Chapter 20 In which I realize I’m already halfway in love
All of us stand there, looking on in horror as tears fill our omega’s eyes.
What the hell?
“Oh, mo chuisle ,” Logan murmurs, rushing to wrap his arm around her. She whimpers and grabs onto him like he’s the tether she needs to keep her grounded. “What’s the matter?”
She doesn’t pull her face from his chest where she’s taking deep breaths of his scent. “I don’t know,” she whines. “I don’t fucking know! You bought me things and apparently that’s enough to make me feel emotional? God, being an omega sucks!”
Logan slides his hand up to the back of her neck where he grips her, making her shudder under his touch. “It’s okay to be emotional, Sadie. Being an omega, you’ll like gifts a lot. And I’m sure a part of you realizes that this is us courting you, trying to prove we can take care of you, even though we’ve done a pretty shit job so far.”
Sadie sniffles into his shirt. “It’s just a lot, you know?”
I note she doesn’t rush to tell us we haven’t done that bad of a job. Not that I blame her.
Luca presses into her back, a purr rumbling from his chest, and she melts between the two alphas. Silver eyes slipping closed as her tears dry up.
Watching them, I have a moment of jealousy. Being a beta, I’ll never be able to do that for her. I’ll never calm her with a purr or my soothing pheromones. I’ll never bite her and bond her the way an alpha can. Fuck, do I want that. I’ll never be able to give her what she truly needs during a heat, a knot.
I’m not an alpha.
But that won’t stop me from trying to be everything else she’ll need.
Which in this pack is likely going to be someone who is more of a friend than a commanding alpha. If she needs to talk about anything, I’ll listen. I’ll let her get it off her chest.
And I think that might be something she needs right now.
I can’t even imagine what she’s been going through and feeling. Being a beta myself, I don’t know what I’d do if I suddenly revealed as an omega long after hope of that had vanished.
“I’m not like this normally,” Sadie mutters, still nuzzled into Logan’s chest. “I’m better at keeping my emotions on lock down. But everything feels like more . More volatile anger. Deeper sadness. Frustration. Happiness. Everything is just…” she shakes her head. “Its fucking… bizarre.”
Logan soothes his hand up and down her spine. “Its part of being an omega. A new omega. The same thing happens to alphas. Our emotions and instincts are nearly impossible to control when we first present. We’re more likely to lash out, become overly aggressive and protective of what’s ours. It can take some time for things to balance out.”
“If it ever does,” Luca says into the top of her hair. “I’m pretty sure Swift is still experiencing that imbalance. And that’s why he is the way he is.”
Sadie pulls back and arches a brow at her bonded alpha. “You think that’s why he likes blood and torture? Because his alpha hormones are out of whack?”
He hums. “Well, when you put it like that, maybe not. Must just be a psycho.”
She smiles a small thing, but a smile none-the-less, which I wasn’t sure would be possible on a day like this. “But he’s our psycho.”
“We’re all yours ,“ Luca corrects.
A flicker passes over her face, and that tiny smile melts into a frown. She steps away from the alpha sandwich and glances at the boxes. “So you bought me a bunch of stuff, huh?”
There’s a clatter at the top of the stairs and Swift appears, breathing heavy, white blond hair still dripping like he didn’t take the time to properly dry off before slinging on a pair of sweatpants and hurrying downstairs. Maddox is right on his heels.
“Did you give them to her yet?” Swift pants, sliding on bare feet in front of our omega.
I watch her reaction carefully. I mean, she did just see him slice into her mother’s skin for answers, terrified and torture the woman who gave birth to her. But Sadie doesn’t flinch away from him as he slides his cheek along hers, scent marking her, and then he licks along the length of her jaw. Her nose wrinkles as she pushes him away. “Ew, Swift! That’s so fucking gross.”
He gives her a cocky smirk as he laces they’re fingers together and pulls her over to the stack of boxes. “You didn’t seem to mind when I licked you before.”
Sadie’s sweet perfume hits the air and her cheeks flush bright pink. “That was different.”
He shakes his head as the rest of us trail behind them. “Its not different. You’re my omega. I’m gonna lick you all over. I’m gonna to taste every inch of your body.”
Another waft of perfume. So fucking sweet it makes my teeth ache to sink into her and I’m not an alpha. I can only imagine how everyone else is feeling right now. Well, I don’t have to imagine it, because they all have their pack bonds open, so I get a wave of lust and desire and possessive arousal from all corners. Makes my dick hard immediately.
Sadie swallows down her own burgeoning desire and tilts her head at the boxes. “I really don’t need all this stuff.”
“You don’t even know what’s inside them yet, Cherrybomb.” Swift tugs her closer and the riffles through the pile until he finds the one he’s looking for. He thrusts it into her arms and beams. “I picked this out.”
She eyes him and then the box warily. I don’t blame her. Anything that makes Swift this excited could be anything from a kitten to a clit clamp to a bomb. “Do you have a kni-” she cuts off when one magically appears in Swift’s hand. I have no clue where he got it from, seeing as how he’s only wearing a pair of joggers and nothing else.
Sadie must have the same thought because her nose wrinkles as she gingerly takes it from him before using the sharp blade to cut the tape. When she’s done, Swift vanishes the weapon and then takes the box from her, holding it so she can dig around inside.
Her eyes widen and then a soft squeal falls from her lips as she pulls out an oversized bright red sweater. It looks fucking soft, and by the way she’s rubbing it over her cheek, it definitely is. All of us blink as she whips off her t-shirt, giving us a flash of a lacy white bralette, here and gone again as she pulls the sweater on, wiggling her shoulders to make the soft fabric rub against her skin.
“Its so soft,” she whispers, hands tucking into the sleeves of the sweater and lifting them to rub over Swift’s face, letting him feel the softness and getting his scent on it. He beams like this is the best thing in the world.
“There’s more, Cherrybomb.” Sadie dives back in and comes up with a pair of thick white thigh high socks that look as soft as the sweater.
In a flash, she’s dropped to the ground and is tugging the socks on, wiggling her cute little toes as she sighs. “ Yes. ”
She pauses in the middle of running her hands up and down the stockings, and glances up at us, like we caught her doing something she shouldn’t. But there’s nothing more natural than an omega cooing over something soft.
Swift crouches down in front of her. “You like them, omega?”
She nods slowly, even as her cheeks heat in embarrassment. “I do. They’re perfect, Swift. Thank you.”
He nods again and helps her to her feet. “Good, cause there’s more.”
Sadie looks helplessly at the stack of boxes, then shakes her head. “I appreciate this, all of this, but I don’t think I have the energy to open all these presents right now.” I frown and glance at the pack. An omega not in the mood for presents is virtually unheard of, but then, I guess she spent the evening watching her mother get tortured. That’s enough to dampen any excitement over new fuzzy thigh highs and long soft sweaters.
And it’s late.
Wordlessly, Maddox guides her over to the couch and settles her on it. We all follow, watching as he drapes a blanket over her lap and then cuddles her into his side. The rest of us spread out around her. “What do you need, trouble?”
I don’t miss the slight flinch when Maddox calls her that. I wonder if she thinks it’s still an indicator that he doesn’t like her, doesn’t want her. He might have called her trouble to begin with because of that. But it’s definitely changed now.
There’s pure affection for her dripping through the pack bonds from him.
Of course, she can’t feel that.
Sadie shakes her head. “A distraction.” Before any of us can suggest an orgy, she pushes forward. “Tell me how you all met. How you became a pack.”
We all glance at each other. None of us have many good early child memories. That happens when you grow up in a life of crime like we did. Or well, most of us did. Not Luca, though.
“Maddox, Swift and I have known each other since we were babies,” Logan says. He looks at Maddox, asking for permission to tell her more. When he nods, something in my chest relaxes the slightest bit. I don’t want to lie to our omega. I don’t want to keep things from her. But it’s also not totally safe for her to know too much.
Not for us. We’ll take on anyone who comes for this pack. But for her. If people think she has information, it puts a target on her back. And as of right now, she’s only a partial member of the pack. Luca’s bite is the only thing tying her to us.
“But you have an accent.”
Logan nods. “I do. I spent much of my childhood in Ireland.”
“But he spent summer vacation here,” Maddox says, his hand running down the back of Sadie’s head. “Almost every year we’d spend three months together. We’re cousins.”
Sadie jerks her head toward our prime. “Excuse me? You’re cousins? How did I not know this?”
Logan shrugs. “We don’t talk about it much. My mum was his aunt. She fell in love with an Irish man who came over for uni. She ran away and married him for love.”
Maddox nods. “At the time, our grandfather was in control of the family and the business. He basically ex-communicated her for the crime of loving someone outside the family. But when Logan here came along, he saw a chance to welcome him back into the fold. He all but forced Aunt Giulia to send him over here for ‘training’.”
“So he spent a lot of time with me and Dox,” Swift adds in. “We were already thick as thieves and getting up to mischief. Our fathers were best friends.”
I arch my brows at that statement. It’s not really true. I’m pretty sure Tommaso Falcone saw Swift’s father, Krueger, as nothing more than a sharp knife to be wielded against his enemies, a tool rather than a friend.
But I won’t tell Swift that. I don’t want to get stabbed today.
Maddox gives him a look like he doesn’t believe that either and then says, “It was no secret that I was going to take over eventually, and Swift showed signs of being particularly… talented. Vicious, even though he was two years younger than me.”
Swift beams at him. “Thank you, Maddoximus prime. That means a lot coming from you.”
Dox keeps talking like he didn’t interrupt. “So my father urged us to spend time together, to bond. He essentially made Swift my secondary bodyguard. So when Logan came to visit, the three of us were practically inseparable. It made sense that we’d become a pack.”
Sadie nods, then flicks her gaze to me and Luca. I shift uncomfortably under her curious gaze. I’m not particularly proud of what I’ve done in the past, but I don’t want to lie to her. So I admit, “I was a runner.”
Sadie frowns, trying to figure out what I mean, then her brows jump in surprise. “Like a drug runner?” I nod. “Ethan!”
Fuck. I can’t look at her. Not when she sounds so disappointed in me. “My family needed the money, and it was easy enough. All I had to do was deliver packages to different houses around the city and I could feed my little sisters, buy them shoes and coats.”
I really don’t like remembering those days, before the pack found me, before Luca stepped in and saved my ass.
Sadie shifts, coming over to me to sit on my lap, straddling my hips and nestling into my chest like she was born to be there. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t judging. It was just a surprise.”
I drop a kiss to her cherry scented hair and squeeze her tighter against me. “That’s okay. I’m not particularly proud of it. But I was the man of the house and I needed to do something.”
“How old were you?”
“Nine when I started.”
Sadie whines and squeezes me tighter, before a soft purr moves through her body. I freeze in surprise. Sadie’s purring for me. Me. The beta of the pack.
I clear my suddenly tight throat and smooth a hand down her vibrating back. A glance up shows all four alphas with their eyes latched onto our omega, gazes soft and tender and full of awe. We’ve never had an omega purr for us before.
Eventually, Sadie lifts her head, runs her fingers over the stubble on my cheek. “How did you meet the rest of them?”
I grinned. “They beat the crap out of me.”
“They did what?” She rockets straight up, spine twisting to glare at the alphas. I shrug, laughing at the adorable growl that replaces the purr. “It’s not a big deal, heartbreaker. I was a cocky shit at twelve. Thought I was untouchable. I’d been given more and more control over the runners of the organization, and I made a mistake.”
“He was working for the Dumonts,” Maddox adds. “A small fry gang. Normally, the Falcones left them alone, but Ethan here decided to move into our area of the city, trying to grow the Dumont business without them knowing.”
“So you beat him up? A twelve-year-old kid?”
Maddox shrugs. “I was fourteen. Logan a year younger. Swift was also twelve. It’s not like we were grown adults terrorizing a child, Sadie.”
Another little growl rumbles out of her, and I grin. So. Fucking. Cute.
“So what happened? You beat him up and then realized you were pack?”
“Nah,” Luca says, leaning forward. “I stepped in and saved the day.”
He really did. Sixteen and newly revealed his designation, Luca had taken one look at the fight taking place of three on one, and hopped out of his fancy ass sports car and put an end to the fight right quick by barking at us.
“I was bleeding and bruised, but so were they.”
“He was fucking scrappy. Survived taking on the three of us, including Swift, for as long as he could,” Maddox says, sounding proud. “And as soon as Luca stepped in to bark at us to fucking stop, the pack bond just… clicked.”
My hand brushes over my chest. “I’d never felt anything like it. An immediate kinship, friendship.” It was like the universe was waiting for all five of us to be together for the first time, and then fate took over.
Sadie looks us over. “And you’ve been a pack ever since.”
Luca grimaces. “Well, we had some bumps in the road. My dads were less than pleased with me declaring I was joining the pack of a known criminal organization, but it’s not like they could really stand up to them, not when they’d used the Falcone’s services before and were in their pocket.”
Sadie tilts her head, eyes narrowed on his face. “Would I recognize your old pack?”
“The Cormack pack.”
“Holy shit!” Sadie breathes, scrambling around in my lap to better face Luca. I wrap my arms around her stomach and tug her back against my chest. “The Cormack Pack? The pack that has their fingers in every fucking pie in Hollywood?”
“The one and only,” Luca nods.
Sadie’s eyes get even bigger and her voice goes strangely high pitched. “Your brother is in a pack with Liam Cordova. The Liam Cordova.”
Luca grins. “That’s true too.”
“Oh fuck,” Sadie whimpers. “I think I’m going to pass out. Yep, I’m going to fucking pass out. I have to call Sylvie. I have to call Sorrel! They’re never going to believe this.” She tries to scramble off my lap and but I hold her in place. “Let-Ethan, let me up. Can we meet him? Can.. is that something you can arrange? It would be the best birthday present ever if I could get Sorrel to meet Liam.”
“Calm down, vixen,” Luca says. His smile is indulgent, but there’s a hint of pain in his eyes. One that I know runs deep. “I haven’t even met Liam.”
That makes Sadie stop wiggling against me. What a shame cause it felt so damn good. “Wait, what?”
Luca shrugs like it’s no big deal. “Grayson is very… above board. And very protective of his pack. He’s not about to let his omega around a pack of known criminals.” He glances away from Sadie. “Maybe once we’re totally legit and have gotten out of the crime side of things, we’ll be able to work it out. But as of right now? I haven’t seen my brother in… five years. Haven’t talked to him in three.”
Sadie’s gaze narrows. “Sounds like a real asshole.”
Luca laughs and reaches over to tug her off my lap and onto his. “He’s really not. If our roles were reversed and he was the member of the Falcone pack, I wouldn’t let him anywhere near you.”
Sadie melts against him, leaning in to kiss his mouth while she hums. “Don’t go getting sweet on me now, Luca.”
“I’m always sweet on you, Sadie,” he murmurs against her cheek. “Have been since the first moment I saw you.”
Sadie is packing. I don’t know why she’s packing, but that is undoubtedly what she’s doing.
It was probably a mistake to let her go down to Swift’s workroom a few days ago, to have her see what it is he does. Though from the sound of it, he was actually quite tame to what he normally does. Doesn’t change the fact that she seems exhausted every morning, dark circles hanging from her eyes.
She’s obviously not sleeping as much as she should be.
It’s been a few days since her mother’s visit. Since she found out about how we all came to be a pack and also found out that she was essentially a lab rat for years.
Her mother is alive and currently looking for a job and a new place to live, since we made it clear we have no problem dumping her on the street at the end of the month. Sadie hasn’t asked about her once, but I’ve been keeping tabs on Danielle, just in case my omega wants to know how she’s faring in this new, penniless world she’s found herself in.
I think she’s going to end up in a shitty apartment and working as a barista again. After all, it’s the only job she’s ever had.
Maddox also asked me to monitor her, just in case she tracked down Sadie’s old doctor. His location is information we would love to have. Swift is salivating at the idea of getting his hands on the man who medically abused our girl for years.
The rest of us are right there with him.
The depths of depravity we will sink to for our girl know no bounds. We will do anything for her.
Of course, that only works if she fucking lets us. If she stays with us. Which brings me back to her packing.
I lean my shoulder on the frame of her door and watch as she puts her few belongings in her bag. “What are you doing, heartbreaker?”
I watch as she jumps a little and then turns to give me a bashful look. “I thought I’d go home.”
I don’t know why I didn’t expect that, but I didn’t. I thought she was moving her things into the nest, finally claiming that space in our home for her own. A surprised laugh bursts from me, but it’s lacking any amusement. “You can’t actually think we’re going to let that happen, right?”
She scowls and looks back at the items left on the bed that she still needs to pack. I note that the things we bought her are still neatly stacked in their boxes, untouched. “I wasn’t supposed to stay this long, Ethan. We agreed on three days, until the end of the weekend. It’s Tuesday now. It’s been five fucking days and during that time I’ve nearly been kidnapped and found out I was never sick and watched Swift torture my mother and … I just need a fucking break.”
I push away from the door and move to turn her toward me, hands on her shoulders. Her cherry pie scent washes over me, makes my cock tighten, even though it’s tinged with stress. I know I don’t get hit as hard as the rest of my pack because of her scent, but it affects me all the same. I know I need Sadie like I need air in my lungs, which is why what’s happening here, her leaving, is not allowed.
“Fair enough, heartbreaker,” I slide my hand up to cup her jaw. “But you can have a break and not leave.”
She arches a brow as she looks up at me. “Really? How’s that?”
I smile and lean forward to kiss the tip of her nose. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll plan everything.”
She hesitates as she looks down at the sweater in her hands, the red ne Swift bought her. “Really?”
“Yeah, heartbreaker, really. Besides, you didn’t really think we’re going to let you just waltz out of here. You understand that you’re ours now. Right, Sadie? You belong to Pack Falcone. You belong with us. But if you need some time to unwind and relax, we can absolutely do that.”
She swallows thickly, then drops the sweater and pushes up to her toes, winding her arms around my neck to pull me closer. Her forehead presses into my neck as I hug her back. “Thank you, Ethan,” she murmurs. “I’m totally freaking out here. I don’t know what to do. But I don’t really want to leave.”
My heart clenches as I urge her closer, lifting her off her feet with a hand under her ass and carrying her over to the bed, where I sit on the edge with her straddling me. “You’re doing just fine, baby. There’s been a lot of big changes recently. But you're strong and you’re going to get through this. We’ll make sure of it, Sadie. It’s what a pack does.”
“I’m not pack.” Her voice is small and hurt and uncertain.
“You sure as fuck are,” I rumble back at her. “You might not be a full pack member with all of their alpha bites on your pretty neck, but you’re still pack.” I use a hand laced through her hair to tug her back, giving me space to slide my other palm over my heart. “We can all feel it in here, Sade. It’s the same feeling I had when I first saw Luca, when he saved me from those assholes. I felt the same thing with Swift and Logan and Maddox when they stopped kicking my ass long enough for the bond to settle. You are meant to be with us.”
Sadie hesitantly slides her hand over mine on my chest, her brows drawn together. “You feel it too?”
A relieved smile curls my lips. “Yeah, baby, I feel it too. Why do you think I didn’t stop Luca from bonding with you that first night? I knew you were ours. And I’m a beta . You can only imagine how those other assholes feel about it. It’s a wonder they haven’t all knotted and bit you yet.”
She hums, fingers swirling circles over the back of my hand, silver eyes focused on the movement. “Ethan?”
“Yeah, baby?”
Her cheeks flush pink as she lifts her silver eyes to mine. “Will you fuck me?”
My dick tightens, swells, until it’s pressing against my zipper. I lean forward and nip at her lips. “With pleasure, heartbreaker.”