13. Vera
I stare at the bedroom door that Jorge just stormed out of, his pheromones filled with discomfort and something that seemed like fear. I don’t know what the problem is, but it doesn’t feel right. The way he reacted when Mathew confirmed that the weapons were ‘souvenirs’, I don’t really understand it.
“Mathew?” Caleb leans against the doorway as he looks us over. He looks disappointed somehow, which is making my insides even more queasy. He seems to be aware of something that I missed, and I don’t like it.
“Yes?” Mathew is still holding my wrist, his grip tight as his eyes shoot between Caleb and the bedroom door.
“Are they clean?” Caleb comes over, still looking disappointed but he’s sending out calming pheromones. I feel like a kid about to be scolded even though his attention is on Mathew and not on me.
“Yes. They can’t be traced.” Mathew’s voice is soft, his head down, his movements unsure.
“Good.” Caleb takes a deep breath and seems to relax. “Now, why are they just hanging there gathering dust? Couldn’t you find a better place to store them?”
Mathew lets out a surprised laugh and his grip on my wrist loosens. “I was sixteen when I came up with it. I was a fucking dumb teenager who thought this was ‘cool’ to do, it felt right out of a movie. I’d kind of forgotten they were even here.”
“If that’s the case, can you pack them up and store them somewhere in the training building? They’ll be a lot safer there. We don’t need even more weapons up here, especially ones we’re not going to use.”
Mathew huffs and then nods. “That’s probably the better option, yes.”
I quickly grab one of the knives. “If they’re going to be packed away anyway, I want to keep this one.” It’s slim and not too long and as I’m holding it, it fits my hand perfectly.
“Vera...” Caleb sighs, but his eyes are soft, not serious at all. “I’m pretty sure you’ve already claimed multiple of Mathew’s knives. You don’t need another one.”
“But this one is almost exactly the same as the one I lost when Derrick and the others took us. It’s the least he can do.” I flutter my lashes at Mathew, who grins before he gives me a kiss.
“Sure, you can keep that. Just make sure to clean it and maybe sharpen it before you put it to use.” He wraps his arm around me, nuzzling my side.
“Then I’ll take this.” Riley lifts one of the guns from the boards. “I’ve been trying to get my hands on one of these for years, but they don’t come on the market very often. The previous owner must have been pretty rich, if they could afford one.”
“Possibly.” Mathew laughs. “I honestly have very little memory of who each one belonged to. Not that most guns for hire are very keen to give you their name or the name of their employer before they try to off you.”
“Well then, maybe—” I reach out for one of the smaller guns, but Caleb steps in front of me, giving me a pointed look. “Fiiine.” I sigh dramatically. “I’ll just keep the knife.”
“Good.” Then he turns to Mathew. “Now, can you pack them up and store them somewhere safe in the training building? And can you then go talk to Jorge and see how upset he really is?”
Mathew’s face falls as he nods and starts to look for a box to transport the weapons in. I’m pretty sure neither of those things are really what he wants to be doing right now. Not that we were making much progress in the library either, but at least it’s not cleaning.
I go over to one of the drawers in the bedroom and pull out a knife maintenance kit. The knife looks fine but has clearly not been used in a long time and I’m curious to see what state it’s in. A quick glance tells me that the blade might be dull but there don’t seem to be any nicks in it, so I should be able to get it in good condition pretty easily.
As I carefully start to clean the blade, my mind keeps returning to the way Jorge looked when Mathew said that the weapons were from people who tried to kill him. How horrified he’d seemed.
They’re just some weapons. Even as a teen, Mathew was smart enough to make sure that they couldn’t be traced back to anyone and that they were clean before he stored them. There’s nothing dangerous about them.
It’s not like Mathew cut off their fingers to use as ornaments in snow globes or something. Or skinned them to turn them into human book covers. He didn’t do anything weird like that.
He just... Those people tried to kill him, he killed them instead. I can see why a teenager would think it’s cool to keep the weapons that were used in the attempt.
And it’s not like I’ve not taken weapons from our attackers before. It’s how I got my previous favourite knife, before I lost it in the struggle with one of Derrick’s men. It’s now probably a blob of metal in a burned-out skeleton of a house. That’s just how things are sometimes. It’s not like we can always be picky about what we use...
Caleb slides his arm around my waist and picks me up, putting me in his lap as he takes my place on the chair. “Are you okay?”
I nod. “I’m fine. I don’t think Jorge is having the best couple of days, though.” I glance at the walk-in dressing room where Mathew and Riley are chatting as they’re carefully boxing up the weapons.
Caleb lets out a soft laugh as he nuzzles my hair. “Yeah. I agree. I think his world just went through some significant changes and they might not all have been so good.” He pulls me against him more, kissing my neck. “Maybe you should go and see if you can cheer him up. I’m sure he’d love that.”
“He needs to talk to Mathew more, though.” I want to find Jorge, but I also know I’m not the one he needs right now.
“Two things can be done at the same time, and their chat might go over better if you’re there with them.”
“Why? Because they’ll just both get horny and forget everything else?” I eye Caleb, not sure what he’s up to.
“No, because they have a habit of fighting instead of talking things through and having you with them might actually allow them to have a proper conversation.”
Ah. Okay. That makes sense too. I put the knife on the table next to us and slide off his lap. “Will you be fine up here?”
He bursts out laughing as he pulls me in for a kiss. “I’ll be fine. Riley and I will keep clearing the rest of the room. You go hug your other Alpha.” He winks suggestively.
“Riiiiight. ‘Hugging’.” I shake my head, not able to suppress my smile. Then I look into the walk-in dressing room but Mathew and Riley are sitting next to the open box, deep in conversation about some type of gun mechanism, not something I’m interested in. I’ll leave them to their chat.
I make my way down the stairs, following Jorge’s pheromones out of the house, until I spot him sitting at the edge of the training grounds, looking up at the sky.
“Hey.” I plop down next to him in the grass. “Anything interesting up there?”
“Not much.” He chuckles and pulls me into his lap, wrapping his body and his pheromones around me. “Anything interesting happening inside?”
With how he reacted when he found out about the weapons, I probably shouldn’t brag about my new knife, so I go with something else instead. “Mathew and I found a few papers from people who researched Alpha frenzy and ways it can be interrupted without needing their Omega’s pheromones.”
“Anything good?”
“No.” I let out a long breath, not happy with that result myself either. “At least, not that we’ve found yet. Most of them didn’t have hopeful results... But we’ve only just started, I’m sure there’s more out there.”
“If his pheromones never stabilise, what the hell are we supposed to do?” Jorge’s voice is low as he leans his head on my shoulder. “You can’t always be there to protect us. You can’t be with him every second of every day, no matter how hard we try, it’s simply not possible.”
“I know. And we’ll figure it out. We’ll have to figure something out. Mathew can’t be the only person who deals with low pheromones, he can’t even be the only Omega who has to deal with them. So, there has to be something we can do.” I look up as Mathew walks in our direction, the box with weapons in his arms.
Instead of going to the training building, he comes over to us and sits down, the weapons in the box clanking together as he puts it next to him. He takes a deep breath as he looks at his hands. “I didn’t realise it would be a big deal to have the weapons. I’d basically forgotten they were there.”
“Why did you do it?” Jorge’s voice is low, his head still on my shoulder, not looking in Mathew’s direction.
“I was a dumb teenager who thought it was cool. I felt like some action hero every time I managed to outsmart one of them. Then I did it for a while to remember that no matter how hard they try, I’m still alive. And when I outgrew that, I kind of forgot about them until today.”
Jorge’s pheromones fill with pain and sadness and he reaches out, grabbing Mathew’s arm and he pulls him against us. “Sometimes I forget you were still a fucking kid when you took over the organisation. You might not have been living the life of a kid for years at that point, but you were still one.” He lets out a long breath. “Promise me one thing.”
“Yeah?” Mathew’s pheromones are unsure.
“Don’t fucking do it again.”
“Taking the weapons or storing them?”
“Squirrelling them away like they’re some serial killer’s trophies.” Jorge growls.
“I won’t. I promise.” Mathew laughs as he pushes against us more, wrapping his arms around us. “Can I take other things though? Maybe a piece of hair? Or a button?”
Jorge lets out an exasperated sound which makes Mathew and me laugh. “ No. You’re not a fucking serial killer. You don’t get to take trophies after you kill people.”
I turn around in their embrace so I can look at Jorge with my most innocent of smiles. “Isn’t getting paid after you kill someone not a little bit like a trophy? Like a ‘job well done’ trophy?”
He sighs, glaring at me. “No, it isn’t, and you know it too.” He leans his forehead against mine. “Can we stop talking about this? It makes me squeamish. There are thousands of things I’d much rather talk about than about that .”
“How about the colour of the wood for the floor in the office?” Mathew leans back on his arms, looking at us with a softness in his gaze. “If we’re going to redo the upstairs, it would be quicker if we redo the office at the same time.”
“ That’s what you were thinking about instead of reading the articles!” I poke his side and he flinches away from my fingers before grabbing my arm and pulling me on top of him as he laughs loudly, happy.
“No, when we were in the library, I was thinking how good you smell and wondering if I could somehow tempt you into a quick fuck under the library tables. I’ve always wondered what that would be like after seeing it in a few pornos, but since I never went to college, I never got to try it out.” He grins, his hands sliding down my back to grab my ass.
I shoot him a glare but can’t help my own smile.
Of course, when things get a little too serious, I can always count on my mates to turn things in a more fun direction.
Things have been quite stressful these last couple of days, but with my mates around, I know that we can make it.
We’ll just have to see how we make it, because things are definitely not going to be easy, not any time soon…