CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - Mariska
The weekend went by in a blur. Either I was sleeping, crying, or getting knotted by each of my Alphas in turn.
My heat messed me up more than I ever expected.
One second I was a ravenous nymphomaniac and then I was eating all the cookies while sobbing that I couldn’t remember my password to open my phone.
There was over two feet of snow, and the winds created drifts over twelve feet tall. The roads didn’t open up until Monday morning, and even then, my heat pains wouldn’t let me leave the house. I needed at least one of the Alphas with me constantly.
“We have to get to the hospital today.” I pouted into a pillow, snug in Jasper’s embrace. He spooned me from behind as we were locked together by his knot.
“As long as you’re feeling up to it. Bal’s truck should be able to make it.” Jasper kissed the back of my head and idly fondled one of my breasts.
I wanted to stay inside all day with his cock in me. “It doesn’t matter if I’m feeling up to it. We have to go.”
It was driving me insane not to be with Lyla at the house and not being able to visit Miss Eloise.
Both of them assured me everything was fine, but when I talked to Lyla, she cut our chats short and seemed distracted.
Usually she would ask me a million questions and tell me about her latest design.
Not even Emberlee was willing to have a talk and only responded via text.
Something was wrong and no one was telling me. I had to go and find out for myself.
“So if you need me to knot you at the hospital, are we going to give the nurses a show?” Jasper teased and kissed the back of my neck.
I lightly nudged him with my elbow and snorted. “No. No one else is allowed to witness your hot cock in action other than me.”
“Mm, you are a possessive Omega, aren’t you?” He pulled me tighter against him, a quiet purr in his chest. “I like it.”
Of course he liked it. All the Alphas liked it when my inner thoughts slipped and I called them mine. But they weren’t. Not really. This was only a temporary situation. It’s what we all agreed to.
Yet I’ve played with the idea of what if it wasn’t temporary over the last few days.
Sure, my heat was making me more emotional than I usually was, but life with the pack was near perfect.
I couldn’t even imagine not sharing a bed with at least one of them now.
Every day, it hurt more and more to think of this coming to an end.
But if I was going to California, it wasn’t as if the pack could come with me.
Their lives were on the farm, and that wasn’t mobile.
While I went back and forth about staying to take care of Miss Eloise, my reason for wanting to stay was becoming something else entirely. I tried telling myself that my heat was making me dream stereotypical Omega dreams, but even my reasonable self was starting to doubt it was my hormones alone.
The big question became if I did stay, would I be happy in the long run? I would lose the perfect job and then what would I do? I could help out on the farm, but that didn’t sound challenging or rewarding. I needed my work to be meaningful and to make a difference in the world.
I had to think of what I wanted to be doing five, ten, and twenty years from now.
“Are you falling asleep?” Jasper murmured near my ear. I wiggled against him to let him know I was still awake. His knot had gone down enough that he slipped out of me, and he groaned softly.
I rolled to face him and gave him a lingering kiss. Fuck, I would miss moments like this. “Let’s get showered and dressed. I want to try to make it to town.”
Jasper helped me up, and we washed each other in the shower. Slow and tender, familiar and comforting. There was no way I’d ever find someone like him, never mind an entire pack, ever again.
We dried and dressed, and he brushed out my hair. I found these little things helped my heat pangs at times too. Grooming, soothing, or feeding me. Funny how much of an effect the little things could have.
“I texted Bal to have the truck warmed up and ready. We’re all going into town. We need to do a bunch of errands. Hopefully a Piggly Wiggly or something is open.” Jasper followed me into the hall to the stairs.
“Something will be open. If the roads are finally cleared, everyone is going to be out getting groceries and doing last minute shopping.” Which I needed to do too.
I was way behind on my to-do list. If I was going to be able to finish packing in time, I needed to be back at Primrose House today.
My whole body tightened at the thought of leaving the farmhouse and threatened to stop my legs from working so I didn’t go another step.
I forced myself down the rest of the stairs, battling with my mess of emotions, barely seeing the next step in front of me.
“Surprise!”
The sudden shout had me miss a stair, and I would have fallen if Jasper wasn’t so quick. He caught me around the waist and held me as I steadied myself. Then I almost fell again when I saw who was standing in the foyer.
My parents and my sister.
What the hell?
My heart pounded. I couldn’t breathe.
What were they doing here? How did they even know I was at the farm? Why were they here?
“Hello, Mariska.” My mom smiled a small and flat smile.
My dad’s grin was wider, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Hi, honey. Early Christmas surprise!”
My sister Charlotte was texting on her phone and didn’t even look up. “Hey.”
I stood frozen for another ten or fifteen seconds. My stomach roiled and I felt like I was in the middle of a bad dream. Behind my family, Lucian watched me closely, his expression neutral, and his hand on Artemis’ collar who hesitantly wagged her tail. Balthazar grinned like a madman.
“Hi. This is a big surprise.” I moved down the remaining two steps and clenched my hands at my side.
I was wearing one of Lucian’s thermal shirts and Balthazar’s red flannel.
They hung mid-thigh and made me look as short as a kid.
The feeling of being a forgotten kid had suddenly pounced on me. “What are you doing here?”
None of them moved to give me a hug or even shake my hand. The tension in the air was alive and vicious. It lashed at me with painful memories. I wasn’t that kid anymore, but I could still be angry for what that girl had to endure.
“We were invited to your new home.” Dad explained and smiled at Balthazar. “Balthazar invited us to spend Christmas here.”
Oh fuck no. I grounded my teeth.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell us you had found mates, and there’s three of them.” Mom said it all like she was a little afraid and couldn’t believe it. “We thought you were moving to California.”
Jasper came forward, smooth and casual, but I didn’t miss how rigid his shoulders were. “Hi. It’s nice to meet Mariska’s family. I’m Jasper Norwood.”
“Good to meet you.” My father shook his hand. He was wearing a deep blue sweater which made me notice how pale he was and how gray he’d gotten over the past year. My father had always seemed stern, but now he just looked old. “Theo. My wife, Evelyn, and our youngest daughter, Charlotte.”
Charlotte glanced up from her phone and gave Jasper a very obvious once-over. She smiled, batting her fake lashes. She was eighteen, but looked like a tween girl done up with too much makeup. “Hi. Love your Brunello sweater.”
“Nice to finally meet you. All three of you.” Mom kept harping on that fact.
She, too, had aged. There were more wrinkles on her thin face and her makeup barely hid the circles under her eyes.
“Mariska barely tells us anything about her life, but it seems you’re all doing very well.
Your house is beautiful. It’s good that Mariska is now living in a place that isn’t a tiny apartment suite. ”
She never had a good thing to say about Primrose House. Miss Eloise and my friends there were my real family. They loved and supported me when no one else would
Balthazar was still grinning as if everyone was about to break out in a happy song and dance. It had been him who had gone on about how important family was, and I lost count the number of times he mentioned babies. He brought them here. I didn’t even have to ask.
None of them had listened to what I said. No one cared about how I felt about it. The farmhouse had been a happy place, a sanctuary. Now it was tainted.
Something shattered inside of me.
The cold shards of my life imploded with a thousand cuts.
Fuck all of this. “I don’t live here. There was no news to tell you. I’m moving to California as planned.”
My mother gasped and the men sucked in sharp breaths. Charlotte finally looked my way with wide eyes.
“Mariska.” Balthazar’s grin vanished as he moved toward me. I stepped back out of his reach.
“What’s going on?” Dad’s brows furrowed. “Balthazar, I thought you said Mariska was your mate. An Omega can’t leave her Alpha once that’s declared. That’s how it works, right?”
My fury turned to Balthazar and his every family should be together bullshit.
“You told them I was your mate? What the fuck?” If he cared for me like he claimed, if he really knew me, he would have never done this.
“I am not your mate. I never gave you or anyone permission to claim that. I said from the beginning that this was temporary.” I yanked off his flannel shirt and threw it at him.
I didn’t want his scent on me anymore. “I’m ending it now. You don’t get your twelve days.”
Jasper put his hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged him off.
“Baby, calm down.” Balthazar caught the shirt and stepped closer. His six foot four loomed over my five foot five, but he didn’t scare me. Nothing did. “Let’s all go into the living room and talk about this. Your hormones are making you act—”
“Like what? Like you didn’t lie to my parents?
” I shot back. His jaw hardened. The blow I struck was hard, but I wasn’t done yet.
“You want to have a mate so badly and fill your house with babies, but that’s not what I want.
So you try to make it come true by telling other people that I’m already yours, but I’m not the Omega for you.
If you had paid an ounce of attention to who I really am, you would have figured that out by now. ”
Artemis let out a whine, pulling at the hold Lucian had on her. He lowered himself to one knee and stroked her. I wanted him to jump in and defend me. He was the one who told me not to give up on my dream job. He was the one who knew me best in the pack.
But instead, he didn’t say a thing.
Jasper, too, remained silent. His deep blue eyes were glimmering with some sort of fire, but he wasn’t defending me. So fuck him too.
Fuck them all.
“Mariska.” My dad folded his arms. A hint of the stern man returned, but it no longer had an effect on me.
“That’s no way to talk to him. Apologize now.
He was kind enough to invite us to his home.
Clearly there has been a misunderstanding, but you’re a smart girl and can work it out without all this yelling. ”
“Apologize?” My death glare swiveled to my father.
The little girl in me still wanted his approval, wanted to be loved, but it wasn’t happening.
“He straight out lied. A smart girl knows to have nothing to do with a man who is a liar.” I flashed Balthazar a fierce glare.
“I’m leaving, and I’m not coming back. I suggest you get back in your car and go home.
I won’t be visiting this Christmas or ever again. ”
“Be reasonable.” My mother huffed. “This pack, these three men, will take good care of you. It’s what an Omega needs.”
“How do you know what an Omega needs?” The idea that she even thought she knew a single thing about being an Omega blew my mind.
“You never talked to me about what it’s like.
You don’t know how being an Omega has made my life that much harder, and how I’ve had to overcome those hardships alone because my family has no interest in me. ”
“That’s not true.” Dad grunted.
“It’s absolutely true. After Grandma died, our family broke. You sent me away to Saint Margaret’s and never even brought me home for the holidays.”
“Well, the cost of it…” Dad started, but thankfully didn’t finish. Perhaps he was finally realizing he was an asshole.
“I was left there for seven years. Seven years.” I emphasized, hissing through my teeth. “You never even came to visit. Then when I graduated, I had to find my own way with no help from my family.”
“They sent me to Northwestern military school for a year.” Charlotte piped up, nodding as if she’d endured as much bullshit as I did. And the only reason I didn’t say anything was because she probably did.
“Your behavior sent you there.” Dad snapped at Charlotte and then stiffly turned back to me. “Well, what did you expect us to do? We didn’t know what to do with an Omega.”
“I’m your daughter. You couldn’t love and support your own child?” I wanted to scream and attack him like a feral cat, but I didn’t. I wouldn’t waste any more energy on a family who wanted nothing to do with me. Instead, I went to the mudroom to put on my boots and coat.
Balthazar and Jasper started to come toward me, but I held up a hand. “No. I never want to see either of you again.” My shards shuddered within me, stabbing me anew. I glanced at my family. “Go home. I don’t want to see you either.”
Not bothering to do up my boots, I put my hand on the doorknob. “Lucian, can you please drive me home?” I didn’t even wait for his reply. I opened the front door and braced myself against the blast of cold. “Artemis, come.”
Artemis came racing to me and didn’t hesitate barreling into the snow outside. I followed, slamming the door behind me.
There was no truck warmed up and waiting. Either Balthazar had lied to Jasper about it, or they all knew what was going on. They had to know. They were a pack, and they’d said repeatedly they kept nothing from each other.
Artemis rubbed against my legs and I crouched down to hug her. At least she would always be there for me. My faithful silent companion.
A sob lodged itself in my throat, but I sucked it back. No one here deserved to see my tears. Not all family bonds could be mended, and some Alphas were lying bastards.
I was an Omega. To them, that made me an unwanted daughter and a mate meant for breeding.
Screw them all.
I was Mariska Belmont, and I was going to California to help save the goddamn world. Broken families and Alphaholes included.