Chapter 2
Ranier
“Could you at least try to look a bit more put together?” my sister Helena hisses from near the door to our ready-room at Ravencroft Hall. She stands there in a navy-blue dress cut just below the knee, her arms crossed, and her blue eyes narrowed and locked on Bastion as he stumbles into the room.
Bastion’s brown eyes crinkle as he cringes. He scrubs the side of his head, messing his short-cut blond hair, and turns from her. “No need to be so loud, Helena. For fuck’s sake.”
“No?” my sister presses. She gestures wildly at an antique grandfather clock in the corner where our youngest sister, Dorthea, sits reading children’s books on her tablet. “You are all expected out in the hall in thirty minutes and you look like you’ve come straight from a bar.”
Bastion groans at the high-pitched screech in Helena’s exasperated voice. There’s a shadow of facial hair that needs to be shaved to be ready, but honestly, today, I don’t even care. Let Bastion be his full hot mess self for everyone to see.
“Oh, my god,” Helena continues. “You did come straight from a bar, didn’t you?” Then she turns her wrath on me. “Are you even trying anymore? Father is going to cut you off if you don’t pick an omega this year. Or did you forget that part?”
“Not at all,” I reply as evenly as possible so as not to stir her further.
How could I forget our parents cornering me like the child I no longer am and demanding our pack does not reject an omega this year?
How could I dismiss the threat of cutting me off and disowning me? Yet I still can’t find the drive.
I open my mouth to say as much but Helena swipes a hand through the air.
“Don’t, Ranier.” Her eyes are stormy blue pools. “I understand better than anyone the weight they’re putting on you, but Mom and Dad know best. You need to accept whoever the Council assigns you all this year.”
Wyatt, who has been lounging on a chaise this entire time without saying anything, finally snorts. “Why don’t you just take lead in the family, Helena? You’re always ordering us around as it is.”
I shoot a weighted look at Wyatt that makes him raise his hands in defense. “How about you put the phone down and get ready yourself?”
Wyatt’s phone might as well be surgically attached to his palm. It was the one thing that truly differentiated him from Christopher. But if Chris could see his brother now, phone-addicted and blogging constantly, I think he’d be pissed, too.
But Chris won’t see it. He’s been gone for five years. So it’s up to Bastion and I to break Wyatt’s penchant for blogging everyone’s business for the world to see.
Wyatt glances down at his tailored, dark-navy suit and, yeah, actually fairly put-together image. “I’m ready to go, just waiting on you assholes to finish cleaning up.” He looks to Bastion. “Seriously, man. The bar?”
Bastion curses under his breath and heads to a dressing room off the main space. It’s really only cordoned off by a curtain so I know he’ll hear every word of the conversation.
I straighten my own suit jacket and crack my neck. “What I mean is get off the phone, Wyatt.”
“Not a bad idea,” Helena adds with more softness than I’ll ever receive from her. Good. Wyatt could use a warm older sister, and she’s much closer to his age than Bastion or I.
Sometimes I feel like I don’t know how to get through to Wyatt at all. We’re only eight years apart in age, but twenty-five and thirty-three are two completely different life stages.
But we owe it to Chris. I owe a lot to Chris.
Wyatt holds up the device. “Don’t you want to know what I’ve learned? There’s so much information out there, and the Omega Finishing School’s database isn’t really hard to break into at all. It’s—”
The door to our ready-room at Ravencroft Hall opens and my father steps through. He’s dressed to the nines in a perfectly tailored black suit, a black tie, and shiny black shoes like he’s going to a funeral.
Yeah, mine if our pack doesn’t accept an omega today.
“Good morning, Everhart Pack,” my father says.
Bastion nods a hello. Wyatt waves.
“Good morning, father,” I reply with about as much enthusiasm as Helena got from me.
“Ready to finally select your omega?” he asks but then stops. His eyes narrow on Bastion’s hungover state and he clicks his tongue.
Bastion catches it and waves him off. “Don’t bother. My parents already wrung me out. I’m fine—and I’ll be even more fine by Selection time.”
Thirty-three and the man still drinks like he’s in college, and gambles as if he isn’t aware that money is real and actually useful. But then, who am I to judge? At least Bastion has a life outside the royal manor given to us years ago.
Wyatt sits up and goes back to focusing on his phone. “There are a few lovely options. Alice Hawthorne—a cutie with high finishing school grades.”
“The Hawthorne Family would never,” Helena suggests. “Not with Bastion’s… hobbies.”
Bastion rolls his eyes.
Father nods his agreement. “It is an unfortunate fact that omegas with police ties do not want to deal with your addictions, Bastion. Please get them under control.”
Bastion has no reply to that, which is probably for the best.
Wyatt flicks his finger across the screen. “Aurelia Seymour. She’s a singer from Denmark.”
Father smiles, although it’s thin and not even remotely genuine. “She sounds lovely. Perhaps we can nudge the Council in her direction.”
Wyatt then loudly snort-laughs. “There’s always this rags-to-riches case. Emery Grey. She’s a commoner, but her parents worked like hell to pay for Omega Finishing School.”
Wyatt flashes us all the phone so we see the school profile photo of a beautiful woman with cotton-candy colored hair, a beaming bright smile, and intelligent and kind eyes. She’s mesmerizing, actually.
Bastion perks up a little. “She’s gorgeous.”
“And a painter,” Wyatt adds as he flips the phone back to himself so he can keep scrolling. “Her art is pretty mid, though.”
Father raises a hand. “She’s a commoner, so it’s a no.”
“Unfortunately,” Bastion adds.
My eyes narrow. “How can you demand we accept an omega but say no to these women?”
Father gestures toward Bastion. “One of your pack requires a royal match, thus rendering Emery Grey ineligible.”
Bastion holds his ground. “She’s eligible thanks to the Omega Finishing School.”
Helena raises an eyebrow and smiles a little, but she says nothing. She doesn’t have to. This is the first omega Bastion’s put any attention toward and we haven’t even met her yet.
Father shakes his head and grumbles something I can’t hear.
Finally, he turns for the door with frustration tensing his entire posture in a way that’d drive Mother mad.
“The Council decides who your match is to be, not some sleuthing on the internet. And you will accept whomever they choose today, although I do hope the omega chosen is not a commoner. Your futures and reputations rely on it.”
He leaves the four of us alone in the room to ponder his words. Real as they are, as well as the threats laced within them, he is right.
Bastion and I cannot keep rejecting omegas. Wyatt needs one to reel him in. But I just…
It’s not what I want. It’s not what I see as necessary. I don’t need an omega to carry on the family duties and line. And Bastion—his family should stop pushing him to find an omega just to settle for any other woman out there.
But of course that’s when my inner alpha goes to war with the rest of myself because that alpha craves an omega, and rut suppressants don’t work forever. They start wearing off in your thirties, and while we’re both still young, I can tell that Bastion’s feeling the same effects.
Duty says we need an omega. Our inner alphas agree.
But I don’t think any of the three of us do.
Helena moves to the coffee table housing snacks and water. She tosses Bastion a bottle of spring water as he exits the dressing room in a dark gray suit. “Get sober. Fast.” Then she turns on her heel and leaves the three of us alone.
“Helena’s chipper this morning,” Bastion notes as he opens the bottle and chugs half of it.
“Where the hell were you last night?” I asked.
Wyatt shakes his phone. “Street racing, again. After party, Bas?”
Bastion shoots him a glare. “I won, in case it matters.”
“Enough to cover previous debts, or?” I ask.
Bastion chugs the rest of his water. “How about we turn to Wyatt instead. When are you going to stop writing that blog?”
Wyatt shrugs and makes a show of hitting something on his phone screen with his free hand. “Done, actually. Just posted for today’s events. Royals Anonymous never gets as many views as on Selection Day.”
I groan and study my pack for long moments. Everhart Pack. Named in honor of Wyatt’s older brother and his online pseudonym. I love both of these guys like brothers. Which is probably why we fight like them.
Bastion’s expression relaxes. “I’m not as bad as I look, I promise. I’ll be okay by Selection time.”
Wyatt reads the room and finally puts his fucking phone away into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “The post is just a stupid piece stating what we all already know. There’s no gossip in it. My head’s focused solely on the omegas—hopefully ours.”
I let a single shallow laugh out. “Just because the Council gives us an omega doesn’t mean she’s our omega.”
The rumored and ever-sought-after scent-matched, fated omegas some alpha packs claim to find. That I very much doubt is in the cards for our pack. But accepting an omega into our home would certainly get our families off our backs for a while.
Bastion raises an eyebrow. “Does that mean this year we’re not rejecting the selected omega?”
I shake my head. “One more year without one would be nice.”
Wyatt nods to Bastion. “Can your parents handle that?”
Conflict turns Bastion’s gaze into a hazy gyre. “Maybe, maybe not. But it’s all our decision, too.”
“Maybe we see who they select,” Wyatt suggests. “If it’s Aurelia Seymour I think she’d satisfy even Ranier’s uptight prick of a father.”
“I don’t think anything can, Wyatt, but…” Even I couldn’t admit it. A royal omega from such an allied country would go far. “Aurelia Seymour will come close, yes. So let’s hope for her.”
Bastion doesn’t look convinced. “Don’t you all want to pick an omega based on love and caring for her?”
“Because that worked so well the first time,” I reply.
Wyatt’s jaw locks hard. “Charlotte—”
“Fucked us over,” Bastion cuts in over Wyatt, as he should. He was the one burned hardest by her. “So yes, we learned the hard way. Let the Council decide. Your father’s probably already in talks to have Aurelia Seymour selected for Everhart, Ranier. So let’s just let it be this year.”
“And if we aren’t given Aurelia Seymour?” Wyatt asks. “I know you like her hair and brilliant smile, but Emery Grey isn’t nobility.”
“We’re rejecting for another year,” I reiterate.
“It’s for the best with everything going on.
” I’m taking over more royal duties. Bastion needs to get far more sober in his day-to-day life.
Wyatt needs to grow the fuck up. But I don’t need to say this laundry list when people in our lives—like Helena—say it enough. “Next year, that’s our year.”
I say it, but it doesn’t feel right. It feels like everything is suddenly on edge and I can’t make it stop.
Sometimes I wonder what non-royal life would be like and consider running toward it with nothing but the clothes on my back. But then I remember every lesson and hour my parents have put into preparing me to take over for the family and I know, I have no choice.
This is my life, and Everhart Pack is my only outlet.