt later, we have to go pick up Amy."

While they were off picking her up, I cleaned the house and made sure it was spotless. I'd always been the perfect omega for my alphas and I was determined to keep that up. They couldn't dismiss me if I had everything in order.

I pulled fresh cookies out of the oven just as they all walked in the door, my four men surrounding the pretty omega with her brilliant smile.

Her smile fell when she saw me in the kitchen, but she pushed through the wall of men to shake my hand. Her nostrils flared slightly and I knew she was scenting me, just like I was her. She smelled the same as that night in the bar, citrus and spice. It wasn't unpleasant, but it didn't do anything for me, either.

"Hi, Melody, I'm Amy," she said, dropping my hand and wiping it on her jeans. "I guess this is kind of a mess, huh?"

"It doesn't have to be," I assured her. "We'll just have to figure things out as we go."

"Of course." She looked around the kitchen. "This place is really nice."

"Thanks, Jack made sure it had everything you could want for cooking." I smiled as I followed her gaze. It had been completely renovated before I moved in and I loved it. The men had bought me any cooking gadget I looked at twice.

"I'm not great at cooking, so it's good that you are," Amy said.

The men didn't give us much more time to chat. They swept her off on a tour of the house and showed her to her room, with Callum and Jack hauling her things up to fill the nest.

I stayed downstairs and worked on dinner, feeling left out and useless. The feeling got even worse when it came time for dinner and I carried in the biscuits to find Amy had taken my seat at the end of the table, opposite Jack. I set the biscuits on the table and slid into the chair next to Lee. It felt all wrong, but I also knew I couldn't make a scene about it. She was the main omega now, whether I liked it or not.

That night, I lay in my bed downstairs, listening to the groans and loud dirty talk as they all fucked her in the nest. My old nest.

Plugging my ears with my fingers, I finally let the tears fall. They soaked into my pillow as I tried to figure out what I was going to do now. There was no way I could spend all day in the house with Amy. I'd go insane. Already, her scent was triggering possessive and territorial feelings that I'd never before experienced as an omega. I could only imagine hers were the same.

Worse, though, was knowing that my men, my lovers, were pleasuring her right now. My own body released slick, eager for rutting, but no one came to me. I pressed my thighs together and closed my eyes, trying to come up with a plan.

The entire weekend, I only saw the others when they came out of the nest to eat or take Amy into the city for a night out. They offered to bring me, but I turned them down, seeing her narrowed eyes when they asked.

On Monday, I got up early and had breakfast ready early. Amy stayed in bed, probably exhausted from all the sex they'd had over the past couple of days.

"Dan, can I catch a ride in with you today?" I asked, a little shyly. I wasn't even sure how to act around my alphas anymore.

"Sure, do you need to get some shopping done?"

Normally, we did our shopping on Sunday, but they'd been busy, so I'd already ordered through the app. No one had even noticed when the delivery arrived and I put everything away on my own.

"I need to look for a job," I told him. "I can't be in Amy's space all the time."

"Oh, good thinking," Jack told me. "You can ride with us."

We left shortly after I shoved all the dishes into the dishwasher. I sat in the back of Jack's SUV while Dan rode shotgun. They still smelled like Amy, so I rolled down the window to try and air things out a bit.

"Where are you thinking of working?" Jack asked me.

"I'm going to see what's available. Maybe a restaurant or bar?"

"Sounds good," he responded and my heart sank.

Before Amy, none of them would have heard of me getting a job. I'd expected them to put up a fuss about it all, but they didn't seem to care at all. Another piece of my heart chipped off and I clenched my jaw hard to keep from crying. My scent soured, but again, they didn't seem to notice. In the blink of an eye, I'd gone from being their cherished omega to just another passenger in the car.

Jack dropped me off downtown and told me to call an Uber to get back home. I agreed, feeling numb as I stepped out of the vehicle and they sped off to work.

All morning, I walked to the various bars and restaurants in the area. Two had openings and I filled out the paperwork to apply. The rest turned me away with polite smiles. I noticed none of them had any omegas working. It was going to be harder than I'd hoped to find something that would get me out of the house.

Two of the bars had positions, but only at night. That was tempting, but I didn't like the idea of being alone coming and going to work in the wee hours of the morning.

I ate lunch in a little cafe tucked away by a park and skimmed through the help-wanted ads online once more. I wasn't qualified for anything of substance. I'd always planned to join Jack's pack and be cared for, like most omegas. There was no good reason to look into higher education when you were in my position. The only experience I had was housekeeping and cooking.

The cafe was a good place to just sit and relax in an atmosphere not full of pheromones. I stayed for the rest of the afternoon, drinking tea and ordering a piece of cake after a couple of hours.

Reluctantly, I headed home as it got late. Dinner still had to be cooked, though I was going to do something simple with pasta anyway.

When I walked through the door, I immediately felt the absence of bodies in the house. Frowning, I hurried into the kitchen, where I found a note in Amy's neat cursive. "Went to dinner, so you don't need to cook."

My own appetite vanished at that and I crumpled the note, throwing it into the trash. They were all out enjoying a fun dinner, just like I'd been promised only a week ago. That had turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life.

I took a hot shower and pulled on my coziest pajamas, fuzzy purple ones with giant eyes all over them. Curling up in bed, I pulled out my tablet and started writing. If nothing else, I still had that.