6. Caleb
6
Caleb
It’s hard to keep a clear head with the strong pheromones spiking all around us. Vera’s sweetness with Mathew’s sharp flowers and now Jorge’s woodsy scent.
I remember how Vera and I were ‘drunk’ on each other’s pheromones for a couple of days when we first met, and this feels the same, just a lot more intense. It’s exciting to meet your scent match and it’s normal to want to dive into that new connection and never come back up.
But we’ve got a few things to take care of before we do that. Like making sure everything is ready for Vera’s heat. Once that’s done, we can explore each other as much as we want.
Mathew slips into his bedroom ahead of us. “I’ll put something on that should ease our pheromones.” He goes over to some drawers and pulls out a diffuser and a few small glass bottles. He reads the labels of the bottles until he finds what he’s looking for and adds a few drops of it to the diffuser.
The room immediately fills with a light scent that seems to mask our pheromones somewhat. Not entirely, but it’s easier to think.
Vera pulls me into the room with her and then goes over to the box with new clothes that arrived a day or two ago. Which she still hasn’t put away because she’s too busy doing other things.
She pulls her dress off and puts on a clean one, before dropping the dirty dress into the basket in the bathroom. “That feels better.” She grins. “The downside of not wearing underwear is that something else gets soaked.”
I close my eyes, letting out a sigh. Yes, she’s cute, but some of the things she says… She has no filter.
“Maybe you should put some on?” I nod towards a smaller box next to the one that she just pulled the dress out of.
“Nah. I don’t feel like it.” She grins as she comes over to me, sliding under my arm and against my side so I’ve now got my arm around her shoulders and she’s leaning against me. “Too much of a bother.”
Jorge walks past us, his eyes wide as he grins. “Damn, this smells like a very different room now.” He saunters over to the bed and drops onto it before he brazenly nuzzles all the pillows, letting out a loud moan.
“Jorge!” Mathew doesn’t seem as amused. “Fucking hell. Stop acting like a horny teenager.”
Jorge smirks up at him, still cradling one of the pillows. “Even when I was a teen, I’ve never been this horny before. And you made me plenty horny with your scent.”
Mathew sighs, pulls a pillow from one of the chairs and throws it at Jorge. “If you can’t focus, take a cold shower or something, or get out.”
Jorge catches the pillow easily, grinning widely. “Normally, the only time you get this grumpy is when I’ve been teasing you for hours without letting you come. You must be desperate for an orgasm right now.” He openly stares at Mathew’s crotch, who lets out a frustrated groan and stalks over to the dresser next to the bathroom door, opening the bottom drawer.
It’s the same drawer where Vera found a bunch of Mathew’s weapons when we first got here, and Jorge clearly knows what’s in it too as his eyes go wide.
“Fine! Fine!” He sits up quickly, scooting over to the edge of the bed and stands up. “I would like to keep all my body parts intact, thank you.”
Next to me, Vera laughs softly, much more at ease than she was a couple of minutes ago, her pheromones are also much calmer. These guys are great at winding her up but also winding her down, that’s good to know.
I kiss her head and she turns to me, her eyes full of joy. “Let’s get started. That way, if we need to buy some things, we’ll hopefully still have time.”
She nods, looking at Mathew. “I suspect that this place doesn’t have a nest room, since this is the master bedroom and doesn’t have one.”
He shakes his head. “None. But you can choose any room you want, we’ll make a temporary nest out of it. And we can do some renovating or moving stuff around to get you a proper nest room next time.”
“Any room?” She eyes him, a mischievous smile on her lips.
He nods. “Any room you choose. I’ll kick everyone out of the fucking kitchen if that’s where you want to be.”
Vera’s arm shoots out, pointing to the mostly unused walk-in-dressing room. “I want that one. I don’t need anything else. That one.”
“Are you sure?” I eye her. It’s much bigger than she would normally choose.
It’s not unusual for her to choose a closet or something like that for a nest, that’s pretty normal, but this thing is a lot bigger than what she’s used before.
She nods, going over to it and opening the door. “I want this.”
“Well, that was easy.” Mathew laughs, relieved, before he goes over to her. “Anything you want to change about it? We can switch out the lights and do anything else you want.”
She steps inside what will soon be her nest and turns on the lights, blinking quickly. “I want fairy lights along the ceiling and a few small lights on the floor. You can keep the big lights, just don’t turn them on while we’re in here.”
I follow them inside. “Do you want part of it partitioned off, or do you feel the size is fine as it is? We can always decide on it later, once we get the bedding in here.”
She slips her fingers along mine, leaning against me as she looks around. With the way her eyes dart around the room, she’s building a mental image of what she wants it to look like and she’s clearly liking it as her pheromones spike, filling the space with her sweet honey scent.
“I don’t know yet…” Her voice goes quiet. “I think… Maybe this will work? Maybe it’s…” She starts to frown, going nervous.
“We can do anything you want. Just say it and we’ll do it.” Mathew’s voice is quiet as he stares at her, the blush on his cheeks revealing how much Vera’s pheromones are turning him on too.
“Here.” Jorge holds out a writing pad and a pack of coloured pens. “This might help. You can plan out what you want, and make lists and things like that.”
Vera nods quickly as she accepts them. “Thanks. That’s a good idea.”
Being able to write or draw out her plans seems to calm her nerves again and she promptly sits down on the floor and starts looking through the pens for the colour she wants.
“We’ll be out of your way. Let us know what you decide.” I ruffle her soft locks.
Vera’s voice is quick, short. “Mathew stays.”
The guy blinks, surprised, but then carefully sits down next to her, looking nervous.
I push at Jorge’s shoulder to get him out of the room and then close the door behind us.
The light scent from the diffuser is a welcome relief as I cross the bedroom and step out onto the balcony, taking in the fresh air.
I know it’s better to leave an Omega to do their own thing when they’re nesting. Alpha and Beta pheromones tend to only put them on edge when they need to focus on creating the perfect space to go into heat.
Vera is particularly sensitive to other people’s pheromones when she needs to create a new nest. It won’t help that she has to create one so close to her heat, especially when she just had her previous nest set up perfectly. That’s a lot of changes at a time when she’s already feeling fragile.
Jorge follows me outside, sitting on one of the chairs. “They’re going to have so much fun together, building a nest. I don’t think Mathew has ever made one before, at least not one where he could choose what it would look like.”
“Hmhm.” I look out over the fields, not sure how to start this conversation. “I hope you don’t have any meetings this week. I don’t think they’re going to let you go any time soon.”
“What?” He jumps up, standing next to me, frowning.
“I think Vera and Mathew will want you here when she goes into heat.”
“I heard that part.” He sighs, leaning on the railing. “I just think it’s a very bad idea. It’s dangerous, and not in a fun way.”
“You’re scent matched to Mathew and, from what I saw between Vera and you in the garden, she pretty much admitted the same.” I lean back against the railing, letting out a long breath.
“No.” Jorge shakes his head. “It’s not safe. You’re pair bonded to Vera, pair bonded, and you’ll already have an unmarked Omega with you. That’s going to give enough stress as it is.”
He turns to me more. “Adding me into the mix, an unmarked Alpha… Your instincts could kick in and you could kill me.” He looks me up and down.
“I have no idea how well trained you are, but you’re taller and broader than me. If you go into a frenzied haze because you feel that I’m threatening Vera just by being there, you could very well kill me.”
“I won’t.” I keep my voice as calm as possible because Jorge’s pheromones are agitated, which is not doing good things to mine. “I won’t kill you.”
That seems to stop him for a moment, before he starts again. “I could go frenzied and kill you . That’s not any better.”
“You won’t either.”
“How would you know?!” He pushes off the railing and walks to the other end of the balcony, moving with jerky motions. “You’ve been pair bonded to Vera for years. If she’s been perfectly fine all that time, then you’re both clearly meant to be pair bonded. Pair bonds don’t turn into pack bonds, that just doesn’t happen.”
His pheromones are distressed and my first instinct is to send out calming pheromones, but I don’t, not yet.
He doesn’t seem to realise that the reason he’s getting this upset is because he’s trying to talk himself into leaving, not because he truly believes we would hurt each other.
He’s trying to rationalise why what he’s feeling can’t be true, and focusing on pair and pack bonds is only an excuse.
There’s one way to get him out of that really quickly, though it might be a bit messy. “That’s what my ex thought too, that she was someone who would only ever pair bond. She grew up, like me, with pair bonded parents. Nobody in her family had been pack bonded in generations.”
I notice the slight spike in Jorge’s pheromones, his body tensing up, alert, like I expected. I keep going. “And then, she found her fated pack, days before our wedding. Their wedding?—”
The growl Jorge releases is loud, his pheromones strong, angry, possessive.
Bingo!
I stop talking, giving him a level look, waiting.
It takes him a while to realise that I’m not saying anything anymore and he explodes. “How could she—” He growls again but stops when I hold up my hand and I finally send calming pheromones towards him.
“We were never scent matched. We were best friends who made a promise.”
Jorge lets out another growl and I growl back at him, stepping closer to him so he knows I’m serious.
“ Don’t do that. She’s not a threat to us. Vera and her are the best of friends.”
“Please, stop talking about your ex.” Jorge looks down, his breathing ragged. “It… It does bad things to my head.”
“I know.” I put my hand on his shoulder, and after he tenses for a moment he relaxes under my grip. “But I didn’t feel like arguing with you about pair and pack bonds for the next hours. You’re part of our pack, whether you believe it yet or not.”
“Fuck. You’re a bastard.” He glares at me.
I shrug. “I’m in no mood to bother with drama right now. Not when our Omega is about to go into heat. We’ve got more important things to discuss.”
Even if he thinks I’m a bastard, at least I now know how possessive he is, which is a lot. Both him and Mathew are very possessive, and this will be the first time they’re around Vera when she goes into heat.
We might not kill each other because we feel like the others are intruders, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we might have to deal with some domination clashes instead…
Oh, joy.