9. Settling In
Chapter nine
Settling In
T he men gave me time to "settle in" whatever that meant. I had no belongings except the uniform I'd worn here and the room was empty.
With nothing to do, I just sat on the bed and waited until Ari returned to tell me it was time for dinner. He led me back down to the massive dining table where the others already sat. There were two huge platters of sandwiches sitting on the table and a woman bustling around the kitchen.
A growl surged up my throat and I tamped it down immediately. They already had someone.
Spinning to face the men at the table, I bit down on my lip before I had to speak, "I will not be a second omega in this house."
They looked confused for a long moment, then Max burst out laughing.
"Miriam? She's our housekeeper and she's a beta. Miriam!"
The blonde woman walked over to the table. As soon as she was closer, I could smell that she was a beta, not an omega and my racing heart slowed.
"Hi, I'm Miriam," she said with a smile.
"She thought you were our omega," Max told her, still looking amused.
"Oh, god, no. I'm just a lowly beta," she said with a wink. Now that she was closer, I could see she was older, probably in her late forties.
"I'm sorry." I took my seat at the table and hunched over, feeling stupid. My first reaction had been to flip out and reject the pack that was the only thing standing between me and the heat dens. Not a good look.
"Help yourself," Ari told me, pushing a platter toward me.
I blindly took the first sandwich my hand hit and sat there with it. Once the alphas had all taken a bite, I started to eat.
The sandwich was egg salad with lettuce and avocado added. It was possibly the best thing I'd ever eaten. I quickly finished it and hesitantly looked at the platter.
"Go ahead and take another," Tiago urged.
He was obviously Latino, with beautiful bronzed skin and chocolate-brown eyes. Dark hair that was cut short on the sides and left longer at the top flopped over his forehead, highlighting his pristine features. He looked like a male model, except for the tattooed rose on his throat, held there by two skeletal hands that reached around his neck.
I decided to go ahead and take another sandwich. After the garbage they'd fed us at the center, this was like manna from heaven. I bit into it and felt all their eyes on me.
Shrinking back in my seat, I kept my eyes down. My lessons ran through my head . . . An omega must never show gluttony. An omega must submit in all things.
We hadn't talked the whole way here and now we were sitting silently at the table too. I wondered if they normally talked amongst themselves. Was it my presence that had them acting like this?
My appetite was suddenly gone, but I ate the remaining bit of the sandwich anyway, washing it down with iced tea Miriam placed on the table.
"You're probably wondering who we are," Angel said in his deep voice.
I flicked my eyes to him, to let him know I was listening, then folded my hands in my lap and kept my eyes on them.
"How we came to be a pack isn't a story you need to hear. What you need to know is that we run a trucking company together. It keeps us busy and maintains our lifestyle. We're not as rich as the first-tier packs, but you knew going into this that you wouldn't be getting a first-tier pack." He sounded bitter about that.
"Second-rate packs get second-rate omegas," Max said in a derisive voice. I glanced up at him. Like all the men, he was beautiful, with a chiseled jawline and dark, wavy hair that belied his Hispanic roots.
"We've had some issues with competition in the past and they made it tough for us to get licensed to take an omega. That's the main reason we're second-rate," Ari explained.
I nodded. It didn't really matter. They were the pack I'd been given to.
"When we checked the scent cards, we realized we were lucky enough to scentmatches," Angel continued.
My eyes flew to his, icy fingers gripping my heart.
"What?"
"Scentmatches? Haven't you noticed that you're our scentmatch?" He looked confused. "It works both ways."
"You . . . smell good," I told him. "But I don't know if we're scentmatched."
"We are," Max assured me. "We knew when we scented the card and then it cemented as soon as we were in the same room as you."
"You really can't feel it?" Ari asked, looking confused.
"No." I hunched my shoulders. I didn't want to be their scentmatch. I just wanted to muddle through my life as best I could. This would complicate things and there was no way I was going to give my heart to anyone ever again, no matter how wonderful they smelled.
Zeke snorted. "Either you're lying through your teeth, little omega or you're too scared to admit the truth."
"I'm not lying," I told him softly.
Zeke was older than the other men, except for Angel. His blond hair was cut long and framed a rugged face, with sharp gray eyes that pierced my skin. His lip twisted almost imperceptibly when he looked at me.
The other man at the table was Micah. He hadn't said a word since they'd picked me up. He was the only man without visible tattoos, a spatter of freckles across his nose the only marks on him. His curly hair hung over his forehead, framing dark blue eyes that watched everything like a hawk.
"We'll see." Zeke got up from the table. "Thank you, Miriam."
"You're welcome, Zeke," she responded from the kitchen.
Unsure of what I was supposed to do, I got to my feet and started to clear the table. Ari put a hand on my wrist.
"You don't have to do that. We pay Miriam to take care of all the housekeeping."
"What . . . what am I going to do then?" I twisted my hands in front of me. Over and over at the academy, they'd drilled into us the necessity of being the perfect omega, able to cook and clean. "It's my job as your omega."
"Nah, your job as an omega is to keep us all satisfied," Zeke said, cupping himself crudely.
Before the heat dens, his comment and movement would have shocked me, but I'd seen enough to know that he was right.
"Of course, but when you're not using my body?"
Angel hissed out a breath. "Zeke is being rude. You're here because an omega helps balance a pack. With six of us, things can get unruly at times and the calming presence of an omega can help that."
I nodded. We'd learned that, too. Anger management, how to use our soothing powers, and purring to help reduce tension in a pack.
"For now, just get to know the house, I guess," Angel said, sounding almost as uncertain as I felt. "We'll let you know when we need you."
I nodded and went back to my room. The scents of the men swirled around me and while they kept me calm on the outside, I was acutely aware of how much they affected me. It made me shudder to think that it might mean they were right. Maybe we were scentmatched.
My bedroom had its own bathroom where I could shower, but I had nothing to change into, so I just sat on the bed until it got dark outside. No one came for me, though I heard them walking up and down the hall. Finally, the house fell silent and I could safely breathe again, knowing they weren't coming to my bed. Not tonight, at any rate.
I stripped down to my underwear and crawled under the blanket. Despite the austerity of the room, the bed was wonderfully comfortable. The silence was deafening after months of living with so many other people crammed into one room. It took a lot of tossing and turning for me to fall asleep.
It was pitch black outside when I woke with a start. My heart was pounding and my throat felt scratchy, like I'd been screaming in my sleep.
At that moment, the door burst open and four massive men leaped into the room, making me whimper and tuck myself against the headboard.
Ari flicked on the light and I squinted against the sudden brightness. He immediately moved to the bed and reached out a hand to touch me, but I jerked back, the fear from my dream still fresh.
Angel, Max, and Tiago were standing in the doorway, but they slowly moved toward me.
"What's going on? You have nightmares?" Angel asked, frowning deeply.
"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I didn't mean to wake you all."
"What were you dreaming?" Ari asked, perching himself on the edge of my mattress.
I pulled the thin blanket up to hide my near-nudity. "I don't know."
"You were screaming like a banshee," Max remarked. "It must have been bad."
"I think the heat dens," I whispered, as jumbled images tumbled through my brain.
"Well, you won't ever have to experience those," Ari assured me. "You have a pack, remember?"
"It doesn't matter, the memories are still there," I told him.
They all stiffened.
"You were in a heat den?" Angel asked, his voice sharper than I'd heard it so far.
Staring up at them with wide eyes, I nodded. "That's where they send us when we go into heat in the center."
"How long were you there?"
"Nine months." I shuddered.
Ari reached out to comfort me and thought better of it, pulling his hand back and tucking it into his lap. "How many times?" he asked carefully.
"Six." I stared at the comforter, embarrassed.
"We were told you had a bonded pack before you were relinquished," Angel snapped.
"I did. They didn't want me anymore and left me at the center. I had to be trained before they could let me be placed with another pack," I explained.
There was a rough growl from the doorway and I looked up to see Zeke standing there with a ferocious look on his face.
"They just sent you to the heat dens every time you went into heat? There were no suppression drugs given?" This was from Max, who looked genuinely confused.
It hit me then, that they had no idea what happened in a reassignment center. Just like my old pack had been shocked to find out that I would be sent to the heat dens, they didn't know how the reassignment process worked. I shivered. Now they knew, they wouldn't want me.
"How many alphas took you during your heats?" Angel asked, his voice a low growl now.
I trembled and stayed silent. The room stank of bitter chocolate and burnt spices from their alpha anger.
"Tell me!" he barked and I was forced to speak.
"I lost count, but it was constant, with hardly time to rest between them. Maybe twenty or thirty?"
"Fuck," he snarled, spinning and stalking out of the room.
Zeke was already gone, apparently too pissed off to stay and listen. The others drifted away, leaving Ari alone with me.
Tears welled up in my eyes, despite every attempt to keep them down. I brushed them away angrily with the back of my hand. It was just as well I had nothing to pack since I'd be going right back to the center in the morning.
"Don't cry, it's going to be okay," Ari soothed.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to cry." I took deep breaths to calm myself and looked up at him with watery eyes. "I'm ready to go back to sleep. I'm sorry for waking you."
"Don't worry about it. We all have demons." He stood up and looked at me, "Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yeah." I smiled as best I could.
Finally, he turned out the light and left me in the darkness to think about the center.