29. Chapter 29
Chapter 29
Liam
The moment Dante lunged, I knew I had to get him out of the house. We clashed hard, his fists landing with brutal precision as I dragged us toward the back, muscles straining to steer his fury away from anyone else. We managed to tumble into the backyard, and Dante was still nearly feral with rage.
“You fucked her! You traitor!” He yelled, his eyes dark as he pushed me so hard I nearly fell over. I righted myself, dusting my sweats off before I responded.
“Dante, listen, please. It’s not what you think.” My words were hollow. It was pretty much exactly what he thought. Yeah, I lost my control and Celeste and I had done it.
“How could you?” Dante’s words were furious, but I could hear the pain behind them. I swallowed and stayed several feet back from him.
“Its… it’s the scent match. It’s inescapable, the need for her.” I finally admitted as I looked down. “But Dante, it’s only sex. Nothing more.”
Thankfully, Vigo burst out of the house, stepping between us just as Dante took a step forward, fury radiating off him in waves.
“Stop it! Both of you!” Vigo barked, arms outstretched like he could physically hold our pack together with sheer will. “This isn't going to fix anything!” His words barely registered as Dante growled at us.
“I told you! I told you he did it!” Dante’s words caused the shame I’d been avoiding to creep in. He was right. I’d just assured him the other night that I could handle being alone with Celeste.
I failed.
I failed so hard that I’d been unwilling to even let her leave my bed for the rest of the day, keeping her like a dream I didn’t want to wake up from. Because it was a dream. It was the closest thing I could get to having a scent match - if I pretended Celeste was a normal omega, and not who we knew her to be.
“Dante, please, you have to understand the unbearable ache of having her here, knowing she’s meant for us, and then being next to her… it’s impossible! Tell me you don’t feel the same pain when you aren't close to her!” I begged, trying to get my packmate to understand why I had slipped.
Vigo’s green eyes were lit up with caution as he assessed both of us, and I could see him struggling with the idea of having to deal with an alpha dominance fight. But Dante finally broke.
“Of course I feel it!” He yelled, his face contorted as his hands gripped into fists over and over. “I feel the pull of her every moment! You of all people know how I’d longed for an omega, someone who could help me share this pain and be there for me!” He howled, his words breaking. “My body drives me every moment to be near her! Tries to trick me into thinking she’d somehow be good for me! I feel the ache of her down to my bones!” His voice cracked as he looked at me like a man being tortured.
“But despite the pain, I would never, ever allow myself to sleep with her!” He said, and I once again felt the shame of my broken promise to him. “I will deal with this ache every day until my last. And I’ll never let that… woman… who massacred so many to ever get to me in that way.” I felt Dante through our bond. He was right. He felt the ache of not being bonded to our scent match just as much as any of us. And he also felt the pain from what happened to his family, which he carried around so deep it was in the marrow of his bones. And as his packmate, I’d betrayed him by allowing myself to get too close to the woman who was behind his hurt.
“We need to put down some ground rules.” Vigo said, running his hand through his dark locks, now tousled and wild. “Look, Dante, we can’t stop the fact that she’s our mat- our match.” Vigo had almost slipped up and used the word mate, which was a bit more intimate than the sterile ‘scent-match’.
“And we cannot stop our desires to be near her. We all know this.” He made sure to look at Dante, affirming that we were all in perpetual misery by not bonding with our scent match.
“The longer we are around her without taking action, the more unbearable it will be. And that will make us messy, and prone to mistakes. So how about we work within these confines. If we do anything physical with Celeste, it will only be to alleviate the growing urge and not anything more.” Vigo’s words made Dante look angry again, but he went on. “And for the record, I am trying like hell to not let my mind go there, but I had no idea a scent match was so strong. And I’ll be avoiding Celeste as much as I can. But if any of us cracks, we need to just remember it’s a biological draw only, not anything more. Otherwise, it will tear our pack apart. And we can never achieve what we set out to do if we are divided.”
Vigo was right - I had to get my head out of the clouds, stop imagining that my draw to Celeste was anything more than a biological distraction. There could be no happily ever after with her. But we couldn’t escape our draw to her. So, we’d deal with it, as long as we knew that it was temporary.
“I’m sorry, Dante.” I said, and felt the crushing weight of his disappointment through our bond. It was worse than his anger. Deep down, he was also scared. He thought he’d lose us to her. “Hey, you’re my pack. Okay? Nothing will ever come between us. Not an omega, certainly not her.” His dark eyes looked at me with such anguish it nearly broke my heart. “It’s only physical, nothing more.” I promised, and I waited for moments that felt like eternity for him to respond.
“Alright.” Dante finally said, resigned to our fate. “Fuck her if you need to. But don’t expect me to treat her any differently.”
I sighed, looking down at the ground. Even now, my body craved to be close to the small, devious omega. The sex had temporarily alleviated some of the intense desire, but the scent match wasn’t going to go away. We had to deal with it the best way we could until she was out of the house.
I knew Celeste was a formidable opponent, but the longer she was here, the more I felt like our pack would unravel. And she hadn’t a single clue.