Omega Lost

10. The Morning After

Chapter ten

The Morning After

I didn't sleep the rest of the night, too afraid of falling back into a nightmare. Instead, I sat there on the soft mattress and wished I didn't have to leave. This might not be the perfect place, but it was better than the heat dens. Now I'd be forced to serve in the heat dens for the rest of my life. Twice rejected omegas were very unlikely to find a pack.

When the sun finally rose, I dressed in my uniform again, then brushed my hair back into a ponytail and braced myself for the morning.

Downstairs, I found Miriam in the kitchen already, making pancakes. Stopping in the doorway, I watched her for a moment.

"Good morning, would you like some coffee?" she asked, when she finally spotted me.

"Sure." I hadn't had a decent coffee in a while and the fancy ass machine on their counter could only mean amazing brews.

"Cappuchino, espresso?" she asked.

"Oh, um, just a normal coffee. Here, I can flip the pancakes while you do that. I don't know how to use the machine."

"Nonsense, I'll teach you." She turned off the burner and ushered me toward the gleaming espresso machine.

"It's okay. I'm leaving today, so it doesn't matter, but I would love a nice cup of coffee. They give us dishwater in the center," I chuckled.

Miriam frowned. "Leaving? No one said anything about that. Are you unhappy here?"

I leaned on the counter as she started to work on my coffee. "No, it's fine. But I think they were expecting someone with less . . . experience."

The only sound for a few minutes was the clinking and whirring of the coffee maker. Miriam handed me my coffee and went back to flipping pancakes.

"I don't think they'll want you gone," she said to me. "They only just got approved for an omega and I doubt they'd return you so quickly. I've seen how they look at you."

"They think we're scentmatched," I explained.

"Are you?" She raised an eyebrow. "Pardon me if I'm overstepping, but isn't that something both sides know?"

"I have no interest in being scentmatched. I just need to find somewhere halfway decent to stay that will keep me out of the heat dens."

She nodded. "I've heard those are awful places."

Before we could talk any further, the guys came downstairs. Ali led the way, bouncing up to Miriam and snagging a pancake from the stack she was carrying to the table. Max and Micah headed for the coffee machine while Angel and Tiago went straight to the table.

Zeke was the last down the stairs, sauntering into the room with a whiff of caramel that made my knees weak. He was too busy looking at his phone to notice anything though. He made his way to the table and sat down without ever lifting his eyes from the phone screen.

"Come on, Melody, let's eat!" Ali said. I grabbed the three bottles of syrup that Miriam had put on the counter and moved to sit beside Ali.

"How do you take your coffee, Mel?" Micah asked.

"I already have some," I told him, lifting my mug.

He nodded and a moment later, he came to the table and set coffees in front of Angel and Tiago. Max followed with the remaining coffees and I smirked when I realized that Ali had a cappuccino. The others seemed to be drinking plain black coffee, with Angel downing a double espresso before he reached for the pancakes.

"Help yourself," he told me. "There's plenty to go around."

I took a pancake from the stack, wondering when they planned to tell me this arrangement was over. No one said anything about it as we ate our pancakes.

Instead, they talked about a potential new shipping deal and dwho needed to be at the meeting.

"I want at least two of us home with Melody," Angel said. "And we only need two or three to meet with United Solutions."

"I'll do it," Zeke said, finally looking up from his phone. "I already have an in with them."

"Great, I'll go with you. Max, you can come with us."

Max nodded, his mouth too full of pancakes and blueberry sauce to reply.

"Ali, you need to meet with Johnson today, then you can come back home."

"Got it." Ali gave me a grin. "I'll be back before you know it."

Finally, it was too much. I pushed my plate aside, the pancake half-eaten and folded my arms. "When did you want me to go? I can take a taxi, or a bus."

Angel looked confused. "Go where?"

"Back to the center." I kept my eyes on the tablecloth and waited for his response. When there was none, I looked up to find all the men exchanging looks.

"Did you want to go back?" Angel asked carefully.

"It's fine. I understand." I kept the wobble out of my voice, but my eyes were damp.

"Understand what, carino?" Tiago asked, leaning across the table to peer into my eyes. "I think we're all a little confused about why you think you're going back to the center."

"Well, after last night . . ." I trailed off.

"You think we don't want you here because of a nightmare?" he clarified with a frown. "Or are you upset with how we handled things?"

"We're new to having an omega," Ali put in. "So if we fuck something up, you have to let us know."

"I thought, since I've been in the heat dens . . . you were upset about how many alphas I've been with. Obviously, you want an omega who hasn't spent much time in the dens."

"Wait," Angel held up a hand. "You think we don't want you because you were forced to go through your heats in the heat den?"

I nodded, not looking up.

"Whoa, no!" Ali protested.

"Melody, look at me," Angel barked.

Forced to obey, my eyes snapped to his black ones.

"We want you here. The reason we were upset last night is because we're angry at the center for sending you to the heat dens. It doesn't reflect on you at all."

"You could fuck a thousand alphas and we'd still want you," Ali grinned.

"Really?" I finally raised my eyes. "You aren't going to hold my experience against me?"

"Absolutely not," Angel declared. The other guys murmured their agreement, even Zeke.

I felt my entire body relax. "Okay, thank you."

"Anything else we need to clear up before we leave for the day?" Angel asked.

Shaking my head, I gave him a small smile. "We're good, thank you."

"Okay. If you ever feel like this again, just grab someone and ask them if they care about whatever it is you're stressing about."

"I will."

I helped Miriam clean up as the guys got ready for work. She protested at first, but I insisted that I needed something to do. It was true, there was just too much spinning through my head and I wanted to be useful.

Everyone said goodbye and took off, leaving me with Micah and Tiago. They came into the kitchen, dressed in jeans and matching black t-shirts, looking every bit like male models.

"Angel has ordered us to take you shopping today. Get dressed and we'll head out."

"This is all I have to wear," I told them, embarrassed.

"Well, shit." Micah shook his head. "We should have realized. "Come on then, let's grab something for you to wear first."

I followed them out to the garage where Tiago jumped in the driver's seat of the black SUV. Micah opened the back door for me and waited until I was inside before climbing into the passenger seat. In the enclosed space, Tiago's hazelnut scent and Micah's coffee aroma filled my nostrils. They smelled intoxicatingly good alone, but together, it was a match made in heaven.

"So, Melody, what's your style? Boutique shops or malls?" Micah asked, running a hand through his curls.

"Malls," I told him.

"We can hit the one over on East Side," he said to Tiago, who nodded.

"I don't need much," I told them. "Just a couple changes of clothes."

"We'll see," Tiago said, his dark eyes catching mine in the rearview mirror.

It didn't take long to reach the mall and we walked in, with the men flanking me. Micah asked where I wanted to get clothes and I picked the closest option, Old Navy.

Once inside the store, I quickly found a couple of jeans on the clearance rack. They were one size too big, but they'd do. There were some shirts on sale, so I grabbed a couple of them.

"I need underwear, too," I told the guys, my cheeks heating.

"There's a Victoria's Secret on the other side of the mall," Tiago said easily.

"Oh, I can just grab something in Walmart," I assured him.

We went to the counter and Tiago pulled out a black card to pay while Micah grabbed the bag. I was walking toward the Walmart sign when Tiago suddenly grabbed my upper arm and pulled me into the food court. He pushed me into a seat and then sat down across from me.

Micah plopped his butt next to me and twisted his chair to face me too. It felt like I was about to be interrogated.

"Melody, did your last pack buy you clothes?" Tiago asked firmly.

"Yes, of course." I was confused. Where was he going with this?

"Did they insist you buy your underwear in Walmart?"

"Well, not insist, but that's usually where we ended up. Or I ordered off Amazon."

Tiago tapped his chin with long, slender fingers. "Do we look like a cheap-ass pack to you?"

I hunched my shoulders, picking up on his irritation. "No."

"Dude, you're freaking her out," Micah warned. He leaned closer, his body heat making me feel safer, even as I resisted pulling away.

Tiago growled. "Sorry, but this is a point that needs to get across. You're ours, Melody. And we have the money to spoil you rotten, which is exactly what we intend to do. So, we are going to go to some nice stores and you are going to choose at least seven outfits from each one, understood?"

I nodded, an unfamiliar warmth blooming in my chest. "Yes, Alpha."

His full lips twitched at that. "Good girl. Now let's go get you some real clothes."

They took me to several stores I'd never been to and when I protested the seven outfits rule, Tiago told me it was one outfit per day of the week. I didn't want to upset him, though I worried about what this would really cost me in the long run.

After two hours of shopping, I was tired, but Micah bought me a milkshake and we climbed back into the SUV.

"Your room is bare bones right now because we wanted you to be able to decorate it the way you want," he explained as Tiago wove through traffic. "What color do you want to paint it?"

"I don't know. We can leave it the way it is," I said.

He twisted in his seat. "What's your favorite color?"

"Purple."

Micah fiddled around on his phone for a minute and then passed it back to me. "Which of these would look good on the walls?"

He'd pulled up paint cards with several shades of purple and while they were all beautiful, there was one rich purple that leaned toward the blue side of things that I particularly liked. "Purple Magic."

"Great. That wasn't that difficult, was it?" He flashed me a grin and turned back to the front.

My feet hurt from walking around the mall and while the milkshake perked me up a bit with the sugar, I was tired of shopping. Hopefully, we weren't going to another mall. I leaned my head back on the seat and stared out the window as we zipped through the city.