Chapter Seventeen #2
“This negativity toward your sister’s pack. Have you been watching the wrong news?”
The abrupt change in topic had a small headache forming. I stared at the oven in front of me, at the large pot of soup, the cornbread with foil over the top keeping it warm, and the tray of corn. “What?”
“The wrong news. You know you can’t trust what all those outlets are saying, especially the ones trying to push their own agendas. All they’re doing is spreading lies about Adam, trying to discredit him because he’s putting an end to their corruption.”
I didn’t have any other word in my vocabulary. What was a dictionary? A thesaurus? I didn’t know. All I knew was the word, “What?”
“Honestly, Eve. I’m starting to worry about you. I know getting let go from the OC was a hit to your pride, but I didn’t think you’d be one of those betas who stopped caring about omegas once you didn’t interact with them anymore. Your sisters are omegas. Don’t you care what happens to them?”
“Of course I do.” The dark feeling was back in my chest again, staining my insides with its unknown emotion. “I just can’t believe you believe Representative Adam. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Mom Elizabet made a noise that sounded equally annoyed and pitiful. “So you are listening to those lies about him. I’ll send you the list I saw about which proper news channels to watch. The ones that aren’t telling lies.”
“Mom. Adam literally wants to kick betas out of packs. Wants to stop them from joining future ones.”
“That’s just bullshit.”
My jaw dropped. How was that bullshit? I’d literally heard him say it. Maybe he was more eloquent, but the point was the same.
“Adam is just trying to protect omegas. It’s not wrong to have systems in place to ensure betas aren’t abusing their packmates.
You can’t deny that betas lack the biological urge to keep their mates safe.
Not the same way alphas and omegas do. That’s all he’s saying.
That there needs to be a way to protect omegas. ”
My heart was pounding so hard in my chest that it was actually painful.
I couldn’t wrangle all my thoughts properly, or coherently, enough to argue with her.
I knew she was wrong. I just didn’t know how to explain it to her.
“Mom, I literally worked for the OC for over a decade. Don’t you think I’d know more about omega care and packs than an alpha who doesn’t even have a mate? ”
She was silent for a moment. I foolishly thought that meant she was thinking over my words, considering agreeing with me.
At least until she said, “I know you did good work at the OC, Eve. But you can’t truly understand the biological urge between alphas and omegas.
The possessiveness and protectiveness and everything else that goes with being in a pack. ”
“I am in a pack,” I snapped.
Mom Elizabet gasped. “Are you really? Why didn’t you tell us?” She started calling my other moms, her loud yells echoing through the phone. “Eve just told me the most brilliant news! She’s in a pack.”
There were a bunch of congratulations and demands for the phone to be handed over, everyone talking over each other to talk to me.
The dark feeling started to disappear. My family was happy for me, excited for me.
I didn’t often get a lot of support or congratulations from them, but if I was honest, I didn’t really ever do anything to deserve it.
I just sort of existed and sometimes I existed near them.
“All right, all right, I’ll put her on speaker,” Mom Elizabet said. “Eve, are you still there?”
“I want the name of your pack,” my dad said.
“Oh, we can invite them over for dinner,” Momma Abigail said. “Get to know them in person.”
My stomach dropped. I didn’t want my family to meet my pack. I wasn’t ashamed, at least not of my pack. I didn’t trust what my family would say to Atlas, or even Oaks and Everett.
“Wait, wait, hold on.” Mama Mary took the phone, her voice much closer as she asked, “I thought you left the OC. How did you find a pack?”
“The, uh, pack that I started working for claimed me.” Would they find that weird? That I was essentially mated to my employers? I wasn’t sure. I was starting to wonder if I even truly knew their opinions.
“Oh, Eve.” That was Mom Elizabet. “I knew you were going to grow up to be such a good beta. Can you believe it? So good at her job that the pack claimed her. That’s quite an honor.”
The front door opened, pulling my attention away from responding as I took a step back so I could peer down the foyer to Oaks.
Whatever he was about to say was lost when he noticed I was on the phone.
That didn’t stop him from coming into the kitchen and wrapping his arms around me, his lips coming to my free ear to whisper, “This smells amazing.”
“You can serve yourself now. I’m just talking to my family pack.”
He tensed behind me.
My attention was pulled back to the phone conversation as Mama Mary said, “I wish more betas were like you, Eve. Have you heard of the abuse that’s going down in the OC, now? I bet they’re regretting letting a good one like you go. Do you think you can get your job back?”
“She doesn’t need her job back,” Deborah-Ma said. “She’s got a pack now to care for.”
“I just assumed the pack had an omega to take care of the home. Is your pack going to be applying to the OC soon?”
Oaks moved away so he was leaning on the counter. I was pretty sure he heard my family talking through the phone. I waved my hands, silently motioning for him to start his lunch, but he simply crossed his arms and continued to stare at me.
He was extraordinarily good looking. Despite living at Pink Lady Ranch, Oaks looked like a city man. Was it possible that all his computer typing made his forearms extra sexy?
“Now isn’t a good time,” dad said, answering Mama Mary’s question. “Look at what’s happening at the OC.”
“Even more reason for a good pack to get an omega out of there,” Mama Ruth said, speaking up for the first time.
I had no idea why the whole family was home. Shouldn’t they be working? I knew they were close to the age of retiring, but I’d assumed they’d want me to throw some sort of retirement party when it became official.
“I’m surprised any packs are bonding with betas right now,” Mom Elizabet said.
That comment had Oaks standing taller, his gaze narrowing on the phone in my hands.
“I thought you were all about omegas picking their packs?” I asked. “You can’t say you think an omega has the right to choose and then be shocked when an omega chooses a beta.”
“I do support omega’s choice,” Mom Elizabet argued.
“I just don’t understand why any omega would choose a beta.
You know I love you, Eve, but you don’t understand an omega’s heat.
Mine were so bad, I needed all of my pack to help me through it.
An omega choosing a beta in place of an alpha is dangerous for their health.
Heats aren’t tended as quickly which means they last longer and that increases an omega’s health risk. You know all this.”
“That’s not true,” I tried to tell them. “And even if it was, it’s an omega’s choice who they spend their heat with. If they spend it with any alphas at all.”
“But if more omegas knew the dangers—”
“There’s no studies that show conclusive dangers.” I started to pace, needing the movement to help me focus.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” dad said. “Adam has been funding several studies and one of them is on the negative effects of betas in packs.”
My jaw dropped. “And don’t you think that an alpha who is going around talking about how betas shouldn’t be in packs, who suddenly found scientific proof of that, might be biased.”
“No. No one was doing any proper research before Adam. He’s just explaining the data.”
I made a sound that was barely human. “He’s not a scientist! He’s a fucking representative, who’s an asshole, by the way, and a designation elitist.”
“Eve Tellus,” Deborah-Ma snapped. “You will watch your words this moment and remember who you’re speaking to.”
“Do you remember who you’re speaking to? A beta. A beta who’s spent half of her life working at the OC. Don’t you think I’d know a little bit of what I’m talking about? More than a career politician who’s literally throwing money at scientists to get whatever answer he wants?”
“No. Because you are a beta. You just can’t understand.”
Oaks growled, the sound dark and menacing.
“Adam is an alpha. Protecting and caring for omegas is literally in his designation.”
I scoffed. “Yeah, well, so is cruelty. The man is a blatant liar.”
“Eve—”
“You know what? I got to go.” I hung up the phone, frustrated that I didn’t have something to break in a dramatic display of how angry I was. For half a moment, I considered just throwing my phone, but that would be useless, wasteful, and only punishing me.
Not that I wanted to punish my family pack. Or that I could. I honestly doubted that they even cared that I’d hung up.
A hand in my hair had my head snapping back, my gaze flicking to Oaks’s face hovering above mine, demanding my attention. His honey cracker scent was tainted with the addition of his rage.
“I don’t want any of that bullshit clouding your thoughts,” he basically growled.
“I don’t care if they’re your family pack, everything they just spit out was bullshit.
Worse, it wasn’t even true. Atlas’s omega instincts were obsessed with you, with fucking you so full that I’m half surprised you’re not pregnant already. ”
Just the mention of Atlas’s heat had my stomach tightening in excitement. The heavy emotions of my phone call slowly falling off my shoulders like a too-heavy weight. It hurt, scraped my skin on the fall, but then it was gone, and I felt lighter.
“You know what they said was all wrong, right?”
I nodded or tried to. Oaks’s hand was still in my hair, his fist on my ponytail keeping me from moving my head properly.
“Why did they even call?”
“I called my mom. I wanted to get some answers about my sister’s event.”
His gaze flicked between my eyes like he was searching for something on my face. “You still want to do that?”
“I told them I would.” Not exactly a glowing review, but it was all I had.
I always did the parties for my family. If I didn’t do them.
.. I guess they’d just hire someone. I wasn’t sure if I’d even get an invite if I didn’t already know all the information.
I wasn’t sure what that said about me. No, I knew what it said, it was just too heart breaking to actually admit.
“All right.”
It didn’t sound all right. “I figured it would be a good chance to have you all meet my family.”
The party wasn’t for another few months.
I’d figured by the time the new year was around the corner, I would be officially claimed by all three of my packmates.
I didn’t know why Everett was waiting. Not that I’d asked him.
I’d properly convinced myself that asking why someone hasn’t claimed you was inappropriate.
After all, Everett didn’t have to claim me.
It wouldn’t make me any more a part of pack Wilder than I already was.
So why couldn’t I let it go?
Everett claimed he was going to bond me one day. I was just being impatient. Of course, one day could be tomorrow. Or next week. Or in a few years from now. If he was willing to bond me, I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t just do it now?
“What is going on in that pretty little head of yours, darlin?” Oaks asked. “Your emotions are all over the place.”
I hesitated for only a moment before admitting, “Why do you think Everett hasn’t claimed me yet?”
Oaks eyes went wide, his lips parting on a silent gasp before pulling into a wide smile. “You’d have to ask him.”
I shook my head, my words catching in my throat. I didn’t know how to explain that I didn’t want to ask because I didn’t want to get rejected. Even though I knew, I knew, Everett was going to claim me, the thought simply couldn’t comfort me enough because he simply hadn’t done it yet.
With all the talks lately centering around omegas and betas, it was easy to forget about alphas. Well, not forget about them, but forget about their intrinsic part of packs. It was simply assumed that alphas will join packs, that they’ll bond omegas. No one truly considered the weight of bonding.
Having someone else’s emotions inside all the time must be overwhelming. Everett already had Atlas’s and I wasn’t sure if he’d want to add my emotions to the mix, especially considering all the drama that was happening in my life.
“Ah, darlin, don’t do that.” Oaks finally let go of my hair to cup my cheeks. His nose gently pressed against mine, his breaths puffing against my lips. “If you want him to claim you, tell him.”
“He knows.”
“He knows. But he doesn’t know.”
I laughed, the sound nearly coming out like a sob. What did that mean?
“If you want him to claim you, darlin, you need to tell him. He needs to know that you want him, that you’re ready for him. I promise you, he’s not refusing to bite you, he’s holding himself back.”
“Back from what? Why?”
“That, you’ll have to ask him. Once you’re brave enough.” He kissed my lips. Just a light peck as the front door nearly slammed open, the rough sound of boots slamming against the doorframe a loud indicator that Atlas was home.
“I’m starving. Where’s my pet? I need to taste her lips.” Atlas came into the kitchen on a whirlwind, pulling me from Oaks and slamming his mouth over mine. He pulled back almost abruptly, my body still leaning toward him before he glared at Oaks. “What the fuck? What did you do to piss her off?”
“Hey!” Oaks said, clearly offended by the suggestion.
This time, my laugh was a bark of laughter. “Oaks didn’t do anything. Just had a shitty conversation with my family. I’ll fill you in later. For now, I’m starving.”
Atlas still didn’t look too convinced, so I pulled his head down, and claimed his lips in a kiss.
“I just want you to be happy, pet,” he mumbled against my lips.
I was happy. I was going to be even happier when Everett claimed me.