Chapter 20
20
JASPER
I enjoy cooking, but it’s not a passion of mine.
Taking care of the pack, however, is.
That includes several things I’m not the biggest fan of but do regardless.
Growing up, my mom worked the night shift, which left me in charge of feeding a pack of three starving alphas when they got home a few hours after she left.
Weekends were the only times I ever managed to slip out of the house to do my own thing.
Being raised in a pack household instilled more than a handful of habits in me.
A true pack dynamic can’t be taught in a classroom or a video online.
You learn by living in one.
It’s the small things, like nobody eating until all members are at the table, chores being done by everyone and rotating every week, and no singular event or hobby taking precedence over the others, that keep a pack together.
I lost track of the number of shinny games and musicals I was taken to during the weekends and over holidays, sometimes back to back to back.
A pack only works as well as the effort put into it, and mine now?
It’s hardly hanging on.
Ronan is the only one of us who never grew up in a pack.
He’s had to adapt to the life and open himself up to the changes required to make one work.
But as the years have gone on, it’s become obvious where the biggest kink has come from, and it has nothing to do with him.
Without an omega, we’re stars in our own orbits, drifting without a central force to pull us together.
It’s hard for a pack to make it work without one, but I didn’t think it was possible for us to be affected so deeply so soon.
Tonight could be the ultimate turning point for us.
Briar’s about to change everything.
“Have you seen Landon?” Dash asks, cracking open his third Coke Zero of the day.
As he stands in front of me in the low kitchen lighting, it’s obvious that he’s put in more effort tonight than I was expecting him to, considering his “lack of interest” in Briar.
Personally, I think this has all to do with Landon and little to do with his beta instincts.
The carefully styled hair and fresh shave don’t make him appear nonchalant.
“Ronan said he was headed home with him a few minutes ago,” I answer, glancing at the timer on the oven.
The homemade pizza is simple, but with how intimidating it must be to meet an entire pack at once, I figured simple was best. She doesn’t need anything else to overwhelm her, even if I want to impress her in every aspect possible.
“Did he get lost, then? I haven’t seen him since this morning.”
“He’ll be here.”
“We’re in for a shit storm when he finds out she’s coming and we kept it from him. You know that, right?”
“If we’d have asked, he would have said no.”
It’s a terrible reasoning.
We’re betraying him, and I’ve had to convince myself that it’s for a good reason.
If he accepts her, it won’t matter what we did prior.
My mom would smack me upside the head if she knew I was hiding behind a possibility.
I was taught to never do this exact thing my entire childhood.
But it feels like the only option I have left.
I’m not allowing Landon to destroy our chances with Briar without at least meeting her face to face.
“You’re right, but that doesn’t make it any better.”
“I appreciate the comforting talk, but I’m not really up for it right now,” I say, sarcasm tweaking my tone.
“Sorry. Everything just feels so delicate.”
I shove my sleeves up to my elbows, suddenly hot enough to wish I’d worn something with less fabric than this sweater.
The scratchiness I could overlook, but the last thing I want is to greet Briar with pit stains.
“It is delicate.”
“Especially with you and Ronan being dead set on her already,” he adds, attempting to be nonchalant but eyeing me a bit too closely.
“Is there something you want to say?”
His tongue swipes along his bottom lip.
“Is she worth it, Jas?”
“Is she worth what, exactly?”
“Destroying the pack. Pushing Landon too far.”
A tortured kind of pain explodes behind my ribs, spikes impaling deep.
“We’re already there. I don’t want to hurt Landon, but I can’t feel this emptiness anymore, Dash. That omega you’re asking about is worth this risk ten times over. You might not feel it yet, but you will. Give yourself the chance to get to know her without the worry of Landon clawing at your back, and you’ll be right where I am.”
“It doesn’t make sense. I’d have felt it regardless,” he argues weakly.
“Not necessarily. If there’s a block, it could be affecting everything, even her scent.”
“And how long am I supposed to wait to see if that’s the case? Weeks from now? Months?”
“I don’t know the answer to that. What I do know is that you’re not helping yourself by arguing on his behalf. Landon is a grown man. We chose him to lead this pack, and he needs to show us that we made the right choice all those years ago.”
Dash rolls his shoulders, as if attempting to wiggle free of the shackles keeping him stuck in his current mindset.
I reach out and palm his shoulder.
“Follow our lead. Try to go into dinner without worrying about Landon. He’s going to be angry, and honestly, I’d rather have him angry than how numb he’s been recently.”
“Fuck, Jas. I don’t know how we got here.”
“What if this is where we’re supposed to be?”
He knits his brows.
“What do you mean?”
“Briar was meant for us. Broken or whole, we’re her pack. I have to believe that she was always supposed to find us, even if we’re not perfect.”
“You don’t think she’ll take one look at us like this and decide we’re not worth the trouble?” he asks, a tease of nerves slipping through.
“No. And even if she did, I’m prepared to prove to her that we’re still worth it. Are you?”
Dash doesn’t look away from me.
The glimmer of certainty in his eyes is exactly what I’d been hoping for.
“Fuck, I’m in. But I’m sending Landon straight to you when he realizes what’s happening.”
I don’t hesitate.
“I’m ready for him.”
Even if ten minutes later, Ronan texts me to let us know they’re not going to make it home before Briar gets here.
Whether that’s a purposeful move on Ronan’s part or a sheer coincidence, I’m positive we’ll never know.
I wouldn’t put it past him to have delayed them on purpose.
Not when we all knew there was a chance Landon decided Briar wasn’t welcome here at all.
Regardless of anything else, it’s obvious that this is the worst news we could have gotten.
It’s my fault we left everything up to the last minute, but I wasn’t expecting him not to show at all.
There’s no telling how he’ll react to seeing her here with no warning, even if only a few minutes’ worth of it.
“What did Ronan actually say?” Dash asks, leaning over my shoulder to look at the texts.
“Be home in twenty.”
“That’s it? Ask him why.”
I type out a message and send it quickly, my stomach hanging between my knees.
Why? What’s going on?
Dash groans. “How long do we give him to answer before we call?”
“Maybe we should do that anyway. It gives us a chance to warn Landon.”
“So what? He can demand they go anywhere but home?”
“Everything is going wrong. This isn’t how tonight was supposed to happen,” I say on a tight exhale.
“Fuck it. Just call, and we’ll risk him not showing up at all.”
“You sure?”
Dash opens his mouth to reply when my phone buzzes in my hand.
Lan insisted we stop by the rink.
Needed to talk to the doc.
“The doctor? Is this about him not sleeping well?” I ask no one in particular.
“Speaking of his lack of sleep, are we going to talk about what he said at dinner?”
My chest pangs.
“Which part, exactly? The aches or the sickness?”
“Both. He never mentioned anything to me.”
“Me neither, but I’m not surprised. He feels what’s happening with us more than we do.”
“How do we help, Jas?”
“I don’t think it’s us who can help.”
He pauses, stare heavy.
“The omega?”
“She’s here now for a reason, Dash. Even if you don’t believe that the way Ronan and I do.”
“It’s not that I don’t believe it. I just don’t feel the pull like you and Ronan do. I’m not dumb enough to think that if Landon were anyone else, you wouldn’t already have her moved in here and attached to your hip. My hesitation isn’t anything against her. Maybe things are just different for betas.”
I don’t bother lying and telling him he’s wrong about me and Ronan.
“You know that’s not true. Betas have scent matches the same way alphas and omegas do. There are differences, but not ones that big. Just because you don’t feel it to the extent we do yet doesn’t mean it isn’t there. If you open yourself up to the possibility instead of putting all your focus into Landon, maybe you’d be surprised.”
“And if I do open myself up and still don’t feel it? Then what? Do you have a plan for what happens if Landon ever did accept her and I still don’t feel a bond?”
“No, Dash. I don’t have a plan for that,” I bite out, my frustration bubbling over.
He sighs. “I’m sorry. That was unfair.”
“It wasn’t unfair. I just don’t have an answer for you. I’m still trying to keep us all together right now while also grasping onto Briar. It won’t be possible to choose between the pack or her,” I say, defeated.
“You have my word that I won’t make you choose. Mate or not, she’ll be pack in my eyes no matter what happens.”
“Do you mean that?”
He clasps my shoulder.
“We’re family. Of course I mean that.”
“We’ll convince Landon. Even if it takes weeks,” I swear.
“Can you picture us with an omega? God, what do we even do with one?”
I laugh hard enough for it to transform into a cough.
“She’s not a stray pet.”
“That’s not what I meant!”
“It’s what it sounded like.”
He releases me with a shove.
“I meant that none of us have been on a date in years, and now we’re supposed to court an omega? How are we going to convince her to choose us when we can hardly even keep our pack together?”
“There’s a reason omegas are the heart of a pack, Dash. I think if we give this a chance, we’ll be surprised with how we come back together.”
As long as we can get Landon on track.
Once we do that, we have a real chance at this.
At convincing Briar that we’re the pack for her the way I know she is.