Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Rylan
Iwas about to punch Beck in the jaw if Rio didn’t beat me to it. We all loved each other like blood brothers, and we didn’t always see eye to eye, but when it came to Kayla, Beck was out of line.
There were a lot of questions surrounding her, but did they matter?
We could at least all agree that her scent was highly appealing to us, which meant we were biologically compatible.
Personality compatibility was easily workable, but the natural urge to love and protect either existed or it didn’t.
And the fact I wanted to punch Beck in the jaw said enough.
I stood from the couch and glared down at Beck, who had his arms crossed and looked like a petulant child.
“You’re supposed to lead this pack, not cause a rift because you can’t let your past go.
With all of our investments, Alphaball, the brand, we’re about to be billionaires, yet you’re concerned that an omega is going to take all of that away?
We get that change and unpredictability makes you nervous, but there is nothing she can do to bring our empire down. ”
Well, unless she has some twisted plan to kill us.
“You’re the one that agreed to do this in the first place. It was never a question of if we were ever going to have an omega but when. And I can’t speak for Rio and Ry, but I’ve been ready since I first emerged.” Kane grabbed the television remote from the coffee table.
“I wouldn’t say I’ve been ready, but for an omega like Kayla? We aren’t going to match to someone like her again, and if we did, it wouldn’t be fair because I’m pretty sure she is it.” I felt that with every ounce of my soul.
If Kayla ended up not bonding with us, it was going to be hard, if not impossible to forget her scent. I hadn’t even spent time with her yet and I just knew it to be true. While that feeling excited me, it probably terrified the crap out of Beck.
“Regardless of how she ended up with us, we haven’t even given her a chance.
The shit storm of sending her back because you aren’t even willing to open yourself up to the possibility of her isn’t fair to us.
You were willing to when you thought she was her sister, and while wanting someone perfect is great and all, come on, man.
Do you really think you’d be happy with an omega that won Omega of the Year four years in a row?
” Rio was standing at the bottom of the stairs and looked up them, his frown deepening. “She was listening. I can smell her.”
“Great, so she eavesdrops too.” Beck got to his feet and headed for the garage. “I’m going out for a bit.”
“When you come back, make sure the stick that’s up your ass is removed,” Kane said as he turned on the television.
The door slammed, and I rolled my eyes at the tantrum. “What are we going to do about that?”
“Nothing. He’ll come around. Hopefully we’ll get some answers from Brian soon about what the hell happened so Beck will stop thinking Kayla is lying.” Rio started up the stairs. “I’m going to check on her, and then I’ll be back to watch the game footage, Kane.”
“I’ll go check on her.” I moved up the stairs past Rio, who had paused. I could smell the lingering scent of Kayla where there hadn’t been any when we’d come down. “The sooner you two get done picking apart every one of our plays, the sooner we can relax.”
I hated watching replays of the games and ripping apart our every move. When we’d first started playing Alphaball more seriously, it had been fun to move up the ranks, but now we were at the top of our game, the fun had been sucked out of the sport for me.
After I’d broken my arm, I had a lot of time to think about just how much time and energy we put into the sport. While it did give us the launching point for our sportswear brand and our nutritional brand that was being developed, it also took a lot out of us mentally and physically.
I walked to the kitchen and found Kayla finishing her breakfast. She hadn’t noticed I’d walked into the room yet, and I cleared my throat, causing her to jump.
“You’re awfully jumpy. Are you scared of us or something?” I went to the refrigerator and grabbed a coffee drink. I hated brewed coffee but loved the sugary coffee drinks. Not the best choice, but I hadn’t had the chance to go get one.
“Not used to men sneaking up on me.” She put her fork down and closed the lid to the syrup. “So, what’s my fate?”
I took a drink of my coffee and leaned against the counter, crossing my legs. “We know you were listening. Your perfume was in the stairwell.”
She cringed. “Can you blame me?”
“No. I would have wanted to know what was being said about me too.” I pushed off the counter and grabbed her plate to put in the sink. “I am curious as to why you didn’t make a bigger stink out of the whole thing though.”
She looked down at her hands for a moment before her blue eyes lifted to meet mine. “What good would that have done? Even if I had gotten into contact with you guys or Omega Match would have even listened, didn’t you guys have Brian do all the paperwork and submitting?”
“Yes. We trusted him to take care of everything. Clearly, we had a lapse in judgment.” I hated that we were the ones that had caused this whole debacle because we were too busy and lazy to take care of it ourselves.
It wouldn’t have taken us more than thirty minutes.
“But what’s done is done, and honestly? Now that I think more about it, I don’t think your sister would have been a good fit for us. ”
“I overheard them talking.” I gave her a confused look.
“Brian and Beck. At the meet and greet they stepped outside, and basically, Brian said with the perfect omega, it will only help you guys, and if not then you can just ship her back because you can afford the fine. I told my sister not to put your pack.”
I ran my hand down my face and shook my head at the nerve of Brian and Beck. “Their ideas of a perfect omega aren’t mine. There is no such thing as perfect. Some award isn’t going to make you perfect for every pack.”
“I won’t change who I am and what I want out of life for a pack. Especially one that doesn’t seem to know what the hell they want.” She stood and adjusted Kane’s T-shirt she was wearing.
A bit of jealousy crept in. I wanted her in my shirt and marked with my scent too.
I rounded the island and took her in my arms. She stiffened the slightest bit, and I started to doubt my move, but then she melted into me. “I never want you to change who you are.”
“You don’t even know me.” Her hands were braced against my chest, but instead of pushing me away as I nuzzled into her neck, she gripped my shirt. “I’m messy, opinionated, and just a bit stubborn.”
“Don’t let our clean house fool you. We have people that come to clean. They should actually be coming today.” In fact, they’re supposed to be cleaning right now.
She pushed away from me, and I grumbled my dislike of our separation. “I don’t want them touching my things.”
“They seem to be no shows, which is weird because they usually text if something comes up.” I pulled out my phone and sent a text to them.
“Brian probably told them not to come.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “He wasn’t very nice to me.”
“He can be a little blunt.” I read the text message I got back. “They were told not to come today since we didn’t know your feelings on having people you haven’t met clean your space.”
Brian should have been telling us these things instead of taking it upon himself. His job was to manage our team, not our damn pack.
“There’s no way I’m cleaning this house, but I’d like to meet them before they’re all up in my business.” She walked over to the windows, looking out at the pool and skyline.
“We can arrange that. What are your plans for today?” My plan had been to play video games all day, but now I was in her presence, I didn’t see myself leaving her side.
“No clue. I’ve just been online shopping, reading, and watching reality TV.” She turned, and a smile lit up her face. “Since you’re here now, you could take me shopping. There’s this huge fabric shop I found, but I didn’t want to leave the property without alpha protection.”
“We can do that. Rio and Kane will be a while watching footage from our games yesterday, and Beck… he went out for a bit.” Her face fell at the mention of Beck, or maybe it was because Rio and Kane wouldn’t join us. “I can ask them if they want to come too.”
“No. If you guys have stuff you need to do, you don’t have to cart me around anywhere.” She shrugged and started walking out of the kitchen. “I should go shower and probably move my stuff to the guest room.”
“Go shower and then we’ll go. Leave your stuff in Beck’s room. He can just move his growly ass to the guest room. I’ll even help you move it all.” It would piss him off further, but I had no fucks to give.
I’d never seen someone light up as much as Kayla did when we stepped foot in the fabric store. It was like we had taken a trip to a magical theme park instead of a giant warehouse filled with bolts and bolts of fabric in every color, texture, and pattern.
I didn’t mind pushing the cart as we went down row after row and then had to wait for someone to cut all of them. She had a pretty good idea for making custom quilts, but there were a lot of things she needed to consider… like her own perfume getting on the material.
Now wasn’t the time to talk about all the considerations she would need to have if she was going to go forward with her plan. Especially now that she lived with four alphas.
“Let’s go swimming, and then we can work on getting your room set up and all talk about your nest.” I dropped her bags of material in the dining room where she had a quilting area set up. We hardly ate at the big dining room table, so I didn’t see an issue with her using it.
“I don’t know if I want to encroach on your space if I might not even be staying.” She pulled a stack of folded fabric from one of the bags. They were in all shades of blue and green.
“Why would you not stay?” I didn’t want her to feel like she was going to be sent away just because of a mistake on Brian or Omega Match’s part.
My morning had been one of the best I’d had in a long time. We hadn’t even done anything special besides shop and talk about the academy, Alphaball, and the reality TV show about selling houses we were both addicted to.
“I’m not going to stay where I’m not wanted by a pack. The whole pack. I’d be gone already if I could afford the fine.” She bit her lip and looked away from me. “That came out wrong.”
I squeezed the back of one of the dining room chairs. “If you don’t want to be here, we aren’t going to force you to stay. I will personally pay the fine for you if you decide we aren’t what you want, but give us a chance. Beck will take longer to come around, but that’s normal for him.”
“Being an asshole is normal?” She put her hands on her hips, fire in her eyes. “He talked about me like I’m dirt beneath his cleat.”
“Pack leaders are under a lot more stress than everyone else. That’s not an excuse for him, but he already struggles with change.” It wasn’t my place to talk in-depth about Beck’s issues.
“Let’s just… enjoy today and worry about everything tomorrow. Ready to go swim? We should see if Rio and Kane want to join us.” The excitement was back in her eyes. “We can play chicken. Me and you against them.”
Having Kayla wrap her legs around my neck as she sat on my shoulders? Hell, yes.
My cock twitched in my pants at the idea of her so close to me. This was either going to be the best idea in the world or leave me with an epic case of blue balls.