Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Tate
To say I was amused was an understatement. We hadn’t had anyone sneak onto our property in a few months, but to find Kayla’s twin sister just chilling in our pool? It was the laugh we all needed after being smacked with an assessment tomorrow.
I grabbed a towel out of our outdoor cabinet and turned to head back but stopped in my tracks.
She was just coming out of the pool, and she took my breath away.
She was tall, probably about four inches shorter than my six feet, and had the longest legs I’d ever seen.
They weren’t skinny legs either, but strong with solid quads and thighs that would feel like heaven wrapped around my head.
Her black underwear was the hip-hugger type, and yeah, I wanted to hug those hips as I sank my cock into her nice and slow. She crossed her arms over her chest, stopping my perusal of her.
What was I doing? The last thing we needed was to get worked up over an appealing omega. I hadn’t even caught her scent yet, and I felt this possessive need to carry her up to my room and make her mine.
“Tate? The towel.” Alvaro gave me a knowing look and held out his hand as I walked toward them, shaking it out. Could never be too careful about a spider hiding out.
Bypassing Alvaro’s hand, I stepped in between him and Kara and wrapped the towel around her shoulders. The outdoor lighting Alvaro had turned on made her blue eyes glisten like the ocean. Strands of her hair had fallen out of her bun, and my fingers itched to push the curls out of her face.
If I touched her, I wasn’t going to be able to stop. There was something about her that just… spoke to my alpha side. It was as if just her mere presence soothed me. This had never happened before, and I didn’t know if it was worry over our assessment or if I was losing my mind.
She sucked in a sharp breath through her nose, her eyes shutting. Could she smell me even over the pungent scent of chlorine wafting from the pool and her skin?
“Thank you,” she breathed, keeping her eyes shut as my hands hovered over her towel-covered upper arms.
“Tate,” Alvaro growled.
“I know, I know.” We could look but couldn’t touch. But this was way different than when we’d met Kayla and she was unbonded. There hadn’t been a bone-deep yearning for her. I backed up so I was next to him and couldn’t do anything stupid.
Alvaro was one to talk. He’d been staring at Kara since I’d come outside. “Where’s your sister?”
“Sleeping. I just needed to grab something out of the car.” She looked past us. “Let me just grab the things I dropped and I’ll be on my way. No need to call the cops or OPS.”
With her head held high and shoulders back, she walked around us and toward the side of the house. Alvaro and I gave each other a silent look. I could feel the faint hint of desire through our bond, but it was hard to tell these days with it being like a rope held together by a thread.
We followed her silently, Gizmo hot on our heels. She bent over about halfway down the side of the house, not knowing we were watching from the corner.
Alvaro brought his fist to his mouth and bit it, growling softly. He probably thought it would be soft enough that she wouldn’t hear, but she wheeled around so fast with a glare that I felt the urge to step back.
“Are you following me?” She adjusted the towel under her armpits and tucked the corner in the top so it would stay in place.
“Did you not just trespass on private property? We’ve earned the right to follow you.” I elbowed Alvaro for being a dick. It was like he couldn’t make up his mind if he was mad at her or if he wanted her. He was looking at her like he wanted to devour her, though.
“I’m sure you guys are always having to run off knottyboppers, but I’m not one, I swear.
I only have two posters of your pack... and a few shirts.
” She cringed. “And your limited edition bobbleheads. Nope, not a deranged fan and definitely not a knottybopper. I don’t even have the Squishmallows with your faces, so that’s proof, right? ”
Alvaro snapped out of the lust-filled trance he was in and headed down the path of large stepping stones.
“We aren’t going to let you walk back by yourself.
Do you have any idea how dangerous it is for an unbonded omega to be out wandering around at night and to sneak onto the property of a pack of unbonded alphas? ”
My nostrils flared. Not all alphas were dangerous. Despite my reaction to her when she got out of the pool, I would never force myself on her or take advantage of our base needs. I know that was a big concern of many with unbonded alphas, but a few bad eggs didn’t make us all rotten.
Which was yet another reason tomorrow was both ridiculous and infuriating. We might all have been a mess, but we weren’t a danger to society. We each had our ways of dealing with losing both our omega and our privilege of taking part in Omega Match.
It still stung thinking about how we’d been so close to having everything we’d ever wanted in life, and it had been stripped away from us.
All because the omega we matched with freaked out.
It was our fault for taking her to our performance at a club when she’d barely been with us for a few hours, but she hadn’t even attempted to find us.
The second we were separated, she went and hid, calling one of her dads who then called OPS and Omega Match.
She probably did us a favor. If it had happened when we had become really famous and had bonded with her already? I shuddered at the thought.
“It’s not like I was prancing down the street releasing my perfume with a sign that said unbonded omega flashing across my chest.” She continued down the path and grabbed a large rounded stuffed toy. “I drove a thousand miles and had no issues with alphas or anyone else bothering me.”
My protectiveness flared like she was our omega who needed a stern talking to about being safe. “You drove that far by yourself without a chaperone? That’s insane!”
“Perhaps.” She shrugged and made it to the front yard, picking up another toy and slipping her feet into discarded flip-flops and wobbling a bit. “It’s been great, but I need to get back. I have a gate to fix.”
She was putting on a brave front, but there was a slight tremble in her voice. It wouldn’t hurt anyone if I wrapped her in my arms and purred a little, would it?
“Are you drunk?” Alvaro scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest.
She faced us and held up her fingers a centimeter apart. “Maybe a little.”
Gizmo suddenly darted from behind us and jumped, knocking Kara down. He wasn’t a jumper and definitely wasn’t a violent dog unless he was on duty.
Kara squealed and shielded her face as he started licking her arms, trying to get to her face. She giggled and wiggled to get out from under him.
“Giz, no.” Alvaro moved forward to pull him off by his collar, but that was unnecessary because Gizmo pounced on one of the round stuffed animals and began to hump it.
Alvaro and I lost it. Gizmo was neutered and he’d never done that before. Seeing the look of horror on Kara’s face and Gizmo going at it was just too much after all the events of the night. Cal and Avery were going to be disappointed they missed this.
“Oh my God.” Her towel forgotten, Kara snatched the toy as she climbed to her feet. “How dare you defile Jane Doe!”
She cleared her throat, and her voice went up at least two octaves. “This is why all men should be kept on a leash! One second, I’m just minding my own business, and the next, I’m ruined.”
Picking up the other one, she held it up to the one she referred to as Jane. “Oh, don’t be such a dry nugget. He was just being friendly.”
She shook the blue toy, which I now realized was a deer, and I snorted that she’d named it Jane Doe. “How dare you! He had his red rocket all over me.”
“What did you drink? I need to get some.” I reached down and picked up her towel and pill pack. “Or are you always like this?”
“I’m…” The small smile she’d been wearing vanished, and she shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Alvaro took the toys from her. “Wrap yourself up and we’ll get you back to your sister.” His voice had taken on a soft, soothing quality.
“Maybe in a few days, you and your sister can come watch us at rehearsals. We’ll talk to Kayla’s pack and arrange for security. How does that sound?” I just really didn’t want her to cry, and she looked like wherever her head had gone wasn’t good.
“I’m making a fool of myself. I’m sorry.” She wrapped herself back up, grabbed her pills from Alvaro, and headed back toward the gate.
Alvaro tossed the deer to me and snapped his fingers at Gizmo. “Stay.”
Gizmo sat and gave us both puppy dog eyes. We didn’t need any more incidents tonight.
“Why do I have to carry the one he was humping?” I held it by its ear and caught up to Kara, who was walking briskly, even if she was a bit unsteady on her feet. “Do you want one of us to carry you?”
“No. How do you open this thing?” She looked around for the button. “This is why I had to break Kayla’s gate; I couldn’t find it. The Killer Gnomes are probably going to really live up to their name when they get ahold of me.”
Kayla’s pack was a team of Alphaball players whose team name was the Killer Gnomes. They even had uniforms, gear, and merchandise with gnome characters.
“It blends in.” I pressed a button that was the same color as the stone wall and then looked at Alvaro. “Are you going to walk down the street in your chonies? The last thing we need is your bulge all over the front pages of the tabloids.”
Alvaro glared at me and stopped walking. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Like almost walk out practically naked?” I held out my hand, and he tossed me what looked like a chicken.
“If you aren’t back in five minutes…”
“Yeah, yeah. Go make sure Gizzy isn’t humping anything else.” I smirked and headed out of the gate with Kara. It was just now fully open, and I could see how it might have appeared to her that Cal left it open—he never waited for it to fully open before darting out on his bike.
I was just about to the end of the driveway when Kara turned around, her eyes wide with fear.
My body instantly tensed. “What is it?”
She didn’t say a word as she grabbed my arm and pulled me back. Her touch was like a bolt of electricity that went straight up my arm before turning and heading south.
“Kara.” I growled her name, and she made the faintest of whimpers.
Whatever was scaring her was going to die a horrible death.
It wasn’t until the gate shut that she let my arm go. “The police are at my sister’s.”
Well, shit.