37. Livingstons
Livingstons
Kelya
Hours later, I emerge from my nest and go to find my old room.
I need new clothes and to take a real shower.
My old room was on the top level with all the alphas’ rooms. I’m sure it’s the same.
I hold my shoes along with Tony’s shirt and lighter close to my chest as I walk around the house.
The Livingstons are in one of their offices talking. I stop just outside it to listen in.
“We have six weeks until her next heat. We just have to be as patient as possible. A heat with a bonded omega is bound to set us right,” Roman explains to his alphas in a way that makes me think he’s said it over and over again.
“But the consultant said…” Hollis interjects.
I want to know what the consultant said, but Roman talks over him.
“God! I know what the consultant said, but it’s all bullshit.
Our scent isn’t going to get fixed because we let her walk all over us.
Look at this packet. Skin to skin with no sex?
It says here ‘do an activity together like swimming or dancing.’” He laughs like there’s a joke there.
“There’s a whole section on how to have a conversation; let me find it.
It says we have to maintain eye contact and repeat what she said back to her to validate we heard her.
I would give my left nut if this kind of stuff made any difference.
We were good to her, and look at where we are.
We would let her come to our office and show her off.
We’d take her to all our restaurants. We gave her gifts, and she rejected them.
We tried to get her to do something around this house, like cook some meals, and you would have thought we were jailers the way she acted.
There’s no way a tickle massage is going to make her a better omega. ”
He doesn’t stop talking until Noble interrupts. I’m surprised he doesn’t agree with him.
“Roman, please. Can we just try the packet first? The consultant told us that anything we do for Kelya, she’ll give back to us. Why don’t we just try it?”
“Because she was a hack who charged us two grand to get to talk to us like we are morons.”
“We vetted her. She came highly recommended.”
I guess their first mistake was hiring a woman to tell them what to do.
“Follow the packet if you want, but I’m going to do what I know is right. Logically. I’m literally only thinking of this logically.”
Roman likes to use the word logic when he means selfish. I wonder if he knows this? I snicker to myself.
“Kelya?” Noble calls out. The men go silent.
I sigh and walk into the office through the oversized twelve-foot tall doors that are slightly open.
“I heard you guys talking.”
Roman rests against his modern single piece of raw cut wood desk. The back wall is a two story window looking into the rock face behind the house. Like right behind.
“Cute,” he says.
“Why do you all think you know when my next heat will be?”
Hollis and Noble look at Roman for an answer.
“Because you just had one. And you aren’t getting back on suppressants.”
“I haven’t had a heat since I was here last, Roman,” I say, even though I really don’t need to explain myself. I sit down in one of his overstuffed arm chairs and put my feet on the glass table.
His irritation is everything to me.
“That’s a lie.”
“What makes you think you know better than me?”
“Our beta was told by the Private Detective’s beta that he needed another week to take care of you.”
They gesture to the corner where said beta stands like a ghost. I forgot about their beta.
Ash Bellegrave. He looks like he should be a goth, but instead is who goths wish they were.
His skin is grayish. He’s tall as an underkeeper and has sunken cheeks.
He scares the hell out of me, in a way that’s not off putting.
He wasn’t bonded when I left, but he’s bonded now.
Betas can dissolve a bond. It’s not as serious as it is for alphas and omegas, who bond for life.
I guess he’s Ash Livingston now. I prod the bond, and sure enough, there’s another person down there.
I wonder where he is. I turn to the west wall…
“This is just a case of telephone,” I explain. “I was sick in Puerto Rico. Tony had to wait until I was better so he could fly me out.”
Roman gives me a deadpan look.
“Sick?”
I don’t bother answering.
Hollis stares daggers at Roman, and Noble looks like he’s going to come over to me and apologize. I hate his big doe eyes. They are so deceptive. I have to look away.
I pull the shirt in closer to my body.
“I haven’t had a heat suppressant in a long time.
I don’t know when my next heat will happen.
Since I’m stuck with you for life, you’ll need to do better than last time.
I got all the way to Mexico and found a clinic and fucked three guys who smelled like dandelions, juniper, and orange zest. It wasn’t half bad. You have a high bar…”
Roman appears calm, but I can feel the heat of violence in the bond. It’s throbbing, so I stop talking. Noble decides that’s enough and comes over to me, kneeling next to the chair, and puts his hands on the arm rests.
“Things are going to be different, Kelya.”
He reaches for me, and I flinch. That’s funny. He doesn’t think it’s funny.
“Noble, leave her alone,” Roman barks. Noble backs away.
I nod as I say, “Nothing is going to change as long as that man is making decisions for this pack.”
I point to Roman, like a witch might. It has the desired effect.
His eyes blow wide in fear. Pack hierarchy is determined by alpha influence, which is the power an alpha has to control or command alphas and omegas.
Whoever is blessed with the most influence is pack lead, and if they happen to be a horrible man, the pack is beholden to his insane whims. All alphas are aggressive and selfish, but some of them can also be evil. Like Roman.
A good pack will center their omega, and then their children. Roman loves to place himself at the center. This pack will never be whole and it will always be sick.
At least Tony is free.
Speaking of which…I need to get him paid.
Maybe I can use Ash to help me with that. Roman is staring holes into my face. I’m such an inconvenience and a liability to him.
“You think I’m such a bad person, and yet it’s always you at the center of all our problems, Kelya.”
What a great guy.
Not every alpha who hurts an omega smells bad.
They don’t know why it happens to some alphas and not to others.
The theory is that the omega does it. Something in her pheromones triggers theirs to turn.
He would love that theory; then he could blame me for my reaction to his treatment rather than ever coming to terms with his own poor character.
I absentmindedly open the lighter and spin the silver wheel. All three of their eyes go to the object.
“Do you smoke now?” Roman asks with a scowl.
Ignoring him, I stand and leave. He bristles at my exit, but I don’t bother trying to make him feel better. If they want to believe I went into heat in Puerto Rico, there’s nothing I can do.
In my old room, I find their gift. It’s a new phone.
That’s actually a helpful gift. I’ve been meaning to take care of something.
I sign into all my old accounts, and before checking if there’s a new email from my mother, I block her contact.
Then I do a quick search for every email she ever sent me and send those off to be permanently deleted.
There are two new ones. I don’t bother looking at them before adding them to the trash.
I take a long shower, then spend forever lotioning my entire body. I’m not used to the desert air. I get dressed in my old clothes, then steal Hollis’s keys and take myself to the store. Roman calls my new phone nonstop, so I eventually answer him.
“Where the hell are you!?”
“You are such an asshole. I’m going shopping. I need clothes and shower stuff. Calm the fuck down.”
“You stole Hollis’s car, you…” He’s about to call me a horrible name, but thankfully stops.
“Well, I don’t have my own car, you dumbass.”
I hang up.
Which I can feel from here, in the bond, how angry that makes him. Good. If this was two years ago, I’d be shaking in fear from his punishments that will surely follow after everything that happened, but I can’t be bothered to care.
I’ve been disillusioned by his power over me.
Tony had a powerful alpha bark, hands the size of melons, and the sharpest teeth I’ve ever seen, and I was able to tie him to a chair and get him to beg for me. It’s hard to be afraid of anything after that.
When I return hours later, all three of the alphas are stewing. Oh, what sweet punishment awaits. I walk into the double over-sized front doors, holding my bags and seeing the three of them standing there waiting for me.
“There’s more bags in the car. If one of you can be a dear and help an omega out.” I push my new sunglasses to the top of my head and give Noble a look. He glances at Roman before obeying me and going out to the car to get my bags.
“Wait,” Roman says. I gear up for his punishment. “Ash is here. Have him get the bags. That’s more of a beta job, anyway.”
Huh, well, maybe it will come later.
Noble walks into the house to alert Ash.
The man is as tall as a light post. He walks past the alphas, absolutely towering over them.
He’s wearing a black suit and a white button-up shirt with a skinny black tie.
He has those sanpaku eyes, where they are enormous and have a heavy eyelid so they appear droopy.
It’s actually stupidly attractive. He moves past me and out the door without a word.
Classic Ash. He moves like a ghost.
“Kelya, now that you are back, we need to reaffirm the rules…”
I sigh and bring my things to my room, ignoring the tribunal that tried to start. Roman leaves it alone. I’ve exhausted the poor man.