Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Omega Dorms, Omega Hotel
Yawning, I flop onto my back in the middle of my nest in the tiny bedroom that Zoe and I share with my brother.
Zoe kept both Bird and me up most of the night with her teething. Possibly, she just sensed how anxious I was about Icarus.
Icarus still hasn’t returned from his discipline. My guess would be that he has been locked overnight in the freezing wine cellar.
Omegas are good at picking up on each other’s distress. Bird and I did our best to purr and sing lullabies to Zoe, but she is as feisty as I am.
She was having none of it.
Now, I’m so exhausted that I’m not sure if I am awake or asleep.
The bedroom is nothing but a concrete box without windows like the rest of the dorms. The floors are cold without carpets or rugs. Plain pine blanket boxes stand at the bottom of each bed, which hold our neatly folded uniforms.
We don’t possess anything else.
Well, I do. But that’s a secret from everyone but my family.
I glance at the clock that stands on the rickety nightstand: 4:47.
Only about ten minutes until it’ll be time to line up to be led for breakfast before work.
The only other thing on the nightstand is a laminated booklet: Rules for Hotel Omegas.
It’s Rule Number One that the booklet must be kept on display at all times to reinforce the content’s importance.
Zoe’s crib is fitted tightly between Bird’s bed and mine with cute dinosaur sleep sack. A matching changing mat and baby changing bag is propped next to it.
Icarus used up his savings to cover the cost.
I hold Icarus’ shirt to my nose, breathing in his warm, spicy apple scent.
My nest is built out of a ragged suit of clothes that Icarus gave me two years ago, when I was first sent to stay here. I wove them between my ripped up, thin gray blanket.
I wince at the memory of the beating Icarus received for pretending to have lost that suit, when he needed to request a new one.
Icarus tries to hide his pain from everyone, but that time, he hadn’t been able to. Michah and Ollie had needed to carry him back to his room, while he’d pretended that he was actually walking with his chin still held high at the same time that he could hardly get his feet underneath himself.
Yet Icarus had allowed me to disinfect the deep welts on his back for once.
Then to my surprise, at the same time that my eyes had glistened with tears as I’d dabbed at the worst wounds, he’d actually glanced over his shoulder and smiled.
Then he’d said the two words that had always been my battle cry. “Worth it.”
I am a bad influence but only in the best way.
After that, Icarus wiped his ties over his scent glands and then cut up them up into small pieces.
He claimed that guests had spilled wine on his ties or that they were fraying.
He still has the cost deducted from his salary every time (and he barely gets paid as it is). The pay and conditions in this industry suck since Maya took over.
If I ever get the chance to take my rightful place as owner, it’s the first thing that I will change.
Actually, the second.
The first will be abolishing the use of Hotel Omegas and the rule that stops staff from finding love in pack bonds.
Icarus distributed the pieces of his ties between the HOs, along with each new one that arrived alone and in shock, to ground them with an Alpha’s scent and help them through their heats.
He granted them safety, claiming them as part of his Sinner pack.
I can never be jealous of my fellow Omegas. They’re my friends, and without pack bonds, they need Icarus.
We’re all pack.
I snuggle down, curled around Bird who has even deeper shadows underneath his eyes than I do. We’re already dressed in our uniforms. We were up so much of the night that it didn’t seem worth getting changed into pajamas.
Zoe sits between Bird and me, as bright and awake, as if she’d had a full night’s sleep.
She always has energy. I wish that she could share some of it with me.
I lean over and indulge myself in kissing the crown of her little head, and she begins to purr.
I love her sweet baby Omega smell of strawberry marshmallows.
Despite my anxiety about her biological dad being somewhere in the hotel right now and what will happen if I run into him (does he want to see Zoe?), as well as worry about what is happening to Icarus, my breathing steadies.
Zoe calms me. I would do anything for her. I understand Dad better now.
When I was a kid, there were times that I didn’t understand how he could have married Maya. I was angry with him for it. I wanted him to stand up to her and leave.
Yet she is the Head Alpha of the Frosts. Now that I am an adult, I know he couldn’t have done that. Even if he had been able to escape, it would have meant leaving behind the kids who he loved like I do Zoe.
I would do anything for Zoe.
And I could never leave her behind.
Zoe has tanned skin, taking after Logan, but with large aquamarine eyes like me. She is dressed in a secondhand, faded red dress.
I know that Icarus is secretly spending his own salary to buy my daughter clothes, diapers, and essentials. Yet Maya is still in control, and I worry about whether Zoe will be allowed to attend nursery and then school.
Dread churns in my guts.
Unaware, Zoe happily babbles to herself, crinkling the different sensory materials in the plastic box in front of her between her fingers that I have left out for her to play with.
I have collected them from around the hotel, which sounds so much better than I stole them.
Robin Hood would steal them from the rich to give to the poor Omega baby, right?
A soft scarf from some movie star, a silk handkerchief from an English Lord, different sized plastic cups to stack or pour with from the Omega bathrooms, and dried kidney beans and lentils that Chris collected from the kitchen.
I don’t have toys for Zoe. So, I have had to become creative.
Yet I’ve discovered that I don’t need toys because anything can be turned into a game: An empty bag becomes the magical what’s in the bag game and socks can become sock puppets.
Plus, Zoe is endlessly fascinated by sticks.
Then there is my savior, the cardboard box.
Maybe babies are the same as cats. All you need is a cardboard box and they are entertained for hours.
“Mama,” Zoe says. “Look.”
Instantly, my heart melts like it has ever since she learned to call me mama.
I was terrified that Zoe wouldn’t recognize me as her mom, when I am forced to be away from her. I shouldn’t have worried. She is as connected to me as I am to her.
As soon as I am watching, Zoe drives the cup through the beans, lifting it above her head like a war trophy. “Cup!”
“Smart Omega,” I praise, clapping.
Zoe gives me a quick look from underneath her eyelashes.
Uh-oh.
I know that look.
She’s about to do something mischievous.
Is that what I used to look like to my dad?
Hell, karma is a bitch.
“Zoe…” I say, warningly.
Too late.
Zoe laughs wildly, before she hurls the beans over the nest.
Bird sits up, punching the air. “That’s right, Scarlet, fight the system.”
I scowl at Bird. “Not helping, bro. It would be helpful if you didn’t confuse her by calling her Will Scarlet every time that she misbehaves.”
“But look how happy mischief makes her. She’s totally you, sis. Embrace the new generation of chaos goblin.” Bird pats Zoe on the head. She looks delighted with herself, gripping the scarf and burying her face in it. “She should be initiated into the Merry Men as soon as possible, right?”
I give a lopsided grin. “Are we still fighting the Sheriff?”
Bird’s expression shutters. “Of course, sis, but it’s no longer Hatton. It never was. The Sheriff is that fu—” He catches himself, glancing at Zoe. “Naughty man, his dad.”
Ellington.
“And Prince John…?” I say, quietly.
This is tough. Maya is Bird’s mom, after all.
She may have reduced his status and punished him. She has never treated him as equal to his brother, Hatton, simply because they have different dads.
But still, she is his mom. And I know how tangled up his feelings must be on that.
Bird looks conflicted. “I know what Mom has done. I never realized just how bad things were, until I was sent down here to be a HO. Now, I’d do anything to free the HOs and the staff.
And that includes taking down my own mom.
I always hated how she treated Papa. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt like a…
bad thing. It’s not simple. I grew up thinking that Mom loved me, even if she loved Hatton more. But for a long time that was enough.”
I reach to take his hand. “I lost one of my dads. Then our family came together, and I don’t love any of you more than the other.
You know that, right? I would have loved Maya too if she had acted like a real mom to me.
She made it clear that she never wanted that.
She is one of those rare Alphas who only needs Omegas around her and not other Alphas or Betas, but I think that it is more about control.
She can’t use Alpha Commands on other dynamics or reject them.
She moved in like a predator on Dad at the funeral for his mate, when he was suffering from Shattered Bond Syndrome.
He would never have bonded with her, if she hadn’t found him at his weakest, barely keeping himself alive because he had me as a baby.
I hate that she did that to him. I won’t forgive her for it. ”
“I don’t expect you to.”
I struggle up in the nest, before leaning under the mattress to pull out my hidden, most prized possession: A small, oak box.
This is the only thing that Dad managed to smuggle to me, when I was sent down here from the penthouse.
It contains my most precious two possessions.
I slip open the box, taking out the photograph on top.
It’s the only one that Dad was able to save, which shows the previous Alpha, Ryan, who was my Omega Dad’s scent match.
My two dads were high school sweethearts.