12. Vera
12
Vera
It’s the fourth or fifth day of my heat, I’m not entirely sure, everything is a blur. But it seems to be finally subsiding as my body doesn’t feel like it’s on fire anymore and my mind is much clearer.
I slowly climb from between Jorge and Caleb, looking around for Mathew, but not finding him in the nest. That’s strange.
His scent is only weak. How long has he been gone?
I slip between the curtains that separate the nest from the rest of the room and go into the bedroom. Then I hear it, the running shower.
With a sneaky smile, I cross over to the bathroom and open the door.
I’m immediately greeted with hot steam from the shower and a sight to behold. Mathew is leaning against the wall in the shower, letting the hot water spill down his back, creating tempting streams of water that I want to follow with my fingers.
Without thinking, I reach out, and the moment I touch him, he spins around and grabs my wrist, pulling it up as he pushes me against the wall, his eyes wild, unseeing.
I let out a startled sound as I hit my head against the wall from the force, and that seems to snap him out of it.
“Fuck. Vera. I’m so sorry.” He wraps me in his arms, pulling me close, cradling the back of my head in his hand. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise you were here.”
What’s going on? What’s going on in his head to get him this wound up?
“Are you okay?” I’ve not seen him this on edge since the day we first met.
He slowly nods, but keeps me against him, so I can’t see his face. “I’ll be fine.” His heart is racing, his breaths short and choppy.
It’s then that I notice something, or, more precisely, I don’t notice something. “Your pheromones are gone.”
“Yeah. I think they just… They probably only come out when they’re really high. I think?” He pulls me tighter against him, his voice breaking slightly. “I don’t know. I thought that maybe they’d be back to normal after I’d gone into heat. But now… They’re still messed up.”
I break from his grip, looking up at him, noticing the pain in his gaze. “Does it really matter that much?” Is that’s what’s got him this upset? His pheromones?
He pulls at one of his lip rings with his teeth, closing his eyes. “I like smelling your pheromones, I want to… I want to share mine too.”
“But I can smell them. Not all the time, but that makes it extra special when I do.” I reach up, carefully touching his face, pulling him down for a soft kiss. “Plus, wouldn’t it be very impractical for your job if you suddenly start spreading Omega pheromones around when everyone out there thinks you’re an Alpha?”
He snorts, grinning, the haunted look in his eyes fading. “I’d love to see their faces when they realise they’ve been getting their asses handed to them by an Omega. When they realise they’ve been getting outsmarted by an Omega for the last decade.”
Then he kisses me, back to his normal self. “And my pheromones won’t matter anyway. If I’m pregnant, it’ll become clear that I’m an Omega really soon anyway. It’s kind of hard to hide a belly in a fitted suit.”
“That too.” I look at him. “Are you okay, though?”
He nods, more at ease now. “Yeah, I’m okay. There were just a lot of changes at once and I’ve had to take off work for a couple of days and I have no idea how Derrick or Timothy explained why I couldn’t show up for meetings. It’s a mess and I don’t even know where to start.”
“Simple.” I shrug.
This is something I’ve got experience with from the Omega side of things and that plenty of Alphas and Betas have to deal with every day.
I take his hands, putting them against my cheeks as I smile up at him. “Your adorable Omega unexpectedly went into heat. You’ve not been together for very long and it’s the first time it happened, so you didn’t get a chance to plan for it. Pretty sure that’s easy to accept for them and the truth.”
He nods slowly. “I guess.”
“And they’ll probably want to celebrate with you instead of complaining that their meeting had to move. At least, that’s how people seem to react when Alphas or Betas have to take time off because of their Omega.”
He lets out a soft laugh as he leans his forehead against mine. “You’re probably right. And how are you so clear already? My head is still fuzzy and I feel wrung out, mentally.”
“Because this wasn’t my first heat in a decade. I have more experience with it. Honestly, that’s about it. You get used to the feeling when you do it more often.” I grab the shampoo. “Though, the icky-sticky feeling at the end doesn’t get much better. You just learn to ignore it better until you can take a shower.”
“Good to know.” He smiles. “Let me.” He holds out his hand and I give him the shampoo.
His fingers feel like heaven as he massages my scalp, almost making me sleepy.
Then I remember what he said about not being able to hide a belly in a fitted suit.
We might soon be pregnant.
I linger my hand on my lower belly.
If everything goes well, my body will start to change. Our bodies will start to change.
Wow.
“Can you read these and sort them by ones I need to look at immediately and ones that can wait a few more days?” Mathew hands me a tablet, his email app already open on it.
We’re fresh from the shower and cuddling up in the big pink heart-shaped pillow in the corner of the bedroom. We didn’t want to go back into the nest room because it’s stuffy and still full of pheromones. We’ll need to air it out before we go back into it.
“I thought that Timothy did stuff like that for you?” I eye the long list of emails. There are over a hundred unread ones… Fuck.
“He does. These are the ones that he thought were important enough to send through to me and not take care of himself.” Mathew makes himself comfortable against my side, his head on my shoulder, tapping on something on his phone.
He acts exactly how I am with Caleb the morning after my heat has ended, all soft and cuddly. Only, Mathew is a lot bigger than me, so the balance is totally off.
It’s still really cute and I like it when he looks soft like this. It makes my heart flutter.
“And while I do your work, what are you going to do?” I side-eye him, even though he can’t see it.
“Checking if Timothy’s team found anything about the bounties. If someone has shown an interest yet. And then check on how far they’ve gotten with updating the security systems.”
The bounties…
Crap. I’d almost forgotten about them.
Though, we have been pretty busy these last couple of days, but still, I can’t believe I’d forgotten about them. I can’t believe I forgot that people want us dead. That they’re willing to pay a lot of money for people to kill us.
I still can’t believe that Hubert Russell’s pack would go that far.
Mathew moves, pulling us so I’m now nestled against his side, as he lets out a soothing rumble. “Don’t worry about it. It’s a bother, but I’ve dealt with this plenty of times before. There’s nothing to worry about.” He kisses the top of my head. “You’re perfectly safe.”
He might say that, but his actions say something different with how focused he is on improving the security and wanting us at his side at all times. His actions say that he’s also worried about things.
But it’s also clear that he doesn’t want to talk about it right now.
I stare at the tablet. “Is it okay for me to see all these emails? Won’t there be anything in there that could be sensitive or something like that? I know that they’re work emails, so not anything private. But I mean… something like trade secrets or whatever.” I ramble, trying to change the topic, trying to stop thinking of horrible things.
At least, horrible things that involve us…
He chuckles, pointing at the tablet with his phone. “There won’t be anything in them that you’ve not heard me discuss while you were listening in on my phone calls. And you already know what I do, there shouldn’t be any surprises.”
“Right…” It still feels weird.
“Or you can read one of your naughty books or do something else. That’s totally fine too.” He nuzzles the side of my head. “I just thought that you might be interested in learning more about the business. It would be nice to run this operation together, you know?”
“I’m interested. I’ve just never done anything like this before. I’ve only graduated high school, so nobody ever put me in charge of the admin side of anything.” I stare at my hands. “I have no idea if I’m even smart enough to do work like this. I have no training or anything like that.”
He sits up straighter, his attention shifted as he looks at me in excitement. “Would you like to learn about running a business? I think I’ve still got my old books. And anything you don’t understand, just ask Timothy. That’s what I did.” He grins, his eyes shining.
“Are you sure?”
This feels weird, not in an uncomfortable way, but in a ‘I’m not sure I’m allowed to do this’ kind of way. What if I mess things up? What if I disappoint him because I’m not as smart as he thinks I am?
“Of course.” He leans closer, looking more serious, but his eyes still full of spark. “If there’s anything you want to learn or do. Just tell me. I’ll make it happen.”
Then his voice softens. “You’re no longer on the run. You’re no longer living day by day. You’re living here with me now. I’ve got the money to fulfil all of your dreams.”
My cheeks heat up as I glance down his body, ending on his boxer briefs, which are tented. “All of my dreams?”
“All of them.” He chuckles. “But let me show you the library first. And I’ll have Timothy prepare a laptop for you, so you can use that whenever you want.”
He pulls me up from the pillow, holding me in his arms. “I only want the very best for you. So, anything you want, tell me, I’ll make it happen.”
“Thank you.” My heart beats fast and I start perfuming, surprised by his actions. I know that he cares about me, he cares a lot, but this is still so much more than I expected.
“I’m your mate. Anything I can do, I will.”
I never expected that I’d ever get a college degree, or anything more than a high school diploma.
From a young age, I’ve always known that once I graduated high school, I’d be married off to some other pack and, from that moment on, whatever would happen would be up to my new pack.
I was fine with that. I didn’t really have many things that I wanted to do in life and there wasn’t anything in school that I was particularly good at. So, doing whatever a new pack told me to do was fine with me.
None of the Omegas who raised me had more than a high school diploma, so it’s not like I knew anything else. That’s just how things were for pack bonded Omegas.
It wasn’t until I met Caleb that I realised that there was more out there for Omegas who were part of packs. And he’s always wanted to get me enrolled in some sort of classes, but because we moved so often, that was never practical.
So, I mostly learned whatever I could on the jobs that I did and he taught me everything I needed to know about household finances and other practical things.
But to be able to choose something to learn, to be able to learn anything that I would like, that’s new.
And very exciting.