Chapter 24
G etting out of the pack house was my only option. I was going to lose it if I stayed there. Sexual frustration wasn’t all that familiar to me. Between the heats and casual partners, I had never been without. But things were painfully different now.
Having a mate threw off the entire flow of my life. I knew it threw off the others too, but they were too blinded by Callie’s scent to realize how deep that disruption went. I didn’t want an omega. I didn’t want fate dictating who I had in my life and when. All I wanted was a carefree life with my pack, and the freedom to do anything I chose.
I had friends up and down the Strip, performers of all varieties, and I was itching to see one in particular, to know exactly how different my life was now.
Farrah already had the door to her place open, waiting for me after I’d messaged her my ETA before leaving the pack house. She waved excitedly to me as I pulled to a stop in her driveway. The pretty omega had her brown hair tied in a braid, her freckles more pronounced than the last time I’d seen her. “Hey, cutie, long time no see. You usually pop up sooner after your shows.”
I hovered by my car, half-afraid to get closer.
“Everything okay?” she asked. “I was expecting to be up against a wall already.”
I flexed my fingers on the car door, working up some courage before closing it and moving toward her.
“Okay, you’re kinda freaking me out. Can you say something?” Farrah tipped her head, examining me.
“Sorry. Things have been fucking weird lately.”
“Wanna talk about it? I know that’s not really how things work between us, but if you need to, I’m right here.”
She held open her arms, offering me a hug, and just for a moment I let myself accept it…just to see. Touching Farrah, which had once been second nature, an ease I had shared with lovers, felt strange now. Farrah’s scent—strawberry—was as sweet as it had always been, but I had no reaction to it, or the warmth of her, or the big doe eyes she was giving me.
“I shouldn’t be here.”
“Hey, it’s okay. Tell me what’s going on.”
“The pack has an omega.”
“Oh, whoa.” She stepped back. “When were you planning on telling me you guys were courting someone?”
“We’re not . We didn’t?—”
She looked at me curiously. “I’m gonna need a little more info here.”
“She’s a scent match. Kai bonded her during a show.”
“Oh, shit,” Farrah breathed. “So we’re done, then?”
I crossed my arms over my chest, letting my petulance win. “I didn’t want to bond her.”
“And you still don’t now?”
“Fuck if I know, Fare. I just wanted to keep doing what I was doing.”
Farrah raised one eyebrow at me. “Well, you can’t.”
“I’m aware of that.” I sat down on her concrete stairs and she tentatively joined me.
“Sucks for me. We had a lot of fun.” She sighed, resting her chin on her palm. “What’s wrong with the omega that makes you not want to bond her?”
“Nothing,” I growled out. “I wish there was something so I could justify being annoyed. The others love her, and there’s just so much fucking pressure to fall into line.”
“They’re pushing you for it?”
“No.” My eye twitched. “They’re being chill, but I know my choices are to accept her or leave the pack, and I don’t want to leave. Feels like the walls are closing in and forcing me to choose one or the other immediately, and it’s just making me feel worse. Fuck. If I could have gotten to know her outside of this, maybe I’d feel differently.”
“Go to therapy,” Farrah stage-whispered. “Give yourself a break. This is a huge change and it makes sense to me you’d feel that pressure. Maybe you should chat with a professional about it all? Either way, I’ll say that she’s probably feeling the exact same as you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re part of the pack. She’s hopefully not wanting to cause issues with an established unit, and so I’d bet you anything she’s looking at you and feeling the same panic. I’m sure if you asked, she’d tell you she’s worried about things working out between you two so it doesn’t cause friction with the others.”
“I…” I hadn’t thought of it like that. Maybe Farrah was right and Callie felt those same shackles closing around her throat.
“Take some time to breathe,” Farrah offered. “Obviously we’re not going to play now, but if you want to hang out, I’m fine with that. I can call some friends to join us so you don’t feel weird with it just being me.”
“That would honestly be great. I need a few hours of space before I go back to the pack house.”
Farrah patted my shoulder and popped to her feet. “Well, I’m honored you picked me for that space. Let me see who I can rustle up.”
A handful of her friends joined us over the next half hour. I knew a few of them, other performers who called the city home. As much as I needed the time away, it also grated on me. The minutes ticked by, slowly ratcheting up the tension in my shoulders.
Maybe I should try to start over with Callie. We could go on a first date instead of staring down the barrel of the together forever gun. I knew I wasn’t being fair to her, but my mouth kept running faster than my brain and my pride was too fucking strong to backtrack when I said something stupid.
I sat there for hours, watching people enjoy themselves around me, participating in conversation when someone thought to include me, but otherwise mostly stewing.
Farrah passed me a bottled water. “You look miserable and I can’t use my normal method of fixing that.”
I gave a bitter laugh. “I have one source for that method now and that tap isn’t flowing.”
“Pity for her. She’s missing out on the best head this side of the Strip.” Farrah grinned at me. “Go be nicer to her. You’re a hard man to resist when you’re relaxed. Take her out dancing. Ooh! Take her to my show! On a night I’m not performing so it’s not hella weird,” she clarified. “The show is so fucking hot. No way she’d be able to resist you after that. Spend time with her and enjoy yourself.”
“You really think I should?”
“Of course you should.” Farrah sat down next to me with her own drink. “Just because you feel like something is inevitable doesn’t mean you get to take it for granted. At least try for Kai. He’s a sweetheart, and if you’re wigging out an omega he’s bonded to, you’re passing that along to him. Now, I’m not kicking you out, but I am going to point out that you look just as miserable as when you arrived, so I dunno that the space is helping.”
She was right. I’d wanted to breathe air that didn’t smell like Callie so I could have a clear head for half a second, but now that her scent was nowhere to be found, I was craving it. “I should probably go home.”
“Not a bad plan. Or invite your omega out.” Farrah shrugged. “Either way, you need to quit moping.”
With a sigh I got to my feet and accepted her goodbye hug, probably the last one we’d have. “You’re a good friend, Fare. Thanks for today.”
“You’re more than welcome.”
“Someone better hurry their ass and snap you up.”
“I think that regularly,” she said with a laugh. “Good luck with your omega.”
I took the long way home, looping the city and blasting music to settle myself. I’d fought so hard to get away from the weight of expectation that had choked me all my life, and every time I thought about Callie, it was like crashing myself against that wall on repeat.
Instead of going straight home, I diverted into Red Rock Canyon. There was nothing much to see in the dark, but it would be quiet and I wasn’t eager to face any of the pack quite yet. When I’d first come out here from New York, I’d gone to the canyon a lot simply to get away from the city. On occasion I’d actually hike, but more often I’d pick one of the overlooks and sit, watching the light play over the stone. It looked so unlike where I’d grown up, and that had always been a comfort, a reminder that I was far enough away that I could create the life I wanted instead of the one expected of me.
I’d have to go home eventually, and I did, turning onto the road back only when I was reasonably certain the others would be in bed, if not asleep, by the time I got there.
The pack house was dark when I arrived. Small blessings.
Tomorrow I would work on making amends.
The moment I stepped inside I was confronted by Callie’s scent. It was everywhere . Her stress, her desire, her mere existence coating every surface and snaking through my system like a venom I couldn’t stop. I hadn’t realized how strong it would be after hours without it. All of my nerves primed, cock tenting, and heart pounding to be submerged in her candied apple scent again.
Fuck me.
I pushed ahead until I hit the doors to the courtyard and stepped out into the night air to get my head on straight.
A sharp inhalation drew my attention, and I turned to see Callie sitting in one of the wicker egg chairs with her phone in hand.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked, trying very hard not to focus on the way the screen light accented the curve of her lips and the barely there nightgown that dipped entirely too low for my brain to manage.
“I couldn’t sleep. It’s so nice out tonight I thought I would read out here for a bit.”
“The others weren’t successful in tiring you out?” I regretted the words the moment her lips pursed. “I’m sorry. I’ve been…on edge.”
Callie snorted. “Is that what you’re calling it?”
I flexed my fingers, trying to dispel the desire to touch her, even though her scent hung in the air like a lure, calling me.
“Why do you always do that?” she asked, tilting her head like it would give her some insight into my internal workings.
“I thought it would be better to do that than to touch you when you don’t want me to.”
Candied apple reached across the distance to me. “Oh.”
“I should go to bed. It’s been a long day.”
“Wait.” Callie set down her phone and padded over to me, bringing that maddening scent with her.
Every instinct tuned to her. I should’ve ignored her and left, but her simple request had me rooted to the spot. “For what?”
“Did you, um, have fun tonight?” She was looking at me with enormous eyes, her breath quickening.
“Not particularly, no.”
“Oh. Why not? I thought you had a date.”
“Something of the sort.”
Her scent turned sharp, her lips bowing into a frown. “What does that mean?”
“It means I went to a lover’s door and couldn’t fucking bring myself to touch them because all I was thinking about was you .”
“M-me?” Candied apple filled my nose, a sweetness I couldn’t escape.
“Yes, you . I can’t even breathe or think in my home because you’re everywhere .” I knew I sounded frustrated, perhaps bordering on angry, but it kept coming out regardless. “Even when you’re not around, you linger, and when I leave, you follow. I have carved out my entire life after suffocating under the weight of expectation from my family, moved across the damn country so I could stop doing what others expected of me, and then you appear. A mate, decreed by fate, and solidified into our lives with a bond none of us had a choice in. I refuse to fall in line with you.”
“I’m not asking you to,” she said softly, her arms wrapped around herself. “I just want us to get along. You don’t have to like me as a mate, but we’re still pack and we should be friends. Is that so hard?”
“ Yes ,” I hissed. “Because I don’t know how to. You provoke every desire and I refuse to follow that path because it’s what fate decided. If things were different, if?—”
“I provoke your desire?”
Those fucking perfect lips were parted, her breath coming fast, only drawing my attention to her breasts, to how they’d been pressed together when she’d crossed her arms. Her scent was trying to drown me, to steal my senses and coax me to give in. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
She swallowed hard. “Maybe I don’t want you to say anything. Maybe I want you to prove it.”
Fuck. Me.
Callie surged up on her toes the second I leaned toward her, putting that perfect, delicious mouth to mine in a kiss that had me backing her up against the wall. The moan out of her melted what little resistance I’d been clinging to. When her hands dragged me closer, inviting me to take, I listened, scooping her up until she was pinned and kissing me with a desperation I’d thought only I had for her .
Apparently I was wrong about that.