26. Blaine
26
Blaine
Waking up in the nest, surrounded by my pack and with my girl's face pressed against my chest, may be the best feeling in the world.
I've fucked around a lot in my life. I never shied away from a one-night stand. Chase refused for so long to attend Omega socials that I basically gave up the idea of ever finding one, so I made myself comfortable with any Beta woman I could find.
It doesn't feel good, obviously, to know now that my match was out there, being abused, while I was sowing my oats.
Not like I could have done anything to stop it, but guilt is not rational.
Guilt is insidious. It creeps towards you like fog on the ground, getting its claws into you and surrounding every piece of you. Telling it it's not welcome does nothing to lessen its hold on you. The memories of what I've done swirl with imaginations of her life in an unhealthy way that I cannot seem to shake.
Somehow, I'm the first awake, and the sun has barely started to rise. I extract myself from the nest and creep downstairs, determined to cook breakfast for everyone despite the fact that I rarely ever wield a spatula.
Hope everyone doesn't mind a few shells in their eggs.
While I wait for the coffee to brew, I flick on the TV, tuning into the news. Since Nora joined us, we've been in a little bubble, and I have no idea the state of the world right now.
I flip past a rerun of a documentary providing a critical look at the Plain Jane lawsuit, the faceless woman whose parents did every design they could to prevent her from being an Omega, but she ended up one anyway. The parents sued the Design Clinic, but it didn't go far. They're careful not to guarantee anything.
After jumping around, I settle on a local news station with a Beta anchor with long, dark hair and dark eyes. She's striking, if a little stern looking.
"We have received word from the Design Clinic," she's saying, "that the Perfect Omega, Nora Summers, has found her match. LunarNews1 has negotiated the exclusive interview rights as the Perfect Omega debuts her match to the world in less than a month on the 15th. Make sure you mark it on your calendar, everyone because I know I am not the only one eager to find out what kind of Alpha is lucky enough to land the Perfect Omega. Have a great morning, Lunarcrest City, and don't forget – talk is cheap unless it's cable."
Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck.
I run up the stairs, throwing the door open to the nest. It bangs on the door, and Nolan jolts up like he's been shot at. Everyone else groans, eyes blurry with sleep.
"Guys, we've got a problem," I say, looking around. "Where's Chase?"
"He never joined us," Levi says with a groan as he stretches.
Running to his room and throwing up the door, I shake Chase. "Wake up, emergency pack meeting."
He groans, pulling his pillow over his head. "No thanks."
"Not optional, dude. This affects all of us."
Begrudgingly, he follows me back to the nest, leaning against the wall. Everyone looks at me expectantly, but before I speak, I crawl across the nest to Nora, pulling her in my lap. "Nora, honey, I need you to promise me you're going to breathe and know we'll figure this out together, okay?"
She looks so sweet with her sleep-rumpled hair and lines from the blankets still pressed into her skin. Her voice still thick with sleep, she looks up at me and asks, "What's going on, Alpha?"
The guys are all looking at me, and I groan, running my hands in my hair. "I was watching the news, and imagine my fucking shock when they announced on the 15th the Perfect Omega will be debuting her pack to the world for an exclusive interview."
Nolan swears. "We never agreed to that. Nora never agreed to that."
"I… they never ask me? I'm just told where to be, or sometimes I just show up, and there's a camera crew," Nora says softly, looking at all of us. "Why is this a big deal?"
"Nora, do you think an organization that fed you so many lies is going to be happy with us as your pack?" Levi says softly, putting his hand on her thigh. "There is a high likelihood they're going to have a major problem with our matching. We are not exactly the Perfect Pack."
"Well, they don't really get a say in it, do they?" Joey says, crossing his arms. "We just need to get her mom to sign off on the pairing, and you said she seemed just fine with you all. She let you take Nora, after all."
Nora rubs at her wrist, worrying her bottom lip. "I suppose we need to speak to my mother soon, then?"
I realize now that I don't think Nora has called her mother once, and I don't remember her mother calling either. Why is that? Why would her mother just let her run off with us without a care in the world? We were strangers to her. Does her mother not care about her well-being?
"Call her," Nolan says, scooting closer to Nora. "Call her and ask her to come by sometime next week to talk. We need some time to plan how we're going to approach this."
Nora looks stricken, almost as if she's scared to speak to her own mother. "Can I… can I call her once the plan is set? If she stews on it, I worry she'll be tougher on us."
With a sharp nod, Nolan stands up. "Fair. Okay, so we have a week to come up with a plan for how to get out of this interview. I don't want Nora being opened up to scrutiny, especially when it's about us."
"I don't want her doing an interview ever again," Levi says. "It's just another way for the Design Clinic to spew Omega propaganda and allow them the opportunity to hurt Nora."
"Anyone gonna bother asking Nora what she wants?" Chase snarls from his spot against the wall.
"We did," Joey says. "Wait."
"You didn't." He pointedly looks at Nora, who's pulled her knees to her chest. "Nora, do you want to do this interview?"
She sighs and feeds her fingers into the back of her hair. "I don't know. No one has ever asked me before. I know what to expect, but I understand that you all don't." She tugs at the strands, and Joey darts his hand out and grips her wrist.
"Little bird, stop that," he says in a low voice.
"Sorry, Just Joey, I didn't realize I…" She stands up, climbing out of the nest to pace around the room. "I think we do need to talk to my mother. If we can get her to sign off on the bonding, she can't force me to do it, right? But she may hold it over our heads to get us to agree." She pats her thighs with her hands as she walks, her body stiff and posture so rigid it looks uncomfortable. "But if we induce my heat, she won't be able to deny us."
"Sweetie," Nolan says, propping himself up on the edge of the nest. "What do you mean by that?"
"Dr. Greene has had me on suppressants because he said I have to withhold my heat for my pack because once you go through a heat, you'll be forced to bond with them. That you could only heat with one pack." She stops walking and turns to look at us. "Is…that not right?"
Chase swears under his breath, and I'm right there with him but louder in my anger. "Fuck, honey, no, that's not right."
"Nora, there are plenty of Omegas who don't find their packs until their thirties," Nolan tells her.
"That's not true. The Omega school says most Omegas are matched by the time they are twenty-three." She pops her hip out and crosses her arms. It's so sassy, so fucking bratty, and unlike the Omega who first walked through our door that I almost laugh.
Levi shakes his head. "Doll, the Omega school isn't the be-all end-all. My dad didn't go."
"If an Omega wants to go off of suppressants, they can choose to spend their heat with a pack, even if they aren't matched," Nolan adds. "It does not bond you to them or anything."
Her face is suddenly stricken, and she gapes at us. "Have you all been with another Omega?"
"No, we haven't." Levi stands up and pulls her into his arms. "We made the decision as a pack to wait for our Omega." Nora's body goes limp in his arms, and he kisses her softly on the mouth.
He pulls away, and her face is wet with tears. "What… what else have they lied to me about?" she says quietly. "Why would they do this to me?"
The sight of Nora's tears cracks my chest open with a need to protect and care for her, and Nolan swoops her into his arms in a blink. Even Chase comes into the nest now, even if he's just sitting at the edge. The rest of us make sure we're touching her in some way, and all of us but Joey purr, wanting to stop her worry and fear.
"I don't know why they'd do this," I say, grabbing her chin. "But we won't let them hurt you anymore, Nora."
There's a brutal helplessness I've never experienced before rolling through my body as I watch Nora struggle and suffer with her thoughts. Her anxiety is clearly getting the better of her, and I can tell she wants to cry and pull her hair, but that fucking programming has her forcing it down.
I glance at Joey to see if he's had the same idea I do. He's looking at Levi, who nods.
That settles it, then.
Joey stands up and moves to leave the room. Before he does, he turns around and looks at Nora. "Little bird, I'm going to help you, okay? We're going to quiet that anxiety, okay? All of your Alphas are going to be here, so you don't need to be scared."