13. Eli
When Fawn didn’t come back out of my office, I assumed he managed to talk Lyra into giving him a chance. For a brief moment, I found myself jealous of the Omega, wishing I’d been able to do that when Lyra kicked me out of her apartment. Then again, if you believe in the concept of scent matches being soulmates, it would make perfect sense for my sweet petal to have an Omega soulmate. Who better to relate to her than someone who could understand her on a level no Alpha could?
“You’ll learn once Fawn’s made up his mind about something, he’s not willing to back down,” Tanner shared with a sigh. “Although it must be a good sign since there’s no yelling, and he hasn’t come back with his tail between his legs.”
“From what I’ve seen, I don’t think Lyra is a yeller,” I commented, shifting to lean back on the couch I now sat on alone. “Not to say she can’t be forceful, I was ordered out of her apartment when she’d had enough. All that to say, I don’t think confrontation is her first choice in dealing with a problem.”
Tanner pulled off his baseball cap and rolled the brim between his hands, revealing his short, dark, red-brown hair. “That’s good though, right? For us, I mean.”
“I think it’s best we take this one step at a time and trust her to tell us if things are moving too fast,” Pascal reasoned, then turned his attention to me. “Eli, I hope you don’t think poorly of us for showing up here without warning and now having disrupted your afternoon.”
Out of the three men who sat across from me, I felt Pascal and I would probably connect rather easily. I’m not sure why I decided that, but the other two seemed more carefree and relaxed in how they handled themselves.
“Not at all. I believe my offer was for any of you to stop by the office whenever you liked. Truthfully, I didn’t know an easy way for the first introduction to happen. I’m not one who makes friends easily since I’m typically busy with work or, until recently, looking after my little sister. It’s one reason I never bothered with seeking out a pack. What kind of Alpha would I be to create a family and never have any time for them?” I explained.
“So you have siblings?” Zachary asked. “I’m the middle child with an older and younger sister as well.”
“I’m the oldest of three, my brother, Crew, and Bailey-Rose, the youngest of the family,” I shared. “She’s an Omega and recently found her pack, leaving me with spare time for what seemed like the first time in my life.”
“Which is why you learned about us so late in the game,” Tanner concluded, and I nodded in agreement. “I hope this doesn’t weird you out, but Fawn googled you the second he read your letter. There wasn’t much except for some news articles about you taking over the company after your father died. Well, that and a situation involving your sister and a stalker ex-boyfriend. Just so you know, we all agreed not to take stock of anything we read. I know firsthand how reporters and tabloids can twist the truth.”
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I almost decided to ignore it but chose to at least see who it was in case it was from any of my family.
Jonathan:
All the papers are drawn up, and I’ll be filing first thing in the morning. If they are approved, Mira Chambers will be served by the end of the week.
Originally, I hadn’t planned to bring this up so quickly with my new pack, but it would affect all of us since we needed to reach out to the Scent Matcher organization about Lyra. Setting my phone aside, I took a deep breath and decided now was as good a time as any.
“I’ve seen the articles you’re referring to about Bailey-Rose, and, as you said, things can get twisted or left out entirely. My sister had been seeing Randall for about six months, only to discover he’d been cheating on her. Two major details were left out of the press, one being my sister was rejected from participating in being scent-matched due to a heart condition. Since she and I share the same father, I was also excluded, but that isn’t related to this situation,” I said, brushing past that bit of information for now. I’m sure they’d have questions, but first. I needed to warn them of what was coming.
“Shortly after my sister ended things with Randall, she discovered one of her scent-matched Alphas was my brother’s best friend who’d been out of state for a few years. The rest of his pack was introduced to her, and they clicked instantly. My biggest fear had always been that whoever she ended up with wouldn’t properly take care of her, but these men jumped in with both feet, prepared to do whatever it took. Randall discovered Bailey-Rose was being courted by a pack, and he couldn’t stand it, claiming she was his and they couldn’t have her. Things continued to get worse until he tried to kidnap her but failed and landed her in the hospital.” I paused, seeing the horrified looks on their faces.
Zachary’s hands balled into fists as anger at the situation flickered through his dark brown eyes. “Please tell me your sister’s all right.”
“Thankfully, she is. In fact, what happened turned out to be a blessing since it forced her to go through a risky operation that ultimately has given her so much more freedom,” I assured him with a smile, thinking of the pictures she sent me from their travels. “Randall, however, managed to evade the cops for roughly two months. Taking matters into my own hands, I hired a PI and had them look into Randall. Eventually, information came to light about another pack he’d been matched with but was kicked out of and banned for abusing his Omega. Put her in the hospital too.”
“What?” Tanner snapped. “They didn’t arrest him?”
“That was my thinking as well… how could this man get away with something so heinous? Turns out his mother is a Scent Matcher. She covered up all his mistakes, changed his last name, and even let him pick out an Omega of his choosing off the list of rejected Omegas. The one he chose was my sister,” I bit out, feeling my anger over the situation bubbling up just thinking about it.
“I hope I’m right in assuming you plan to do something about his mother’s interference,” Pascal commented.
“Yes, papers are being filed tomorrow to sue and charge her with criminal endangerment of an Omega,” I shared. “My lawyer believes she’ll be served by the end of the week.”
This seemed to surprise them, creating an awkward silence I let continue, feeling it was best to let them process that information. These allegations were serious, and no one had ever gone after a Scent Matcher in this manner, but there always needed to be a first time.
“Holy shit, you don’t mess around, do you,” Zachary finally said, breaking the spell on the others.
I leaned forward and pinned the man with my gaze. “No one endangers my family and gets away with it, not while I can do something so it never happens again. To be clear, that now applies to each of you as well as Fawn and Lyra.”
“Understood,” Zachary acknowledged, deferring to dominance on the matter.
At his acceptance of my terms, the tension I didn’t know I’d been holding onto eased. Growing up, I didn’t have many friends—they claimed I was bossy and wouldn’t let them play how they wanted. My need for order and structure was something that had been a foundation of my being and only got more intense after my designation was revealed. No one was shocked in the slightest that I was an Alpha, but I don’t think anyone was prepared for just how strongly my designation would influence every part of my life.
I feared that when it came to a pack, they would view me just as those children had. Yet Zachary was proving that maybe I hadn’t met the right people. It wasn’t my goal to be a dictator or set rules for everyone to follow, but in certain situations, there were things I would not bend or negotiate about. Protecting my family and the people I cared about was at the top of that list, and these men respected that.
“Thank you,” I said, hoping my gratefulness came through at his acceptance. “I hadn’t planned to bring this up so soon, but with Lyra, I felt it was best you knew.”
“It seems it might be wise to stop by the Scent Matcher’s headquarters while we’re on this side of town and took the day off,” Pascal pointed out. “If we talk to them before anything about this lawsuit comes to light, they won’t have a reason to give us a hard time.”
“Sounds good to me. The sooner we find out what their answer is, the easier it will be to rearrange my schedule,” Zachary agreed.
“What is it you do for work?” I asked, feeling bad for not trying to get to know these men.
Zachary grinned and pulled a business card out of his breast pocket. “I’m a barber at a shop off Windgate in the Hightower Building.”
Taking the card, I looked it over and recognized the shop’s name. The Slick Finish was a barber shop that catered to a clientele who could easily pay over a hundred dollars every two weeks for a cut and shave. I’m sure some went weekly for the shave if the experience was as luxurious as people claim.
“Don’t downplay things,” Tanner scolded, affectionately gripping Zachary’s neck to shake the man. “He’s a master barber with a waiting list of people who’d kill to be one of his clients. Zac has worked his ass off to get that certification, taking extra classes and building a solid following.”
“Tee,” Zachary grumbled as I saw his face turn red from embarrassment. “Stop, you know I don’t like to brag. It’s not as attractive as you think it is.”
Tanner’s face told me this was a disagreement they often had, so I cut in before it turned into an argument. “I understand not wanting to flaunt your success in the face of others, but there is a difference between bragging and sharing your skill level. The shop’s reputation alone tells me you’re not the average barber, plus I asked for the information.”
“See, he gets it,” Tanner said as he grasped Zachary’s chin and turned his face to kiss the man. “You know I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, but I’m really fucking proud of you, Zac.”
Zachary’s whole body relaxed at hearing his partner’s words, and he kissed Tanner back. “I love you, too, but let’s not overdo it on the PDA in front of Eli. Let the man get to know us a little first.”
“Right. Sorry, it’s just so comfortable to have you here that I forgot we’d only just met,” Tanner apologized, his attention back on me. “For a while, I had to live life like everyone was watching, and it made me more reserved in my relationships. I was once a pro skateboarder but had a bad accident which made it so I couldn’t compete anymore. Zachary and I met three years ago when he’d first been hired by Slick Finish and came into my coffee shop, Primo Grind.”
I blinked in surprise at the drastic change in his career. “What made you choose to open a coffee shop? I would think there are still other opportunities in the skateboard world you could have ventured into.”
“There were, but I needed to get out of that lifestyle. It was too painful to watch others do what I thought I was born to do but now couldn’t. Coffee has always been something I enjoyed and liked to experiment with. Once I dove into learning how to roast my own shit, I was hooked,” Tanner shared with a shrug and an easy smile. “Plus, I like being my own boss. It gives me the freedom to set the schedule that works for my life.”
That might work for a small business, but I’d never found it easy to build work around my life. Of course, now that I would be courting not one but two Omegas and growing a connection with these men, changes had to be made. No doubt my mother was already plotting behind the scenes to ensure I could take a step back, at least for a little while.
“What about you, Pascal?” I inquired, shifting my attention to him.
“I work in IT developing programs to streamline company efficiency,” Pascal answered. “It wasn’t what I thought I would be doing, but it ended up being what I loved. I knew I’d be working with computers but more in the scope of cybercrimes. As part of my program, I needed to take a basic developers class, and that’s what changed everything. Each student in that class created a program, and mine was a service that allowed companies to create a central hub of information that any authorized employee anywhere in the world could access. No more having to worry about sending emails or data transfer if the file was too big. The person simply uploaded the content to a secure folder and linked whoever needed it.”
“Are you telling me you created Access Net?” I questioned.
Pascal adjusted his glasses and grinned awkwardly. “Basically. A company bought the program and improved it, but I created the idea and hold the patent even now. The company pays me a leasing fee for them to use my code.”
“Yet you still choose to work,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but not because I have to. See, my brain needs a problem to fix or a job to do. If I don’t have that outlet, I can’t sleep, my body feels restless, and I’m not the greatest person to be around. My mom had me tested in elementary school, and I have an IQ of a hundred and thirty,” Pascal admitted. “My one dad used to joke and say I was a human supercomputer and why I struggled to relate to people. In reality, the average kid didn’t find learning computer code as fun as I did. Took me a while to accept that normal simply means the average commonality between children, and not fitting in that bracket doesn’t mean I’m an outsider.”
“I understand exactly what you mean,” I said, confirming my suspicion that Pascal and I would easily find common ground. “When my father passed, I’d only briefly worked for the company. I had no idea he’d left his company shares to me until the lawyer handed me a letter my father had written explaining his choice. As I’m sure you saw in your search, not everyone in the company was thrilled with me taking over, but here we are, and the business is still standing.”
Pascal let out a huff of laughter. “Eli, it doesn’t take an MBA to know you took this company and doubled, if not tripled its earnings. That’s not even touching on how you’ve expanded locally and internationally, allowing your company to provide oil to countries not many others can. Clearly, those men are kicking themselves for ever speaking against you.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked, curious at his choice of words.
He grinned and leaned forward. “Because you’d never let those bastards stay on the board after pulling a stunt like that. It would have been a threat to your family’s legacy.”
The blunt response drew a grin, and I chuckled. “You’re absolutely right. The moment I knew I had the votes, I cleaned house in the boardroom. Many were original backers when my fathers were young and na?ve, but they’d more than made back their earnings, so I didn’t see a reason to keep them.”
Tanner let out an impressed whistle. “That’s pure Alpha energy right there. God, I would have loved to see their faces when you dropped the ax.”
Our conversation paused at Lyra’s office door opening, and Fawn emerged holding Lyra’s hand. I could tell she was still nervous, but she seemed much more relaxed with Fawn close by.
“Hey, guys, I’d like to introduce you to someone,” Fawn announced, drawing Lyra beside. “This is Lyra, our scent-matched Omega. Lyra, these gallant gentlemen are your Alphas. Starting with the dashing man in the glasses, we have Pascal, Zachary, and Tanner. Zachary and Tanner are a couple and met before our pack was brought together, but they both have plenty of love to go around. Across from them is a newly added member just like yourself, Eli.”
We all smiled and greeted Lyra as Fawn introduced us, following the Omega’s lead. It was smart of him to give this meeting a do-over—the first time around hadn’t gone how any of us thought it would.
“Hello, everyone,” Lyra greeted, tucking her hair behind her ear.
This was something I’d noticed she did when feeling nervous or uncomfortable about the interaction. I also happened to think it was rather adorable in my eyes.
“First of all, I’d like to apologize for my abrupt exit. I felt a little overwhelmed and needed some space, but I could have handled it better,” Lyra acknowledged. “I hope you’ll be patient with me as we get to know each other. I never expected to find my scent matches since I didn’t enter the Scent Matchers’ database. Now that I have, it’s forcing me to work through some things I wasn’t expecting to face.”
Pascal rose and walked over to Lyra, offering his hand. When she took it, the Alpha smiled tenderly and kissed the back of it. “It is such a pleasure to finally meet you, Lyra. As for being patient, take all the time you need because we’re not going anywhere. Just keep in mind we’re here to offer our help and support. All you need to do is ask.”
His words seemed to soothe her enough to sit back on the couch beside me. We all talked for another half hour or so before they decided it was best to head out.
“We need to get over to the Scent Matchers, and I’m sure you have important things to do,” Zachary said. “If you two are up for it, we’d love to have you over for dinner in the next few days.”
“Oh, maybe we can do it once we get confirmation about courting leave,” Fawn suggested. “Then it can be the official kick-off to the beginning of forever.”
Everyone agreed, and I thought it would give Lyra plenty of time to adjust but not enough time to overthink the situation. Even if she hadn’t been resistant to the idea of meeting her scent matches, this would be a lot for anyone to deal with after just relocating and starting a new job. I wanted this family we were building together to have the best chance, and I would do whatever it took to ensure we got it.