6. Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
Mateo
I stood outside the door, listening like a fucking creeper. She didn’t want to leave her room, didn’t want to eat at the table with the rest of us. And I totally got that.
None of us had exactly been keen on bringing an omega into the pack, although we all had different reasons.
I personally didn’t want to endanger her life. Our work tended to attract the wrong kind of attention from the wrong kind of people. But Raece had insisted the only way to keep the eyes of the law off of us was to register and build a legitimate business we could hide behind. And the only way to register as a pack was to complete it with an omega.
And force the poor individual to carry a child in hopes of populating the world with more omegas as though any of us had a choice in how our children would present in the future.
Leaving the room when I’d heard the shower running was probably one of the hardest fucking things I’d done in a long damn time. I could picture her standing under the spray, running her hands over her wet, soapy body.
Nope. Not entertaining that shit. Especially when it was more than obvious she wanted nothing to do with any of us.
She didn’t trust us.
Of course, she didn’t; she didn’t fucking know us. We’d all met less than twenty-hours ago and Raece hadn’t exactly been overly sweet when she’d told him to stay away from her.
And then he’d stomped around the house for hours after.
At least I’d had some peace this morning. From the sounds coming from Dean’s room last night, Raece would be out cold for a few more hours.
Now, as I stood here like her personal guard, I heard the bathroom door open, heard the dishes clink as though she was eating, then heard the bag rustling.
Good. Something about her wearing Raece’s clothes to bed, sleeping covered in his scent, made my alpha side possessive. And that wasn’t a right I had. Raece was pack lead. And she was our omega.
No matter what happened in the future, I had no right to claim her all to myself.
Pushing from the wall beside her door, I quietly moved down the hall then hustled down the stairs. I hadn’t taken a bite until I knew our omega was fed. Just because we’d more or less been forced into this didn’t mean I wouldn’t take my responsibility to care for her and protect her seriously.
And that meant protecting her from my own packmates if necessary.
“She still won’t come down?” Raece asked from his spot at the table.
“I brought her a tray,” I said, plating my own food before sitting across from him.
“She can’t stay in there forever,” Raece said.
I had a feeling Wren would do just that if given the choice.
“Give her time,” I said around a mouthful of eggs.
“Her heat is days away. You really want her first time with us to be when she has no idea what the fuck is happening?” Dean said. “I vote I go seduce her.”
“Slut,” Winter muttered under his breath, but there was a quirk to his lips.
Dean took no offense, simply grinning wide as he chewed, giving us a view of his half-masticated food.
“How the hell are we supposed to register if she won’t even let you mark her?” Doran grumbled.
He was the most verbal against claiming an omega. He had Winter and refused to share him with anyone, even his own packmates much to Dean’s dismay. The two were the only members of our little family the flirty beta had yet to seduce.
Raece pointed at Dean with his fork. “Stay the fuck away from her.”
“Hey. She’s our omega. Not just yours.”
“And she fucking hates us,” Winter said.
“She doesn’t hate us. She doesn’t trust us. She’s scared. Do you blame her?” I said, looking to each of my packmates one by one.
“She doesn’t need to like us. She just needs to let me fucking mark her so we can register. Then she can do whatever the fuck she wants,” Raece said, dropping his fork onto his plate with a clatter.
“Except leave,” I said.
“Or get a job,” Dean said.
“Or choose another pack,” Winter offered.
“You know what I meant, assholes,” Raece said.
He sat back in his chair and looked toward the kitchen entryway as though Wren would magically appear.
I might not have wanted an omega, but I refused to allow anyone to be treated badly. With what we did for side money, I would have thought Raece of all people would have gotten that.
“You just going to bring her trays of food every meal like a butler?” Dean asked. The fucker was rarely serious, and I’d always wondered if humor was his defense mechanism. Otherwise, the dude had to have a screw loose up there.
“If that’s what it takes for her to understand we’re not going to hurt her.”
“If she won’t let anyone fuck her, the mark is going to hurt like a bitch,” Doran said.
Wren might be a complete stranger to us, but I knew from the little I’d seen already that she would never allow any of us near her, not sexually. What the hell did she plan to do when her heat hit? She would end up begging for a knot, begging for release from the pain, and send every alpha in this house into fucking rut.
Not the best way to start a lifetime together.
Fuck. A lifetime. We had successfully enslaved that poor woman for a lifetime.
“Why is she so old?” Dean blurted out.
I frowned in his direction. “What?”
“She’s twenty-six. Didn’t you read her file? Why hasn’t she been assigned to a pack? The file says she presented at sixteen, but we were the first to show any interest in her.”
Winter huffed a laugh. “Did you not listen to a word the headmistress said?”
“She’s a handful,” Doran said. “We’re the only dumbasses willing to deal with that. Other alphas would want an obedient little omega.”
All we’d wanted was the legitimacy assigned to our pack so we hadn’t cared whether or not the omega we chose would be submissive and gentle.
That and she was hot. Big sky-blue eyes, fiery red curly hair, with big tits, round hips, and a plump ass.
“Twenty-six, no pack, no pups, and no mark,” Dean said. “Could she have some abandonment issues or some shit? Think that’s why she’s refusing our mighty leader?” He grinned at Raece, who lifted his middle finger in return.
“She doesn’t want the mark because she doesn’t want a pack. Can’t we…fuck, like fake this shit? Get her a place somewhere else? Then we all get what we want,” Doran said.
Except he was the only one who currently hated the thought of the beautiful woman upstairs. We’d all been a little resistant, but once we’d gotten a hit of her scent, I’d noted the change in each of my packmates, along with my own growing cock as she’d walked toward us for the ceremony.
The fucker hadn’t gone down since. I’d rubbed one off in the shower after everyone went down for the night. And again this morning before stepping foot into her room.
Yet my boner was still straining against the zipper of my jeans.
Pushing my fingers through my hair, I leaned forward and rested my elbows on the table. “We need to mark her, but we need to earn her trust first.”
“We’re running out of fucking time,” Raece said. “Her heat will be here within days. How the fuck are we supposed to earn her trust in days?”
“You could start by having an actual conversation with her,” I said, glaring at Raece.
He might have been the pack lead, but I could easily dominate the mother fucker. There had been no challenge, no fight. None of the rest of us wanted the title, thus Raece was nominated. Times like this, I regretted not taking the reins from the get-go when we’d expanded and brought Winter and Doran into the fold.
He returned my glare for a few moments before shoving away from the table and storming from the room, his heavy stomps echoing throughout the house.
“That went well,” Dean said before taking a sip of his coffee. “I still think you all should let me seduce her. I’ll have her begging for more in no time.”
Doran rolled his eyes. Winter chuckled. All I could focus on was the fact I’d heard Raece’s feet climb the stairs and stop near what I assumed was Wren’s door.
If he planned to actually step into her room for a normal, getting to know you conversation, he needed to reel in his temper or he wouldn’t get very far with the woman who acted as though she’d rather be living under a bridge than under our roof.