Chapter Two – Jess #3
I didn’t tell him exactly why I needed to go to his family’s cabin.
In truth, it’s none of his business, but again, since he’s helping me, I suppose I do owe him the truth.
His family has loads of money, obviously.
It isn’t like hearing the fact that my future pack could get half of my inheritance would sway him. He doesn’t need any more money.
“My aunt’s been on my ass to find a pack,” I mutter as I pick at my nails on my lap.
“I… I don’t really agree with her about it, but she doesn’t seem to give a shit.
She’s been signing me up for every matching ceremony at the Omega Garden even though I keep telling her I don’t want to go.
Before the last one, I did some snooping around her office while she was at the club. ”
Asher comes from the same world I do; he’ll know I don’t mean a club where you dress scantily and grind on strangers.
“I found something in her desk, in a locked drawer,” I go on.
“It was a will. Basically, if I match with a pack before my first heat, that pack will get half of the inheritance my parents left me, and my guardian will get the other half. I know that sounds pretty standard, but there was another clause in there, one that said if I don’t match with a pack before my first heat, everything goes to me. ”
He nods once. “And you want it all.”
“It’s not so much that I want it all. It’s more so that I don’t want my aunt to get anything else.
She’s already living in my parents’ house.
She already got half the Dryers’ fortune when my uncle died a few years back.
Where will that money go with her? She doesn’t have any kids of her own.
She never remarried. What makes her deserving and me not? ”
Asher seems to think about this. “Even if your future pack would get half, that half would still technically be yours, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, unless I end up in a pack where the alphas don’t give a shit about what their omega wants.
You might not know it, but there are a lot of packs out there like that, Asher.
A lot. Maybe not in our circles, but with how badly my aunt wants to get rid of me, I wouldn’t put it past her to sell me to the first pack who’s willing to pay. ”
“Oh, come on. She’s not that bad, is she?”
All I say to that is a quiet, “You never met her.”
And it’s true. He never did. He doesn’t know how she is, how she acts.
His parents are all still alive, still in a happy, loving pack.
I just had the two parents, and once they died…
everything changed for me. He doesn’t know what it’s like to grow up in a house that used to be warm and inviting, and all it is now is cold and quiet.
“She’s not a nice person,” I say. “She’s mean. She’s cold. She’s… nothing like a mother should be. Honestly, it’s probably a good thing she couldn’t have kids of her own. Well-adjusted wouldn’t be in their vocabulary.”
“Is it in yours?”
His question catches me off-guard, and I look at him, finally lowering my sunglasses. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I just… you’d rather reach out to me and see if you can stay in my family’s cabin for a while instead of just talking to her about what you found. You’d rather run away than face it.”
“Easy for you to say,” I shoot back. “You’re an alpha.
You’re used to confronting your problems head-on and probably getting your way most of the time.
It’s not like that for omegas. We live in a different world.
I bet if I confronted her about it the day I found it, I’d already be moved in with some pack by now. ”
The look he gives me tells me he doesn’t quite believe me, but that’s fine. Like I said, he never met my aunt and he’s an alpha. There are some things alphas will never understand.
“I’m alone,” I whisper. “I’ve been alone for years. I’m doing what I think is right. If I can get my parents’ fortune, I’ll never have to find a pack if I don’t want to. I’ll have more than enough money to take care of myself, hire bodyguards if I need them. I’ll be able to do whatever I want.”
After a moment, he quietly says, “I can see how that would be appealing to someone who’s never had that kind of freedom before.
” He has both hands on the wheel, and both hands seem to tighten on said wheel before he adds, “But, you know, not all packs are evil. Not all alphas would take the money and keep it for themselves.”
“I know.” And I do know. I’m just not willing to take the chance that I’ll end up with a pack like that, not when my aunt is in charge of me. “Why don’t we change the subject, huh? Tell me what you’ve been up to.”
I don’t really care, if I’m honest, but I’d listen to him drone on and on if it means I don’t have to keep talking about myself or my situation.
Whatever warmth was between us, whatever friendship we used to have years ago…
it’s gone. He might be willing to do this for me, he might be the only alpha I can semi-trust, but he’s not my friend.
I need to remember that.