CHAPTER THIRTEEN - Lucian
Jasper had come home smelling of Mariska. His grin confirmed what the sweet musky scent said. She was starting to go into heat, and Jasper was the lucky bastard who had the first taste.
I stormed around our kitchen, cleaning up from our day. Dishes were practically thrown into the dishwasher and the counters were scrubbed hard. I’d never wanted anyone as much as I did Mariska. It had only been a few days since we’d met, but deep down inside, I felt she was mine already.
Yet I couldn’t get attached. Mariska had made it clear she wasn’t looking for a mate. No matter what happened during her heat, she was moving to California after Christmas.
Cali-fucking-fornia.
I never hated a state like I did now.
I never hated anything. Which scared me how badly I wanted Mariska to be our Omega.
“Whoa, dude. Are you trying to make a hole in that counter?” Jasper strolled into the kitchen wearing only pajama bottoms. He’d taken a shower, but Mariska’s scent still lingered on him.
“I’m just cleaning.” I tossed the rag into the wide sink and sighed.
I wanted to ask him for every detail about their date, but I didn’t want to be seen as an over-eager pup.
Sometimes I thought Balthazar and Jasper were overly protective of me because I was the youngest pack member, but I could damn well take care of myself.
Jasper fetched a soda from the fridge and leaned against the counter as he popped it open. He didn’t say anything, sipping the drink. I wanted to shout at him, demand he share everything about Mariska, but I bit my tongue.
After a minute, I glowered and turned, needing to get away from him.
“I think we can convince her to stay.”
I froze on the spot. My heartbeat thundered in my ears. Was he teasing me? Because if he was, that was an asshole move.
“Do you still want her as our Omega?” Jasper asked.
I slowly turned and leaned forward on the island counter facing him. Narrowing my eyes, I tried to discern if he was being mean or if he meant it. “I do.” My response was cautious, but there was no playful smirk or gotcha glint in his eyes. “What changed your mind?”
“Mariska. One date with that Omega, and now I fucking see why you and Bal are crazy for her.” Jasper sighed and moved to mirror me, putting his soda down to flatten his hands on the marble counter. “I grilled her today. Maybe not so kindly at one point, but she forgave me.”
Her scent on him said she more than forgave him. I clenched my jaw. I wasn’t angry with him or jealous. I’d been worried that Mariska might not get along with Jasper and he’d fuck things up, but the opposite had happened. I wanted to be with her so badly that…
Balthazar had been the one to trigger her heat, and Jasper was the first to take her.
Both of them that much more Alpha than me.
Maybe I should have been aggressive in getting her to go out with me after we’d worked together or shed my hurt that she was leaving and been the one to take her out today.
Clearly Mariska liked Jasper’s cocky confidence and Balthazar’s playful ego, but where did that leave me?
“She told me why she doesn’t like Christmas.” Jasper gazed at me with raised brows.
“Bal said she has family issues.” Balthazar had told us everything about his date at the market with Mariska, including her getting upset at the family talk. How anyone couldn’t adore her was beyond me.
“More than that. They’re all Betas, and she’s the only Omega. They sent her away to Omega school and just basically forgot about her.” Jasper shook his head and frowned. “Right after her grandmother died too. Left her there all year, even for holidays.”
“That’s awful.” I clenched my hands, wanting to hit something.
I wanted to shout why would they do that, but I knew all too well how some families could never accept a person, no matter what they did.
Just like I was never good enough for my family.
I would hide away among the trees out of fear no one would ever think I was worthy.
Until I met Balthazar and Jasper. They saw beneath my quiet exterior and loved me for the person I was.
Becoming part of their pack was life changing.
Someone had accepted me for being me, and that’s exactly what Mariska needed.
Adrenaline spiked in my system and I straightened, nearly jumping up and down. “That’s it! Family!”
“What?” Jasper regarded me askew. “No, I don’t think it would be good to bring Mariska’s family into this. Things could get real fucked up.”
“No, no. Not that. Mariska’s family is her family, and we’ll respect whether she wants to try to make amends or not.
” I paced back and forth, trying not to vomit out all my thoughts at once, but hope had burst through my heart and my mind was going a million miles a minute.
“She’s close with the girls at Primrose House.
It’s her yearning for family, for a pack.
She might not consciously realize it, but that’s what she wants.
We are that family. We can make her see that we’re everything she’s ever needed and then some. ”
“That’s an interesting theory, and fuck, yeah, we’ll show her those things, but that wasn’t where I was going with this.” Jasper straightened and folded his arms, fingering drumming on his bicep. “Mariska loves Eloise and the other girls at Primrose. They aren’t keeping her here.”
“It’s different. They aren’t her mates.” Important point. At least I thought it was.
Jasper worked his jaw, chewing on my comment and nodded.
“Yeah, true, but I went more along the lines that Mariska was leaving to run after her dream job, her environmental tech position in California. It’s something she can’t find here in Wisconsin.
We need to offer her something equal to that.
Something that does not include our pack.
” He motioned between the two of us. “It has to be just for her and her passion.”
I stopped pacing and furrowed my brow. Shit.
Mariska was not only good at her work, but she believed in it.
That was a powerful thing and something I hadn’t even considered in trying to convince her to stay.
She’d have to give up the job she worked so hard for and more than deserved.
I wanted her to stay, but I couldn’t take that away from her. “You’re right.”
“Fuck, you are right.” Balthazar emerged from the shadows of the hall, and I startled at his sudden entrance.
“Jesus, man.” Jasper huffed and rubbed a hand over his face. “You’re a ninja now?”
“I’m deadly.” Balthazar flashed a grin and then went serious again. “You two were so absorbed in your conversation, you didn’t hear me come in.”
That was true. Santa himself could have come in for some milk and cookies and I wouldn’t have noticed. “How much did you hear?”
“Enough.” Balthazar unzipped the front of his hoodie. “I had it in my head that Mariska would choose us as her mates and that she’d never leave us, but she’s smart and passionate about the environment. What if we had a chat with the board at her work now and got her a raise?”
“It’s about more than money.” Way more. “They won’t let her do the work she wants to do up here.”
“Then we make them give her what she wants.” Balthazar said it as if threatening the board of a big corporation was something we did every week.
“It’s not that easy. Due to various factors, they probably couldn’t even make it happen if they wanted to.
” I didn’t know much about Blue Skies, but the state legislation regarding the environment was a lot different from California’s, and the company Mariska would work for there would have far more resources than what they had here.
“So that leaves the question, what can we do?”
“What we can do is this.” Jasper turned and grabbed three beers from the fridge.
With his soda forgotten, he slid a beer across the counter to me and handed another to Balthazar.
“We share a drink and make a plan. No idea is bad. We have ten dates left to convince Mariska to stay. Ten dates is not a lot of time.”
“Ten dates is plenty.” Balthazar snorted as he twisted off the cap to his beer and gulped half of it down.
Ten days wasn’t much at all. I was more than ready to try, but the problem was that I couldn’t think of how to give Mariska something here in Wisconsin that was equal to, no, it had to be better than what was waiting for her in California.
“We need more details about her new job and why it’s better than the one she’s leaving. ”
Jasper nodded and pointed the top of his bottle at me before he removed the cap. “Good. That’s your job. You’re taking her out tomorrow. Drill her.”
Those last two words sent a whirlwind of hot images through my head and had my dick straining against my pants. Just to kiss Mariska would be like heaven, but getting between those sexy legs and drilling her… Fuck.
“Like you did?” Balthazar grunted, and when he got a scowl from Jasper, he jerked his chin at him. “What? You showered, but I can smell her on you, man.”
“Our girl tastes like paradise.” Jasper smiled, eyes glazing over.
“Cheers to that.” Balthazar held out his beer and we all tapped our bottles together. I screwed the cap off mine and sipped it along with them.
“Since she works tomorrow, I’ll take her out to a dinner club.
Plenty of time to sit and talk about her work.
” Which was of great interest to me as well.
I’d found my dream job here at the farm.
I’d never thought a Christmas tree farm would be where I’d end up when I was in university, but life surprised me in the best of ways.
“Perfect. We’ll let you cover that aspect of convincing her to stay.” Balthazar took another swig and burped. “Now on to the other part of the plan. I’ve got some ideas on how to convince her that we’re her mates.”
They were going to leave that whole part to me?
My stomach tightened as I stared at my bottle.
Drops of condensation trickled down the sides.
I wouldn’t argue I was the best choice to talk to her about work because what we did overlapped, but what could Wisconsin offer her in terms of her specialty that California couldn’t?
My grip hardened on the beer and turned my knuckles white. Fuck, I couldn’t think of anything. California was far ahead of Wisconsin in terms of everything dealing with the environment. Maybe the guys shouldn’t have left this to me.
I could hear what they were saying, trading ideas for dates that involved her getting to see us as her pack, but it was a drone in the background to my panicked thoughts. They put their trust in me, and I didn’t want to fail them.
I didn’t want to fail myself or, most importantly, Mariska.
Maybe something will come up when I talk to her tomorrow. I had to believe that, especially now that all of us wanted her as our Omega.
My father’s hard voice snarled in my head. He hit me as he told me I wasn’t tough enough, that I would never be enough of an Alpha for any Omega, and that I’d spend my life alone.
I slammed those ghosts down. I wasn’t alone. I had my pack. For them, and for Mariska, I needed to dig deep and be the Alpha she needed me to be, because I couldn’t imagine our pack with any other Omega.