Thirteen
If I stare at my dick long enough, will it get the memo that the smells hovering around my packmate aren’t for me?
I’m feeling a bit extra moody today, so I’m fully decked out in my gothy vampire regalia, using it like a shield. If I stay behind the persona, I don’t have to think too hard. At least, that’s what I’m hoping happens.
They may be silent as they head towards the kitchen, of which I am currently the only resident of, but I know they’re coming. I could probably close my eyes and imagine exactly where they are in the house with the way my alpha is tuned into this omega, and it’s frankly terrifying.
I try to give off a picture of nonchalance when Calloway and Fable finally enter my temporary domain, hands propped behind my head and feet crossed in my shit kickers on top of our hella old rustic wood table, but I know this omega isn’t at all impressed with nonchalance.
Moon played into it a bit hard yesterday, and since I don’t really know what I want to do with this omega yet, I better play it a bit safer.
No, that’s a lie. I know exactly what I’d like to do with this omega, but whether or not that’s a good idea is a whole separate issue.
“Hey, man,” Calloway greets me, looking nervous as hell.
I nod at him, all my intrigue melting away my misgivings in the face of a well-rested omega that smells like filthy sex and the sweetest berries. “Morning, Omega. Sleep well?”
Oops. I forgot she doesn’t like being called Omega.
She doesn’t correct me though.
She simply stands in front of me, hands on her hips, looking me over from head to toe with her head at an angle. “I did, thank you…”
Calloway is ruffling through the fridge and pulling out pans and shit to presumably cook something for the woman, but I can do her one better.
I flip up the cloche next to me and slide the plate of oversized blueberry muffins her way, a peace offering I was keeping in my back pocket. I pull my feet off the table, deciding my caveman act has run its course, and use my newly freed limbs to push a chair out for her to sit in.
She eyes it warily, then the muffins, her eyes growing huge at the sight. They’re topped with a perfectly buttery crumble topping and sanding sugar, so I know they’re pretty. Since I made them, I also happen to know they taste incredible.
When she sits, Calloway produces a plate for the muffin she reaches for, then goes about pulling fresh fruit out of the fridge to slice up. My alpha is happy to see her touching the food we made.
I lean forward to watch her eat the first bite, not at all disappointed when she lets out a low groan. It barely fits in her hands, and she looks like she’s practicing a lot of constraint to appear dainty while eating it.
“You’re not going to offend me if you bite into that properly, you know.”
She pauses with a mouth full of pastry, swallows, and then absolutely goes for it. Teeth digging in, mouth wide open, she shoves that fucking thing in the way I’d love to shove something else in her mouth, and she seems to enjoy it as much as I’m sure I would, too.
“This…is incredible,” she finally says when she pauses to drink a sip of coffee that Calloway has placed down for her.
And…that’s enough of that for now. She’s making my insides squiggly, and I don’t really like it. I’ve got a sculpture to work on anyway.
Without another word I head to my workshop at the back of the property and blast my music that’s more drums than anything else, cranked loud enough to drown out the rest of the world.
I have a commission for a sparrow the size of a small car for a botanical garden a few towns over, and I’m ahead of schedule but my hands tend to get itchy if I go too long without progress.
The afternoon slips away in a blur of curling metal feathers and soldering them to a giant wing, my welder’s garb keeping me from being burned by the heat.
It doesn’t matter how much molten metal I create and let cool, or how many fine details I etch in places that likely won’t ever be seen, or even how my skull is practically rattling around from the music, I can never get my thoughts too far from the omega in my house.
Her scent seems to follow me around. I shouldn’t be able to smell anything but the sharpness of metal I’m beating into submission, but even through all that I’m getting phantom whisps of berries ripe from the summer sun and invasive wisteria that climbs and covers everything it can reach.
I have a feeling that’s a relatable phenomenon.
Eventually I get to a place where the creativity spent leaves me exhausted, wilted, and in need of sitting somewhere dark and soft, so I get my tools cleaned up and put all my things in their homes, admiring my work for a few minutes before I know I’ve postponed it long enough.
It’s time to head inside and see what the omega is up to.
I stretch my arms and shut off the insanely loud music that’s going to be reverberating around in my blood for a little bit longer, then pause before crossing the threshold of my workshop.
There’s something trying to catch my attention, something…
A whimper, muffled by a door or a wall maybe, but there. Again.
Instantly on alert, I head towards my storage room I’ve hardly touched today, where I keep my extra supplies or bits and bobs left over from old projects, the smell of my omega even sharper.
No, not my omega. The omega.
It’s clear she’s trying to mute herself. I lock the door behind me so nothing will frighten her away, my alpha wrestling with me internally for control. He wants me to pull her into our arms and fix whatever’s bothering her, and for once, we are in agreement.
I’ve spent enough time today avoiding what my entire pack is careening into, thinking while I was mindlessly assembling pieces.
Sensing her distress, it’s bringing me right back to us finding her in that gods awful room, and I get a vision of my mom and aunties scolding me for being such an absolute asshole, for not falling over myself immediately to care for the broken omega.
When I find her, huddled in the bottom of my paint cabinet, curled in on herself and shaking for trying to stay quiet, anything I was feeling, all sense of caution so this doesn’t end like our last tryst with an omega ended, obliterates.
None of my experiences or personal feelings on the situation matter when she’s hurting the way she very obviously is.
She’s light enough to scoop up and carry to a more open spot, falling to my ass on the stained concrete floor with my back against the door.
I don’t ask her to tell me what’s wrong, not at first. I simply close my eyes and hold her, feeling her tremble against me, my heart growing bigger and bigger as she slowly starts to unfurl against me and seek out comfort.
The acrid notes in her scent dissipate slowly the longer we sit there, neither of us saying anything.
I check my phone while she’s regulating, checking to see if there’s a search party for her so I can tell them to stop.
The weird thing though is there’s nothing. No frantic messages asking who has eyes on her, no demands to fan the property and look for her, nothing. It’s like no one is even tracking that she was missing.
Fuck.
Honestly, that lack of care would make me cry, too.
Determined to punish my pack now, I put my phone onto do not disturb and use the apps on my phone to shut off all the lights in my workshop, going so far as to lock the doors. I yank off my jacket and fold it up, lying myself down to use it as a pillow while I tug the omega on top of me.
“Not complaining that I’m the one you sought out, but can I ask what happened? It seemed like you were getting along with Calloway earlier? And Anderson? Where is he?”
She rolls off, lying on her side so her front is pulled into my side, her head on my chest, making it easier to see her.
I’m wiping her tears away without thought, then cringing at my dirty hands covered in calluses. The sink is on the other side of the workshop though, and I don’t want to leave her alone.
“Calloway got called into work, something about a broken window at the gym? Somebody crashed through the storefront. I was supposed to spend time with Moon because Anderson got a ride to his cousin’s house to get his stuff…”
“So, Moon did something. Tell me in exact detail so I can go punch him in the face. It’s been months since I’ve had a good reason to, and it always puts me in a better mood.”
She starts shaking once more, pulling away from me. “P-please don’t.”
I tighten my arms around her, measuring her expression. She doesn’t like violence. I guess that makes sense when she’s been through it. “Then tell me so I can lay into him about stepping the fuck up.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“I doubt it’s embarrassing for you. I think whatever you’re about to tell me is going to be incredibly embarrassing for Moon, however.”
“He was showing me his dark room, showing me some of the shots he’d taken from a wedding he photographed a few weeks ago that he’s been editing, and I don’t know if it was the dark space or what…”
“But?”
She takes a deep breath, then starts fidgeting with the ends of her hair.
“I thought he was going to kiss me. I know, na?ve, dumb, whatever you want to call it. I leaned in though, slightly surprised, but he was just reaching for a clip above my head to hang up a negative. He saw me waiting for a kiss and laughed at me. I was mortified. I don’t know anything about how to be with alphas, or even if you guys want that.
But he was finally letting his guard down and I just thought that…
well…I don’t know. He told me I was like all the other desperate little omegas out there and shoved me out of the room, leaving me in the transition room alone.