Twenty-One Days Until Christmas
Eden
"What if they don't like me?" She fiddles with Tenor's fingers in the backseat of the truck while Bruce Springsteen's Santa Claus is Coming to Town blasts over the speakers.
Pack rules dictated that either Eden or the driver gets to pick the music, and Luke was currently in the driver's seat.
She hasn't yet used her veto vote and she definitely was not going to do it now when Luke was so cheerful in the bond, even if Julius looked like he was chewing glass in the passenger seat beside him.
"That's impossible, baby. No one could not like you." Tenor tells her, flipping the hand in her grip to tangle their fingers together in a reassuring way. "And... even if they don't, they'll come around."
She bites her lip but doesn't respond, doesn't remind him that her own parents hadn't even liked her enough to keep her.
As they keep driving, the uninterrupted blur of green starts giving way to familiar scenes from the city. The highway passes through downtown South York and the high-rise buildings look strangely alien now that she's so used to living in the quiet of the forest.
Gradually the scenes become less familiar as the descend further into suburbia and the city gives way to tidy two-storey family houses, parks, coffee shops, and grocery stores.
They've switched up who's driving so now Julius has Bad Bunny playing through the speakers while Tenor sits in the passenger seat on his phone. Luke has her pulled into the middle seat so her body is snug against his, his arm wrapped around her.
"You good, baby girl?" Luke looks down at her, one eyebrow lifted.
"I'm fine," Eden says, which is a lie, and they all know it.
Her stomach is a twisted knot. She's never been more nervous in her life, except maybe in prison, and that was different.
These were her in-laws, and the need to gain their approval has her biting at the skin of her lip. "Just… what if I say something stupid?"
Tenor turns around in the front seat and she can tell he's trying to make his face casual and reassuring at the same time but he just looks ends up looking pained and a little bit constipated. "It's going to be fine, baby. Just... ignore my mom maybe."
Her eyes bug. He hasn't said anything about his mother before, other than what she's gleaned from stories from his childhood when he'd made her sound like the best mom in the world.
Her gaze quickly cuts to Luke beside her because she knows Luke will always give it to her straight. "Is his mom not going to like me?"
Luke slits his gaze down at her and tilts his head before waving his hand in a 'so-so' motion. "She'll be fine, she might just take a bit to warm up to you. Omegas, you know how they are."
Eden's panic dials up to an eleven and her voice is high and anxious when she blurts out "But you said she loved you guys!"
"Well, yeah... she loves us. But we're her son's pack. And she's always had some strong... ideas... about who we should mate. But you know we won't let her say anything to you, right baby?" Luke's voice is deep and calm and in any other circumstance would be reassuring.
She can't believe she let them talk her into this.
Well... okay, technically it had been her idea.
And she'd pushed it, despite them telling her it wasn't necessary and that a visit should wait a bit longer for them all to settle a bit more.
But still. Oh my god, it all made sense now.
This was why they'd been so averse to doing this.
"If you thought they weren't going to like me, why did you tell me to come here after Black Bay?" Her voice is barely more than a startled squeak.
"If you recall, we all encouraged you to go to Luke's place," Julius grumbles from the front seat, his voice tinged with disapproval. "But even if you had come here, they would've taken care of you. You're our mate."
She doesn't have time to respond because they're already pulling up to the house, parking in the crowded driveway behind a sedan with bumper stickers that read "bestie please let me merge" and "if you honk at me, this is who you're honking at" with a picture of a crying hamster.
The house is big and white, with a porch lined with Christmas lights and a massive wreath on the door tastefully covered in holly berries, golden pinecones, and acorns.
They've barely taken the key out of the ignition before the front door bangs open and two girls come bolting out of the house. Tenor isn't even fully out of the vehicle before they both throw themselves at him, all the while as Eden stares out the window at the scene with horror.
If anyone threw themselves at her like that, she would scream. Her mates knew that, right? They weren't going to let anyone throw themselves at her?
Luke opens the door then, pulling her out with him, and the girls then throw themselves at him too, leaping from one alpha to the other like leapfrogs, like the floor was lava and they couldn't bear to touch the ground.
"Luuuuke! Oh my god, hi! You're finally here! You haven't been home in forever!" One of them pouts as she says it. Her voice is painfully high and clear and sounds like tinkling windchimes.
The scent of candied rosebuds and something citrusy hits her nose. She's not sure which one is Cadence, or which one is Lyric, Tenor's two omega sisters who she's only ever seen in his childhood photos, but she recognizes them immediately.
"Oh! Hi!" One girl says as she catches sight of her. And she is a girl. She knows that Cadence and Lyric are only a few years younger than her, but they seem decades younger, like they're in a whole different life stage.
"Hi," Eden responds with a small, forced smile. The other one waves at her over Luke's shoulder. Just like a toddler, she thinks, even though the other omega is a fully grown adult. But they've been protected and coddled their whole lives, like most omegas are. Most omegas who weren't Eden.
The girls are both beautiful with dark hair and eyes, clear complexions a few shades lighter than Tenor's, perfectly applied makeup, and curled hair.
They're even wearing matching outfits, one in a cropped red top with black jeans and the other one in a flowy black peasant top with a red mini skirt.
They show off the girls' perfectly slim omega silhouettes and she suddenly feels incredibly frumpy and huge in her long wool skirt and Tenor's knit sweater that she's tucked into the front.
She'd reached for it without thought when she'd dressed that morning, instinctually gravitating towards his scent for comfort.
Usually wearing oversized clothes made her feel safer.
As much as her mates' love for her body had grown her confidence and she no longer felt shy when they touched her belly or thighs or bra roll, she still didn't like the thought of being seen by others outside her pack.
"You must be Eden," the other girl says. She extricates herself from Luke and Eden can't help tracking every spot where their skin touches her alpha. "I'm Cadence!"
When they approach her, they smell like earthy cedarwood mixed with sweet roses and citrus. Her alphas. They smell like her alphas. She holds back a growl and tries to force her face into a pleasant smile, but she fears it probably comes off as a grimace.
"Hi, yes! That's me. It's so nice to meet y–" They throw themselves around her just like they'd done to her alphas, and Eden does nearly scream then, but just barely holds it in.
Her mates must feel whatever panic she's projecting into the bond, because they quickly pull the girls off her and Eden makes a strangled noise when she sees them throw themselves at Julius next.
Her mate quickly shrugs them off, which gives the girls the opportunity to retake one of Eden's arms each and frog march her to the house.
The one on her left pats Eden's arm where it's looped through hers as if they've known each other for years.
"You're even prettier than Tenor said you were," she declares. Her tone is sincere, like she thinks this is a real compliment.
???
The day doesn't get any better after that.
The inside of the house is as pristine as the outside was.
A massive Christmas tree that rivals the one Luke dragged in yesterday sits in the front window, twinkling with soft white lights and perfectly decorated in blue and silver ornaments.
Evergreen garlands and ceramic Christmas decor tastefully sit on every mantle, table, and banister and the whole house smells like cranberries and cinnamon, which she realizes is the scent of Tenor's alpha fathers.
As she watches the girls clamber all over her alphas' laps, hanging off them and squealing at every joke, Eden can feel her blood pressure rising.
It's not sexual, and it's not so bad when it's just Tenor they're crawling on, but it's more intimate than she's ever seen any of them be with anyone except their pack before and she doesn't like it.
She wants to drag them away, to bite her alphas and leave marks where everyone can see, to growl at the girls and place herself between them and her mates so they don't even think about getting near them again.
She doesn't do it. She resists the urge every time it rears its head, keeping herself planted in her seat. But it sits hot and heavy beneath her ribs all the same.
It must be because of how secluded they were in the cottage, she thinks.
They didn't really regularly go anywhere except to one of the nearby towns to go to a restaurant for dinner sometimes, or to the grocery store.
And occasionally they would go on weekend trips; once to a nearby lake resort and once to a bed and breakfast in a quaint little tourist trap near the coast. But they hadn't really been socializing with other people with any regularity, and certainly not like this.
Thankfully, her mates persistently and gently pry the girls off their laps and put them back on the couches beside them, and that was probably the only thing that kept Eden from snarling or bolting out of the house and back to the safety of her cottage.
Tenor's mother–Mrs. Acosta, as she'd told Eden to call her–sits on a couch with her own alphas.
The males don't say much, apparently content for their mate to do the talking.
She's tall for an omega, with a typically omega thin build and beautiful dark hair twisted into a perfect shiny bun that doesn't have a single strand out of place.
Her red lips are pressed so tightly together that they're almost invisible.
"So," Mrs. Acosta says, her gaze raking over Eden where she's sitting on the couch between Tenor and Julius.
She takes Eden in from her car-tousled blonde hair to her pink socked feet, one of them anxiously jostling where it's tucked behind her other calf and the couch.
"You're the omega who my son's pack has bonded. "
Weird way to refer to her son's mate. Her own daughter-in-law. But okay.
The air in the room thickens and Eden's throat goes dry. "Yes, ma'am, I–" she begins, but Mrs. Acosta waves a hand dismissively, cutting her off.
"My son has not visited me in years," she says, voice clipped. "And he has waited a long time to introduce you to me."
She pauses for a minute, as if to let that sink in. "Well. I guess it's good that you're here now. When will you be having a bonding ceremony? I'm sure my son has told you that we have many important friends in the community who you will need to become acquainted with."
"Mama," Tenor says warningly. "You know I'm not interested in impressing your friends. And it's not my mate's fault that we haven't visited. You know where I was–"
But Mrs. Acosta cuts even him off. "And babies? When are you going to give me grandbabies? How regular are your heats?"
"I– well, we–" Eden stammers out, a blush staining her cheeks. The need to appease this woman wells inside her as much as the need to run. Any dreams she might have been harbouring of finally having a mother in Tenor's family are thoroughly dashed away, and that's a strangely mournful thing.
"We're trying, mom, don't worry," Luke says smoothly. "We'll give you a grandbaby in no time."
Mrs. Acosta coughs out a laugh at that, looking at Luke warmly, and it's like she's a whole different woman. She can't help but notice what an intense contrast it is to how she had been looking at Eden, like she was a grub that crawled into her perfect house from the dirt outside.
"Oh, Luke, sweetheart, you're too much. Well, that's enough of this. Let's eat dinner."