Omega Lost

13. The Gifts

Chapter thirteen

The Gifts

" C an I come in?" Angel tapped on my open door and peeked in at me.

"Yes," I said. Of course he could, I was only an omega. The entire house belonged to him, as leader of the pack.

"I got you a laptop," he told me, stepping into the room and instantly filling it with his dark chocolate scent.

I closed my eyes and inhaled the delicious aroma of the alpha, but then remembered where I was. My eyes snapped open and I saw his lips quirk slightly as he sat down at the end of the bed.

"Here." He handed me a box and I flipped it open to see a top-of-the-line computer nestled in the packaging.

"Angel, this is way too much. I can just use a tablet."

"You said you like to write, but I figured you might find something else you enjoy, like gaming or something. It makes sense for you to have the best laptop possible."

"Thank you." I looked up into his dark eyes that held nothing but kindness right now. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

"Why do you want to give me things so much? My old pack gave me the basics, but they didn't really care about getting me gifts or insisting on buying me clothes and stuff."

"I don't like my pack to want for anything. We all have our own money, but ask any of them and they'll tell you that I make sure we're all taken care of. It's my job as top alpha," he explained. "You don't have your own money and you're part of the pack, so of course I'm going to take care of you."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome, omega." He stood and then bent and kissed the top of my head. "Get to your writing."

It was freeing to have the laptop. I immediately pulled up my documents which I'd always kept on the cloud and started reading back over everything. At one point, I'd had the stupid idea of writing an advice book for omegas. Now, after my experiences, I knew that wasn't something I was exactly ready to give out.

My life had been pretty decent up until my pack dumped me. It hadn't been anything fancy, but I'd had my men and lovers and we'd done well with each other. Now I was in a pack that was almost double the size and they wanted to shower me with clothes and gifts.

I stayed up half the night, going back over everything I'd written. It was pointless. What I could write about was what happens when you're rejected by your pack. The idea grew in my mind and finally, I opened a new document and started to write.

Two days later, Zeke came huffing up the stairs with a big box and burst into my room, startling me. When I just stared at him with wide eyes, shaking a little, he ignored me and set the box on the bed.

I watched as he pulled a bunch of things out of the box and set about building me a desk.

"You using that half of your walk-in closet?" he asked me, pointing at the "he" side of the master closet.

"No, why?"

"I'm converting it into an office."

He set the desk up under the window by my bed and then proceeded to take an axe to the wall inside the closet.

Leaving my computer on the desk, I wandered over to see what he was doing. The man had pulled off his shirt and was heaving the ax at the wall like it was his worst enemy. Muscles rippled under his sweaty skin that was absolutely covered in ink. He was beautiful, his muscled body working like a well-oiled machine.

After a few minutes, he had a hole to the outside and set about using an electrical saw to neaten up the edges. After measuring and adjusting a few times, he put his tools down and turned. He started at seeing me standing in the entrance to the space.

"Shit, I didn't realize you were there."

"What are you doing?"

"Putting in a window. You can't work with no natural light, you'll turn into a bat."

I snorted but trailed after him as he headed downstairs and out to the garage. There, he pulled a window out of the back of the SUV.

"Since you're following me around, you can carry this stuff up." He handed me a bucket and a nail gun. They were both pretty heavy, but he grabbed another box, tucked it under his other arm, and headed back upstairs without waiting to see if I followed.

To my surprise, I was strong enough to carry everything up to my room. Setting the things down next to the box he'd brought up, I leaned against the wall to watch.

"Come here," Zeke said. "I need you to hold the window in place."

He showed me what he needed and then used the nail gun to secure everything.

Once that was done, he opened the box and pulled out a bunch of wooden trim to put around the window. "It's already cut to size," he told me. "Help me figure out which bit goes where."

It wasn't hard to tell which parts of the trim belonged on each side of the window. I checked them against the window's sides and then held the trim in place while he nailed them efficiently into place.

From the box, he brought out a light fixture, a star shape made from colored glass. I gasped when I saw it. The beautiful rippled glass in blue, red, purple, and yellow was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen.

"Like it?" he asked gruffly.

"I love it. Is it for in here?"

"Yup."

I steadied the stepladder as he took down the other fixture and passed it to me, then I held up the new light for him to take and screw into place.

"Hit the light and see if it works."

As soon as I flipped the switch, the light turned on, flooding the small space with light, the colors dancing over the pale gray walls. Beaming, I spun around, catching all the colors splayed around the room.

"It's beautiful!" I told him.

Zeke gave me a small smile. "I'm going outside to add the outer trim."

I went with him and helped as much as I could, passing things up so he didn't have to come all the way down the ladder, and standing on the bottom rung so it wouldn't tip. Not that it did a lot of good. I was much smaller and lighter than the huge alpha above me.

It was twilight by the time everything was finished. Zeke came back up to the room to move the desk under the new window and Ali brought up a computer chair in purple.

"Everything else is up to you," Zeke told me when I thanked him for the room. "We'll help if you need to assemble something, but this is your space to fill however you want."

"It's perfect," I said. "I've never had a space of my own before."

"Well, make it more your own," he ordered, before gathering up his things and marching out of the room.

I stared after him, wondering how the broodiest alpha of all had given me something I hadn't even realized I needed. It was like he'd looked into my soul and decided I had to have what was truly needed.

That night after dinner, I sat at my new desk and worked away on the computer, the colorful light swaying slightly overhead and sending the colors dancing around me. It was beautiful, but when I went to shut off my computer, I realized how bare the desk looked. Maybe I would do what Angel had insisted on and buy a few little things to make it more homey in here. He'd promised I could take what I wanted with me when I left, after all.

Once the men left for work in the morning, I made myself a sugary coffee drink and carried it upstairs to my office. My heart was beating like crazy as I sat down and opened the computer to buy some things.

Angel had given me a card taken out specifically for me. "Don't worry about the limit, there's enough on there to buy pretty much anything you want," he'd told me.

I wasn't going to buy anything outrageous, but just for fun, I filled my Amazon cart with all sorts of fun goodies and then went back and deleted the things I didn't really need to buy. In the end, I purchased a small lamp for the desk, a purple T-rex with a light sprouting out of its head, and a set of funky curtains with sunflowers to hang in the window.

Later, I went downstairs to help Miriam with dinner, feeling calmer than I had since I'd left my old pack. We chatted about the weather as we worked on the lasagna and made a Caesar salad. She had to head home early, so I finished everything up and popped some garlic bread in the oven, along with a couple of apple pies. Micah had mentioned that he liked pie the other day during a movie marathon, so it seemed a fitting dessert.

"Smells delicious in here, Miriam!" Max called out as he came through the door. He hung up his jacket and came into the kitchen. "Oh, you cooked?"

"Well, Miriam was here for the lasagna and salad," I told him.

"I'm going to grab a quick shower before the others get home," he said, leaning over my shoulder and nabbing a bit of cucumber. He popped it in his mouth and grinned at me. "If they're not back when I'm out, I say we eat without them."

I chuckled. "I'm sure that would go over well." Angel was big on family meals, particularly dinner. I had no doubt Max would be in trouble if he ate without them.

Angel was the next home, with Micah, Ali, and Tiago right behind him. He popped into the kitchen to give me a wave. "You cooking tonight?"

"Some of it," I told him. "Max is having a shower, we'll eat as soon as you're all ready."

"Sounds good."

I heard their feet trekking up the stairs and found myself smiling. It was starting to feel natural to be here. I was still skittish and anxious, but hearing the house full of deep voices and smelling them all around me wasn't scary now. It made it feel more like home.

Zeke came in just as the others were pounding down the stairs. He came into the kitchen to wash his hands and grabbed the lasagna for me. "I'll take this out."

I took out the salad and set it on the table next to the garlic bread and lemonade I'd made, then took my seat, glancing around the table to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything.

"What did you get up to today, Mel?" Ali asked.

"I wrote and did some shopping, and helped Miriam with dinner," I told him.

"Shopping?"

"Good," Angel rumbled.

"This food is exactly what I needed after today," Tiago groaned. He bit into a piece of garlic bread, his eyes closing and his head tilting back, showing off his neck tat.

"Do you all have tattoos?" I asked curiously.

"Yes," Zeke said.

I rolled my eyes. "I know you do, you took off your shirt in my office, remember?"

"He stripped for you?" Ali said with a fake gasp. "And here I thought he was being such a prude over you."

"Shut up, asshole," Zeke growled.

"Back to the question," I said loudly, to prevent a fight.

"Yeah, we all have ink, some of us more than others," Max said.

I was curious about their tattoos, but it probably was rude to ask. I poked at my lasagna, my mind racing to figure out what types of tats they all had.

"What about you?" Tiago asked, his eyes trained on me. "Any ink we can't see?"

"Ah, no. Omegas aren't supposed to get tattooed. You know, in case we go to another pack. They might not like her having marks."

Tiago frowned. "We don't care. We wouldn't mind if you had tattoos."

"You should get one," Ali declared. "A cute butterfly or something on your shoulder."

"That's her decision," Angel said. "Stop trying to convince her to do things, Ali."

"It was just a suggestion," he said.

"Actually, I think I would like one." I flexed my fingers. "If you guys don't want me, I'd go to the heat dens anyway and they don't care as long as you have a vagina."

Everyone fell silent.

I bit my lip. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry, little one," Angel said. "If you want a tattoo, you get a tattoo. Think about what you want and one of us will take you to get it."

They went back to eating while my mind raced with what I should put on my skin. It might be my only chance to do this and I wanted it to count.