21. Walker
Chapter 21
Walker
“ L ook, it’s not that bad,” Sunny said as she followed me out of the bathroom, her phone still clutched in my hand. I had thrown on a pair of sweats and nothing else.
There were important things to address.
Like who the fuck was talking to my omega that way.
I glowered right ahead as I barreled toward the kitchen, where Rune and Blaze were eating. My pack mates stared at me in shock, taking in our semi-naked states as I stormed up to them.
“Some asshole is harassing Sunny over text!” I declared, holding the phone up.
“And calls.” As I turned my thunderous gaze on her, she put her palm over her mouth, like she hadn’t meant to say that aloud.
“Sunshine, what’s going on?” Blaze asked.
She was my omega. Why the hell was she getting texts and phone calls like that and not telling me? I needed to know. If anyone was a threat to her, I would take care of it. While I wasn't the most controlling or dominating of alphas, I still wanted to know of any potential harm to my omega, because I would destroy it in a heartbeat.
She chewed on her lip, not meeting any of our gazes. “It’s Gregory, my ex.” She shrugged. “It’s no big deal, he’ll go away eventually.”
“Luka’s father?” I asked. Her hair was still dripping wet from the shower, and we both stank of sex, so there was no hiding from our pack mates what we had just been up to.
“Not legally,” she muttered.
“You never put his name on the birth certificate?” I asked, making a concerted effort to keep my tone calm.
Sunny shook her head.
In that case, the alpha really did have zero legal claim to Luka. There were two ways to establish paternity—having a name put on their birth certificate or being part of an official pack, which gave automatic parental rights.
When Sunny and I had bonded, Luka became an official child of our pack.
“Why does he keep texting you?” Rune asked pointedly. “I assumed he didn’t want to be a part of Luka’s life…”
I resisted the urge to wince. Every part of me wanted to trust Sunny and what she was saying. She seemed so sweet and like a genuinely amazing person. But was there a chance she’d taken a child away from a father who'd actually wanted them?
There was no missing the way she tensed up every time one of his texts came through, but was that simply because she was guilty of betraying him, or something else? Although, from the message I’d seen, he sounded more concerned about his image than Luka.
Sunny took a deep breath. “Look, Gregory isn’t a good guy.”
“He hurt you?” Rune asked, his voice booming.
Sunny winced, crossing her arms and shifting from foot to foot. “He never hit me, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Fists aren’t the only way to hurt someone,” I pointed out. Rage simmered under my skin. Sunny was mine , and the idea of anyone upsetting her made my blood boil.
Sunny sighed, her body deflating. Sitting at the table, she ran her hand through her hair. “We met on campus during my first year. He seemed charming, we went on a few dates, and it was going well. We spoke a lot about what we were studying. He was majoring in business because he was from a wealthy background and wanted to work for his family.”
He did seem like a bit of a rich prick, but I didn’t say that out loud.
“So, what went wrong?” Blaze asked, rubbing her back in a reassuring motion.
“After two or three months, he started getting possessive. He didn't like it if I spoke to my friends often or if I went to see my family. It was starting to feel like a lot, and I was thinking about how to leave him when my heat hit. I didn't want him there. I was taking suppressants to avoid going into heat.”
Rune had a face of thunder that I was sure I was mirroring. If she was going where I thought she was going, I was going to be incandescent with rage.
“And he respected your choice not to be there for your heat?” I asked through gritted teeth.
Sunny laughed, a cold, unfeeling laugh that was so unlike her. “Nope. He waited until I was too hazy to say no and stayed with me. That’s how Luka was conceived.”
“Jesus, what a fucking ass,” Blaze said. “No wonder you don’t like him.”
Sunny sighed. “That's not all of it. I suppose you guys need to know everything, considering we're bonded…”
Blaze seemed to be the only alpha in the room with a cool head. He walked over to the fridge and grabbed a can of soda, opening it and handing it to Sunny, who took it gratefully. We probably should have been having this conversation somewhere more private, instead of the kitchen, especially since Sunny was only wearing my T-shirt, but I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly.
“When I learned I was pregnant, Gregory seemed to be on board. He wanted me to quit college, to stay home, to officially bond with him during my next heat. When I pushed and said I wanted to stay in school, he berated me, saying that omegas weren't meant to get an education. They were meant to take care of their family. He had some pretty archaic views that I didn't know about until then.”
I was doing everything I could to keep the rage off my face. I wanted to find this man and throttle him. Only, I didn't want to upset Sunny any further, so I was doing my best to contain it. Alphas who held those sorts of views weren’t unheard of, but in most modern packs, that shit didn’t matter.
“What’s it to him if you want to get your fucking education?” I growled.
Sunny pursed her lips. “Apparently, it would make him look weak if I attempted to get a degree or a job. The arguments were getting worse, and he was starting to get violent—not toward me, but he would do things like throw things across the room when we disagreed. I was alone and pregnant and didn't know what to do, so I went along with it a lot. Honestly, I was starting to come around to the idea. Would it be so terrible to be taken care of and get to look after my baby? Then I learned that he had tampered with my heat suppressants.”
A chorus of confused cries escaped everyone in the room at that declaration. Birth control and heat suppressants were two things that no alpha had any right to mess with.
“Did he feel you pulling away and think a heat would help?” Blaze asked with a frown.
Sunny shook her head. “No, he wanted me to go into heat because then I wouldn't be lucid enough to make sure that we used birth control. I was religious about taking the pill and making him wear condoms. But during my heat, I didn't take my pills for several days, because I was so out of it, and he refused to wrap it up.”
Cursing under my breath, I started to pace. What sort of shitbag excuse for an alpha would disregard an omega’s wants so disgustingly? Spending a heat with an omega was an honor. It should have been treated with the utmost respect. Heats were when an omega was at their most vulnerable. They needed care, they needed love, and yes, they needed knots.
Sunny didn’t look at us as she continued, opting to peer directly at the floor. “When it was over, I assumed we were both just lost in the moment and tried to brush it off, even though I knew something didn't feel right. But when I overheard him telling someone on the phone what he had done, I knew… I had to get out of there. I was three months pregnant and left in the middle of the night. I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving, not even family. I was embarrassed. For some time, I crashed on a friend’s couch until I managed to get myself a dorm.”
“I’m guessing he didn’t like that,” Rune grumbled.
“He did not,” Sunny confirmed. “But he was an alpha, so he couldn't get into the dormitories on campus, and when the time came for me to give birth, I didn't put his name on the birth certificate. The farther I got along in my pregnancy, the less interested he seemed to become. He was chasing after me a lot less and the nasty messages slowed down. It seems that, recently, he learned I had a son, and his interest has been somewhat renewed.”
I stared at this sweet omega as tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. She had endured so much. The person who was supposed to look after her had betrayed her in the worst ways.
Well, never again.
Sunny Sanderson was our omega, and we were going to take damn good care of her.
“Well, now he has absolutely zero claim to Luka,” I said. “Even if he could take you to court for a DNA test, he can't take him. Legally speaking, Luka belongs to the pack.”
What I didn't say was, as head of the pack, technically his fate was in my hands. I wasn't cruel or an idiot. There was no way in hell I was going to do anything when it came to that child without Sunny’s express permission.
“I know, and I told him so, which seems to have prompted this new onslaught of abuse from him.”
“Block his number,” Rune commanded gruffly.
“I have several times, and yet he still finds new ways to message me. If he put as much thought into his schoolwork as he did into trying to track me down, he would have graduated long ago.”
“He sounds like a narcissist and a control freak. There's no way in hell he's going to just walk away. I'm not saying this to scare you, Sunny. Your problems are our problems now, and we will face them together,” I said, trying to maintain a reassuring tone when, in reality, I was livid.
Tears spilled over, and she furiously wiped at her face. “How can I ask you to help me when it comes to this? You didn't ask to be dragged into this mess!”
“Hey, we are all in, sunshine,” Blaze said, pulling her into his lap in one swift movement.
My hands itched to be the ones holding her, but I knew Blaze was probably the best choice in this situation because he seemed to have the best control over himself.
Rune and I were feeling murderous.
“You and Luka are ours to protect. You don't need to ask us—we want to,” I assured her.
“He's stupidly rich, though. He's got money and resources. He can drag us through court.”
I cocked my head to the side. “He could have before we officially bonded. When Luka didn't have a registered father, but now he does.”
“Will that really be enough to stop him?” Sunny asked in a small voice.
“It should be, but if he keeps coming around, trust me, we have friends who are lawyers and we are prepared to fight. That piece of shit doesn't deserve to breathe the same air as you, let alone have a claim to our son.”
It was the first time I’d referred to Luka as our son , but it felt so right. My chest burned with how correct it felt.
Gently tugging her out of Blaze’s grip, I wrapped her in my arms and held her close, breathing in that sweet lemon that was now mine to love and protect.
Gregory was a complication, one I hadn’t expected, but there was no way I was going to allow him to upset our omega.