Chapter Twenty-One – Mason
I sit on the couch, picking at the plate I made for myself while I wait for my brother to come back.
The TV across from me is on, though I’m not really watching the show that plays.
Rourke sits a good ten feet away, on the ground, his plate on his lap and his drink nearby.
He sits near one of the floor-length windows overlooking the backyard, resting his shoulder on the window frame.
He’s her scent match.
That thought echoes in my mind over and over. I can’t get over it. I just can’t. I need some time. I know things move fast when these things happen, but I don’t know that I’m prepared for things to move that fast.
The thing is, I don’t hate the guy. He’s another über, so you’d think we’d be at each other’s throats, like we were when we first met, but the guy’s actually not bad.
He’s much more level-headed than me, I’d be the first to admit.
I can see how he’s so high up in the ranks at the company he works for.
It feels like an eternity passes, but in reality it’s probably more like a few minutes before my brother joins us with his own plate and his own drink. He takes a spot on a cushion beside me, and I ask, “Well? How’d your talk go?”
Rourke gets up and moves closer, bringing his plate to the coffee table in front of us and sitting at its corner, facing us. He takes an even sip from his cup as he waits for my brother’s reply. The way he sits, how he acts; you’d think he’s been here just as many times growing up as Asher and me.
Asher’s eyes linger on me for a few seconds, but then he says, “It was… good. She’s not upset over what happened, even though she has every right to be.” As he says this, he doesn’t sound thrilled. No, the opposite, in fact.
He comes across as sad, which makes me think there’s more to it than he’s saying.
“What?” I ask in a huff, dread creeping along my spine. I don’t like not knowing things. Finding out Rourke is Jess’s scent match was enough of a surprise for me; I do not need any more surprises today.
But apparently I’m going to get one.
My brother sighs heavily. “I think she’s still pretty messed up over it. Who could blame her? Her parents died, then she went through hell to survive. Her life hasn’t been easy since, and I think she still blames herself for all of it. Maybe not the accident, but…”
Rourke chimes in, “None of us can know what it was like to go through what she did. She’s stronger than she gives herself credit for.” His statement is nothing but fact, and I nod my head along with him in agreement.
“She thinks she’s broken,” Asher says. “The accident, uh, I guess something happened in her brain. The impact or the trauma or something. Ever since that day, she hasn’t been able to smell a thing.
I guess her aunt took her to all the specialists and doctors in the area trying to get her help, to—using her words—fix her, but nothing ever stuck. ”
Rourke’s suspicion was spot-on. If the root of it all was different, I’d be amazed at the über’s ability, but since the topic is Jess and her well-being, amazement is the last thing I feel.
Mostly, I’m sad for her, so goddamn sad. For an omega to be unable to smell… I imagine it’s nearly as bad an omega who stays locked away their entire lives, never knowing what it’s like to be touched by someone else. Smell-starved instead of touch-starved.
“Fuck,” Rourke mutters as a frown tugs on his mouth. “I knew it.”
“I told her she’s not broken, but I don’t think she believed me,” Asher says, his sorrowful gaze resting on his plate.
He hasn’t touched his food. None of us have since he returned.
“I hate that she feels like that, and I hate that I had no idea about any of it. I feel so stupid. It’s literally our job to make her feel better. ”
Or it would be if she was our omega, but I don’t say that to him, because it doesn’t matter. She might not be ours in name, there might not be an official agreement in the works, but the matter is as good as settled as far as I’m concerned.
Somehow, somewhere along the way, Jess grew on me.
It was unwanted at first, like a fungus, but now…
now she’s much more like a flower that pops up after winter, something that blooms without interference, but if you want that bloom to last all season, you need to nurture it, take care of it, fertilize it.
She’s our flower, our omega, our mate, even if she doesn’t know it yet.
“We’ll make her feel better,” Rourke says with confidence, and it’s that confidence that lends me to believe him.
“One step at a time, though. We need to get her through her heat. While you were making dinner, I called my boss. He’s going to see about getting a copy of the will and having the company’s lawyers read through it. ”
If that will strictly says if she’s matched before her first heat, then that opens up some doors for us. We can tell her that we can help her through her heat, if she wants us to. Whether or not she’ll agree to our help is up in the air.
“She smells great though, doesn’t she?” the other über asks my brother.
Asher nods. “She does.” Softer, he adds, “It’s a shame she can’t smell us.”
I’m the only one who hasn’t had a whiff of her, apparently.
Their walk back in the rain started to wash away her scent-blocking cream, but I imagine if she neglected to reapply after her bath, her scent was full and as strong as ever—and since I’m the only one who hasn’t stepped foot in her room since, I’m the only one who hasn’t smelled her.
It’s hard for me not to be super jealous of that fact. I want to smell her. I want… well, to do more than just smell her, obviously. Nearly kissing her had ignited something in me, something I’ve honestly never felt before.
Desire. Heat. The spark of life.
I wanted to kiss her that night, wanted to pull her onto my lap and hold her as she leaned into me, to lose myself in her and never find the surface again. Who needed to come up for air? Not me. My cravings for her are almost enough to make me forget why I came up to this cabin in the first place.
The three of us eat dinner. I’m the first done, mostly because I don’t finish the food that’s on my plate. Once I put my plate away, I head to my room. I really would like to visit Jess, but I don’t want to push things. She probably needs some time to think everything over.
A lot has changed.
I’m standing next to the window in my room when my brother joins me.
I smell him before I hear him, and when I turn to face him I watch as he gently closes the bedroom door—meaning whatever he wishes to talk with me about is a private matter not fit for Rourke’s ears.
I have zero idea what that something could be.
He walks toward me, his green eyes holding a weight I can’t quite discern. He goes to lean on the wall near me, glancing out of the window for only a few seconds before he says, “Jess mentioned something else. She, uh, brought up being a little depressed.”
With everything she’s lived through, who the hell could blame her for being depressed? I sure as shit couldn’t.
Asher looks at me. “She also said she thinks you two might connect because…” He trails off, like whatever it is he’s about to say is challenging, something he’s not prepared to say. “Because you’re also depressed. Is that true? Are you?”
My first instinct is to mentally swear at myself for not hiding it better and at Jess for not keeping her mouth shut, but that instinct dies immediately. I can’t be mad at Jess for saying something. So, in the end, all I do is shrug.
“Have you told our parents?” My silence is my answer, causing him to say, “Of course you haven’t. Is that why you came up here? You weren’t here to… to hurt yourself, were you?”
“No,” I say, and I don’t know if he believes me or not.
“Fuck. I don’t know.” I can’t keep looking into his eyes, so I gaze out at the yard.
“I needed to get away from everything. I’m not like you.
I don’t have my life figured out. There’s nothing that calls to me out there, no career I can think of that would make me happy. ”
I chuckle, although it’s a mirthless sound.
“I don’t think I’ve been happy for a long time, actually.
Some days it’s hard to keep going—and I know it’s stupid.
I don’t have anything to be sad about. It’s not like we’re struggling.
Our parents would always help me out. Maybe I am depressed like Jess, but at least she has a legitimate reason, fucking trauma.
What do I have? Nothing. Nothing but a fucked-up sense of self. ”
Asher steps closer to me and sets a hand on my arm, a gesture meant to be comforting. I suppose it is, in a way. All those words just tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop and think, before I could put up my walls and shut the conversation down.
Maybe being around Jess has changed me a little. Maybe I’m more willing to open up now. Fuck, that’s just crazy to think, isn’t it?
“It’s okay,” he says, no judgment at all in his tone. “It’s nothing to be ashamed about. We can get you help.”
“I don’t want our parents to know.”
“Then we won’t tell them.” He says it like it’s simple, like we keep secrets from our mom and dads all the time.
We don’t—or at least, he doesn’t. I do, clearly, but that’s because I haven’t been comfortable enough to talk to anyone about this before.
“If you want to tell them when you’re ready, that’s your decision. I’ll back you up either way.”
It shouldn’t be like this. I’m the older brother, a goddamned über alpha. I should be as put together as Rourke, not the mess I am. Still, if it was as easy as fixing myself by thinking about it a lot, then I’d have been fixed a long time ago.
“Thank you,” I tell him, and he finally removes his hand from my arm. I’m not used to receiving comfort from anybody, especially my younger brother, but… it wasn’t bad. I don’t know that I feel heaps better, but it’s a step in the right direction.
Asher shakes his head. “Don’t thank me. I should’ve noticed something was off sooner. I’m your brother.”
“Yeah, but before this whole mess, you and I didn’t exactly talk all the time.” It’s true. He’s in school, going for a degree, with the ultimate goal of taking over our parents’ company. He’s always had a lot on his plate. Him and I were never best buds, like a lot of brothers end up being.
Hell, I never, ever would have thought we’d talk about forming a pack. Never thought we’d want to share an omega. Never thought I’d want an omega, for that matter.
He doesn’t take the excuse I give him. “No, it doesn’t matter. You’re still my brother. I should’ve known—I’m so sorry. All these years I thought you were messing up on purpose. I had no idea you felt this way.”
“You don’t think I’m weak?”
Never before have I seen such conviction in my brother’s expression than I do right after I ask that.
He holds his head high, and even though he’s two inches shorter than me, he gives off the appearance of a much taller alpha, practically an über, when he says, “No. Mental health matters. I don’t think you’re weak and I don’t think less of you.
You’re my brother, and maybe I don’t say it enough, but I love you.
I really do. I’m glad you’re my brother. ”
A month ago, a declaration like that would’ve made me gag and roll my eyes so fucking hard, but now… now I can only stand there and accept his words for what they are: the truth.
Asher and I are so different. We might look similar with our light eyes and our yellow hair. We might be alphas, but that’s where the similarities end. For so long, I thought he could never understand me or where I’m coming from, and you know what?
I’ve never been happier to have been so wrong.
I do something right then that I would never have done before: I hug him. I reach for my brother and pull him in and hug him for the first time in recent memory. Shit, I can’t remember the last time we hugged like this.
Asher doesn’t say a word, but he does hug me back.
And it feels good. It feels good to know I’m not alone, that my brother has my back. It feels even better knowing Jess is the one who helped him open his eyes; I don’t think I ever would’ve had the balls to say anything if it wasn’t for her inadvertently forcing the issue.
Coming clean to my brother isn’t a magic cure-all, but it’s a start.
The next step? Getting Jess through her heat.