4. Chapter Four
Chapter Four
Per
T he buttercream melted on my tongue, and I hummed happily.
The cupcakes were resting on the rack, already cooled off and waiting.
I wasn’t the best at decorating, but I could make something work.
The most important thing is the taste, right?
Yes , I told myself. They were delicious, and the kids were going to love them.
Every year, I baked something for the bake sale at school.
My students came to expect it now, so I couldn’t disappoint them.
What started as an impulse to help the other teachers had now become something somewhat therapeutic.
Baking made sense. It was chemistry, and I was a chemistry teacher, so it was just right that I mastered the craft.
The front door opened, and I heard steps coming into the house, but my eyes were focused on my task.
I took a cupcake from the rack and brought it right to my nose.
The delicious vanilla smell embraced me at once.
I might have a sweet tooth. Right when I lowered my masterpiece, I whiffed something else in the air.
“What’s that?”
It was nothing like the baked goods in front of me.
No vanilla and sugar but it was just as sweet.
My eyes narrowed, and I looked around as if a pastry was hiding from me, waiting to scare me off.
I took a lungful, and the cinnamon scent hit me right away, no denying.
I looked down at my cupcakes, ready to accuse them of being secretly cinnamon, when Anders came through the door with a girl right after him.
A cinnamon-smelling girl. Nutmeg and other spices too.
I considered myself a sophisticated man, but still, I looked from her to Anders, my mouth opening and closing in confusion.
“Is that an omega?” I spat at once.
Her eyebrows went up, and her mouth closed in a flat line. Before the words were even out of my mouth, I winced, knowing it wasn’t the right reaction, but dammit, it had been a long time since I scented an omega who wasn’t my own mother.
“That?” she said with an accent I couldn’t pinpoint.
Anders breathed out. He looked tired, more tired than before, that was for sure. “This is Isadora. Isadora, that’s Per. My pack member.”
Isadora didn’t care to rush and shake my hand.
Instead, her eyebrows arched, and she took me in with a challenge.
How the hell did Anders find an omega? All the questions were coming to me so fast that I could barely take the time to put them into words.
My head shook, and probably my whole body with it, and Anders sighed again.
“Take a seat, Per.”
I moved from the counter, leaving my baking for later, but I couldn’t miss the way she looked at the cupcakes. Forgetting everything, I smiled at her. “Do you want to try one?”
Her eyes darted from the cupcakes to me, and she narrowed them. “Are you a baker?”
I shook my head. “Teacher.”
She didn’t take the cupcakes, which offended me a little.
I wasn’t a baker, but I was getting really good at it.
She just had to try to see it. Her loss.
I said nothing and moved to the kitchen table where Anders waited for us, wearing that worried expression on his face as if he was tasked to carry the world on his shoulders.
He was not. There was nothing for him to carry. He was just sour like that.
“Isadora is Karl’s kid.”
My ass wasn’t even down in the chair when he threw that bomb on me. A name that was until now forbidden in our house, but suddenly his daughter was our guest?
“I tracked her down after our call with Noah.”
I nodded as if I understood, even if I didn’t. We agreed to talk about it. This wasn’t talking about it. This was doing it.
“There are many packs still out there…our community—”
I raised my hand, stopping his speech before they were completely off his mouth. “I’m not arguing why you brought her here. But the fact you did it behind our backs.” And then a thought occurred to me. “Does Sven know?”
Anders clicked his tongue, shaking his head, and something flashed behind his eyes. I looked at the clock on the wall, and it was in the middle of the day. Of course Sven would be working while I was here at home. Anders wasn’t dumb. He timed this out.
“So you want me to be here and help you tell Sven?” I shook my head, already disappointed with him.
Anders let a breath out. It said everything that I needed to hear, yet he spelled it out for me. “You heard him after we talked to Noah. He’s against it.”
I nodded. “Yes, and that’s why we agreed to revisit the situation. But you did this behind everyone’s back, and now she’s here and—”
The powerful cinnamon perfume was impossible to deny.
She was an omega, and we couldn’t send her packing.
That was Anders’s plan. He didn’t think it was right for Sven to say no, so he trapped us in this situation.
My mouth opened again to start, but Isadora slapped her open palm on the table, startling both of us.
Her eyes were blue, but she had fire behind them, and as she stood, they narrowed down to slits.
“You have to speak slower. I won’t stand here catching every other word when you’re talking about me.”
I was too old to blush, so I certainly didn’t do that. I dipped my chin. “I’m sorry for our manners. I was surprised to see you here.”
Surprise to say the least. Isadora nodded, her eyes still very much suspicious of Anders and me, but she sat down again. “Tell me what is happening. What I’m walking into.”
Anders took a look at her and then back at me. “I told her her father was a sensitive subject around here.”
I nodded. “Sven, our pack member, doesn’t like to talk about it. He never wanted to contact you, and Anders knows that.”
While she kept her chin up, I watched as her hands fidgeted over her lap, but that was the only way she gave away her real feelings.
“I don’t want anyone looking at me like I did something wrong,” she told me, and then turned to Anders. “You brought me here.”
There were a lot of accusations in her words, and it was understandable. He planned this whole thing behind our backs, and now we had to deal with Sven coming home tonight and seeing Karl’s kid? It wasn’t fair to anyone, and Anders knew that much.
“It was the right thing to do.” Anders gritted his teeth.
“For who?” she shot back. When he couldn’t answer quickly enough, she shook her head and looked away.
It was the right thing to do. He was right.
The hope of a world with omegas of packing finding their mate was important to everyone, even the older packs like us.
I knew I wasn’t going to find anyone. Not when we were in our late forties with a broken pack, but it was good to know that this wasn’t the end.
Some pack would mate with her, and life would move again.
“I’m sorry for asking, but I can’t place your accent?” I said, breaking the silence.
“Brazil. I’m from Brazil. Dad taught me Swedish, but since he died…”
Another unnecessary dagger into my heart.
This one sank deep quickly, and I found myself shaking.
My eyes flew to Anders, who had the decency to look guilty.
Karl was not only my pack brother but he was also my friend and family.
Knowing that he died and we weren’t even notified at the time made me feel wrong in my own skin.
“I’m sorry to hear it,” I croaked out.
Maybe my voice carried enough pain and confusion because Isadora looked at me with those bright eyes in surprise, as if she never thought sincerity was going to spill from between my lips.
She'd better leave her preconceived notions at the door. I knew for a fact that even Anders, with that tough exterior, must be suffering from Karl’s death.
Sven, who swore to kill him on sight, I bet would stay away from all of us in stoic grief for weeks to come.
People process their feelings differently. My pack brothers’ anger toward Karl came from love, from the emptiness that his absence caused when he left our village and us behind.
“Do I need to leave?” she asked, interrupting my thoughts.
“No,” Anders spat angrily. Isadora’s eyes narrowed at the man. “I told you there would be feelings about Karl.”
“And I told you where to shove your feelings,” she replied, fighting fire with fire.
I had to bite the inside of my cheek so as not to smile. She didn’t know yet, but that was the only way to deal with Anders. To push him enough, to show you’re just as strong.
“The emotions regarding Karl shouldn’t affect you,” I said, putting an end to their stare down. “Anders is right. Bringing you here was the right thing to do.”
She nodded, her eyes falling away from Anders and fixing on me. “And when can I take the test?”
“The test?”
She nodded. “To check if I’m an omega.”
My eyes found Anders again, and he crossed his arms, as someone who doesn’t regret his actions.
There were many tests available to identify an omega.
It was easy biology, but most omegas showed themselves in puberty.
Isadora was obviously one. No beta could perfume a room from her mere presence like this.
I could identify every note of her scent, like expensive wine, each one was more extravagant than the next.
“You are an omega,” I told her. “Now, what we have to do is take a sample of your blood and match it to the international database to find your pack.”
Her eyes flashed with anger when I mentioned a pack. Karl told her stories, of course. I wonder what he said about us? If he was as hurt as we were from that time.
“And if I don’t want a pack?”
Again, my eyes found Anders for an explanation. Why would he bring her here if she wasn’t willing to match with a pack?
Isadora’s palm descended over the table with a whack, demanding attention. “What happens if I don’t want a pack?”
“She goes back to her life in Brazil, right?” Anders dragged on.
I shook my head at him, but the words coming from my mouth were positive. “Yes, of course. You’re not obligated to remain with anyone.”
She took in my words, nodding as I spoke. “So all I have to do is take a blood test, and then I can walk away?”
“If you don’t like to meet them or stay with them. They will of course try to court you.”
What kind of Alpha wouldn’t? Even the times before when omegas weren’t this scarce, the life mission of an honorable Alpha was to care for and spoil his omega. Now? The moment the database matches them, I know they would hop in a plane and come to see her.
But this scenario didn’t seem to entice Isadora by the way her small nose wiggled at the mention of courting.
“Who is Sven?” she asked next.
Tension built back over my shoulders. Anders was rough and did things before telling people, but we mostly agreed on things.
Sven was something else. He was very close to Karl, both of them very logical, and when Karl left, he closed up completely, even to us.
We were still a pack, and we shared this house, but I knew Sven wasn’t the same anymore.
He buried himself in his work, deciding to help people in our village was the best use of his time.
He was a community doctor. His hours were supposed to be flexible, yet some weeks I didn’t even see a shadow of him.
He froze up like the lake when Karl left, and we couldn’t reach him anymore, not after so many years. I couldn’t even imagine how to start.
“He’s our pack member.”
Isadora’s hand balled into a fist. “And let me guess? He has feelings about my dad too?”
There was no point in trying to guess or explain Sven’s behavior. I plastered a forced smile over my lips and got up. “I bet you’re tired. Shall I show you the guest room?”