28. Kelly
Chapter twenty-eight
Kelly
K elly Aged 27
Gael and Ezy walk out of the water and pause when they see me. I bristle, but their scents hit me hard enough that I almost stagger.
Agave syrup is Gael’s potent scent, drawing me in and twisting around me. I can smell a hint of jasmine in the air, but I think that’s just my memory playing tricks on me.
They would love her.
Ezy smells like red grapefruit, sweet and sensual. His mop of dark hair is sopping wet, but his eyes are inquisitive.
This is my pack, I would know them anywhere.
Tears fill my eyes, and my knees buckle, but they catch me, holding me up.
“Kelly Raines?” Gael says with a hint of an accent.
The last two years have been lonely devastation. I’ve never been alone the way I have since I left. I miss my parents. I miss Raider and Bethany. Ryn, Locke, and Lia.
I yearn for her, wondering where she is and if she’s happy with every spare moment I have.
For the first time in years, I let myself feel it all.
And my pack holds me, keeping me from breaking.
P resent Day
“The first time I saw my pack, I cried. I cried so hard and for so long. I left everyone I’d loved behind, and I’d been driven away from my entire world. Including leaving my omega at the whims of the universe. Ezy and Gael didn’t hesitate to hold me up, to protect me from the world. They are good alphas, despite what we’ve done, they are really good alphas.”
Shale just stares at me.
“I just want you to know that.”
“Why?” He finally uncoils that lean length of his. He’s not as big as me, not as many muscles. His smile isn’t as potent, and yet, this alpha has something more that I don’t have, and, to be honest, it draws me in like a breath of fresh air. I can feel myself relaxing around him, giving up some of the pressure that has been weighing me down all these years.
To Shale, I’m not Kelly Raines, heir to Alpha Labels, Kelly Raines, pack leader, Kelly Raines, surfing superstar. Or Kelly Raines, the destroyer of omegas.
No, to him, I’m nothing more than an alpha in his pack. I’m not stronger. I can’t challenge him. But he treats me like he values what opinions I might have.
Like I’m an equal, and that confuses me, considering what we did.
I move away from him, down onto the beach. The night sky is beautiful, and the skies reflect on the ocean, turning it into one huge galaxy.
Shale follows me and catches up, walking side-by-side.
“I’m telling you because I don’t want you to hate them.”
“I don’t hate them or you, Kelly.” Shale grips my arm, dragging me to a stop.
I can hear my mother’s words and my father’s accusations, and I feel the weight of my failures tonight pressing down on me.
That letter, that threat against our omega, is pressing at me. Demanding I answer it.
“Tell me about Typhor Raines.”
Shale’s question comes out of nowhere, blasting into me like a ghost of the past. I swallow hard and shove the memories back.
“What do you want to know?”
Typhor is the reason I’m making this confession, he’s the reason we’re here on the beach. Because I can’t tell him this stuff in the light.
I shake my head and have to resist the urge to shove him away from me, shove everyone away from me.
“Typhor is one of the most disgusting humans I’ve ever met in my life. He’s an alpha who uses manipulation and control to get what he wants. When my father was disowned, Typhor, who was married to my aunt, inherited the position of caretaker of Alpha Labels. My dad met his scent match and refused the arrangement my grandfather had made for him. Typhor is mean. He beats his wife and my cousin. I tried to have him arrested, but he’s got too many stings, too much leverage. He got out the next day, even though he almost killed my aunt.”
“You know him that well?”
“Oh, yes. There is a clause not many people know about where Grandfather made sure a Raines would be at the helm of Alpha Labels. Typhor can’t stay there without one. So, from the age of sixteen, he would shower me with gifts, take me places, show me off. It was intoxicating, that world. I came from a small town on a farm, and, suddenly, I was Kelly Raines, long lost Raines progeny. I was powerful, and Typhor was there steering the way.”
“And what happened?” There is no judgement in his tone.
“His image slipped. He relaxed enough to show me the cracks. Sleeping with underage girls. Cheating. Ruining careers, ripping off his friends and business partners. His gleeful joy and delight in destroying those around him was horrific. He didn’t care about anything but money and power, and he doesn’t even like the label. He was ruining it from the inside out.”
“So?”
“So, I was going to leave, my decision was made. The conversation was about to happen. And we walked into a café. I was done, I was going home, and I think he knew that when that happened, I would talk to my brother and dad, and it would end him. And there she was. My one weakness, my salvation, everything I’d longed for, laid out for my most fearsome foe to see. And worse, she was injured and so very young. Typhor attacked, and I had to try to divert him, but it didn’t work. He said he found them. He made me stay, and he used the fact I couldn’t find them to keep me on a hook.”
Shale’s hand slides down my forearm, and his fingers lace with mine.
“Eventually, our hostility was spilling over, the company was talking, the people were dividing into two camps, and he sat me down, showed me proof, and told me to leave. Right there and then. Don’t contact my family. Don’t come home. Just go. Or he would kill her. I have never been more scared in my life than staring down at the image of her walking with her mother, shopping, of all things. He could end her, and there was nothing I could do. I’m not strong enough.”
“Kelly,” Shale steps closer and pulls me up against him.
“I found her mum at the airport. So, I gave her most of my money, told her about Typhor’s plan to kill Aspyn, and I told her to pick a flight. Any flight. Don’t tell anyone, just get on one and vanish. I begged, and I pleaded. I told her to keep moving until this life is just a memory.”
“You let her go,” Shale murmurs and holds the back of my head. “Why didn’t you tell her?”
“She’s suffered enough. I don’t want to tell her that there’s a monster out there hunting her.”
He searches my face, hearing the threat. “Is he still searching for her?”
“Yes,” I whisper. “He wouldn’t give up. With my aunt divorcing him, he needs a Raines. He can’t touch the others. I’m the only one left, and to control me, you need Aspyn.”
Shale holds me until I pull away. I wipe at my eyes and shrug.
“He’s not a problem, though. He’s in the city. We have time.”
Shale stares at me.
“What?”
“I believe he’s been watching us. Or he’s sent people to follow us. Keagan beat the shit out of someone he caught yesterday. Nat has disappeared. She met someone, and every time I organise to meet up with them, he’s not available. She is physically okay and is happy, but, this guy, I have a bad feeling. And Nat is never like this. She’s not even answering Aspyn’s calls at the moment, and I can only distract our omega for so long.”
I pace away from him and then back, sorting through the information in my head.
“Why is he doing this?” I hiss. “No, I know why, he’s malicious and evil and is set on keeping hold of the power he’s stolen. I never want to go back. He won’t stop hunting her, not if there’s a chance I’ll find her and we might return. He will kill her or lock her up and make her wish she was dead.”
Shale watches me in silence.
“How would you handle it?” Keagan asks from the shadows.
I hadn’t even felt them approach. Beau, Gael, and Keagan all stare at me, their expressions grim.
“I would go and try to talk sense into him, but it’s a waste of time. I know that it won’t do anything. So, then, I’d just take what was his until he had nothing.”
“Well, as far as I can see it. We can sit here and wait for him to bring the fight to us or we can go and set his world on fire,” Keagan says.
“I vote fire.”
I’m more hesitant. They don’t understand what that world is like. But, in saying that, we do. Gael, Ezy, and I can navigate that world and keep us safe while they take him down.
I exhale. “We should tell Aspyn.”
“Yes, we should talk to her this time, especially if we’re going back. It’s her decision, too,” Gael murmurs. “The city is going to hold a lot of unpleasant memories for her. She might not want to go back.”
I sit down, staring out at the ocean.
Shale sits beside me, quietly observing me. “Okay, we’ll ask her. But we do need to deal with him and soon. Mael is going to get me information on who Nat is dating. As soon as we know who he is, we can deal with him.”
“Mael?”
“My cousin.”
The other alphas sit beside us. Just the five of us sitting on a beach alone until Ezy brings her out to join us. Shale pulls her down into his lap and rubs his chin on her shoulder.
She’s so comfortable with his touch that she doesn’t react.
“I’m going to forgive you,” Aspyn says.
I exhale roughly, hating my life. “Don’t just yet. Listen first. I need to tell you a story.”
“A spyn? My flower? Are you still with us?” Shale murmurs and nudges her. “Do I need to tickle you into a scream?”
Aspyn hisses her displeasure, and then, to my utter and complete surprise, she crawls into my lap. I pull her towards me, unable to resist the siren call of the intoxicating omega.
“You should try telling people instead of working as an island of one.”
I catch the reprimand and have to try to hide my smile. That scent of jasmine blooming in the night pulls me deeper under her spell. It’s for nights like this that I’ve been yearning. My pack and my omega. The ocean, the sand, the stars.
This is a dream I’ve had forever. Shale lays down beside me, and I look over at him, watching him watch me.
Something wants me to give up everything to this alpha. To trust him to take care of us.
It’s hard to let go. I’ve always had the responsibility of taking care of everyone, of always making the choices. Can I give that to someone else?
But I make the choice, and I let go. I give it up.
To him.
Because he’s already proved that he’s a far better alpha than I am.
He reaches out and pulls me back by the collar so I’m lying beside him, Aspyn cradled carefully in my arms.
Beau pulls Ezy and Gael up, and the three of them end up in the ocean, splashing around.
It’s the most peaceful moment of my life.
“I don’t want my life back there, but I think I have to go back and take it, anyway. It’s not fair to ask you to come with me. This is your home.”
“You’re our alpha,” Shale says simply. “You are pack. It's us against everyone else. That is the way the Daane roll, and if anyone is a threat to the Daane. Well, we simply eliminate them.”
Aspyn laughs softly. “You sound so dark and scary, Shale.”
“I am dark and scary!”
She laughs again.
He surges up, rolling her off me and onto her stomach, where he tickles her until she shrieks with laughter.
I turn on my side, watching them. Keagan comes and lies beside me, flinging an arm over my chest. I tense, expecting to feel some kind of discomfort, but it never comes.
They feel like pack. Their touches don’t make me ill at ease. I don’t want to twitch myself free. Keagan’s touch is as welcome as Shale’s and more so, the arousal I’ve been low key ignoring becomes impossible to ignore.
“You don’t have to worry anymore, Kelly,” Keagan whispers in my ear. “We’ll protect you. We’ll take care of everything.”
I close my eyes as he ghosts his lips over my shoulder, pausing to nip the skin just enough to make me hiss.
“Don’t you worry anymore, Alpha. We’ve got this. This is what we do.”
“Why don’t you hate us?”
“Hate you? Why would we hate you? You are Daane now. You are us. As soon as you stopped fighting, it was done.” He leans closer, whispering. “Welcome home, Alpha.”
Is it that simple? Shale rolls towards us, pushing Aspyn right up against me.
“You need to decide what you want to do, little omega. Are you going to the city?”
She hesitates. “Not yet. I think my heat’s coming again, and if we’re going back to the city. I think I want the rest of my bonds.”
Ezy, who was walking up, stumbles and falls over. “What? You want what?”
“I want my bonds,” Aspyn says. “We’re Daane now. I’m choosing to forgive you. Let’s start clean and even. So I want to do that with bonds.”
“You realise that’s forever, right? What if you get them and decide we’re horrible people and decide you don’t want them?” Gael almost shouts.
It’s such a random and almost hysterical comment that I can’t help but snort a laugh.
Aspyn sits up and, with difficulty, limps over to Ezy and takes his hand. She reaches out for Gael, who comes closer to her but tenses as if waiting to be hit.
“I’m not making this decision lightly, Ezy. I want you for my alpha. I want us to be one pack.”
“You hated us,” Gael whispers.
“Yes, I was upset and angry because I thought you were acting out of cruelty. Look, I’m choosing to look past it and consider your motives. Stop finding reasons- fuck it. I’m Daane.”
Aspyn leans forward and sinks her teeth into Ezy’s upper arm.
His shocked cry has me sitting upright, watching in awe as our omega forces her bond on her alpha.
She sits back. “Are we even?”
Ezy licks his lips and lunges at her. The moment their bodies touch, he turns gently, nuzzling down to the curve of her neck and sinking his teeth deep.
The flare of another connection between the seven of us sparks inside me.
Just two to go.
I can’t wait.