Chapter 4
H olt stormed back in, the door slamming against the wall loud enough to startle me. I’d been awake for a few minutes but wasn’t quite ready for his level of intensity.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked around a yawn.
He turned those fiery, brown eyes on me with a glare. “She’s impossible. A completely unreasonable omega.”
“What happened?” I asked, even more awake now at the mention of our mate. I’d spent all night tossing and turning, thinking about her and that incredible sweet scent.
She was also gorgeous. I barely remembered her from school other than the rumors. Now she was confident and fiery, adorable with her dark glasses and long, blonde hair. Her eyes were a striking blue that stood out behind her glasses and a dusting of freckles decorated her nose and cheeks.
She was petite with that perfect omega softness. Just the right height to tuck under my chin in a hug.
Though, if I tried to hug her right now I had a feeling she’d punch me right in the dick.
“The little, freaking psycho threw a branch at me when I startled her, then yelled at me about how we bullied her and nearly cost her the scholarship she had in college, pretty much called me a rich kid who never had to work for anything, and stormed off in tears.”
“We are rich guys who don’t really have to worry about things like the cars. Maybe she does?” I defended as gently as I could. None of us missed her reaction last night to her car being broken. She was ready to storm out there in a lightning storm to see it.
“She doesn’t know the first thing about me,” he thundered, stomping to the kitchen and opening the fridge, cursing at whatever he found. Or lack thereof. “Doesn’t have any fucking food here, either.”
“She probably just got here,” Ash said as he joined us. “Also, you know what bothers me most. Our pictures were on our profiles, even if hers wasn’t. She had to know who we were. Yet, she didn’t seem to. That shock when she opened the door was genuine.”
I frowned at that. He was right. This was supposed to be a mutual meeting. So, who exactly had we talked to through messages to set this up? The responses were short but we just assumed she was shy since she said she’d rather meet in person to see if we had chemistry.
That seemed to also take some of the wind out of Holt’s sails. He was still fuming, but not cursing and stomping around.
“Where is she?” Ash asked, looking at Holt since he’d caught the last part. “After you made our omega cry.”
“There’s no way she’s our omega,” he argued. “This is too fucked up.”
“Look, I was thinking about it and I couldn’t make sense of what happened. There were those rumors about her sleeping with the professor which nearly got the girls to fail or something like that.”
“She called our whole group bullies,” Holt said as he sat down, looking more unsettled by the second. “I’m assuming that’s us, our girls, and our friends.”
“Call Sadie,” I suggested. She was the only one we still talked to out of our old group. The other girls had moved to California and packed up not long after we broke up. Even when we dated we all knew it wasn’t going to last. We weren’t scent compatible, but it was easier to date each other than deal with our parents’ obligations alone.
Ash pulled the phone out of his pocket and pulled up Sadie’s contact, placing it on speakerphone.
“Hey, Ash,” she greeted on the second ring. “I told you that you’d come crawling back to me. You always do.”
I raised my eyes at the purr in her voice. Ash shifted uncomfortably but didn’t look us in the eyes.
Interesting.
“Actually, I had a question. I ran into this girl from our college days. The one who you guys said got you in trouble in class. I couldn’t remember much else,” he started to explain but she cut him off with a groan.
“Ugh, you mean that bitch Taryn? Glasses, dorky, no money or class?”
“That’s her name,” I hissed, everything clicking into place now.
“She called us bullies,” Holt said, his gruff voice loud enough for Sadie to hear.
“Oh, hello, boys,” She laughed, the sound a bit too breathy to not be fake. How did we tolerate them for so long? “And we definitely did.”
The lack of shame in her voice had us all raising our eyebrows.
“What?” Ash asked, his voice deliberately lacking emotion. Sadie cackled at our shock.
“You guys were too easy. A few tears and pouting faces and you were right there with us. That bitch thought she was so fucking smart, always impressing the professor and acting like she was better than all of us when we had the power and status. Her IQ had nothing on our wealth and we made sure she knew it. Over and over again.”
“What did you do?” I asked, trying my best to disguise my disgust as I spoke. The girls were far worse than I thought.
“Well, Lacey thought if we fucked with her enough it would take her down a few notches. Nothing too bad, mostly just spreading rumors and making her an outcast like she should have been from the start. Then there were a few instances of tripping her with her tray in the dining hall, locking her in her dorm during a fire drill, adding dye to her shampoo. Stealing her clothes, telling all the creepy alphas she was easy. Just some… harmless pranks.”
I had a feeling she wasn’t telling us the half of it. Not to mention, they were damn lucky those lies didn’t wind up with her being hurt.
“Darcy thought she had a crush on you guys, so that’s when we told you about the class issues. That way you’d give her the cold shoulder, too.”
“So, they were all just rumors, none of them true?” Ash asked. “What about you almost failing?”
“She fucking told the professor that we did none of the work on the group project and he failed us. She, of course, got top marks. It was bullshit.”
“Did you do the work?” I asked. This time I was pissed and it showed.
“Why exactly do you care?” she asked, avoiding answering which was an answer in itself. “This is a lot for just a random encounter.”
“She’s mates to one of our buddies,” Ash lied quickly. “We were just curious what was true from then and what we were remembering wrong. She was not happy to see us.”
“Oh,” she said, brightening up when she realized it wasn’t Ash mated to her. Though, it was a lie. She didn’t deserve to know the truth. “She’s definitely not going to like you being around. Remember that night she showed up at the frat party? All dressed up like she belonged.”
The fact she still held disgust in her tone after all this time was telling about her true character. How did we not see it before?
Ash frowned but answered anyway. “Kind of.”
“We had been chatting with her online for a few weeks as an alpha who was nervous to approach her. That night we had ‘him’ ask her out on a date. When she got there, Darcy told her it was you guys. She tried to leave but that was when Lacey and I were asking if you were seeing that girl behind our backs. It was perfect, she walked right by when you were denying anything to do with ‘that’ girl.”
Her laughter was cut off as Ash hung up the call. He looked two seconds from puking and I wasn’t far off.
“Fuck,” Holt managed.
“‘Fuck’ is right. We’re fucked. Our mate hates our damn guts, and, apparently, for good reason,” Ash groaned. “How could we be so oblivious?”
“There’s no way she’s going to forgive all of that,” I said, my head spinning as I absorbed everything we just learned. “We knew how bad they were… but this? It was diabolical.”
“She said we almost cost her the scholarship. I wonder just how much of that shit the girls blamed on us without us knowing,” Holt said, pissed off all over again.
“That or it was retaliation after they lost their grades in that class. Who wants to bet they didn’t do shit and expected her to pass them because she was smart,” I muttered.
“What do we do?” Ash asked, running a hand through his dark hair and starting to pace.
“Well, we’re trapped in town. I think it’s time to get to know our omega and put everything out in the open. Tell her the truth about back then. What else can we do?” I pointed out.
"First, we need to clean up our mess," Ash started. "I need to make my bed."
Holt sniffed his armpit, "I may need a shower."
"You two are ridiculous," I sighed. "Ash make the bed, Holt wait on the shower. We need to walk to town. There's no point in getting clean before we do that. It's muddy out and with the rain it's also humid. I'm going to make a list of what we should get for a nice lunch. It can be a thank you to Taryn for letting us stay."
"Mathias, you really are the best of us," Ash said, looking relieved to have a direction now.
"I don't know about that," I said, my cheeks flaming a little. It was nice to know they appreciated me. Especially when I worried what a beta could truly bring to a pack. I rarely was able to calm Holt when he was in a mood and half the time I was impulsive.
"You are the nicest and most considerate one for sure," Holt piped in, erasing the self-doubts piling up.
"I need to brush my hair and get a list going. Do we want to fill the fridge in case she lets us stay again?" I asked them.
"Even if she doesn’t, we can at least do that kindness for her," Ash told the two of us, his voice leaving no room for argument.
I’d give the omega everything if she gave me a chance. I just wasn’t sure she’d allow it.
"I have a feeling, no matter what we do, she'll still think we are assholes," Holt muttered.
"We will just have to change her mind," Ash said. There was that cocky smirk of his again. It might just get us in trouble with this omega.
In his defense, he was the smoothest of the three of us. If any of us could change her mind, my money was on Ash.
I stood up and stretched before asking where the bathroom was. Ash directed me and I headed there. When I turned on the lights and glanced in the mirror, dark circles greeted me. That damn storm didn't let up until about three a.m. Even being inside the thunder and lightning strikes were too close for me to go to sleep for very long. I don’t think I truly passed out until the early hours of the morning when the worst had passed.
The only good news was that my wild hair wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I ran my hands through my locks and returned to my brothers.
"You two ready?" I asked as I moved towards the front door.
"Did you bring a backpack?" Holt questioned me.
"Yeah, but it's in the car. Why?" I countered.
"Let's go see if we can liberate it," Ash said. "We need another pack for groceries.
"I don't know if I like the sound of that," I told him.
The three of us filed out of the house and I got my first look at what the storm had truly done. There were trees and debris everywhere. Not just on our car, but all around us. A cabin down the street lost part of its roof.
"You let her walk to town in this mess?" Ash asked Holt, eyes flashing in anger.
"Let her? No, but if you would've seen how angry she was you would have let her go as well. She threw a branch at me, what would have been next?" Holt asked as he approached the SUV. “We don’t even know this omega.”
Ash clenched his jaw but didn’t argue as he stopped in front of our ruined vehicles. The storm made damn sure none of us could run from this.
"Shit, I don't think that’s going to buff out," Ash joked. "I might cry for real.”
Holt just rolled his eyes at him. "Where in the car is the backpack?"
"Back seat. You want me to try to get in there from the back? I'm the smallest of the three of us,” I offered. I’d rather not, but the thought of getting our omega fed was the only thing keeping me together right now.
We all walked around the back and it looked as if the lift gate was intact, so Holt gave it a tug and it opened up. Our other luggage tumbled out onto the soggy drive, the sound of tinkling glass following it down.
"Be careful, there’s a lot of glass in there," Ash warned me as I moved forward to climb in.
"Aye, aye Captain," I said as Holt threw his large jacket down to give me a safe place to start.
And he liked to act like he wasn’t a softy somewhere deep down.
"Brat," I heard Ash muttered as I crawled towards where my backpack was wedged.
The roof was almost touching the backseat but there was just enough room for me to reach my arm through. I felt over to the front of the seat and my hand hit my backpack. When I tried to pull it up and over it got stuck.
I'd have to unzip it and dump some stuff out. That meant my favorite jacket, extra chargers, and laptop were about to get wrecked, but they likely already were.
After carefully unzipping it and shaking it a few times, it was flat enough to pull through.
There were still little bits of glass on my bag, one digging right into my palm where I gripped it. Wincing, I climbed out of the trunk and shook it off on the pavement where glass was already resting.
"Good thing you didn't pack your underwear in there," Ash joked, trying to make us laugh now that a somber silence had drifted over us. We’d survive and replace what we could, but this damage was intense. And ours wasn’t even the worst of it.
"Always the comedian, huh?" Holt asked dryly.
"Someone needs to lighten the mood," he replied with that cocky smile of his.
"Let's head to town and surprise her before she gets back. She won’t avoid us forever," I stated before I followed her lingering scent toward town. Or maybe that was wishful thinking.
Not even five minutes into the walk and I was wishing I would've worn boots. This walk was going to ruin my white tennis shoes.
"Did you start on that list?" Holt asked as he took the lead.
"Yeah, but do you want to add to it? You're the chef," I reminded him.
He started listing off ingredients and I quickly added them into my phone’s notes. I should have just hit the dictation button and let him talk into it. He was getting more upset with each time I've said ‘huh?’
"That should do it," he concluded after over a hundred things were on the list.
"Are you sure that we can carry all of that in three backpacks?" I asked as I looked over it again.
"We’ll manage," Holt promised. He was determined and that might just be enough. At least we had two alphas in our group, because I wasn’t that strong.
"What do we do if we run into Taryn?" Ash asked. It was still strange to see them unsure.
"Hope that she doesn't see us and that we get back before she does," Holt answered with a shrug.
"I'm going to split the list into thirds and send you each part. That way we can divide and conquer," I told them as I separated the list out and texted them each their portion.
"That sounds like a good plan," Holt agreed and I did a double take at him. That was the first time in a long time that he'd said that to me.
"What's on the menu for lunch?" Ash asked as his stomach growled.
"I was thinking subs. That's what all the deli meat is for. We can prep it and build our own," he told us.
"That’s smart and we can eat them more than once, not wasting any leftovers," I agreed, feeling better by the minute.
"We don't know her likes or dislikes yet, so I have a variety. Pay attention, if things go well and we need a second trip we can do it with a bit more knowledge,” Holt said.
I don’t even think he realized he was considering it now, not just denying it. That was at least a start from this morning.
There was no sign of our omega as we entered town. Then again, it would be hard to spot her with everyone trying to handle the worst of the damage.
Thankfully, out here, it looked more like busted windows and debris, not broken buildings. I let out a sigh of relief when we saw the grocery store had a giant sign out front saying it was open for business today.
“Everyone has their list, get to it,” I said, not wasting time as I snagged my cart and went toward the produce section. Holt eyed me, silently telling me to pick well before he moved toward the deli and meat counter.
Ignoring him, I methodically worked my way down the list, making sure to pick out the best ingredients. Soon, there was a rainbow of fruits and veggies in the cart, a few extras outside of what Holt put since we wanted variety.
Shopping for someone you barely knew was hard. If the power went out, we’d be wasting money, but I couldn’t dwell on that. We needed to eat.
Somehow we all managed to make it to the checkout around the same time. It looked like far more than a few backpacks could hold so Holt added several sturdy reusable tote bags.
My eyes kept drifting to the large front windows, hoping I would spot her, and at the same time dreading it.
The truth was, there would be no way to move on until we all aired out all the ugly truths.
I just hoped she would stick around long enough for that to happen.