Chapter 16 Rejections
Rejections
Locke
Igently take the phone out of Kol’s shaking hand. He’s having trouble breathing. He’s sitting at the kitchen table with his laptop and papers, and rolled up housing plans, in shock.
I make sure the call ended, and then I set it down on the table. I heard everything. I heard the fear and resolution in Mads’s voice as he told my pack mate to fuck off. Kol’s eyes are darting around the room. It’s usually me panicking, so this is new and exciting.
I go to the sink and fill a bowl with cold water, then dump some ice in from the freezer. I come back to the table to find Kol gripping the edges of the table with white knuckles. I push aside his laptop and replace it with the bowl.
“Dunk your face in, Kol,” I command, putting a little alpha bark in it so he knows I’m serious.
This morning, I crawled over to his bed and sniffed him from toes to skull. Whatever he’d gotten into, he’d cleaned himself up entirely before coming home. But I know he stepped out. I know he fucked an omega.
His whole body was relaxed in that bed like he’d actually slept and didn’t just toss and turn.
I couldn’t help being upset. And disappointed. Acadia is ours. She’s the only omega for us. As soon as I found her I knew she was ours, and we needed to be loyal to her.
Why couldn’t Kol have found a beta to fuck, at the very least? Why an omega?
And now? Now he’s lost our beta…
Kol dunks his head in the cold water and stays in it so long I think he is trying to drown himself.
Oscar calls Kol’s phone, and I answer.
“Oscar?”
“My bond is flooded with Kol’s feelings.”
“He’s fine.” I wait for a second, and finally, Kol comes up for air, water flying all over the table. “He’s fine. Mads turned the job down.”
“And Kol didn’t convince him?”
“Well, he caught on that it was probably going to be more than a job. He told Kol to leave him the fuck alone. He said, ‘Find someone else to bite.’”
“I see. I was headed home, but I’ll go see what I can do.”
“Yeah, I understand.”
“Send me the beta’s address.”
“Ok. Will do. Goodbye.”
I set the phone down on a side table.
“Oscar wants to go talk to him.”
“No.” Kol lurches up. “No! We cannot hassle this man.”
I push him back down onto the chair. He’s not going to intervene. I have no more time left. If we don’t find Acadia, Legs is coming for me.
“Mads is ours!” I hiss.
With his face and hair dripping wet, he says while his voice rises and rises, “Everything is a mess. Oscar can’t get a job. I’m going to have to institutionalize myself soon. And Legs is going to fuck us all over in the end. We’re absolutely fucked.”
I don’t react. I understand the situation.
And I understand we can’t let Mads go. The moment I saw him sitting at that table with that pathetic look on his face, I knew he was mine.
His curly lips carry all his real thoughts.
I watched his mouth the whole time, and every single thought of his was portrayed there first. Made me want to kiss him to see if I could feel what he was feeling.
“We have not made one right move in years!” Kol yells. “What makes you think our judgment should be trusted!”
I turn my head away. Done being yelled at. I’ve been yelled at my whole life. Legs made sure not a day went by I didn’t get a dressing down or a good beating. I don’t need this from someone who says he loves me. Not again.
“I’m sorry, my brother.” Kol drops all his ire and approaches me. I try to deny him, but he pulls me into a hug anyway. He says he is sorry into my hair.
“He’s ours. Acadia is ours. I know it.”
He nods to placate me.
Legs O’Bannon is coming for me. He has a man trailing me every time I leave this apartment. It’s Mickey he’s got out here. He’s mean as a dog, and vigilant too.
Legs was my guardian, and I grew up in that pack house.
He has a daughter, Aurora, and I always viewed little Ro as a sister.
But when I was 18, he declared I’d bond her when she became of age.
I’d bond her, and then let Legs decide all the other members of my pack.
And then he’d control everything we did.
Like he controlled everything that happened in Salt Port.
Oscar and Kol thought bonding me with them would be enough to get me out, but Legs threatened their lives unless I went into an agreement with him. If I found my own omega before Aurora turns 19, then there’s no more obligation to him or his family.
If I don’t, then I belong to Legs and his privileged little daughter.
It sounded like a fair deal to me until he blacklisted my pack from every available omega in the state. I didn’t realize how far his reach was. But when you supply all the illegal hormones and scent blockers in the state, and run trafficking for arms, flesh, and drugs—you can do quite a bit.
After months of struggling to find an omega while staying in our home, we left.
But seeing the Irishman in the corner of my eyes every time I leave this house, I know I’m never going to escape Legs O’Bannon.
Thankfully, this city is run by Lee Man-ho, the Wong Clan, and the Nightingales.
Several warring packs who wouldn’t let Legs near their business in the city.
We don’t have their protection, though. If shit went down, we’d be extradited.
Kol looks at me like he knows I’m thinking about this shit. He knows how desperate we are.
We get Acadia, and that’s it for Legs. He has no more hold on me. And it’s bigger than just bonding an omega. She’s my scent match. That supersedes law any man or mobster can make.
He can’t even go back on our gentlemen’s agreement. We all know he would weasel his way out anyway.
Aurora turns 19 in less than two weeks. On my 25th birthday. We share a birthday, my little sister and I. The girl who tied herself to me with her childish demands.
I let Kol go, and he walks away, locking himself in the room we share.
I walk up to the window out back and see the black town car Mickey drives. The silhouette of his head in the driver’s seat. I’d go looking for Acadia myself, but I don’t want to lead Mickey to her. And neither does Oscar. So he’s told me to stay in the house.
I guess my dream about being a house alpha is coming true sooner than I thought.