Chapter 25
Oriana
W aking up to the scent of Cameron and Roman around me was my new favorite way to wake up. It was a mix of cypress, bayberry, black tea, and honey. Warm, woodsy, sweet, and comforting.
I breathed it in before opening my eyes, snuggling into the warm bliss of my fluffy comforter.
Then I frowned, realizing the scent was fading.
My eyes popped open then filled with tears. My omega was panicking. I went to bed with Cameron and Roman. Now I was alone.
It was irrational and terrifying all at once.
Roman’s scent was wafting out of the bathroom, shower running, so I knew he was there.
But Cameron was gone.
Pushing the blanket aside I went to the window and peeked out, a sob escaping at the absence of his truck.
I pushed my palm over my mouth to cover it as I shook at the force of my tears. My mind was barely online yet it was shutting down, falling into that pit I thought I’d left behind.
“Stormy?!” Roman crashed around the bathroom before shoving the door open and sliding my way on wet feet. He had a towel hastily wound around his hips that was barely holding on as he reached me. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“He’s gone,” I wailed as I collapsed now that I had him.
“No, Ori, he’s not,” he promised me. “He went down to make you coffee and grab breakfast.”
“His truck is gone,” I argued.
He tried to say something else to reassure me, but my omega wasn’t convinced. The pain that had broken my chest open in grief years ago was starting to gape again, pulling me into a dark place I had cast aside.
I was hysterical.
“Cameron Whitaker, get your ass up here!” Roman bellowed. That had the door bursting in, but from the frantic mix of scents, none of them were him.
My alpha was gone.
There was a swirl of words but I couldn’t hear them. Even the scents couldn’t soothe me.
As if their alphas knew they were needed, a burst of fresh linen, snow, and spice hit me from Tate, mixing with a new scent of calming herbs and forest rain. Hudson.
Lane was there, too, with his own sweet blend of fresh apples, warm vanilla, and a hint of lemon under it all.
Yet, it was wrong.
There was no cypress, no bayberry.
“She’s burning up,” Tate’s deep voice said as I was pulled into his lap.
“A heat burst, maybe?” Roman suggested. “I’ve never seen her like this. She’s freaking out because Cameron is gone. She thinks he’s left her.”
That set me off again, another desperate whine echoing from me that had the alphas purring to soothe me.
“We’re here. He’ll be back,” Lane tried to reason but I could barely breathe as my chest collapsed.
“Oriana. Omega, listen to me,” Tate barked. The command was sharp and insistent, forcing me to look up at him even as he blurred through the tears. “He went to get you some pastry he said you loved. He’s not gone, just ran out for a moment.”
My head shook side to side.
Ringing filled the room as someone started a call on speakerphone.
“What’s up, Roman?” Cameron’s voice came through. The sound had another whine breaking free, low and insistent, full of pain. “Shit, what’s going on?”
“She’s convinced you left her again.”
“Fuck,” he cursed, his own voice full of pain which I hated but that was the sane part of my brain. It was vastly outweighed by the psychotic levels of freakout I was having. “Oriana, you fucking listen to me right now.”
It was another bark. The order took my whine from loud to subdued, yet it didn’t break me out of this panic.
My chest hurt and I couldn’t breathe.
“Fuck, she’s having a panic attack,” Lane cursed. He pressed my palm to his chest and his to mine. “Breathe.”
“Oriana, stop. Breathe,” Tate barked. “Get your ass back here, Whitaker.”
I heard the screech of tires not even a minute later. They were trying to coax me through breathing and someone mentioned an ambulance.
The door downstairs burst open and there was a thundering of footsteps until I was being pulled out of Tate’s lap and into Cameron’s arm.
Alpha. Mine.
Even my thoughts were feral now.
“God, Baby, I’m so fucking sorry,” Cameron said, his voice breaking into a sob of his own. “Was this what it was like?”
I didn’t need clarification. He meant when he left me.
All I could do was nod as he fell to the floor with me, bundling me closer and rocking me back and forth.
“My poor, sweet omega,” he said, soothing me. “Breathe for me, Baby. You’re freaking us all out. I’m here and I promise I’m never leaving you again. Where you go, I go.”
The vehemence in his voice sunk into my chest, weaving together that open wound and helping close it again.
I sucked in desperate lungfuls of his scent, the panic subsiding slowly but surely. My head was still spinning but getting better without the lack of oxygen.
The whines stopped and I pressed my ear to his chest as it rumbled in a purr just for me.
Two more purrs joined in, Tate and Hudson right there with us even as this alpha held me. Warm fingers wrapped around mine, my fingers brushing over the rings adorning them. Lane.
Then someone kneaded my shoulders from behind, squeezing just the way Roman knew I liked it.
My pack was whole and they were with me.
I wasn’t alone.
As time passed, my emotions went from crazy to settled and I curled in on myself in shame.
“Hey, none of that. Don’t hide from us,” Roman urged, rubbing up and down my spine. “Nothing to be embarassed about.”
“I was crazy,” I groaned, the sound muffled by Cameron’s hoodie as I burrowed in further.
“It was a heat spike,” Tate said. “That’s not a rational time for an omega and you certainly didn’t scare us away. Though, your alpha here might be kicking his own ass over it.”
“God, Ori,” Cameron choked out. I’d never once in my life seen an alpha cry outside of a funeral.
Yet my alpha was crying for me. For what he did.
“I never wanted this, any of this.”
“I know,” I offered, though it meant little.
“Will you ever trust me again?” he asked in a quiet whisper that broke my heart a little more.
“Someday,” I replied, knowing deep down it was true. “In time.”
“I’ll leave notes next time, more than one if I have to. Or I’ll wake you and tell you I’m leaving,” he promised. “Oh, and I can put a tracking app on our phones so no matter where I am, you can see me.”
He didn’t wait for a reply before shifting to grab his phone from his pocket. I watched quietly as Lane moved to fetch mine and hand it over.
“Add all of us,” he said. “Make sure she knows we’re all in.”
I was so out of it, head a mess, that all I could do was watch as my pack took my freakout in stride and did everything they could to make sure I knew it changed nothing, that they wanted me settled and happy.
“Alright, done. Everyone is here,” Cameron said, flipping his screen to show all six of our dots on the screen.
“Thank you,” I whispered before burrowing back into his chest. His rumbles only get louder and eventually, sleep pulled me under again.
Roman
The feeling that hit me in the shower was enough to steal my breath. That pain was fathomless, going on forever like there was no end.
How did she endure that for so long?
Fuck.
I rubbed my chest where the phantom pain was as I looked down at the sleeping omega. Her red hair was wild and her face makeup free so her freckles were on display. She was gorgeous, even with the dark circles under her eyes.
At least she was peacefully sleeping now.
The whole thing genuinely scared me for a minute. She was out of her mind and there was no way to fix it. I was helpless and it was humbling.
But then we were all here. Tate took control and made me call Cameron, then he was here, too.
I lifted my gaze to find Tate’s. He looked a little haunted but met my gaze, giving me a reassuring smile, his hand finding my shoulder and giving it a squeeze.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
“I am, thank you for coming in and handling that. I couldn’t get through to her,” I rasped.
He nodded, looking relieved and happy at my words. Maybe he needed the reassurance just as much.
“I don’t deserve to be here,” Cameron whispered. “Our bond hasn’t been anything in years but even I felt a trickle of that.”
“You felt it because she’s opening back up to you, idiot,” Lane said, holding back nothing. “If you leave her now, I’ll chain you in the basement. And I’ve been down there, dirt floors, stone walls, spiders, it’s scary as fuck.”
“Then be deserving of her,” Tate said. “You both want this. She’s willing to give you a chance and you put your back into keeping her relevant, even when she was gone. Don’t stop now.”
“I just keep fucking up,” he said, voice strangely distant. I moved around him so I could see his face, glad I’d snuck away to slide on shorts at least or this would be awkward as hell.
“She was hurt, a shell of a person for a long time. Then she crawled out of that and found a new version of herself. She’s tired of pretending she didn’t want her life here, her dreams. She’s finding that again but from what I can read through our shaky bond, she’s still terrified we’ll all walk away. We just have to prove to her that we won’t.”
“Never again,” Tate said pointedly. “She told me about that time and as much as I want to hate you for it, I can’t. You’re here, showing up and showing out just for her. You can win her back and we’ll help you. Because she deserves all of this and we’re a pack. It’s time to start courting our omega, so when her heat comes, we can claim her so she can feel the depths of all that we feel for her.”
His words fell over us like a blanket, soothing the lingering tension a bit. Cameron took a deep breath and nodded.
“What else do you have planned for her?” Hudson asked him.
“I’ve got a whole list,” Cameron snorted. He gently reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick wad of paper.
I took it from his hand and unfolded it, realizing it was four pages of ideas, some scratched out, some forcefully and others with a question mark.
“She loved the snacks you made her,” I said absently as I read. “The fire was good, too. Even if it seemed like a disaster, it wasn’t.”
“It was necessary,” Tate agreed. “Everything is out there and we’re all on even footing.”
“No we aren’t,” Cameron said with an edge to his tone. “We all know I’m at the bottom.”
“She sought you out last night,” I reminded him. “Don’t hold yourself back and you won’t be.”
He sighed and nodded. “I was thinking of doing our old weekend routine. We should take her together, though. The pack needs to show a united front as much as I have to prove I’m not going anywhere.”
“The truth is, we can’t tiptoe around the bullshit. We have to acknowledge it, work around it, until it’s a distant memory. It’s part of who this pack is, how we came together, but it will get better. If we put the work in,” Hudson said.
“I will,” Cameron promised with enough conviction that it eased the tension between us. We needed to know he wasn’t going to back down, too.
“We all will,” Tate said, speaking for all of us in that stern way of his that I was quickly becoming reliant on.
“So, courting?” Lane said. “Her dads made this house hers with her in mind, so she’s going to want to stay. They even got her shop going.”
“And Cam has her supplied,” Hudson agreed. Cameron bit back a smile and nodded.
“Oh, she’ll want more. But that’s planned,” he agreed.
“Then I think we add our own touches to it without making a fuss,” Lane said. “Put your shoes down by the door. Hang a picture. We need to make this place feel lived in. I’d also say start subtly leaving your clothes behind in her room, too, so she can nest with it.”
“Good idea,” Hudson said, all of them stripping out of their shirts but Cameron since he still held our sleeping omega. They left them on the bed before Tate took over again.
“Get our omega in the bed, Cam,” he ordered, putting down the blankets to make room. “Don’t leave her.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. Not after this,” Cameron said as Lane and I helped him stand with her. He didn’t let go until he placed her in the center of the bed and got in with her. She whined until she had her nose pressed into his throat.
When Tate started to leave her hand snapped out and grabbed his, stopping him and dragging him down with her. She wasn’t even awake but her omega needed at least two of her alphas.
“Come on,” Hudson said with a chuckle. “Let’s make sure she wakes up to a proper brunch.”
Lane and I followed him down, flicking the lights off again and leaving them to rest.
“How are you adjusting?” Hudson asked me when we got to the kitchen. He said it over his shoulder as he moved around the kitchen, slowly stacking up a few things that he needed.
“To sharing her?” Hudson nodded in answer.
They’d asked before but it was kind of nice to have someone check in on me, too. It had been me and Ori for a short time, but I’d fallen head over heels the moment I saw her that day in the rain. I missed being her sole focus, but seeing her with the others and sharing the burdens of everyday life with the pack had an appeal I didn’t realize I needed.
“If she’s happy then I’ll be good. It’s weird not working and being in a new town, but once we really settle in, I think I can be happy here,” I admitted as I helped him find the waffle maker.
“We’ll figure it out. She’s our main focus, but nothing says I’m committed quite like finding our place in this town, too,” Lane agreed.
“It’ll come. We’re all here now,” Hudson said easily, pulling his long hair into a bun before tossing aprons our way. “Now get to work. We need to feed our omega.”