Chapter 6
SIX
Words I never thought I’d say for five hundred.
Holy fuck, how is this possible? This shouldn’t be possible. He’s my friend. I’ve known him for years.
How does Atlas Cassidy smell like coffee and newspaper? Like a lazy morning curled up on the couch?
It’s always been my favorite time of day.
I tend to hyper-focus, so sometimes I spend hours holed up in my “lair”, as my parents always called it, not coming up for air for hours, sometimes days, at a time.
I’ve always been this way. But my dad would come in once a week and drag me out by the collar for Sunday morning family time.
He’d sit on the couch with his hot coffee, no cream, two sugars, and we’d read the funny papers together.
Kneeling in front of Atlas when I am supposed to be interviewing the two of them, I am struck dumb by an Omega who smells like a Sunday morning with my family. Like coming up for air and landing straight into a moment of comfort.
Something tells me I should’ve approached this with more tact.
Maybe I should’ve told Wyatt about it before jumping feet first into the “Hey, guess what, we’re supposed to be together forever” thing.
Atlas tenses, and Athena immediately jumps to her feet. She moves fast for such a short little thing.
Is she actually short, or do I spend too much time around big Alphas? The world may never know.
“No, I am not,” my friend snaps at me. “First of all, if they managed to change my designation, I’m not a real Omega, and second, you don’t smell like anything.” Atlas bears his teeth at me. “The only one who smells like something is my Omega.”
Athena is quietly crying, tears running down her face faster than they were when we found her in the medical facility.
“Again,” she says quietly. “Again. How does this keep happening to me?” She wipes her face and looks up at the sky.
I can see she’s trying to stop the tears from falling any more than they already have.
My Omega, fuck that’s going to take some getting used to, is on his feet, clasping her hands in his. “Athena, no,” he says soothingly. “You’re my Omega.”
“And you’re his.” Her tone has no bitterness, but I can hear the overwhelming sorrow lacing her words.
“I… I need to go to the bathroom or something.” She walks away, ripping her hand out of Atlas’s when he tries to pull her back.
“Please, Atlas, give me a minute,” she says, caressing a bite mark on her neck.
His bite? They weren’t kidding when they said they bonded.
When she walks away, I take a few steps toward Atlas.
This is an unusual and unprecedented situation. My friend, my coworker, has turned into an Omega, and now he’s my scent match.
I doubt I’ll find a blog post about how to handle that.
But when I step in front of him, extending my hands to hold his shoulders and keep him from moving to give Athena some space, the intoxicating scent is gone.
It’s creepy and crosses a load of boundaries, which I will eventually apologize for, but instinct takes over, and I bury my face into his neck. He yelps in surprise and tries to push me away.
Nothing. I smell absolutely nothing.
“It was her…” I say, taking a step back. “Fuck, it wasn’t you.”
How did I not notice when I was helping her out of the warehouse that she was the one who smelled like home?
I barely have time to process the confusion on his face before I turn, running after Athena.
She’s talking to Crystal, and I don’t want to scare her, but I just watched her heart break, and I need my Omega to know I didn’t mean to hurt her.
My stomach cramps with anxiety that she won’t forgive me for my mistake.
“Athena,” I say, unable to keep the reverence out of my voice.
She turns around, eyes red and swollen with tears.
“It wasn’t Atlas. It was you. You’re my Omega. You left, and Atlas doesn’t smell like coffee and newspaper anymore.” She wrinkles her brow, like she wants to say something, to refute me and run me off, but I won’t let her. I carefully step forward, not touching her as I dip my head to scent her.
But there is no smell.
Nothing.
She smells the way Betas always do, but a bit stronger of a musk, most likely because she hasn’t been able to shower regularly.
“What the fuck is going on?” I mutter, taking a few steps back. Crystal raises a manicured eyebrow at my confusion. I whip my head around to notice my pack mates are standing nearby, watching me spin out in real time.
Where is that scent coming from if it’s not one of them? It’s not Crystal. I feel no draw to her pack, and I’ve been around her enough to know that she’s not the one who makes me want to curl up and rest.
Atlas approaches, pulling Athena away from Crystal and wrapping her in his arms. He whispers in her ear, and whatever he says has her relaxing against him. She presses her body tightly against his, and the two of them look so beautiful, so perfect together that it makes my teeth ache.
My hindbrain overrides all rational thought.
Mine.
Hold the fucking phone.
Slowly, to avoid spooking the new Omegas, I step closer to them.
And then I smell it.
Coffee and newspaper.
I hastily step back from the two Omegas, who are now talking quietly with Crystal and Puck, motion to the rest of my pack, and pull them to the side.
“Guys, so uh, something weird happened. Is happening. Happened,” I stutter, looking between the three of them.
We never thought we’d get an Omega. An Omega doesn’t make sense with the life we lead, so we never took the time to look.
No Omega socials for us. What family would be comfortable entrusting their Omega to the care of a group of vigilantes?
Even though, on the surface, we appear to be legitimate business owners, owning a private detective agency, we still set most people’s teeth on edge.
What we do is dangerous, and we couldn’t risk an Omega being collateral damage.
We’ve talked about it—ad nauseam. We decided long ago that an Omega was not in our future as a pack.
“What happened?” Charles doesn’t enjoy being part of these raids, and I know the emotional breakdown between Atlas and Athena is affecting him.
They’re both so obviously Omega that it must be activating his extreme Alpha instincts that demand every Omega be wrapped in bubble wrap and locked in their nest and protected like they are precious gemstones.
It’s hard to describe the way Charles views Omegas without him sounding like an asshole, but it truly comes from a good place.
His fathers worship his mother, and they’ve taught him that if he takes an Omega, he is to treat them with the reverence and respect they have earned.
They are not beneath Alphas in his eyes. They are the reason Alphas exist.
Oh boy.
This is going to be an experience.
“So I was talking with Atlas and Athena, that’s the woman’s name, by the way, like the goddess, which I think is fitting because, well, look at her, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a statue of her before, and you know I rescued her and helped her out, which surprised me she wasn’t upset about being supported by me.
She’s a Beta, or rather, was, because they both think that they were changed into Omegas, and obviously, signs point to yes on that.
I mean, look at them.” The three of them nod, well accustomed to my rambling at this point and not interrupting me.
“So anyway, I noticed Atlas smells like coffee and newspapers.”
Wyatt’s entire body tenses.
Harvey huffs out a bemused laugh.
And Charles stares at me, unblinking.
“Come again?” Wyatt says, voice thick with his drawl. “Am I mistaken, or did you just imply that Atlas, our coworker, my brother’s best friend, was somehow turned into an Omega, and is our scent match?”
“Well, I thought as much, so I said that, which I’m sure you can guess how well that went over, and then Athena got upset at my declaration and left, and the smell left with her,” I amend.
“So Athena is our Omega?” Harvey asks, staring at the pretty woman in Atlas’s arms.
“Well,” I say again, scratching the back of my neck, “when I ran after her, she didn’t smell like anything but good. Kind of sweaty and dirty, which is to be expected after being locked up in there. But, you know. Good… like a person.”
“I’m confused.” Wyatt removes his cap and scrubs his hand across his buzzed blond hair. “What are you even saying, Sebass?”
The quiet voices of Pack Manson, Atlas, and Athena reach us, and my shoulders relax, my Alpha instincts satisfied my Omegas are safe for the moment.
Crystal and Puck won’t let anything happen to them.
I didn’t realize how much not being next to them was bothering me.
“Okay. So. What I’m saying is that when Atlas came back, so did the smell. ”
Charles has been quiet until now, and when he interrupts me, he speaks in level tones. “Let me get this straight. You’re telling me that when they’re together, there is the scent of home, but when they’re apart, they have no scent other than what is expected of a Beta?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
He swears and stomps off, muttering something about only having one nest in the house and that this is a catastrophe.
“I feel like his priorities are mixed up,” I tell my other pack members as I watch him go.
“I’m not concerned about the number of nests in our house.
I’m concerned that we have lab-created Omegas, who are actually Betas, but somehow are also our scent match, but only when they’re together.
This has got to be one of the most convoluted situations I’ve ever heard of. ”
Harvey shrugs and buries his hands in his pockets, looking unruffled.
“Regardless of how they became Omegas, they are now, and I wasn’t imagining when I saw those bite marks on their necks.
They’re bonded in a way I’ve never seen before.
Science, trauma, pheromones… Man, they’re so tied together that I’m not surprised we match the combination of their pheromones.
I mean, look at them. They’re not supposed to be apart, and god help whoever tries to separate them. ”
“What if it’s just me?” I ask quietly. “What if, because of the weird way they came to be, you three don’t match with them, and I’ve got two Omegas to handle alone? What if they go into heat at the same time? I only have one cock.”
I recognize that is not what is important to focus on here. I think I may be spiraling—just a little.
“Well, let’s go find out, then,” Harvey says with a shrug. “But you and I both know that will not be the case. We’re together as a pack for a reason.”
“Wait,” Wyatt says, stopping us before we walk over.
“We can’t overwhelm them. Look at Charles.
” He points at our packmate, who’s on the phone and gesturing wildly.
“I bet that he’s already trying to put our house on the market so we can find one with space for two nests.
He’ll scare them off in a second.” My packmate cups his hands around his mouth.
“Knock it off and get over here, Chuckie!”
Charles scowls at the nickname like he always does and says something rapidly into the phone before shoving it into his pocket and stalking over. “I have a lot to get situated if we’re going to bring two Omegas home, so make it quick. What do you need?”
“Well, for one, you haven’t even scented them,” Wyatt says calmly.
“Sebastian did, which means we’ll match them, too,” he says dismissively.
“There are more important things for me to take care of right now. We never planned on one Omega, much less two. We need to figure out how to get them both nests, get movers to pack up their homes…” He trails off, his mind going a mile a minute.
“We know nothing about her, but at least we’re not going in blind with Atlas.
That should make this transition easier for all of us. ”
“For two,” I say, butting in and ignoring Charles’s ramblings, picking up where Wyatt left off.
“They’re going to want to nest together.
” I nod at the two Omegas, who have not let one another go and are currently talking to a green-haired biker.
I would say that their level of codependency looks like it could get to be a little unhealthy, but they went through a massive trauma together, so who am I to judge?
Charles watches them and then nods tightly. “That should be acceptable for the time being.”
“Additionally,” Wyatt continues as if neither of us spoke, “they were both Betas until they were kidnapped. Most likely, neither will behave the way we expect natural-born Omegas to. Especially not Atlas. You know what he’s like. He’s a headstrong asshole. We need to approach this delicately.”
“Why are we making plans without them?” Harvey asks with a bite in his tone.
“We need to find out what they want here. They’ve had their agency taken from them, and they’ve been held captive.
It’s been a month for Atlas, and who knows how long Athena has been there.
And you all seem to think we’re going to whisk into their lives and force them into our home?
” He rolls his eyes and pulls a cigarette out of the pack in his breast pocket, dangling it between his lips.
“We need to talk to them and make a plan as a pack. Because that’s what they are now.
” He lights the tip and takes a deep drag.
“They’re pack. The days of only the four of us making all the decisions are gone. ”
Charles snatches the cigarette away from him and stubs it out. “He’s right,” he says, speaking to none of us and all of us. “We need to go talk to them.”