12. Chapter 10
CHAPTER 10
Dean
O ne of the highlights of a bank account like ours was same day shipping. I had no idea exactly what I was looking for, but I selected the option for Omega Helpers and bought a variety. When the camera alerted me to a visitor, I met the deliveryman at the door, taking the box and nodding my thanks.
“Got her dildos,” I called out to no one in particular.
I’d waited a whole day before giving in and hitting Buy Now . She hadn’t allowed anyone into her nest, no matter how many times the alphas and I tried to coax her into letting us at least give her an orgasm to stave off the worst of the pain.
“Surprised you didn’t order any for yourself,” Doran said from the couch as I passed the living room.
“Who said I didn’t?”
My fellow beta was either the most jealous fuck in the world or jealous that I didn’t require the attention of only one person. Why limit myself when the world was a practical playground of ass, pussy, tits, and dick?
Opening the box as I climbed the stairs, I stared wide-eyed at the array staring back at me. I knew what I’d bought but it was one thing to see it on the phone screen, another to see it in person. The dildo with the knot was so fucking life like I was tempted to try it out myself.
But this was for our omega. I might not have the proper equipment to get her fully through her heat, but I could give her enough pleasure she could forget the pain for a few minutes. And I’d heard a fist could bring comfort, too. I was so willing to try that with the beautiful woman making our house smell like the best banana dessert in the world.
There was no sound as I pushed open the door to her quarters. No keening. No whining. No whimpering. Could she possibly be through the worst of it already? From everything we’d been taught growing up and everything I’d read online, the shortest cycles tended to last no less than four or five days. The longest I’d read was nine days. While nine days of nonstop fucking sounded like absolute paradise to me, I couldn’t imagine how the omegas felt at the end of a week and a half.
“Wren?” I called out as I turned the knob to her nest. “I’m not coming to bug you. I just brought you some–”
My words caught off when my eyes landed on her.
At some point, she’d removed her clothes and kicked off the blankets. She was soaked in sweat, her hair plastered to her too pale face. She was barely moving, her lids barely fluttering as she tried to open her eyes to look at me.
“Wren?” I said again as I stepped further into the room. I had expected her to scream at me or throw something at my head as she had with Raece.
But the omega wasn’t moving. She looked like she was barely conscious.
Kneeling beside her, I touched the back of my hand to her cheek. Holy fuck, she was burning up. She was on the dangerous side of feverish and, in the confines of the nest, her scent smelled off, sickly sweet, cloying.
“Fuck. Help!” I yelled as I lifted her into my arms and carried her into the ensuite bathroom next door to her nest.
With her cradled against my chest, I used one hand to turn on the cold water and stepped under the spray still fully clothed.
I bit back a yelp at the frigid temperature, but she barely reacted.
Thundering steps heralded the arrival of the pack a second before bodies crowded into the bathroom.
“She’s on fire. Fill the tub,” I said to no one in particular, my eyes glued to her face.
The sound of a heavy rush of water mixed with the patters of the shower hitting the tile and our bodies.
“I need you to open your eyes, omega,” Raece said.
He was standing just inside the shower now, half his body getting soaked.
Her lashes fluttered again, and a pained sound left her lips. But she didn’t open her eyes, didn’t utter a single word.
We’d done this to her. None of us had wanted to push her or pressure her. But it was our job to care for her. We’d waited too long and now her body was shutting down.
“She hasn’t touched any of the food or water,” Doran said from outside the shower.
The poor woman had sat in a puddle of her own slick and sweat, had no one there to make sure she was eating and drinking, and now I wondered if we needed to take her to the hospital.
“Tub’s full enough,” Mateo said.
I handed her over to Mateo who’d had the forethought to remove his clothes. He held her tightly against his chest and lowered into the tub that was big enough for the whole pack to fit comfortably. That was the point of such a large tub, the large shower, and her enormous bed. We’d wanted to be able to share time with her, to spend time as a pack, even if we’d been reluctant to the idea at first.
Not we . They . They had been reluctant. I had been more than excited to have a little variety in the house.
But as I watched Wren barely holding onto consciousness, guilt hit me hard and fast. I’d seen her as nothing more than another hole to wet my dick instead of a beautiful woman, a living, breathing human being who required our protection from the outside world, from fuckers who we hunted and killed every day before she’d come into our lives.
While Mateo held her in the lukewarm bath, I hurried back to the nest to remove the soiled blankets and pillows. I had no idea why Raece bought more. The day it was declared we would officially add an omega, we’d ensured we had plenty of pillows, blankets, and other omega comfort items on hand since we had no idea what type of person would be joining us.
Once the nest was as clean as I could get it without calling in a company, I rearranged the fresh stuff then pulled the toys from the boxes. If we could get her temperature to a safer level, get her to eat and drink a little, I could give her the toys to ease some of the worst of the symptoms until she learned to trust us.
Mateo had been right. Not that I would ever tell him that. She needed to learn she could trust us to give her anything and everything she needed, needed to know we would help her without hurting her.
Hopefully, these toys would help her through the next few days. Then, I would be the first to start hanging out in her room until she realized I had no intention of jumping her bones without her permission.
Mateo had been bringing her trays of food three times a day since she’d arrived. Why the hell hadn’t he bothered to spend some time with her, talk to her, get to know her better. I got that he was trying to give her time and space, but how was she supposed to get to know us if we all kept so much distance from her twenty-four/seven?
Leaving the nest, I removed the sopping wet t-shirt and jeans and tossed them out of her bedroom. I would deal with them – and the wet floor – once we knew she was no longer in danger.
The entire pack was standing near the tub staring down at Mateo and Wren. Her eyes were open, but they still looked a little unfocused as they raised to me.
“Can you hear me?” I asked her.
Mateo ducked his chin and looked down at her when she nodded.
“I don’t want you to freak out but you’re naked in the tub with one of your alphas.”
“I’m aware,” she said, and those two words sent amusement and relief through me. Completely naked, at the mercy of the pack, and she still had that fire in her eyes.
“We still won’t do anything without your permission. I promise. But we need to get you out of the tub and get some food and water in you. And I left you some presents in the nest. Some, uh, sex toys. They’re supposed to help if you still don’t want your alphas to help.”
Raece and Mateo looked at me like I’d grown a second head. Just because I liked to fuck didn’t mean my beta instincts as a nurturer were nonexistent.
Wren was our omega. She was in distress. She needed her pack. End of story.
“Will you let us take you back to your nest?”
She looked around until her eyes settled on Doran then shook her head.
She didn’t want Doran in there? He was a beta, too. He wasn’t a threat to her.
“Will you let Mateo and me take you back to your nest?”
After a few seconds, she pulled her attention from my packmate and looked back at me, nodding slowly.
Hell yes! That was the tiniest accomplishment, but I would take it as a win, damn it.
“You heard her, boys. Time to go,” I said, turning and holding my arms up to usher them out.
Raece looked as though he wanted to throttle me. Winter looked sad and a little needy. Doran looked…was that remorse? There was a combination of remorse and something else in his eyes as he stared down at Wren. And she’d looked right at him when she’d said she didn’t want the pack in her nest.
What the hell had transpired when he’d found her creeping around the kitchen in search of pain killers? The fact he still acted as though she was a threat to his relationship with Winter was no longer endearing but bordering on annoying as fuck.
A growl trickled up Raece’s throat, but he turned and stormed from the room, jerking his head for the other two to follow him.
“Ready, sweetheart?” I asked her as I grabbed a towel and held it up.
A whimper tore from her throat and my eyes darted to her face. Her russet brows were pinched together and her eyes glistened.
“It’s okay. I promise neither of us will do anything without permission. But we need you to eat something and drink some water. And I don’t think you want to do that while in a cold bath.”
Mateo looked as though he was clenching his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. I needed both my packmates comfortable, and they couldn’t do that if they stayed in cold water all day.
She tilted her head back and looked into Mateo’s face and actually looked surprised to see him.
“Hi,” he said, his voice soft. “Can I pick you up? We need to get you dried off.”
“I can–”
“I’d rather you not try to step out of the tub on your own, sweetheart,” I said. “If you slip and fall, you’ll be sprawled on the floor naked. And listen, I might not touch you without your explicit permission, but I will take every opportunity to ogle your beautiful body.”
“And we don’t want you to get hurt,” Mateo said, shooting me a glare as his brows slammed together.
My dick twitched when the smallest smile quirked up the corners of her lips. And being as I hadn’t bothered pulling on any dry clothes after removing the wet ones, the only thing keeping her from seeing what she did to my body was the towel I was holding up for her.
She nodded without saying anything, so Mateo wrapped his arms around her and held her securely as he stood from the tub.
I pretended to turn my head, darting my eyes toward her naked body in an obvious fashion.
And yep…the beautiful redhead giggled the softest sound.
I had done that. Not the alphas. Not the giant Mateo. Me . I had made our omega giggle for the first time since we’d met her.
Drying her off quickly, I did make a point not to touch her in an overtly sexual way, though I wanted nothing more than to lick the moisture from her body and the slick from her core.
Once she was as dry as I could get her while still cradled in Mateo’s thick arms, I draped the towel over her and nodded for Mateo to leave the room.
“You can dry yourself, big boy,” I teased, following him as he carried Wren from the bathroom and into her nest.
The food and water sat just inside. Once Mateo had her bundled under a few blankets, I set the tray beside her and picked up some fruit, holding it to her lips. She opened her mouth and accepted the chunk of melon, chewing it slowly, her eyes on me as though she was making sure I wasn’t distracting her to hurt her.
What had happened in her past to make her distrust us so much? Although I was sure the fact Raece had forced the bonding claim on her shoulder hadn’t exactly endeared her to us.
Asshole. He couldn’t wait a few more days? The Center knew her heat was close; hence they wouldn’t bother checking in for a while.
At least we could feel her through the bond…
Wait. Actually, I couldn’t feel her through the bond. None of us had felt when she’d gone into distress. The healing wound on her shoulder was evidence Raece had bitten her, yet I could only feel the faintest hint of her presence.
Later. That mystery was for later. Right now, we needed to make sure she was strong enough to weather the last few days of her cycle. Then we would figure out why we didn’t feel her as strongly as we felt each other.
After a few minutes, she pushed my hand away and started feeding herself.
Mateo grabbed a bottle of water, cracked the top, and offered it to her. She surprisingly drank half the bottle in one long pull. The fact she’d trusted the two of us to join her in the nest, both of us completely naked, and the fact she was eating and drinking had to mean something, right? It had to mean she was learning she could at least trust the two of us.
“Thank you,” she said so softly I barely heard it.
“Is there anything else we can get you?” Mateo asked.
Her eyes lowered to his groin then darted back up to his face. A cloud of perfume burst into the space and my dick hardened even more. What could I say? I’d been walking around with a boner since I’d laid eyes on her during the ceremony.
She was so fucking beautiful. So curvy. And now that I could fully see her tits, they were as full and perky as I’d imagined. Her nipples were a dark pink, stark against her pale skin. There were freckles covering her shoulders, and more decorating the parts of her that weren’t covered with blankets. A part of me wanted to seek out every single one of them, to count them, to press my lips to each of them.
“I think I’m okay for now,” she said. And yep, her eyes darted to my groin before she looked away.
“Can we hang out with you for a while? Make sure you’re okay? Your fever was really high,” Mateo said in his deep, calm voice.
“Um…” Her eyes moved around the room until they settled on the toys I’d ordered for her. The sweetest pink washed over her cheeks.
Might as well get the uncomfortable stuff out of the way immediately.
“Yeah, so…I ordered you some toys. I told you in the bathroom, but I’m not sure you remember. These are all designed for omegas. There are vibrators, dildos, even a silicon knot. I thought they could help you through this week until you’re ready for your alphas.”
Or for my dick. And fingers. And tongue . But I kept those last thoughts to myself.
“They never let me use them at the Center,” she admitted, her eyes still glued to the toys.
Fuck it. I grabbed a few and moved them closer to her so she could get a better look at them.
“How the hell did you get through your cycles before?” Mateo asked.
“Pain killers. And they would sedate us. Some of the omegas were given tools. Or even Heat Helpers who were hired to come in before we found our Packs. But the headmistress hated me.” Her lips twitched as though she was hiding a smile.
I had a feeling the words spirited and rebellious were nothing compared to what we would discover about Wren when she felt comfortable enough to wander the house or be around the pack.
“What a bitch,” I said, earning another of those soft giggles as though she was trying to hide it.
Another plume of perfume lifted into the air a moment before the scent of her sweet slick tickled my nose.
She pushed the tray away and laid down, rolling into the fetal position she’d been in when we’d found her the first day of her heat.
Lifting one of the toys, I held it out to her. “Try them. An orgasm will help, sweetheart.”
Her eyes darted to Mateo and in the dim light I could see the way her pupils dilated. That perfume grew stronger as she stared at him.
And then an idea hit me. If she wanted Mateo, if she would allow at least one of her alphas to help her, I’d be more than happy to make her want him even more.